readscreamrepeat

[readscreamrepeat]

Sometimes I remember how my ex treated me and I realize Bucky would never

[readscreamrepeat]

Treasure Treatment Antique 1/?

(Ongoing)

☆

Pairing: PreTF&TWS Bucky Barnes (after blip, and wakanda.) & Antique Store Owner! Reader. 

☆

Warnings: 18+ , not much in this chapter, but this story will dig deeper into Bucky's trauma and how he heals. Reader also has some trauma that'll be touched on later.

Depression, Anxiety, mentions of violence, eventual body dysmorphia (Bucky), unhealthy coping mechanisms, at some points Bucky will refer to The Winter Soldier as another him. Lots of mental health warnings! Will add more as I go. Please if anything seems wrong let me know, this was not beta read and only based on my knowledge and research.

☆☆☆

Author's Note: As always please comment, reblog, and like if you enjoy Part 1. Wanna be on a taglist let me know in the comments. (I don't know if I'm good enough for a taglist yet. Lol.)

This is unedited, I'll come back and do edits. :)

I'll also add links to songs. 🎶 

☆☆☆

~Therapy was going as well as it could go with an ex-assassin, previously brain-washed client, on the books.~

Bucky stops crushing his ball cap in his hands, as the elevator starts its descent downwards to the lobby. He pushes the hat back on to his head, his long hair leaking out of the sides, as the elevator momentarily stops and chimes at floor 42, indicating that someone else was about to get on. 

So close to riding down alone, he thinks as he tips the bill down to cover his eyes. The black hoodie he has on is baggy enough to help cover his vibranium arm from view, but as the couple gets on he realizes his gloves are lying forgotten on his kitchen table, he tucks his metal hand away into the hoodie pocket. You look questionable as hell. Bucky thinks to himself, but he can't help it, he'd rather melt into the shadows, than have to have small talk.

James, when you leave here you should try one new thing. Christina's words, Bucky's therapist, echo in his head. Talking to strangers on a cramped elevator was not on his list of things to try today. His hidden hand flexes into a fist, a nervous habit, subconscious, and keeps his head down, as their chatter feels the space around him. They do not look at him but he can feel that they are uncomfortable, Bucky would admit he wasn't making the situation any better. A dull pinch of nervousness drops into his stomach, as the elevator comes to a halt at the lobby floor, the couple flees quickly from the cab as if he were nothing but a ghost.

“New thing, huh?”  He mutters to himself, as he steps out of the elevator and into the bright lobby of the building. Well he did want to find a record player and maybe some records. He had never gone…what did they call it now? His mouth pulls into a frown. Antiquing before. 

There was that one store he passed on his way here, he had been eyeballing it for several weeks, he rubs at the slight stumble peppering his jaw. Sighing, he exits the skyscraper and makes his way to Times of Yesterday. It was early December, and Brooklyn was becoming frosty, but today the sun has warmed the streets just enough to make it bearable to walk. Bucky was not looking forward to the snow and ice that threatened to come in the next few weeks. He attempts not to dwell on it as he turns down the sidewalk and heads towards the antique shop.

The outside of the storefront is cute, and cluttered, and he already feels awkwardly out of place without even stepping into the doorway…He was sure Sam or Steve would be laughing if they had seen his hesitation…if Steve was still around. With that thought, He stomps up the stairs with a new determination and pushes the sticky door open with his flesh hand, the bells over the threshold jingling to alert the shop owner someone was here.

“Hello!” The voice was small, old, and sounds a bit far away. He gingerly shuts the door behind him. “Hello.” he keeps his voice soft, and leaves his metal hand in his pocket as he maneuvers around the store. He eyes all the bits, and bottoms in the front entryway, old dolls, toys and relics from a time he assumed he was only briefly part of. Glass, old china plates in cabinets, as he slid deeper into the hallways of the antique store, he noted the smell in the store. It's old, musky, and a bit damp, a time long past. 

Bucky’s body stops before his brain can catch up with what he's looking at, he did not think this through when he thought of antique stores… He could not tear his eyes away from the World War II memorabilia hanging in one of the smaller rooms of stuff, his eyes not straying from the dark green military jacket. Who wore this? Did I know them? It was a fleeting thought, but it was enough to make his eyes go glassy, as his hand reached out to brush the familiar wool fabric.

“Hi! Can I help you with anything?” 

Bucky startles as he jerks his hand back to his side. He turns and slightly tilts his head down, to see a woman standing just off to the side of him. Your mouth was kind looking, with a huge grin, pretty, gleaming white teeth, the corner around your eyes crinkling with lines, laugh lines. Gentleness. 

The smile is enough to almost wipe him off his feet, so genuine, so full and light. “I…no.” He says it with a little bit of a bark to his voice, nervousness now a yawning chasm in his stomach. The smile falls from your lips, but you look at him fully, head cocking to the side, eyes glancing to the room he was just looking into. A small gleam, and then your eyes come back to his face, assessing, tracing along his jaw and cheeks back to his baby blues.

“Okay, just let me know if that changes.” The smile was back on your lips, smaller now, and he felt a tad bit bad, as you backed away to go to the front counter. Your voice was not the voice he had heard earlier, so it had startled him…He only assumed there was one worker present, but clearly he was mistaken. 

