lilleby

[lilleby]

Why is it that when I'm under the most pressure, my brain just shuts down and thinks about writing Bucky smut.

[lilleby]

Me everyday:

[lilleby]

I literally just read a Wedding/Engagement themed prompt and immediately think:

"huh, y'know what be a cool AU to write? Bucky tries to object to Steve's wedding because he's in love with the bride but is stopped by the maid of honor who's the bride's bff and also happens to like Steve as well, so they wallow together over being heartbroken."

You know, as one does.

[lilleby]

Random Bucky Headcanon:

Bucky isn't a morning person. He's awake early but will definitely not be one to get out of bed first. It's tough sometimes to get out of that grogginess between sleep and wakefulness, so he lets it linger until it naturally goes away.

Now that you're together, he enjoys morning a little more each day. Getting to see you peacefully asleep in his arms just gives him a grand sense of comfort he hasn't felt in a long while. The only times he does jump out of bed the instant he wakes up is when you're sorely missing in bed. Thankfully, you're never far, more than likely making a lazy early breakfast of cereal and cinnamon buns to bring to bed for the both of you.

And though Bucky may not be a morning or a sweets person, he'll always make an exception for you.

[lilleby]

Omggg can we please have a part three to Practice Makes Perfect🥺that short series is soo good!!

I promise ya'll it's coming. maybe not soon but it's gonna happen.

[lilleby]

Hi! Do you plan on making a pt 3 for practice makes perfect? HDJSJDJSJ I AM VERY HEART BROKEN (but it hurts so good)

I am but I'm having a hard time with school rn and i need to focus on that rn. Trust me, I wish i could write even a little but it's no good atm 😭

Worry not, i am planning on a part 3 to wrap up that little story 👍🏼

[lilleby]

Hi there! Just wanted to stop by and say that I absolutely adore your writing. Despite all the angst and heartbreak, everything you write is still a joy to read and I look forward to your future work. <3

ASDFGHJKL

TYSM!!!! 😭😭😭😭

like really, idek what I'm writing half the time and to know ya'll enjoy reading what i write makes me a happy little otter 🦦🤎

[lilleby]

An Old-Kind of Love iv. He Who Gave Fire to Man

Summary: You’ll never complain about work conditions again. Not when they’ve never been worse. Now under Hydra’s iron thumb after the ambush at Azzano, there has never been more pressure for you to recreate the super soldier serum. Unlike the SSR, however, Hydra cares not about the methods or test subjects you use. But you do, and unlike them, you won’t let innocent men suffer because of your mistakes.

A/N: Yay, I'm happy to be back on this one! :D I couldn't figure out how to end this for the life of me until like it hit me at 4am while trying to sleep. TW: death & murder.

This is part 4 of an ongoing series! Check out the previous parts at Lilleby's Library under An Old-Kind of Love.

PS: for the taglist I'll be doing a general one alongside story-specific ones. If you wanna be added feel free to ask, simply specify whether in general or for certain oneshots :3 It'll help me organize stuff which I'm generally horrible with x)

Taglist: @lordofthenerds97, @justab-eautifulmess, @dirtyweenerking, @itsthemaree, @iamlee1, @sweettooth-simps, @maladaptivexxdaydreaming

The instant that truck stops, you’re taken away from the soldiers—from him.

Panic courses through you instantly and has you kicking and screaming to stay. Not only does it not stop them, but it also earns you a swift hit with the butt of a gun across the face. Pain blooms a shocking second later and with the distraction of your sore and reddened jaw, you can’t fight back much more as they take you into a small private cell.

A few minutes of solitude is all they give you before another comes in. Someone who by the way they carry themselves you can tell isn’t just some regular lackey. But when he introduces himself, you weren't exactly expecting it to be Johan Schmidt himself. Fear crawls under your skin at the way he smiles at you as if thinking that acting hospitable would incur favor with you.

“Dr. Stark. It’s a pleasure to finally meet Dr. Erskine’s notorious assistant.”

Johan Schmidt. It’s not a pleasure whatsoever to meet Dr. Erskine’s biggest failure.

You rein in the retort that wants to leave your lips by pursuing them shut. Being catty won’t get you anywhere other than to an early grave. Schmidt, noticing this, waves his hand dismissively.

“Hold your tongue or don’t, it matters not. All you shall do is listen.” His accent is thick as he goes on to explain what he came there to tell you. “I was informed you have the complete formula for the serum. Quite an achievement for a rather mediocre little girl.”

“Go to hell.”

You regret that the instant it comes out your mouth. Turning away from his gaze, you hear him scoff as takes slow methodical steps around the chair you sit upon. That cold gaze catches yours and it's then that you notice something odd about his face. The way his eyes sit in their sockets...there’s something not right about them.

It’s like they’re unaligned.

Schmidt notices your scrutiny and steps back to turn away, giving his back to you as he cups his chin and strokes it.

“You told the captain that brought down Azzano that you’ve completed the formula, now is that right, doctor?”

There isn’t a point in continuing the charade any longer, but you don’t know what he’ll do if he finds out you lied either. There’s really no telling how he would react in either scenario, so you leave him without an answer. He smirks at your telltale silence.

“I shall take that as admittance to your lies.”

“Think what you want. I’m not telling you anything.”

You must’ve been too quick to defend yourself from his accusations because his smirk only broadens. “I presumed you had lied when I was told what you said. However, even despite your shortcomings, you are not without value.”

Bringing his other hand out that had been behind his back all this time, you feel your heart stop at the sight of your little blue journal that he holds so precariously in his grasp.

“You’re not the first to attempt to recreate the doctor’s formula, Dr. Stark, but I will say that you are the first who’s worked to perfect it alongside the good doctor before his untimely departure.”

The cruel remark has you biting down on your lip to keep from snapping back as anger courses through you. He’s taunting you to try and forgo the ambiguity you’ve strung up. That much you can tell from the way he’s flaunting your journal and from what he’s saying. But what’s much more telling is the fact that he’s asking you all these redundant questions. It assures you of one thing: that damn code you invented worked.

He knows what’s in there, but he doesn’t know how to read it.

I still have the upper hand.

With a cocky grin Howard would be proud of, you say, “Who knew that’s all it took to figure it out?”

“Pride is quite the hubris, doctor, something very much unbecoming of one such as you who has yet to ‘figure it out.’” All the bravado you had just seconds ago leaves you just as quickly. A chill runs down your spine as he looks down on you with that terrifying smirk. “Though I suppose some of it is not undeserved. I will admit that your progress is very impressive. From the looks of it, you have caught up with those who are far better equipped for the job than you were with your ill-adept circumstances under the SSR, and at an astounding pace as well. You possess a brilliant mind, Dr. Stark. Dr. Erskine would have not chosen you to aid him in his endeavors otherwise, which leads me to believe that this—” You flinch at the way he drops the small journal onto your lap, “—isn’t all your research has amounted to.”

You don’t answer simply because you don’t want to give anything else away.

He isn’t wrong. Despite all you have put in that journal, you learned from Erskine that not everything should be left printed for someone else to find. In that journal, you’d written the backbone of it, what you knew could be easily figured out by any half-decent scientist. What is left to reside in your head, however, are things that you picked up while working with the doctor perfecting the serum.

The tiny details that you can recall that helped make it, and by proxy Steve, what it is.

“Which is why I come with a proposal.” His words confuse you. Proposal? Schmidt doesn’t waste his breath going in-depth and instead goes straight for what he came for. “Recreate the serum for me. Here, you will have full access to Hydra’s resources and shall need nothing that involves the process. Do this and you shall win freedom.”

“You’re lying.” You’re hissing through gritted teeth, knowing full well this is nothing more than a false promise. “You’d first kill me before letting me go if I give you that serum.”

“Oh. Pardon the misunderstanding,” he says with a morbid chuckle. The fact that he's enjoying this doesn't sit well with you in the least. “Do it and you shall win the captured soldiers their freedom.”

Your blood runs cold at what he proposes.

“...what?”

“That is my bargain, Dr. Stark. For every super soldier you give me, you shall set one of your comrades free.”

“You’re lying.”

It had to be a lie. Another ruse.

“What need would I have for human soldiers with the kind you could provide me?”

Don’t believe him. Don’t believe him. Don’t—

“You’d release them all and allow them to return to Allied forces without impediment?” your question is carefully worded in an attempt to see what you can get away with.

“You have my word.”

“Your word means nothing to me,” you spit back.

He finds your crude honesty amusing. Schmidt bends to meet your gaze straight on with that hellish smirk you’re learning to hate.

“Then trust your own actions, doctor.”