He does not turn his attention back to the WWII room, and instead turns away from it to adventure further into the shop. He chants in his head, records, records. Well, Barnes if you had been…normal you could’ve asked. He flexes his metal hand in his pocket, wishing he had not forgotten his gloves today.

He could hear your voice fluttering through the small store, you were speaking to the other worker, he presumed an older woman by the sounds of it. He tries to tune out your small laughs, as he spots exactly what he came from. It's a bit beat up, its brown faux snake skin peeling off the wooden box in some places. Bucky's flesh hand skims over the texture, unlatches the lid, and flips it open. The inside looks good, clean for its age…but who was he to comment on age? 

Spotting the tag, Bucky flips it to see written in a neat cursive Duo-Sonic 1940s Phonograph, $35. WORKS!! Plays 78s. A smile flickers across his face, the cursive writing reminding him of his sister's fancy work from decades past. Bucky pauses only for a moment, glances at the shelves next to the record player, and spots a box with 78s written largely in Sharpie. 

He hesitates for a moment, before deciding to flip through the box with both of his hands. His vibranium fingers running quickly through the old cardboard covers, he pulls only two records to start with, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. He vaguely recalls his mother, enjoying both, but it was like a tickle of a memory in his head. Nothing solid, as it slips away through the cracks.

Bucky slides the records under his arm, closes and latches the lid back to the player, picks it up by the handle, and heads towards the front to check out. He's quiet as he approaches, the chatter has stopped, when Bucky rounds the last corner, he spots you…standing on a stool, putting something on a shelf behind the counter. His eyes slide down your body, you look comfortable, faded jeans, a shirt with the store's name scrawled on the back, his eyes don't linger on your form long, his mouth becomes a bit dry. He goes to alert you…

“Well Hello!” You would have never known Bucky was an ex assassin, with the way he startles at the older woman's greeting. Glancing down, he sees her smiling up at him, her eyes squinting, thick glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, short, thin curly gray hair, her back hunched, a crooked name tag, telling him her name is Gretchen. Bucky clears his throat. “Hi ma'am.” 

He hears you scrambling off the ladder, apologizing that you didn't see him sooner. The older woman wobbles around to the other side of the counter, and Bucky can hear you whisper. “Grandmama, you can't startle the clients.”  

“Oh no, I should have…” you wave him off with a simple swip of your hand, as your grandmother winks, smiles back without a word and goes to her chair in the corner. “Just saying hello to the handsome man.” Bucky's ears turn pink at the compliment from the older woman, his skin feeling a bit tighter, as you look back up at him. The chasm that had been yawning, deep and dark shrunk just a bit.

Your eyes are a bit wide, a blush spreading from your neck, and upwards. “S..sorry about that. Looks like you found some goodies?” You say it a bit high pitched, nervous, as you wave your hand towards what he's holding. Bucky says nothing as he sets the items down, he still wasn't good at small talk, he never needed to… well chat like this before.

“Aww yes, I've been wanting someone to pick this baby up! It's been here for months, and I see you have good taste.” You say peeking at the two vinyl records he's laid on top, your mouth is curved cutely, and Bucky feels like his chest is on fire. “Thanks.” It comes out gruff, dry. You just keep smiling, as you ring him up, and then as if he sees the lightbulb go off over your head, you excuse yourself and flutter around the counter, and towards where the records were. 

When you appear back in sight, you have an additional record in hand, Bucky's wallet is already open, in his vibranium hand as he eyes you. Not suspiciously but curious. 

“Okay, I'm very excited you picked this up, so let me give you one of my favorite records.” You set a record face up, on top of the stack, the band The Ink Spots. Bucky has not listened to them before, but a spark of excitement flutters in his stomach. “Oh…okay.” He wasn't sure how to accept the gift, an act of simple kindness, because you are excited, your smile never stops, as you give him the total sans your record of choice. 

Bucky consciously passes you the cash with his flesh hand, his metal fingers hidden as much as they can by his wallet and jacket sleeve. “Wanna bag?” You ask as you give him the change back, your fingers lingering just a bit. Bucky nods, his eyes trailing back to the items, as you begin to double bag the player and records. “When you listen to The Inks Spots, I recommend the songs Into Each Life, Some Rain Must Fall, and We Three.” 

Bucky just grunts, and nods as he pushes his wallet back in his pocket, and gently takes the bag from your hands. “Come back when you get sick of those records, I have so many other suggestions I'd love to share.” Your excitement was clear, and written across your face so easily. Bucky momentarily thinks about how good it must feel, to feel so free.

“I will, thanks.” He says, as he gives a light smile, and heads towards the exit, before he fully leaves the shop he hears Gretchen say quite loudly. “Now that's one handsome young man, next time he comes back you get his number, dear.” Bucky hears you sigh at her comment, and before the door shuts behind him, an exasperated “Grandmama!” 

Bucky can't help but feel the small smile linger on his lips, the record player heavy in his hands, as he makes his walk back towards his home. 

☆☆☆

Part 2 in the works! :)

[readscreamrepeat]

Grave offerings and burying the dead with tools and goods is actually such a deeply human thing to do. It's not really even necessarily about how much you believe in a literal afterlife or them taking the tools with them. It's also just going Wait, I'm Not Done Taking Care Of You, let me make you one more pair of socks so your feet won't be cold when you go wherever it is where I can't follow.

[readscreamrepeat]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER // THE ART OF CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

[readscreamrepeat]

A whole vibe!! Sign me up. <3

Get Ready With Bucky

[readscreamrepeat]

"just write a little every day" ok but what if i write nothing for 3 weeks and then suddenly type like i’m being hunted by god

[readscreamrepeat]

bucky barnes would absolutely read to you if you asked. like, maybe you’re too tired to read on your own, or your eyes hurt from reading too much, or maybe you just feel like listening to the sound of his voice. so you ask bucky to read aloud to you, and he jumps at the opportunity! “of course I will, doll, c’mere,” he murmurs, pulling you into him, failing to hide how honoured he is that you’ve asked.

he makes you lay down and then gets your head in his lap, holding your book open with one hand while the other plays with your hair absentmindedly. and he reads and reads until his voice gets hoarse, imitating the character’s voices to make you laugh, and pausing for suspense when something interesting is about to happen, to which you beg him to, “hurry up, bucky, you’re killing me.” he just laughs and presses a kiss to your hair before continuing.

he’d keep going forever if you wanted him to, but you drift off to sleep after a while. so he kisses your forehead and bookmarks your page, content to watch you sleep for a bit, mesmerised by the soft rise and fall of your chest <3

[readscreamrepeat]

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

[readscreamrepeat]

Victory Red

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader.

Warning: I don't think this should have any?? Light Sexual Tension, Kisses. FLUFF

~

Author Notes: This turned out longer than I expected. I enjoyed writing it. :)

I did not write the AD to the lipstick, I have its source, and the lipstick that is used linked in the story below.

The necklace that is mentioned: I feel like Bucky would choose something like this because it's a bit reminiscent of his dog tags.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts!

This Gif has nothing to do with the story, but mannnnn look at that smile.

~

Bucky had mumbled it in passing to you one morning, when you had asked him what was on his mind, 

Just wonderin’ what it would’ave been like to come home from the war a winner? Instead…

You filled the silence as he trailed off…

What would you have wanted to come home to, Buck? 

Just a thought, honest, it doesn’t matter, you wouldn’t have been there, darlin’.

Over a few weeks, his just a thought bloomed into a full-blown obsession for you. The idea was like a burning inferno in your mind; no matter how you tried to douse the flames, it only grew hotter. So much so, you found yourself combing through tons of antique shops, hunting for the perfect dress… Then one day, on your walk home, the dress was hanging off a mannequin in one of the many shops you had already browsed through. 

A perfect vintage baby blue dress, reminiscent of Buck's eyes on a clear, warm, cloudless day. The dress was the perfect size for you, it hugged your hips nicely, the skirt flared and landed a bit below the knee, a sweetheart neckline graced your collarbones…you knew it would pair perfectly with the double heart pendant necklace Bucky had gifted you for no other reason than just because I love you, doll. Also, those silver kitten heels had sat in your closet for way too long, untouched. 

~

Tapping the tip of your pen against your lips, as you browse through social media on your phone, your mind was racing; it felt like you were missing something for your outfit, but you just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Then pausing as something catches your eye, then scrolling back…It was an ad of a woman in a dark green army uniform, her eyes raised to the sky. Your eyes glinted with glee as you read the article:

—--

Introducing 1941 Victory Red Classic Color Lipstick: 

From: Bésame Website

BEAUTY AS DUTY

The glamour of gorgeous red lips lifts the spirit. Like all expressions of glamour, a classic red lip elevates the morale of the woman wearing the lipstick, as well as all who see her.  That’s why we are proud to introduce Victory Red to the Bésame collection.

The name references the Allied Victory in World War II. We painstakingly researched our red, based upon our collection of historical samples and lots of study. Our Victory Red is an absolutely faithful color-match to the original 1941 classic shade.

 —--

It was the one touch you needed! You place the order before you can change your mind, and choose to have it delivered to your office, you can unbox and stash it away in your bag before coming home. Bucky would be none the wiser about your plans. It was hard hiding things from a super soldier.You keep the new dress and lipstick tucked away in the very back of your shared closet, in a place you are sure Bucky will not go.

Bucky had informed you with some grunts and a grimace that he was due to an event in DC this coming week, so he wouldn’t be returning till Friday afternoon. It was planned a bit last-minute, but he felt he needed to do what he could to rub elbows with “other interested parties”; he had said it with his hands in the air, doing finger quotes. You had only giggled and said. I will be here when you return. 

You mulled over the idea of saving his surprise for his birthday, but it was just now rolling into October, and March was so far away, and you were terrible at keeping surprises. You also debated about keeping it for when he won his seat in Congress, but there was always a tiny, slim chance that he might not win. It was Wednesday, and he was due home in two days. As you toyed with the pendant necklace around your throat, you were agreeing to the idea before it had fully formed in your mind. You’d do it just because you love him, and why wait? You’d do it the day he arrives home from traveling. 