The door opens at his command. A Hydra soldier walks in with one of the soldiers from Azzano. They quickly drop him to his knees and stand over him with their rifle at the ready in their deft hands. Schmidt opens the journal on your lap bringing your attention back to it and points to one of the many sentences that are written with nonsensical numbers and gibberish.

“Of what substance do you need 4.3 micrograms of?”

You read the sentence he’s pointing at in your head. Cobalt. Your eyes wander to the soldier whose heavy breathing has your attention rapt on him. Cobalt. He meets your gaze, his eyes wide despite not showing an ounce of fear elsewhere. Cobalt.

“Nitrogen.”

Pop.

It’s rather difficult to believe that you didn’t scream. Or maybe you did.

Maybe the reason you didn’t hear your petrified shriek was because of how overbearing the sound of the bullet piercing the soldier’s head was when it resonated in the tiny room you’re in.

His body slumps to the ground as dark blood pours from his head. Your chest heaves from the sudden way your breathing speeds up; it's hurting from the tightness. Your eyes tear up but you don’t have time to even process much of what just happened before the body is kicked out of the way and the door opens to let in yet another taken soldier. He takes the same place as the previous one, kneeling in the fresh pool of blood left by his comrade. Noticing this himself, panic sets into his droopy eyes and the sight tightens your chest further.

It's getting harder to breathe.

“Let us try again.” He taps the journal but you can't look away from the soldier before you. “Of what substance do you need 4.3 micrograms of?”

The soldier notices what happened here just moments ago as the blood seeps into his knees. Cobalt. The panic’s set in his droopy eyes now. Cobalt. Your chest tightens at the sight of his eyes shaking with dread. Cobalt.

You can't breathe.

“Cobalt.”

At first, there’s silence. Your mind begins to expect the gunshot, your ears ringing and hurting already from just imagining it. But when you flinch from the sound that goes off, you realize it wasn’t a gunshot. It was the rifle’s safety being put back on.

Schmidt gestures away at his foot soldier as he says, “Take him to the designated location and release the man.”

“Yes, sir.”

Your own panic surges as they forcefully take the man away and you turn to Schmidt. “Where will they take them?”

“A clearing far from this facility. Taken there without the knowledge of how to arrive at this place, of course. However, it will be near enough to an Allied camp to which he can make his way towards. Congratulations, doctor.” Schmidt claps at you and each one has you flinching as you can’t take your eyes away from the puddle of blood. What's more, the metallic smell is starting to permeate your nose to the point that you can practically taste it on your tongue. “You have won the liberation of one of your comrades.”

“Why…” you whisper as you swallow back your fear. The horrid taste won’t go away. “Why did you kill him?”

“Counterbalance, of course. They shall be liberated for all the progress you make, while every failure will result in another bullet to their heads.”

Shock still has you in its clutches as Schmit heads to the door and opens it to leave. At his order, two soldiers enter and haul you outside of the room to take you down one hallway while he takes the opposite. His voice booms loudly as he calls out to you his parting words.

“As I said, doctor, trust your actions. They are what will be deciding the lives of these good men you claim to be your allies.”

With a question still lingering in your head, desperation has you turning back as much as you can without fighting back to ask it.

“Y-You couldn’t have known!” you shout. “That journal was in code!”

“Child’s play to decode, doctor.” Your heart drops to your stomach at his words. “You might be a brilliant scientist, but alas you have much yet to learn about war and its tactics. One would have thought dear Dr. Erkine taught you as much. I suggest you learn quickly and adapt, Dr. Stark, or you will end up just like he did.”

His words leave you speechless and stupefied, making you easy to carry away as the soldiers take you to a different room. They leave you inside, they even release the ties around your hands, and close the heavy metal door behind you. Still having the mind to try, you rush to the door as they shut it and try to pry it open. The sheer weight of it doesn’t let you do that though and what little hope you had of getting out is shut down when you hear the number of bolts being set in place on the other side to lock you in.

Weak from what just happened, you fall to your knees, barely keeping yourself upright by holding onto the door’s handle. Behind you, you find a laboratory with pristine installations and decked out with state-of-the-art equipment. All the things you could’ve only dreamed of having back at the camp are here within reach. The sight of them only upsets you more when all you have vividly in your mind is the sight of that man being killed. Of having seen such life being snuffed so easily and without remorse.

Unable to keep it at bay any longer, you release the handle and bend forward as you empty your stomach. You can smell it still. You can taste it. The poignant smell of blood and the bitter metallic taste linger and you can’t help but finally let out a pained scream at the top of your lungs. That scream echoes until your throat runs dry and your voice turns hoarse.

All their lives for the serum.

That’s his bargain.

As tears fall from your eyes and the bitterness from your vomit lingers with that of the blood, you can’t pretend to refuse it any longer.

If what he says is true, then you can save them all from that same fate. You can save them.

You’d be giving the most dangerous man in the world exactly what he wants. Is that really worth it?

...

Yes.

You’re not letting anybody else die.

So soon enough, you set aside the repulsive sight of the dead and get to work. Because every bit of progress matters. Their lives matter.

From that day onward, it’s someone new that they bring to accompany you for the day while you work. A random soldier, whether from Azzano or other captured camps, gives you company during the 24 hours they give you to make progress on the serum and give them their liberation.

Unable to work in such dreadful silence, you take to talking to them. You learn names, you learn about their families, you learn so much about what they still have to live for, and it all drives you forward.

The first couple of days or so are easy enough; reworking through what you already had in your journal is enough to liberate the men they bring you.

You still didn’t know where they took them, but the little hope that maybe, just maybe, they were being taken away from the facility to be set free from imprisonment kept you hard at work. But whatever hope you had left quickly diminished as on that 15th day you hit a brick wall. The contents of your journal stopped there. The field laid bare with no more tracks to travel on.

And it’s already reaching the end of your 24 hours.

Frantic, you work tirelessly in an attempt to save this man, Eric. He has a wife, Barbara, and a beautiful daughter named Josie whom he left behind months after her birth. And they were waiting for him to return home.

But as the hours run away from you and have you working in such haste, you fail to notice the soldier that comes into the laboratory. You don’t notice any of it until the resounding gunshot scares you away from the microscope and you turn with dread to find him—a husband, a father—dead at the feet of your door.

Overhead, Schmidt’s voice booms through a loudspeaker even louder than the gunshot that still rattles through your brain.

“Work smarter, doctor. Not faster.”

The first couple of days that this same scenario repeats itself, you can't help but cry. Then you realize that there isn’t any time for you to mourn the men you let die.

By the 23rd day and 8th consecutive execution though, your sanity’s beginning to run thin. There are times you blackout without noticing after days of not sleeping and precious time is wasted. The lack of sleep isn’t helping your progress, but wasting time to rest isn’t helpful either. You can barely eat anything when everything just leaves a disgusting metallic aftertaste in your mouth. So you refrain from either of those and dive into your work instead.

But no matter how much you pour into it, nothing seems like enough anymore. Not only that but Schmidt’s getting impatient. He brings in more men during the twenty-four hours he gives you and that only puts more pressure on you. It soon becomes too much. Your mind shuts down as you're forced to watch seven men senselessly slaughtered at the foot of your door yet again.

“Stop this...” Falling onto the floor, stained with dark maroon spots that they refuse to clean, you can’t help but sob at the feet of those you failed to save. “No more, please. I beg of you.”

“Now, doctor. Enough with the tears. A new tool is here to assist you.”

That’s what he calls them. To him, people are just means to an end. Much like your sanity.

And then you hear him call your name.

Almost instantly your tears stop at the familiar voice and your head snaps upward to meet steel-blue eyes that gaze down at you from where they hold him at gunpoint.

Sergeant Barnes.

“Your twenty-four hours begin now, doctor.”

You should be rushing to your worktable. The fact that you knew him before all this, even if only his name, should drive you to work harder. It should and yet you can't help but feel a numbness overcome you. A numbness that shakes you to your core until it breaks you down at what you can't help but admit to yourself.

He's as good as dead. This man—a good, honorable man that had helped you out on more than one occasion—is going to die because of you. Because of your ineptitude.

You don't know when he got to you but the gentleness of his touch on your quivering shoulders makes you all the weaker. Rough hands reach up then to cradle your cheeks as the tears run down them and you sob as he lifts your face to meet your eyes. You can’t comprehend how there can be an ounce of concern in that gentle gaze of his.

Would he still be able to show such sympathy if he knew what you had caused? What lives your incompetence had cost?

Will you cost him his?