~

The morning of the day he’s due home, you go out to the grocery store, purchase fresh plums, his favorite box of pancake mix, even though you swore they tasted the same, and a top-shelf bourbon to replace the last bottle he had finished before leaving. Before making it back to the small apartment you both shared, the flowers blooming in the florist shop window stopped you in your tracks. In that window sat blooming victory roses, and a grin took over your face. The roses were white bleeding into pink ends, the smell soft, delicate, and would be just strong enough to not bother Buck's enhanced smelling. You had asked the florist to put them in a crystal vase, and had bought as many as the vase would hold. The walk home left you giddy, the air crisp, cool, and comfortable.

~

Time is ticking closer to Bucky’s homecoming, and your excitement is hard to contain; it's pouring off of you, scenting the air. You were hoping the cool shower would help calm you down, but it had not. You plop down on your vanity chair, after drying your hair, your heated curling iron waiting for you. Your hair curls perfectly, in tight spirals, and you pin a small piece back and out of your eyes. As you set the curling iron down and turn it off, your phone lights up, and a message flashes onto the screen.

Be home in 30, Doll. 

Bucky was not one to text often; typically, he preferred the intimacy of a phone call, but for once, you were grateful he had decided to embrace modern technology, because you were sure if you had spoken with him, he would have been able to hear the giddiness in your voice. You decide not to respond, as you set the phone down, and apply an unscented lotion, a few swipes of deodorant, and then you work on fanning yourself down with your hands, to help everything sink and soften your body. Feeling relatively dry, you slip on simple, cheeky, white lace panties, you wiggle into the blue dress, sans a bra, since it offers enough support for your breasts, and then push your feet into your silver kitten heels. 

You peer at yourself only for a moment in the mirror, as you hook your necklace on, it dangles right above where the sweetheart neckline ends. Opening the vanity drawer, the gold lipstick case sits waiting for you. You had moved it to your vanity once Bucky left, so he would not accidentally stumble upon it. Bucky liked to restock any of your items he saw running low, and your makeup and self-care were ones he found replenishing enjoyable. He had told you it was because he loved seeing you care for yourself in whatever way felt best. Your heart warms as you think of this moment, remembering the way his eyes had crinkled with his smile when you had first caught him in the act of restocking for you. You hope you see that smile tonight.

Uncapping the lipstick, you stare a bit, mesmerized by the bright hue. The red spreads across your lips, smooth, creamy, and you grin. You look good, you feel good, and now all that's left is to set the atmosphere and welcome your soldier home. You peek at the time on your phone, and you have at least 15 minutes, unless traffic is good. Unless Bucky is driving just a tad bit too fast to get home sooner.

Deciding not to risk it, you shuffle to the living room, flip through the records sitting below the player, and your fingers find the one you want to play. You set the record down, but do not place the needle just yet. Vase, and flowers in place, check, bourbon and Bucky’s favorite cup on the coffee table, check. One more glance at the phone, you then shut it down, set it on one of your shelves out of sight, 5 minutes…or could be sooner, so you drop the needle on the record, as a gentle song begins to play, your nervous hands smooth the puffy skirt down. 

You position yourself in line with the door, and wait…

Almost as if you, yourself have super sense, and can hear his dress shoes in the hallway, see the turning of the knob, you smile as he steps into the opening door, softly a feminine voice fills the air, as he calls your name…

Well, what do you know, 

He smiled at me in my dreams last night, 

My dreams are getting better all the time.

“God, Doll” 

His long hair curling at his ears is a mess. He stands half in the door, and half in the apartment, frozen, stunned eyes roaming up and down, his pupils growing larger by the second. To your surprise he's clean shaven, his suit jacket unbuttoned to open to a white under shirt, and to your delight his suit is a deep dark green, instead of his usual black or navy blue. You want to squeal at how well the universe has aligned for this moment,  but you hold it back:

“Welcome Home, Sergeant Barnes.”

The words drop from your lips, and they snap him out of his momentary trance. His hand that had been holding the door shuts it quickly and softly, as he advances towards you, his long strides eating up the entryway. He drops his helmet, his keys, and then his duffel bag from his vibranium hand, before you can even comprehend how fast he’s moving, he has his large hands on your waist, and he’s lifting you from the floor, twirling you around, the grin on his face looks young, boyish, and for a second, you see his hair short, his eyes light, his body clad in his army dress unform, and as soon as the image appears its flees, and you see him as he is, warm blues, long hair, and a smile that could certainly power the whole city. 

“All this for me?” Bucky’s voice is damp, warm, as he lowers you down out of the spin and pulls your body flush with his; he has not lowered you far enough to touch the ground, your feet dangling above the hardwood. “Of course, Sergeant Barnes,  I've been waiting for you to come home to me.” With your hands resting on his shoulders, to give you a bit of leverage, you feel the shiver rush through him at the usage of his title. Happiness is radiating off of him, his ears burning red, as he fully slides you down his body, back to the ground, relinquishing a bit of his hold. He glides his metal hand up to the back of your head and tilts your face to look up at him. 

“I would've driven faster if I knew you were waiting like this.”

Before your lips can break into a full smile, he captures your mouth in his, pressing his fingers into your hip, pulling you right against his chest. Bucky dips your body back a bit with his, as he licks at your lower lip, and once his tongue comes into contact with the lipstick he realizes:

This is what victory tastes like.

His Victory.

[readscreamrepeat]

What Stays | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: After disappearing for days, you didn’t expect Bucky Barnes to show up at your door again, let alone help you through the spiral without judgment.

MCU Timeline Placement: Thunderbolts*

Master List: Find my other stuff here!

Warnings: depression, mental health episode, executive dysfunction, implied anxiety/panic disorder, emotional burnout, medication use, therapy mention, hurt/comfort, slight Thunderbolts team chaos™

Word Count: 7k

Author’s Note: okay so this request kinda of cracked my ribcage open while writing it?? heads up that this one’s heavy with pretty serious mental health themes, lots of emotion, lots of bucky being the softest man alive. resources are linked in the original request if you need them! take care of yourself, eat something, hug a friend!! ily <3

You’d worked with him for seventeen months and never once called him by his first name.

Everyone else did. Sam. Ava. Yelena. Bob, even. Walker used “Buck” just to be annoying. But not you.

Barnes. That’s what you called him. Even when you passed him in the hall with two coffees in your hands and one already marked with the way he liked it—no sugar, extra cream, too much caffeine. Even when the two of you sat next to each other during back-to-back strategy debriefs, thigh to thigh in cheap chairs, sharing dry looks over whatever mess came out of the last mission. Even when he called you at 2:13 AM because someone had leaked classified footage to the press and he didn’t trust anyone else to vet the source.

Barnes.

You’d started out as part of his congressional staff, communications support, admin overflow, a title that changed depending on the room. Mostly, you were there to help keep the mask on: to draft statements, coordinate press engagements, manage the uncomfortable dance between his past and the way the world wanted him to look clean now. That job lasted nine months, right up until the incident cracked open the country's expectations of him all over again.

Then came the “repositioning.” That was what Valentina had called it. You didn’t have a formal title anymore, but suddenly you were part of the New Avengers backend. Half logistics, half intelligence, and somehow still the person who made sure the med kits were stocked and the media team didn’t publish anything with blood on it.

There’d been something there. You knew it. So did he. The way he lingered near your desk longer than necessary. The way he made a point of walking you out to the curb after late meetings even when it wasn’t on his route. Once, he'd handed you a pack of ginger chews after watching you twist your fingers into your sleeves during a mission recap. He said nothing, just slid it across the table.

He asked once, quietly, if you wanted to get dinner. Not with the others. Just the two of you.

You said no. Not because you didn’t want to. But because you knew better.

Because some nights you slept twelve hours and still couldn’t function. Because other nights you didn’t sleep at all and took four showers just to remember you had skin. Because you’d disappear sometimes. Spotty, your therapist had once called it, like a corrupted file. 

You’d go off-grid and ignore everything: work, friends, basic hygiene, your own body. It wwasn’t really up to you when or why it happened. You’d learned to warn people. Learned to preemptively distance yourself from anyone who might get the idea you could be counted on.

But Bucky wasn’t like other people.

He noticed.

The first time you missed a full three days of work without a word, he showed up outside your apartment. You hadn’t told him where you lived. He didn’t say how he figured it out. Just stood there, hands in the pockets of his coat, jaw tight like he’d been grinding it for days. He looked like hell. You probably did too.

You told him it was a bad patch. He didn’t press. Didn’t ask what that meant. Just left a brown paper bag of groceries on your counter and sat in your kitchen until you ate something.

He came again the second time. And the third.

At some point—maybe because you were exhausted, maybe because part of you trusted him more than you should’ve—you handed him a key.

He never used it recklessly. Never showed up unless he hadn’t heard from you in a while. And after that last time, after the fight, after you told him you were fine, after you made it clear you didn’t want him hovering anymore, you figured that was the end of it.

That had been three months ago.

You hadn’t missed a meeting in those months. Not one. You’d been on every call, answered every late-night ping from Val, tracked every comms burst and manifest drop without flinching. You even ran point on over a dozen ops briefings. 

But then last week, you woke up late one morning and couldn’t remember what day it was. The file you were supposed to submit stayed open on your screen for hours. You stared at it until the text blurred. By the time you looked up, the meeting was already over. You didn’t message anyone. Didn’t reschedule. By Tuesday, you were out of three group threads and at least one rotation queue. By Thursday, the fridge had started to smell like something inside it had gone soft.

You hadn’t expected him to come. Not anymore. Not after last time.

But there was a knock on your door. Three. Sharp. Deliberate.

Your heart didn’t jump. Really, it didn’t move at all.

You rolled onto your back on the living room floor and stared at the ceiling.

There were three more knocks. Then silence.

And then keys.

Metal sliding into the lock with a sound that dragged like metal against wet pavement. The door didn’t swing open all the way. Just enough for the edge of it to catch on the clutter behind it. Shoes, mail, your bag you didn’t remember knocking over.

Boots stepped in first. You knew the sound. Heavy, quiet. Bucky always walked like the ground might give out beneath him.

He didn’t speak.

The door closed softly behind him.

You stayed on the floor, one arm folded beneath your head, the other bent awkwardly against your stomach. Your shirt had ridden up. You hadn’t shaved your legs. You weren’t wearing a bra. You hadn’t eaten anything but crackers and one expired granola bar in at least a day and a half, and you couldn’t remember if you’d showered since the weekend.

You weren’t crying. You weren’t even thinking.

Bucky stepped around the clutter. Didn’t kick it. Didn’t sigh.