The frail hope that shattered long ago reforged itself briefly at the thought. You needed to save him—you needed to. Pushing his hands away from you, you stumble to your feet and stagger to the desk where your papers lay as scattered as your thoughts as to how to proceed. Retracing your steps from the beginning was a nonstarter, not with the time limit you have, but perhaps choosing the right starting point would suffice as progress.

It has to.

“What are you doing?”

“Working.”

“You’re working? For them?” There’s no mistaking the venom that seeps into his tone. “Why?”

He asks and you answer. Simple as that. You relay back the important things while setting aside the gruesome details that you don’t wish to recall yourself. James seems to get the idea of what’s happening and it’s then that the concern returns to his eyes. It turns your stomach seeing that.

Stop it.

“You need to rest.”

“I don’t have time. I need to find a way to make progress.”

“You need to rest,” he reiterates and takes a hold of your wrist to stop you from doing anything. “You look exhausted.”

You are, but there's no time for that. Not if you want him to avoid the fate the others suffered. Your mind scrambled as it is, however, doesn’t let you see clearly through anything that you have before you. Emotions barrage you as the thought of him being killed like the others returns. Even imagining it has the tears already brimming in your eyes.

The sudden warmth of the hand that touches your back forces you to face him and you find James sharing a sympathetic and thin-lined smile while pulling you away from the desk with his other hand.

“How can you be so calm?” Your voice is no more than a whisper. You barely have enough strength to stand anymore, let alone speak louder than that. He hears you and musters a small yet kinder smile as he pulls you aside, further and further away from what could save him. “If I don’t get this done, you’ll—”

“I’ll be fine.”

How in hell’s name he can say that with such confidence is beyond you, but something about the way he says it does calm you down. It lets you take a breath.

He guides you away to the little cot tucked away in the remote corner of the laboratory furthest away from the door. You’re like a child, helpless and mindless, as he urges you to lay down. You do. The first night you came to be there, you thought that it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. Laying your head down now almost has you passing out instantly, but you force yourself to remain awake. It’s something easy to do with the way the guilt suffocates you so.

“Close your eyes," James urges softly.

“I can’t,” you say with a reluctant yawn. “I’ll pass out entirely if I just let myself fall asleep.”

“I’ll stay awake and watch over you,” he responds. “I’ll give you a few hours. You’ll be much better off then.”

For some reason, you can’t put your finger on why his optimism and lack of sense of urgency have you so concerned. It's almost like he's given up. Could it be that? Does he believe in you so little?

Now that you think about it though, he doesn’t have a reason to believe in you. You’re barely a step up from strangers. There’s no reason for him to trust someone like you with such a crucial task.

Which means he’s already made peace with dying.

You don’t know what incurs your determination then—your pride or the need to prove him wrong—but it has you reaching your hand out to his. The tips of your fingers brush against his and you feel him flinch, surprised by the sudden touch, but he doesn’t pull away.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” you whisper, your eyelids growing heavier and heavier by the second you lay there. “I...won’t…”

You pass out before you know it. Tragically, you don't last more than a couple of hours asleep, but even that little bit of rest seems to be enough to quell some of the sleep deprivation you’d amounted up till then.

It’s dark in the laboratory by the time you wake up. It makes sense, you reckon. You’re the one who has to manually turn on the lights at night. So the fact that all that’s illuminating the place are the pale beams of moonlight pouring through barred windowless panes isn't as unnerving. In a way, the gentle light is a comfort to your tired eyesight.

You find James where he said he’d be, sitting at the foot of your small cot waiting for you to wake up. Instead of nodding away himself, his steel-blue glare is rapt on the guards by your door. They never leave nor have they ever laid a finger on you, but if they try, he’s not letting them near you either. Your fingers curl and brush against his, his hand seemingly never having moved from where he had it when you fell asleep. The subtle touch brings his attention back to you.

“Sleep some more,” he mutters. “It’s still nighttime.”

“It’s alright.” Your whisper is hoarse as you sit up on the cot. “I don’t think I’ll get more sleep than this. Thank you though.”

“Don’t mention it.” Taking a deep breath, you bring your legs over the edge of the cot and ready yourself to work after that rest. Noticing this, James turns to you perplexed. “Are you really going to go back to work?”

“Yes.”

“Just rest up while you can. It'll be better for you.”

“Not a chance,” you reply. “I’m not letting you die here.”

“Better that than help them.”

“Not at your expense or that of others, it isn’t.” You may not understand his sense of duty as a soldier but you understand yours as just another regular human being. Every single person mattered and if you have the chance to help them survive, then you’re taking it. No matter how slim the chances may be. “You can stay here or you can help me, it's up to you. But I’m not letting anybody else die on my watch.”

You head to your station and begin to attempt deciphering what to do next. To your surprise, James is up and asking what he can be of assistance with a few minutes later. With a smile, you put him to work however you can. This isn’t going to be easy but you’re not going to give up just yet.

While working, you ask James about himself if only to occupy the silence in the room with something other than the sound of shuffling papers. He tells you little things about himself after a bit of prodding. He tells you about his family. About his sister, Rebecca. About his best friend, Steve Rogers. About what his childhood was like. About what it meant for him to be part of the army. About how proud he is—how afraid he is. The more he talks about it all, the more you realize that he truly is just a man like any other.

And yet so unlike them too.

James asks about you in return. There’s not much to talk about though. Aside from your brother, there’s nothing interesting about you. You had regular parents and a regular upbringing for the most part. Setting aside the your-folks-would-rather-have-you-marrying-off-than-do-this fiasco. And of course, can’t forget about the whole college mishap from before. As for how you got into the SSR…

“That’s not something I’d like to talk about here.”

Unlike you, he knows to leave well enough alone.

A good thing too. Thinking about Dr. Erskine right now is the one thing you don't want to do. Being imprisoned by the same maniacal person he’d warned you about seemed surreal at first, but now you can comprehend why having made the serum for him, even in its imperfect form, was such a huge regret for him.

...

Wait a minute.

Imperfect…?

‘All the pieces in the world mean nothing if I don’t have the correct frame to put them in.’

“No way...”

“What is it?”

“It’s been here. All along it’s been here, right under my nose.”

Enthused at what you possibly found, a grin splits your face. You rush towards boxes of research from some Hydra scientist on the serum, all of them scattering of ideas that make no sense. At least they wouldn’t if you hadn’t already done research of your own. A simple skim through has you keen on what new information you’re discovering and what lines your mind is already drawing.

“The framework I’ve been looking for.”

James can’t follow a single word you’re saying, but he’s all in on what you seemingly have figured out. And with the little hours you have left, there’s no time to waste.

The task is tedious and certainly time-consuming. All because of the fact that everything has to be so meticulously laid out before even attempting a single production once you put every piece of information you have in place. However, if you can at least make it…

I can still get James out of here.

Howard was right when he called you narrow-minded all those months ago. Because of your desire to recreate this serum with your own research, you failed to notice all the valuable information from studies already done that was right in front of you. The SSR hadn’t been the only ones attempting to recreate it; there were already plenty of tests done on Dr. Erskine’s prototype serum that was in Johan Schmidt’s blood by a certain Arnim Zola here in Hydra.

Combining that research with your own to recreate the formula from bits and pieces is perhaps the one true stroke of genius you'll admit to ever having in your life. Because if this worked, it'd be the first real breakthrough you’ve had since starting this whole endeavor back at Camp Lehigh.

The framework you couldn’t find in Steve’s blood was here all along. All you need to do now is put all the pieces together and fill in what missing gaps there are.

“There.”

It isn’t written down. They’re all just papers scattered on the floor mixed up in an array that could only be described as a disaster. But you understand it. Every little detail, every last number to the most significant figure, you figured out.

You can recreate the super soldier serum with this.

The faint rays of dawn peeking through the bars of the laboratory spill onto the paper-laden floor and have your heart skipping a beat. Your twenty-four hours are running out. Hurrying him along, you instruct James every step of the way to help you expedite the production process. By the time everything is set and ready, you’re drenched in a cold sweat at how close you’re cutting this.

With a push of a lever, the machine whirls to life, and the meticulous process begins to produce what you hope would at least be a vial of the serum. Bringing him back a few steps to wait, you join your hands in prayer and hope against hope that this worked.

For his sake.

The minutes it takes to produce are the longest and most torturous you’ve ever experienced but when you see that vial fill to the brim with that familiar bright blue liquid, you’re breath hitches and your heart stops for the briefest of moments. You step up to it and carefully take the vial out of the machine. The tiny injectable vial sits gingerly in your hands, its actual weight uncomparable against the weight of its existence.

“I did it.” Your words are barely a whisper as your heart begins to beat again and it thrums wildly against your ears. Unable to believe it still, you cradle the vial in your hands, your eyes stinging with unshed tears as you turn to James with a satisfied smile. “I did it...”