You waited for him to say something. Ask what the hell happened. Ask what you were doing. Ask why the place smelled like rot. Maybe launch into the same lecture from last time, about letting people in, about not shutting him out.

Instead, he crouched down beside you, knees cracking, forearms on his thighs.

He looked like shit too. Hoodie too worn. Hair tied back. Stubble half grown in. One knuckle on his right hand split like he'd only just gotten back from a mission.

You didn’t move. You didn’t even really look at him. You stared at the part of the wall where the paint was starting to chip. The quiet buzz of the old fan pressed into your ears like cotton.

“You left your back door unlocked.”

His voice was low. Not soft. Just low, like anything louder might shatter the glass inside your skull.

You didn’t answer. Just breathed. In. Out.

“I knocked,” he said. “You didn’t come. I figured you wouldn’t, so…I used the copy you gave me.”

The ceiling needed repainting. There was a water stain above the kitchen. You weren’t sure how long it had been there. Probably months.

“I can do the trash,” he said after a moment.

It wasn’t a question. He glanced toward the kitchen. The bags were overfilled, sagging, reeking. The kind of smell that coated the back of your tongue. You hadn’t noticed when it started. You just stopped noticing.

He didn’t get up yet. Just sat there beside you, close enough to feel the shift in the air every time he exhaled.

“I brought food too. Left it in the car. Wasn’t sure if you’d…want me coming in. Or, staying.”

You blinked.

The corner of his mouth twitched, but not in amusement. It looked more like guilt. Maybe something else.

“I’ll go get it in a second. Figured you’d at least eat if it came from somewhere you recognized.” Another pause. Then quieter: “It’s from that Lebanese place. The one near the old campaign office. You liked the lentil soup.”

You didn’t remember telling him that.

Didn’t remember a lot of things lately.

The ceiling blurred for a second, not from tears but from the way your vision kept lagging behind your body. Like your eyes were underwater and the rest of you was somewhere else entirely. You heard your voice before you felt yourself decide to speak.

“…you shouldn’t have come.”

He looked over at you, not surprised. His hands stayed loose between his knees.

“You said that last time.”

“I meant it.”

“No, you didn’t.”

You shut your eyes. The fan buzzed louder in your ears.

The next sound was the shift of his weight as he stood.

You didn’t open your eyes. Didn’t ask what he was doing. You didn’t have to.

You heard the creak of the floorboard near the hallway. Heard the door to the bathroom open. The pause. Then the cabinet.

You knew exactly what he was looking for.

There was a sharp sound. Plastic bottles clacking against each other.

You should’ve put them somewhere else. Or hidden them entirely. Or thrown them out when you stopped remembering to take them. But you hadn’t. They were still under the sink, shoved behind old conditioner and a heating pad you hadn’t used in a year.

You’d run out of your dailies last week. Well, you knew you’d run out. Whether or not that counted as forgetting was hard to say. Some part of your brain registered the empty orange bottle and did nothing about it. No refill. No call. No list.

The PRNs were still there. The backup plan. The panic-day meds. The kind you only took when you were still functional enough to decide to take them.

Which meant you hadn’t touched them either.

You opened your eyes when he came back.

He didn’t say anything. Just held out a half-full glass of water in one hand, two small pills in the other—white, round, scored.

You didn’t reach for them.

He didn’t force it. Just crouched and placed them gently on the coffee table beside you. The water next to them. Sat with them for a second like he wanted to make sure they wouldn’t slide off or disappear.

You stared at the pills.

“You need to eat first,” he said, voice neutral. Matter-of-fact.

You didn’t argue.

He stood again, slower this time. Knees popping like they always did when he shifted his weight too fast. You heard him exhale through his nose as he moved toward the door.

“I’m going to grab the food.”

The keys jingled in his pocket. His boots creaked near the threshold.

“I’ll be right back.”

Then the door opened. Closed again.

You were alone.

Just you, the pills, the water, the buzz of the fan, and the sharp sourness of your body—your mouth dry, your stomach folded in on itself, your skin too hot in some places and ice cold in others. The carpet beneath you had an indent from where you'd been lying, and you weren’t sure how long you’d been there before he arrived. Maybe hours. Maybe a full day. The light through the blinds didn’t tell you anything you could trust.

You shifted slightly onto your side, your eyes drifted to the water glass. Your throat pulsed.

You couldn’t even remember what the pills were actually called, just the shape of them. Just that it was for slowing things down. For helping you land when the rest of you was floating above your body, watching the hours tick by without meaning.

The door opened again less than a minute later.

You heard it, just barely, over the dull pulse in your ears. Bucky’s steps were heavier coming in. The sound of plastic bags brushing together. A takeout container thumped gently against the counter.

He didn’t speak right away as he walked back into the living room. You heard the rustle of the bag being opened. Styrofoam lids popped gently.

“It’s still warm,” he said. “Not hot, but warm.”

Bucky crouched beside you again, the way he had before. He must’ve hated that couch-to-floor ratio. Always did.

“I got the lentil soup. Pita. Rice. Hummus. And that garlicky thing you said gave you heartburn but you like anyway.”

Your lips twitched, maybe. You weren’t sure.

You didn’t look at him, but you could hear him settle onto the floor beside you again. Could hear the quiet thud of a takeout container being set on the table next to the pills.