A smirk spread across his face, unmeasurable relief marking his features at what this meant for him. His larger hand grasps yours as you cup the vial between them.

“Never doubted you for a second.” His grasp tightens around your hands and your smile widens. “I knew you’d do.”

“As did I.”

The joyous mood changes at the drop of a hat when Schmidt’s voice echoes through the laboratory. Though it’s through the loudspeakers again, it’s not any less intimidating. Especially not when five soldiers then enter the laboratory and corner you at gunpoint. James pushes you behind him to keep you from harm but you’re too preoccupied with something else rushing through your mind to care.

“This wasn’t our deal!” you shout out into the void of the lab, knowing he’d be able to hear you. “I’ve made more than enough progress before the twenty-four hours! Release him!”

“Indeed you have, dear doctor. In fact, you have surpassed all expectations I had for you. Not only did you manage to decipher what so many before you couldn’t, but you have also managed to recreate it. I applaud your work, doctor, and will say that I finally see what Dr. Erskine saw in you. You truly are a genius of your craft.”

“You don’t need him,” you hiss back. “You’ve got what you wanted; you’ve got me. You've got the serum. Set him and the rest of the Allied soldiers free.”

“Of course, Dr. Stark. I am a man of my word, after all.”

Pop.

Your eyes grow wide with horror as James falls to the ground bleeding from a bullet wound to the chest. Dread sets in immediately and you rush to his side to put pressure on the wound. James grunts under your weight but can’t do much else as he’s gasping for every single pained breath. Hands shaking, the warmth of his blood slipping through your fingers unnerves you.

Suddenly, the delicate clinking you hear fall beside him on the floor takes your attention away for the briefest of moments as the vibrant blue iridescent vial comes into view. Scraps of memories flash through your mind as your brain works a mile a second to find a way to save him at the sight of the serum.

Unhinged musculoskeletal growth. A tenfold increase in apoptosis means an even greater increase in cell proliferation to compensate.

What you’re ming is rapidly concocting is madness, but if it can save him…

All I need is a diversion.

Your eyes come up and a quick scan of the room brings your attention to the worktable beside you where countless substances still sit open and poorly arranged. Seeing you’re chance, you don’t think.

You act.

Kicking back as hard as you humanly can muster, you aim for the leg of the worktable and manage to hit on the right spot for it to topple over and spill every substance on it on the floor between you and the soldiers. The chemical reactions of so many substances happen instantly. Hot noxious gases rise to hit the soldiers before they hit you and the thick vapor they create is enough of a curtain to do what you plan to do.

Your hand fumbles for the vial at your feet and holds it tight as you rapidly prepare the needle. Raising the vile high enough to pierce through, you meet his dull gaze for a moment and smile down at him. How you managed such a reassuring gesture, you will never know.

Much less where the strength to comfort him with a whispered promises came from.

“It’s going to be okay.”

The needle punctures through his ribs, and you instantly press down to deliver the serum right into his heart. The vibrant blue liquid empties faster than you can think and by the time you’re pulled back by the soldiers, an empty vial falls from your grasp as your breath hitches, waiting for James to react.

A second is all it takes before he’s screaming bloody murder at the top of his lungs from the pain that suddenly comes over him.

Dread washes over you as you rapidly wrack your brain as to what could be happening. Immediately, your mind brings up the memory of Steve’s trial in Brooklyn. The rapid cell growth—that’s where the pain is coming from. But something’s not right.

Uncontrolled cell growth.

What managed the cell growth with Steve’s was Howard’s—

“Vita rays.”

Struggling against the guards, you manage to knee the on holding onto you and get him to release you before you run to James’ side as he continues to writhe in pain. You hear the cocking of their guns but don’t care about them in the least. What matters to you the most at the moment isn’t your own well-being or even your life. It’s administering the vita rays he needs to get the serum through its final stages. The radiation emitter you’d been using for the creation of the serum would have to do. It had to.

You take the paddles and, after ripping open his uniform, place them against his bare chest, cranking the vita radiation to 100% and setting it off. When it goes off, you don’t know what is causing him to scream anymore. All you can hope for is that it’s not the radiation killing him.

It’s hard to say how long you lean over him, pressing the paddles of the vita emitter directly on him, but when you hear the whirring of electricity above you as the bulbs overhead become brighter and brighter, you fear this might not work. You fear the grid powering the factory won’t be enough for this. Yet, just as that fear grips you in a chokehold, the light dims before returning to normal.

Your ears ring. Not because James is screaming, but because he’s stopped.

His breathing is ragged and his complexion pales from the blood loss, but aside from that, nothing else appears wrong. Quickly as you can, you set aside the paddles and inspect the wound on his chest, catching yourself when you notice it’s not bleeding anymore. In fact, the wound is completely gone. The rapid cell growth that his body just underwent in the last couple of minutes healed it.

Relief comes over you like a tidal wave but you have little time to indulge in it when one of the soldiers pulls you aside. You fight against him but that doesn’t last long when the screeching echo of a gunshot blows your eardrums once more and brings your attention to Johan Schmidt who stands at the door of the laboratory with a stout man by his side.

The man saunters over to James at Schmidt’s order and you pull away from the soldier in response. Almost instantly, the pistol in Johan’s hand is aimed at you. Your blood suddenly runs cold as you stare down the iron barrel.

“Not a move, doctor,” he warns. “Your theatrics have aggravated me far enough.” His threat given, Schmidt turns to the man that has been checking on James. You watch intently as he calls out to him, to Dr. Arnim Zola, for a status report on what happened.

“The man is stable,” Dr. Zola proclaims as he finishes checking his pulse through his wrist. “The side effects of the serum Stark created...they were mitigated by the vita rays administered.” Astonishment comes over those beady eyes that hide behind round glasses as he turns up to Schmidt. “She’s administered the serum successfully.”

You should be relieved. Your crazy idea worked. You saved James.

But a rather nasty side of your mind thinks deep down that maybe he would’ve been better off dead after you hear Schmidt speak again.

“Splendid news, Dr. Zola. You have a new test subject.” A chill runs down your spine and your face pales at what Schmidt just says. “After all, with Dr. Stark’s research now useless thanks to her antics, we must make good use of the soldier she has provided us.”

Zola agrees and orders soldiers to take an unconscious James away. You struggle against them but you’re put down by a hit to the back with a rifle. Groaning on the floor, you try rising only to have the barrel of a gun placed against the back of your head. Frozen with panic, all you can do is lay there helpless as Schmidt speaks.

“You surely think that you’ve destroyed the formula with what you did today, but Dr. Zola will recover more than enough of what you researched here to recreate the serum. It is only a matter of time.” The barrel is cold against the nape of your neck and your shallow breaths only bring you closer to it. You hold your breath even as the cold remains. “You wasted much of our precious time with this little stunt of yours, Dr. Stark, but fear not, you are useful to us still. After all, Dr. Zola will need a subject to administer his first recreation once it is completed.”

What?

He retreats the barrel from your skin yet the cold doesn’t leave you. It remains even as the soldiers take you out of the laboratory in the heat of midday on Schmidt’s order andtake you to Zola’s.

Drained of strength, you don’t have it in you to fight back anymore. Not even when you get to Zola’s and he instructs them to strap you to a chair. His touch disgusts you to your core as he caresses your head. Bile rises to your throat and you taste it on your tongue but it does nothing to overwhelm the taste of metal that is forever stuck to your mouth.

“Worry not, Dr. Stark. The serum I intend to give you will be nothing short of perfection. Of that, I can assure you.”

“Dr. Zola,” you don’t know who’s speaking. Maybe a soldier, maybe another scientist. You don’t have the strength to care anymore. “What will you have us do with this one?”

“Yes, yes, lay the sergeant down.” Eyes blinking at the word, you lift your head to watch them as they place James on the examination table and strap him to it. Zola inspects him once more and nods to himself before turning to the soldiers standing by. “Send for workers. The vita rays administered don’t seem to have been enough to stabilize him fully. We must build an emmiter strong enough to continue the stabilization.”

Accepting his orders, they leave and it’s then that Zola turns to you with a smile.

“A brilliant idea to use the vita emitter to stabilize him, doctor. However, the serum you injected Sergeant Barnes with appears volatile still. Perhaps you miscalculated the amount it would need. A rather novice mistake, I must say.”

You jump at the jab but all that does is strain your limbs against your restraints. Zola laughs at your futile attempt and shakes his head.

“Don’t take it as an insult. For that to be your serum’s one flaw is quite astonishing. You did a splendid job. Do not worry, I will take note so as to not make such a mistake.”