He didn’t ask if you were hungry.

He didn’t start making plans or telling you what to do or outlining some false timeline where all of this got better by Tuesday.

He just sat there with you.

You could feel his presence—solid, steady, not reaching but not moving away either. One knee drawn up, arms folded loosely across it. The smell of warm food bleeding into the stale air. Garlicky, savory. Familiar in a way nothing else felt lately.

Your stomach cramped. You couldn’t tell if it was hunger or nausea. Maybe both.

You stared at the table.

A long breath. Then another.

He reached forward, opened the lid to the soup. Set it near the edge of the table with one of the folded paper napkins tucked under it like it might somehow make it more appealing. Then he unwrapped a piece of pita. Ripped it in half. Not aggressively, just slow, casual. Like this wasn’t the first time he’d done it.

“You used to say this was your version of a cure-all,” he murmured. “Said it did more for you than doctors ever did.”

Your lips twitched again. That time you felt it.

You didn’t say anything. But your eyes flicked toward him. Just barely.

“You don’t have to eat much,” he said, still calm. Still that low, steady tone like a grounding wire. “Just enough so the meds don’t hit you wrong. So your stomach doesn’t get mad.”

You stared at the wall.

He waited.

Then, gently:

“Can you sit up for me?”

You didn’t move.

Not because you didn’t want to, but because the ask felt heavier than your limbs could handle. It should’ve been easy. Just move. Just sit up. Just eat. Just be normal for five minutes. But your body still felt like it didn’t belong to you. Like your limbs were props, weighted and uncooperative. Like everything was happening on a delay.

Bucky must’ve seen that. Must’ve read it in your silence, in the stillness that wasn’t defiant, just frozen.

“Here, I’ll help.”

You swallowed. Your throat clicked.

He moved carefully, slow enough that you could track every motion. One hand braced behind your shoulders. The other hovered near your arm.

“I’m gonna lift you, okay? Just a little.”

You didn’t nod. But you didn’t stop him.

His hand found your spine—warm, steady—and he guided you up. Not fast. He gave you time. Gave your muscles time to catch up with the request. You felt your ribs creak under the shift. Your breath hitched. The back of your neck went damp with effort.

But you sat up.

Mostly.

Your back met the base of the couch. You sagged there, barely upright, head lolling forward a little too far.

But it counted.

Bucky knelt in front of you, crouched low with one hand still hovering by your shoulder like he wasn’t sure if you’d fall.

“There. You did good,” he said.

You didn’t believe him. But the way he said it, quiet and even and without hesitation, made something sting behind your eyes.

He reached for the soup. The smell hit harder now. Steam curled upward, curling around the stale air between you.

“Try a few bites,” he said. “Just a couple."

You stared at the container in his hands. Your stomach felt tight. Not in the way that meant full. The way that meant afraid.

He didn’t move to feed you. Didn’t push it into your hands. He just stayed there, holding it out gently, like he was offering a peace treaty.

“I’ll eat too, if that helps,” he said after a moment. “We can do it together.”

That made you look at him. Barely. Just a flick of your eyes.

He didn’t look away.

“Please,” he said, softer now.

It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t even a request, not really. It was just him asking because he cared. Because he didn’t know what else to do with how fucking worried he was.

Your hand moved. Shaky, slow, reluctant. But it moved.

He passed you the container and the plastic spoon tucked beside it. You took it like it might burn you. Your hand trembled as you dipped it in.

The first bite tasted like nothing.

The second bite tasted like garlic and lemon and salt and memory.

By the third, your hands had steadied.

You didn’t realize he’d sat beside you again until his arm brushed yours.

You ate more than you meant to.

Just small spoonfuls, slow, careful, your jaw working like it was out of practice. The broth hit your stomach and sat there like a stone, but you didn’t stop. It was routine. Mechanical. Like your body knew it was supposed to keep going, even if your brain was a step behind.

Beside you, Bucky opened a container of his own. You didn’t know what he’d ordered. Something heavier—maybe lamb, maybe rice. You clocked the faint clatter of him unwrapping plastic cutlery. He took a bite. Another. Ate like someone who’d forgotten what hunger felt like until it came roaring back. You didn’t look directly at him, but you felt the way he angled his body toward you, shoulder relaxed, presence solid and quiet beside yours.

After a while, you noticed the pills again.

Still sitting on the coffee table. Still untouched. Still waiting.

You set the soup down, reaching for them slowly, like they might flinch. Picked them up with one hand. The weight of them was stupid. Inconsequential. But you stared at them anyway. Thought about how long it had been since you last took anything. Thought about how many days had passed where you meant to and just… didn’t.

You drank half the water before you took them.

The pills went down easier than you expected. No gag. No second-guessing. Just a swallow and an ache behind your eyes when you finished the glass.

They wouldn’t kick in right away. You knew that. It would take twenty to thirty minutes, sometimes longer. It depended on your metabolism. Whether you’d eaten. Whether your body still remembered how to process things.

Even before they started to work, there was a strange pressure behind your sternum. Not from the meds. From the realization that he’d watched you do it. That he’d waited. That he knew the order of things. Get you up. Food first. Then meds. Then maybe, just maybe, you’d get back to the surface.