With that said, Zola leaves you both in the small room as the sound of a faraway door down the hallway closes, letting an echo resound with finality throughout the room. Exhausted beyond measure, your head hangs as everything suddenly comes crashes into you and your mind finally has the time to process it.

You were wrong to accept Dr. Erskine’s proposal. You should’ve just left well enough alone. You should’ve been content yourself with working at Stark Industries and just listened to your parents and wed off. At least if you had, none of this would’ve happened.

Dr. Erskine might still be alive had you done so. Good soldiers would still be alive if you had. And if not for you, a good man wouldn’t be strapped down to a bed unable to escape whatever hell awaited him.

“I’m sorry…” you sob, unable to stop the remorse any longer. “I’m so...so sorry.”

[lilleby]

Please add me to your tag list

[lilleby]

Dumb Luck

Summary: You die. That's how things are supposed to be for you, how they've always been, and how they always will be. Yet here you are. Now stuck as a variant working alongside a tough-love yet kind analyst and a variant of the God of Mischief you had the misfortune of meeting in New York, there is but one question in all of your minds. How are you still alive? You call it an accident. Mobius calls it the will of the Time-Keepers. And Loki calls it dumb luck.

A/N: Oof, with so much Bucky lately, I had to even things out with a little bit of our other fave boi. I suppose this is the part two you guys asked for with this post. Tho if I'm truthful, it's more of a prequel xD I started towards the end of the story with that other post and since it's based on a storyline that I have already but haven't written i thought 'hell why not?'. So here it is. I tried to make it as ambiguous as possible without losing too much of a connection to its original 'timeline.' If you're interested in that one, it's the stories in A Little Bit of Time and the story that's telling. I realize that in itself may alienate many from this story in general but that's just how i write; it's kinda hard to write oneshots. Sorry :3 All the same, I hope you enjoy it.

Taglist: @lordofthenerds97, @sincerely-a-frustrated-writer,

"Hello? Anybody there?"

Your voice bounces off of the empty theater room that you sit in now. No answer comes back. Shouting again makes no difference. The futility of it all leaves you to slack against one of the only two chairs in the rather comically large theater.

What great service.

It's already strange enough that a group of Robocop-esque men busted into your apartment in the middle of the damn night calling you a 'variant' and whatnot before kidnapping you and bringing you here to the so-called TVA. Whatever or wherever that is.

Now, after going through a bunch of very unpleasant things, you're stranded in this room and left to your own devices. No one's told you a damn thing aside from the supposed judge that condemned you to be 'pruned,' whatever that may be. Something tells you it ain't anything pretty.

At least you're spared that fate for a bit longer when someone stepped up to the podium to speak on your behalf. Or to be more accurate, stepped up to speak on someone else's behalf for your sake.

"Agent Mobius asked for any of her variants to be detained for questioning before pruning."

A good old palpitation came to your chest at the bad feeling you got when you heard that and another comes now when you recall it. Reaching through the tacky jumpsuit they put you in, your fingers tenderly touch your chest right above your heart. You urge it to calm down, breathing slowly to quell the silent panic swelling within it.

All the good that does though. Unable to keep still a second longer, you rise from your seat, adjusting the most uncomfortable choker in the world as you inspect the small table that stands as your only sort of company.

It looks like a film projector connected to some kind of computer maybe. Surely looked like it to you; almost akin to the very first Macs when they first came out. Color and everything. While inspecting it closer, you realize a tiny sort of film reel is already set in place. Someone must’ve been already in here watching this seeing as it was already ways away from the start of the reel. You eye the few buttons laid before you and cautiously press the one that vaguely resembles a play button.

The wall before you breaks into individual cubes that startle you as they rearrange themselves into a makeshift screen and the reel projects itself upon it. As the scene begins to play out, it takes a minute for you to realize none of this looks familiar.

It's a beautiful sight, yes; one out of a sci-fi movie almost. A gorgeous painting of galaxies is set as the background while what looks to be a spaceship floats absentmindedly, wrecked to its core. It's hard to recognize the countless dead bodies that litter the ship's floor but once you do, you're stomach sinks at the sight. There are other strange creatures there, creatures you've never seen before even in nightmares, but you recognize three of them out of the bunch.

You recognize Thor, the god of thunder that aided you and the rest of the Avengers during the battle that just went on in New York, as he's held down on his knees by strips of metal and muzzled by more of the same.

You recognize Loki, the one who laid waste on New York just hours ago opposite to his brother and had you captured and mistreated during half that ordeal, as that purple giant hoists him in a chokehold, his hands prying uselessly at the huge hand that so easily engulfs his neck.

And you recognize yourself as hunks of metal trap you by your hips and legs, lifting you up to the purple giant's height. You're fighting tooth and nail to free yourself, all seemingly in vain, shouting at him to release you and to release both brothers. A frown comes to you at hearing that. Thor you understand but it's unfathomable that you'd be pleading for the life of the man that not only attacked your home city but also killed a good friend in Coulson. All that escapes your mind, however, the moment the giant eyes you with a tilted head and knowing gaze.

"You're mistaken to think they would conceal a stone in such a frail being."

...

All of it goes by too fast for you to catch and it takes a second for it to sink in. A metal pierced your chest from behind, cleanly through you and gouging out your heart through to the other side in the process.

A terrified gasp escapes you at the sight of yourself—an older-looking version of yourself, you realize—as you choke for air and in your own blood as it spurts out of your lips, unable to believe how your heart beats to a crawl outside of your body. Then just as suddenly there's nothing. Your body ceases to move, arms falling limp behind you from how you're hoisted, and the giant takes your dying heart from the stake that went through you in his hands. He inspects it with a diligent eye before crushing it in his grasp.

Both Thor and Loki groan and shout in unison as the giant open his bloody fist and among the crimson flesh that coated his hand a trickle of green dust escapes into the air only to disappear.

"Nothing but a shard of the whole. Insignificant."

The reel stops there as the projection dictates the end of the file, yet you sit there unable to comprehend what it is that you just watched.

Did-Did I just...

The double doors behind you part open and startle you up from your seat. Stepping away from the projector, you fumble with the buttons as you go, setting the reel to rewind by accident as you stagger back as far from the doors as possible as two people enter.

You’re not familiar with the older man leading the charge, but you certainly are with the so-called god as he saunters behind him.

Fury and confusion boiling over as one after what you saw, your hands grab the first thing they find near which happens to be a can of soda, and hurled it towards them, aiming for the god himself. Both men need only sidestep it to avoid being hit. The can flies freely past both and explodes on floor on the other side of the door in a flurry of dark liquid that sprays everywhere.

“Good arm,” the older man compliments with a laugh as the guards outside fumble with the drink that dies down outside.

Loki, however, only stares back at you with an incredulous glare. “You.”

The acerbic tone in the one word doesn’t deter you from grabbing the other can still at your disposal and bringing it high over your head as a threat to both. The man calls out to you with hands raised as if to appease you. Meanwhile, Loki’s brow lifts as he sidesteps away from your aim behind the older man.

“Whoa, whoa. Calm down there.”

You raise the can higher and back, ready to throw it at either of them. “Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“Okay, okay, I won’t,” he assures you, “but you’ve gotta put the can down.”

“I wouldn’t trust her word were I you,” Loki points out with a half-smirk. “This little mouse has the tendency of acting all meek and innocent when it suits her plans.”

Already having it with his snark, you pitch the can towards them. The both of them dodge in time regrettably and the can yet again explodes as it crashes into the wall, falling to the ground and rolling around as the last of the fizz inside it dies out.

Loki smirks the older man’s way after poignantly gesturing to the mess you made. “What did I say?”

“Quit it with the instigating, Loki,” the man groans.

“I’m doing no such thing.” He seems almost insulted at the insinuation that has you glaring daggers back at him. “I’m merely speaking the truth.”

You hiss back, "Liar."

“Really? Because the mess you’ve made begs to differ.”

“Enough, both of you.”

The man’s booming voice echoing in the room has you stepping back in an attempt to quell your emotions. The God of Mischief merely rolls his eyes as he walks to the opposite side of the theater to stand by that wall instead. Now that it’s quiet, the man motions for you to come closer. It’s hard to trust him, especially when he came in with Loki, but he appears to see through the god’s bullshit somewhat.

So when he reaches out his hand for you, you decide to give him the slight benefit of the doubt and shake it.

“I’m sorry about all that," he mutters. "He’s quite the drama queen.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The way he can push at Loki’s buttons so easily has you smiling a bit, but you keep your guard up all the same. “You don't say? I wouldn’t have known had you not told me.”

“That’s rich coming from you, vermin.”

“I have two chairs I can chuck at you, so watch it.” Your threat falls on deaf ears as Loki simply scoffs and rolls his eyes with a shake of his head.

“Ignore him.” The man motions at you to sit down with him and you comply if only to see where this is all going. “I’m Agent Mobius, by the way. Glad to know our luck didn’t run out with you.”

The name rings a bell instantly.

“You’re the guy they pulled me out of the courtroom for.” It isn’t a question. Just a statement of the only fact you know so far.

Mobius nods, smiling assuringly back at you. “That would be me.”

“Why?”

That’s really the only question you want an answer to at the moment. Yes, there’s a myriad of others but none pertain so much to your current state of affairs as much as this one. Whatever pruning is, it can’t be good, and the fact that a mere word from him got you out of that has to mean something.

“Since you want to be straightforward, allow me to indulge you. I’m an analyst here at the TVA, one who specializes in particularly dangerous Variants.”

The specification comes foremost to your mind. “Dangerous how?”

“Well, most of them fall under the scope of ‘must capture before they destroy the Sacred Timeline as we know it’ kind.”

Mobius taps his fingers against the table, a dossier sitting neatly under his hand. You catch the motion and tilt your head pensively. It's almost as if he’s pondering whether to continue his train of thought.

You inspect him for a moment, eyes roaming to the film projector and at the screen before you. Unbeknownst to you, after it had rewound, it had been playing in mute this whole time. You catch a glimpse of something unfamiliar again. Whatever’s going on, you’ve never experienced before, but it doesn’t seem like it's a farce either.

Especially not with the way the ‘you’ in that reel has that same scar down her chest peeking through the cleavage of an oddly regal dress, tips of your fingers glowing faintly the same deep emerald as your eyes for that split moment before they return to normal.

Your one power.

The same one that had you on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s radar and scouted only a year ago, and that put you in New York the very same day Loki came to invade earth and discovering a whole new side of your power that you never knew before. That thought alone brings up a new possibility.

What if…what if that’s only scratching the surface?

Your fingers crawl beneath the opening on your jumpsuit and touch the scar on your chest as your lips let slide what your mind concludes.

“Does one of mine fall under that category, Agent Mobius?”

Behind Mobius, Loki scoffs in disbelief as he saunters over to where you both are. “Don’t be absurd. How could a simple Midgardian possibly be a threat—”

“As a matter of a fact, yes. Quite the dangerous one, too.”

Loki’s baffled by the news. You can only hold your breath at having your suspicions confirmed when you hadn’t anticipated it. Unable to accept it, though, Loki’s the first to interrupt as his hands slam on the desk to capture their attention.

“Enough with the jokes.”

“I’m not joking,” Mobius insists as he leans forward in his chair and plays with the buttons of the projector. Different scenes pop up, all without sound and all showcasing impossible things that you can’t imagine doing. Things like fighting, using what looks to be magic, and even holding your own against beings you can’t even begin to describe. All done by a picture-perfect mirror image of yourself. “Little missy here becomes quite the force to be reckoned with under the instruction of quite the repertoire of teachers. Human assassins, Asgardian royalty, even a rather arrogant sorcerer—which, by the way, will never cease to amaze me how you never got kicked out by that guy with how much you got on his nerves.”

Mobius laughs at a joke only he understands. You smile too out of sympathy despite how much his words confuse you more than they amuse you. Understanding that, he turns the rewind button until he comes to a point in time that you don’t recall despite it being from your past.

How could you, though, when you were but an infant?

“All set into motion by the desperate actions of a very desperate mother.”

You’ve heard this story before. Of how your mother made every last sacrifice to afford the life-saving open-heart surgery you needed back when you weren’t even a year old and that had left the scar you so tenderly touch now.

But something tells you that that isn't all that Mobius is referring to.

“So the reason I’m here is that another Variant of me diverged from their path and you want, what, my help?” you ask at last.

“Partially. You see, the Variant of yours that’s out there happens to have a certain pattern we’ve made out and it has to do with the Variant of this one.” Mobius crudely points back at Loki with his thumb and the way the god looks back at him irritably has you chuckling a bit. “And though we’ve never encountered the two acting in tandem, it’s enough to give us the feeling that if we find yours, we’ll find his.”

“You mean they could be working together then,” you surmise.

“Certainly not,” Loki interjects rather peeved by the conversation you two are having and how it’s so blatantly excluding him. “No self-respecting Loki would ever form an alliance with a mediocre Midgardian sorceress.”

“You’re not wrong,” Mobius says far too quickly for your liking. You’re about to bite back a remark at both but before you can, Mobius beats you to it. “About the alliance and mediocre sorceress, not the self-respecting part. If this pattern we found tells us anything is that her Variant is using the actions of yours as a diversion.”

“Diversion?” your voice rises a bit curious. “What for?”

Again that apprehension comes to his features as he purses his lips.

“Agent Mobius?”

“Remember when I said I was glad our luck didn’t run out with you?” Vaguely. You were honestly more preoccupied with the fact that you recognized his name a few minutes ago than whatever else he said.

“Yeah.”

“Well…I’ll put it this way.” Mobius blatant apprehension to tell you doesn’t bode well with you and it sets a rather uncomfortable heaviness in your gut. “The Variant of yours we’re hunting down has a particular MO that doesn’t leave any witnesses.”

That definitely doesn’t sound good.

As your mind ambles as to what exactly that could mean, your eyes wander the file underneath Mobius’ finger as he keeps mindlessly tapping at it.

Yours; it had to be.

Before you can take it away to get a clearer idea of what he’s talking about, Loki beats you to the punch, snatching the dossier away from your grasp and skimming through it himself. Having had enough of his bullshit, you storm out of your seat and rush to him but there’s no use in trying to take it away when he can simply keep it out of your reach rather easily. Damn god is finding your struggle amusing and you want to smack that shit-eating grin from his face, but before you can even try, a frown crosses his features and in his bafflement, lowers his arms along with the dossier. Taking your chance, you snatch the file out of his hands and walk away from him to have the peace to read through it.

It’s not long before you read the part he stumbled upon. The moment you do, you feel dread wash over you as the color drains from your face.

Loki’s the one to inquire then about what you both just read.

“That’s a rather delightful way of phrasing the fact that the mouse’s Variant has killed all others of itself before the TVA even has a chance to prune them.”

[lilleby]

that was a big ouch 💔

[lilleby]

Oh my goodness that was so good would there be more parts in the future

Certainly will be! Planning on one last part to wrap that little story.

[lilleby]

My heart is so weak and can't take anymore angst!!! Please make the part 3 a little fluffly please 🥺❤, even if you don't, still love your writing!! Have a great day!

Don't worry. It might not be all fluff but there will certainly be some 😉

[lilleby]

i love reading ya guys' replies and reblogs. not only do you make my day, you guys crack me every time

[lilleby]

@intrepidacious, you get 'best comment of the week' reward b/c of how spot-on you are.

[lilleby]

Glad ya guys are enjoying the heartbreak! 🤭 Don't worry, I plan one last part to give ya some closure later 😉

[lilleby]

I Can't Make You Love Me

Summary: Falling out of love isn't easy, but you're going to try it just like any other broken-hearted fool does. With time, patience, and tons of distractions, of course. But nothing can get rid of the pain of seeing Bucky with his new girlfriend. Nothing except one very hard choice.

Part two of this post.

A/N: Holy cow. I got no words for how much love the first part of this got. And welp, with so many asking I just had to write up another part. Also, the title comes from a song of the same name. Many artists but the one I listened to while writing this one was by Kurt Hugo and Alex G. Blast that shit and come have a blast with me on this one :3

The summer sun beating down on the rooftop you’re saddled on has had you sweating bullets for the past hour, but the arduous task keeps your mind as occupied as you want it. So in a sense, coming out here to help Sarah fix some houses in need of repairs out in the neighborhood was exactly what you needed.

“Mrs. Williams brought out some lemonade and snacks for when you guys feel like coming down!” Sarah points back from where she stands on the ground shouting back for you to hear.

Grinning, you take away your focus from the nail gun long enough to nod before going back to the shingles at hand. From the jovial atmosphere going on down there, one would imagine this whole gathering of people was for a barbecue or something. Though you suppose that so many people helping out like this is the norm for this neighborhood. You aren’t complaining either. The people are so welcoming that you can’t really see this as labor.

You’re just out here giving a helping hand to some great folks.

“Working hard?”

Releasing the trigger on the nail gun, you sit up straight to shoot Sam a droll stare. “Harder than you, Mister I’ll-carry-the-shingles-and-you-nail-them.”

Even with Sam having climbed to the top of the ladder you used to get on the rooftop, you still find a reason to raise your voice over the music booming out of speakers down below. It’s hard to pinpoint who exactly’s got their Bluetooth connected with how it keeps jumping back and forth between hard 80s rock and awesome 50s pop. Whoever it was, you thanked them from the bottom of your tired heart.

Rolling your eyes at Sam as he climbed up onto the rooftop to seemingly help you, you continue on with nailing down the roof shingles while humming ‘Killer Queen’ under your breath. The two of you work quietly for a good minute with only the usual banter here and there when suddenly Sam brings up a topic you aren’t all that open to discuss just yet.

“Have you heard from Bucky lately?”

The nail goes in crooked with the head jutting out at an angle. You click your tongue but with ease, pluck it out with your fingers before going back at it again.

“Can’t say I have,” you say.

“He’s been out a whole lot in the past few weeks and barely comes back to the compount.” Sam’s stating the obvious at this point. It’s not like you haven’t noticed the absence of those heavy footsteps leaving his room to exercise early in the morning or sneaking around late at night sometimes for a late night snack.

“He’s a grown-ass man, Wilson,” you snide. “Wherever he’s gone off to, he’ll be fine. Hey!” A couple of kids messing with the speaker jump at hearing you shout down at them. “What are you lot doing? Put Frankie Valli back on.”

‘Sherry’ starts over again before the kids scurry away. Humming under uour breath, you return to work but realize you've finished up the last of the shingles in the box you carried up with you. Heaving a sigh, you point back at the boxes you left on the ground to Sam.

“Wanna make yourself useful and bring ‘em up for me?”

“I’m doing my own work too, y’know.”

“Like what, turning oxygen into carbon dioxide? ‘Cause if so, you’re doing a mighty fine ass job right about now, Cap’n.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” He’s grumbling on his way to the ladder and you thank him as he reaches it. Before his head disappears below the rooftop though, Sam calls out to you yet again. “Seriously, though. It’s not that I’m that worried but we’ve got a mission in a few days and I want the whole team there.”

“What? Am I not enough back-up?” you ask, peeved and with a hand on your hips while balancing the nail gun with the other.

Suddenly, your finger slips and the gun shoots off, the nail digging straight into the roof beneath you. Your eyes go wide but never turn down to look st what happened while Sam’s incredulous look is only accentuated by his raised eyebrow.

“Look, just give him a call and gives him the details. If he’s answering anyone, it’s gonna be you.”

You didn’t want to, but if Captain is asking, you really didn’t have a choice.

That afternoon, just as dusk began hitting the horizon and reflecting back from the ocean in beautiful hues of warm oranges and yellows, you played around with your flip phone, opening and snapping it close while mustering the strength to dial the damn number.

The past two weeks had been a rather peaceful for you and your wrecked heart. The fact that Bucky was spending less and less time in the small compound you three as a team shared was as much a blessing as it was a curse.

At least it was to you with your condition.

“Two hours before the next erasure. Prepare the mission’s necessary information for the next 24-hour cycle.”

Unlike the other soldiers, your mind suffered much greater damage from being exposed to the super soldier serum. Damage it never recovered from mostly due to the fact that, as a subject after Bucky’s time, Hydra had more than perfected the mechanism with which to reboot you. A program no Wakandan technology could fix.

And it happens automatically every 24 hours.

So long as whatever it is you want erased is out of your sight during that time, it will cease to exist to you once the time elapses. It and everything associated with it.

The fugue it leaves behind is bad but isn’t the worst part. By far the worse is the feeling of emptiness any erasure leaves behind. Almost like there's a puzzle so obviously incomplete in your head but it's also your mind that's convincing you that the pieces missing don't exist and that you shouldn't bother searching for something you won't find.

Now, all that keeps you away from completely forgetting everything about who you are and everybody you ever knew is a flimsy old photo album—Steve’s idea. They’re nothing more than a bunch of polaroid pictures, old and new, with bits of writing to help clear up the fog in your mind.

It ain’t much but it helps you remember your life up to that moment every time the clock resets.

And it also makes forgetting something all that easier too. At least, so long as you didn’t see them every day in the flesh like you did Bucky or Sam. For them, you didn’t need old polaroid pictures to keep your memory of them fresh. Simply seeing them every day, if only for a minute and with a simple exchange of words, made their memory permanent for that day. It made the impact of their existence in yours real again.

Now, though, Bucky’s was tenuous at best. And even when it pains and frustrates you the fact that you feel that emptiness crawling its way back as his memory fades the longer he stays away, there’s also a sense of relief.

Relief that the emptiness also takes your heartache away.

Just this once after all these weeks won’t bring it all back, you assure yourself. Sam needs us together for this one.

And that mattered more than whatever little bit of pain seeing Bucky could bring you.

Trekking through the shore, you pick up a few stray rocks from the floor and dial the number, placing the receiver against your ear as you distract yourself by skipping pebbles. He answers on the first ring.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Bucko,” you say, keeping up with your cheerful tone despite the fine line on your lips. “We got a mission coming up in a couple of days. Sam told me to let you know.”

Bucky clicks his tongue on the other side of the line. “I thought that’s what he was spamming me with calls about.”

“Huh, how the tables have turned.”

“What do you mean?”

“It's usually me who's blowing your guys' calls off.”

“Watch it, you almost sound too proud of yourself there.”

You chuckle at his tongue-in-cheek remark but the laughter dies when you hear something in the background of other line.

Someone else’s laughter--a woman’s. But it doesn’t come close to hurting as much as hearing the way his quiet chuckle fills the brief silence afterwards.

The way your chest tightens makes you feel sick and it doesn’t let you dredge up a single word out of your throat. Thankfully, Bucky, oblivious as ever, changes the topic quickly enough.

“I’ll meet you guys at the hangar. Just text me the time and day.”

“Okay.” There’s no strength left in you to even feign your voice anymore.

“Alright. If that’s all—give me a sec,” Again, that laughter. You can’t bring yourself to hate it no matter how much you wish you did. “If that’s all, I gotta go. I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah...see you.”

He hangs up first. You can’t do much else except leave your phone hanging there by your ear for a moment while you let the pain settle. A pain you knew you shouldn’t be feeling anymore.

It’s been a few weeks. You’d forgotten little bits and pieces and it’d helped to lessen the pain. But why is it that this—hearing him laugh, hearing him happy—just makes it so much worse than before.

It’d be so easy to just erase this feeling altogether.

The dark thought that suddenly floats to the surface of your mind makes you pause. Never in your right mind had you ever thought about such drastic measures. Nothing before this had ever made you think that erasing something completely from your brain was the answer. The fact you had the knowledge of how to do it never once crossed your mind as a possibility because...forgetting is bad.

The fugue, the frustration, the emptiness. All the things you hated about the 24-hour protocol were never the better alternative.

Maybe not before, but it would be so easy.

…

“No.”

You have to physically shake the idea out of your head. This isn’t the answer. It shouldn’t have to be this way. No, this is just a simple heartbreak. Even if your feelings get thrown away, they’re just transitory. It’s just a dumb crush that’ll go away with time. It’ll hurt, yes, but it’ll dull and eventually disappear. Doing something as drastic as personally toying with your own mind to erase it isn’t the answer.

“I’ll be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Going on a mission is the best thing that could’ve happened to get your mind out of things. You’re very much yourself while out in the field and kicking ass really helps you get out of that depressive hole you’ve dug up for yourself. Letting loose, however, meant being a liability sometimes. Getting hurt is a given too, something that neither Bucky nor Sam appreciate.

Thankfully, the mission doesn't take very long. Before you know it, you three return to the compound and after a quick shower, you're ready to care for your injuries when Old Grumpa over here took the first aid kit from your hands and gestures towards the kitchen stool.

“Get up there.”

The rough tone means business and you don’t protest as you take a seat and he lifts the back of your shirt to check the bigger injuries you sustained out there. Your shoulders tense a bit at the soothing cool touch of his metal hand against your bruised skin. It’s always been fascinating to you how gentle he can be with it. Even now as he tends to you in silence, the way his fingers gently brush against your tender back careful not to hurt you any further give you a sense of comfort that levels your breathing into a calm rhythm. Picking up your legs and hugging them against your chest, your back slowly curves against his hand as his fingers splay against your reddened skin chasing away the pain.

“You need to stop jumping in like that.”

The deep timbre of his voice threatens to lull you but you blink the sleepiness away and smile, touched by his concern. “One of us had to bait 'em out.”

“That’s what Redwing’s for.”

“I didn’t want him to get smashed to pieces again.”

“Sam can get a new one.”

“I like Redwing though,” you retort, “He brings me snacks when we’re out in the field.”

“No, Sam gets you snacks and has Redwing deliver them. Two different things.”

This time when you quip back, you glance over your shoulder and grin back at Bucky. “Sam’s not the one bringing them, so he’s not the one who’s giving them to me in my eyes.”

“It’s a damn robot,” he counters with the hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“You take that back!” Your words and the way you gasp so dramatically have him laughing from the absolute absurdity that you are.

This is something you miss very much.

Just the two of you sharing some friendly banter—you driving him up the wall and Bucky losing his patience by the second. But even if you do annoy him from time to time, he’s admitted himself that your little bits of quirkiness are very much welcomed. You're pretty much the only thing he’s got left in the world from his past, and even when that past wasn’t at all savory, the fact that you both could get away from it and live as you do now is a good reminder that nothing is impossible. And that even people like you can find and deserve happiness.

“There. All done.”

Thanking him under your breath, you spin on the kitchen stool you’re on and examine his face. He’s bruised too and a particular scratch that stands out from all the others takes your attention. You’ve never been one for personal space, so the fact that you so seamlessly reach out and touch the cut across his cheekbone without even a word doesn’t faze him in the least. Reaching back to the first aid kit that sits on the countertop between you, you take a little drop of the ointment he put on your back and gently apply it with your thumb as your hand rests upon his cheek to steady it.

“Got a bit bruised up yourself there, Sergeant,” you say with an airy chuckle. Going with your gut, you jump off the stool and grab him by his forearms to pull him towards it. “Here, take a seat and I’ll—”

“James?”

He tenses under your touch for a split second before pulling away from your grasp. The action is so sudden that you’re left there slightly stumped as Bucky steps back to walk around and behind you from where that voice came from.

“Sam? You let her in?”

“Yeah, sorry. I saw her in the security feed when she rang the front door.”

Sam’s here too? When did he get there? Though that's beyond you, you don’t want to turn to ask. Not because of him but because of the other voice you heard the first time. You don't want to put a face to that voice.

“I’m sorry for intruding,” the sweet voice says. “You weren’t answering your phone and you said you wanted to talk about something, so I got worried. I’ve been waiting outside since you told me your work finished early. Did I interrupt something?”

“No.” Your shoulders fall and your chest is so tight that you fear it’ll stop your breathing. “No, I was just bhelping my friend take care of some injuries.”

“That’s fine but look at you, James. You should be taking care of yourself first.”

“Yeah, you’re right. C’mon, let’s go. Thanks, Sam. I’ll see you guys later.”

The door clicks open behind you and you cradle your arms against yourself, expecting him to leave without a word. But when he calls back to you, you’re so frozen in place that all you can do by that point is a glance back over your shoulder barely catching a glimpse of those steel-blue eyes that gaze back at you.

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You too, Buck.”

The answer is automatic—monotonous. If he senses something wrong with it, he doesn’t say. Bucky simply leaves, the door clicking shut after them. You hear Sam’s footsteps approach and you know where this is going. The same place it’s always gone.

“If you’re going to say something, this will be the perfect time to keep it to yourself.”

Bluntness is never something you resort to, but you’re way too tired of it all to bother hiding the pain that resurfaced and that wracked you so violently just seconds ago anymore. You’re hurt and you just want that to play its course.

Uninterrupted.

Pity would only make it worse.

Thankfully, Sam appears to understand that. His footsteps stop and he never reaches you.

“I’m tired,” you say softly before walking down the hall and into your room.

Closing the door behind you, you slide down against it and let the tears fall at the pain that you know now will permanently live within you.

It shouldn’t hurt this much. There was never anything between you two more than friendship. This one-sided thing was always simply that, one-sided. A small bit of adoration and infatuation that became something you never dreamed would be this painful to have.

Nor how overwhelming it would be to simply live with it.

I’m tired. Much too true. You’re much too tired of being hurt by things you can’t control. By dumb emotions that you knew you’d be much better without.

Your gaze lifts at the thought and you spot the photo album laid open on your desk from that morning’s exposure. The sight of it beckons you up and to it as you skim through it. Everything you saw today would stay with you for the next 24 hours. There’s nothing that’s going to change that. And as you look through them again, you realize there’s so many of him. So many traces of him in your life that now cause you nothing but pain.

I’m tired...but I don’t have to be.

The fix is easy if you’re strong enough to do it. And at this point, your heartache is motivation enough.

Packing everything that you’ll need, you give Sarah a call as you're walking out of the compound a few minutes later and into the garage to get to your motorcycle. She doesn’t ask much as to the reason for the late call, especially after you give her the simplest explanation that you can think of that’s not completely untrue.

“Alright, that’s fine,” she finally says. “I’ll leave the door open for you.”

“Thanks a lot, Sarah. I’ll see you in a bit.”

You think it’d be easy getting from the compound to her house. Uneventful. Things just had to go and prove you wrong though.

“Isn’t it a little late for a joy ride?”

Bumping into Bucky is definitely the last thing you expected. At this point, however, you’re more than decided as to what you’re going to do, and not even seeing him now will change your mind.

“Just a quick one,” you assure him.

“What’s the backpack for then?”

“Just going around the block to deliver some stuff I forgot to return. Don’t really feel like doing it tomorrow, so I’m just gonna get it over with and do it right now before going to bed.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t, but don’t lie to my face.” You scoff at his words; he always knows. To your surprise, he doesn’t pry any further as he lets out a rather exasperated sigh. “Look, I’m not going to ask. Just be careful out there.”

“Sure thing, gramps.”

The motorcycle revs to life underneath you as you straddle it between your legs and prepare to place the helmet over your head. It’s as you stand there and hear his footsteps head up to the front door though that a thought crosses your mind.

With what you’re going to do...you’re never going to get a chance to do this again. Not with him anyway. And knowing what you’re going to do gives you enough courage to speak up.

“Bucky?”

He stops just short of opening the door as he turns to you as you stand just a few feet away on the driveway. Your heart’s beating a mile a minute but you’re determined to see this through.

For your own sake.

“I love you.”

Bucky stops for a second.

“...what?”

“I love you.”

Your heart doesn’t stop beating like you thought it would. It’s racing like a bat outta hell, yes, but it’s not stopping. It’s beating still, with an unexpected flutter at finally admitting to him what’s been strangling you for so long now.

“I know it doesn’t make sense and it’s not the right time. But I don't think there ever will be. So yeah. I love you, Bucky. As more than just a friend. And even though you don’t feel the same...I just wanted to tell you.”

By the time you hear him running towards you, you’re already cruising along the driveway and shooting off into the street towards Sarah’s. He could easily chase after you and stop you, but you know he won’t.

And frankly, it won’t matter anyway.

“There you are.” Sarah welcomes you into her home this late at night with a long hug before letting you go and pointing out towards the backyard. “Everything you’ll need is out there.”

“Thank you,” you reply with a weary smile.

“You sure you’re okay doing this alone?” she asks.

“Yep,” you say with a pop of your lips. “Don’t worry, I won’t burn down your house. I promise.”

“Not what I’m worried about, sweetheart, but alright. Take your time.”

You thank her as she leaves before making your way towards her backyard where the bonfire pit sits at the far end of a grassy patch. Putting the backpack down, you busy yourself with igniting the small logs in there. Once you have it going, you take a seat on the nearest lawn chair and face the fire pit with your photo album open.

It’d take a while, but you’d surely find all the photos that would ever bring back these wretched feelings. One by one, you pick them out and with a heavy heart toss them into the fire to kindle the flames in the pit and douse the ones within you. Photo by photo, each memory turns to ash, and though it pains you now to see them crumple up into nothing, you know it’s for the best.

All this is for the best.

Hours later, the last of the photos you think can be used to expose you to those feelings again burns in the embers. They’re dying by now, but they’ll be enough to burn the last thing you still have left. Closing the photo album, you put it back into your backpack before taking out the stuffed otter you fished from out of your closet. You hesitate briefly as you hold it in your hands and smile for a moment.

It was a fun date.

Hands shaking, you do what you have to do—what’s best for you—and toss it into the fire. This one, you don’t have the heart to watch burn. Instead, you turn down to your phone and set a timer.

The timer with ‘24:00:00’ shines brightly back at you as the darkness of the night is starting to fade away into the early morning. 5:31 am hits the clock and your head splits with momentary pain that leaves just as quickly as it came. Once it’s over, you start the timer and watch the countdown begin.

Taking your backpack, you head out of the backyard through the outside gate and climb onto your motorcycle.

“Now,” you rev the motorcycle to life as mumble to yourself, “What to do for the next twenty-four hours?”