He was still next to you. Still close enough that you could feel the heat off his leg.

You wanted to be mad. That was what you told yourself. You should be mad. Should’ve told him to leave. Should’ve snapped, I didn’t ask you to come back.

Like you did the last time.

But your chest still felt too hollow to carry anger. There wasn’t room.

So instead, you said, barely audible:

“…I’m sorry.”

It came out quieter than you meant it to. Small. Raw around the edges. Not because you were ashamed, though maybe that too, but because saying it required more from you than anything had all day.

You didn’t even know what you were apologizing for.

For not calling. For ignoring him. For avoiding him these past few months. For getting like this again. For not being someone who could keep it together. For letting him see it. For letting him back in at all.

Bucky’s fork paused in mid-air.

You couldn’t bring yourself to look at him, but you heard the breath he took. The way it left his chest in a slow, careful push.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t apologize.”

Your lips parted, but nothing came out.

Your eyes burned again. Not with tears. Just that awful heat, dry and raw and too close to shame.

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” you said again. It was barely above a whisper. “It’s not even the worst it’s been. But I know… I know if you kept seeing it at all, it’d stick.”

He looked at you, eyes soft, unreadable. “Too late.”

That knocked something loose in your chest. You breathed, but it hurt.

“I don’t want you to think less of me.”

“I don’t.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to meet his gaze.

He didn’t blink.

“I mean it,” he said. “You think this changes anything?”

You almost said, doesn’t it? But the words got caught.

You didn’t say anything else. Just kept breathing. Just kept being upright, if not entirely present. The soup settled in your gut like an anchor. The meds sat like a question mark at the base of your throat. The only thing keeping you tethered was the quiet rhythm of Bucky next to you, the way his body shifted just enough to remind you he hadn’t left.

His fork scraped softly against the takeout container again. He took another bite, slower this time, like he was waiting for something to surface between you. When it didn’t, he exhaled through his nose, wiped his mouth with the corner of a napkin, and leaned his head back against the couch behind you. Not all the way, just enough to let the muscles in his neck settle.

“You know, I had to drag Walker off a roof the other day,” he said finally. “He got this brilliant idea that if he jumped from a transport helicopter onto a moving armored truck, he could take out the engine from the top.”

You blinked. Slowly. Your neck turned half an inch in his direction.

Bucky didn’t look at you. Just kept talking, voice low and even.

“He forgot to account for wind resistance. Dumbass nearly broke his leg and knocked out his own comms. We had to haul him out like a dead deer. Alexei still won’t let him live it down.”

Your lips moved without meaning to. Not a smile. Not really. But something softened at the edges of your mouth. The image came in crooked and out of place. Walker—posturing, explosive, stupid in the specific way men like him always were—being carried by two other super soldiers like a sack of rice.

Bucky’s eyes flicked toward you, just once. Then back to the floor.

“You would’ve laughed,” he said. “I mean, like you always did. Whenever things got… fucked. You always had that kind of mean little laugh when something exploded at the wrong time. You were the only person I knew who could sound impressed and horrified at the same time.”

You didn’t know what to do with that.

There was a sharp pang in your chest. Familiar. Not panic. Not guilt. Just that sudden clarity that you were someone who laughed.

He wasn’t pushing. He wasn’t doing that thing people did where they reminded you of better versions of yourself like a weapon, like a guilt trip. He was just remembering you. Naming the parts of you you hadn’t seen in weeks, maybe longer.

You pressed your back harder against the couch. It hurt. But you stayed there.

He went on, almost like he couldn’t help it.

“Yelena’s still trying to train Bob in hand-to-hand. She keeps calling him ‘soft boy.’” Bucky gave a dry huff that might’ve been a laugh. “He doesn’t argue. Just takes it. But he’s good. Smarter than he lets on. I think Val’s trying to groom him into a press darling or something. Says he’s still ‘marketable.’”

You didn’t respond. But your eyes had moved back to him now. Fully. You watched his jaw flex. Watched the way his thumb dragged along the seam of his takeout container, like he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“I don’t know why I’m still on this team,” he admitted, quieter. “I’m too old. Too tired. Everyone else is either a quarter my age or psychotic.”

The corner of your mouth moved again. It wasn’t much. But it was real.

He glanced at you.

“And yet,” he said, “I keep showing up.”

You looked down at your hands. They were resting in your lap now, fingertips pressed together. Not shaking. Not clenched. Just there.

“You’re not tired of this?” you murmured. “Of… me?”

He frowned. Not sharply. Just enough to show he didn’t like the question.

“I’m tired of this,” he said. “Watching you suffer. Watching you pull away. But I’m not tired of you. Never.”

You stared at him, throat thick.

“I can’t always come back,” you said. “Sometimes it takes me days. Sometimes longer. I don’t always know what’s happening until it’s over.”

“I know.”

“I don’t mean to push you out.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to be this person.”

“I know.”

You flinched at the sound of it. But he didn’t look angry. Just sure.

“I know who you are,” he said again. “Even when you don’t. I’ve seen you when you’re sharp. I’ve seen you when you’re cold. I’ve seen you when you’re bleeding. And I’m still here.”

Your eyes burned.

“I don’t want you to fix it,” you whispered. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not.”

His voice didn’t waver. His face didn’t crack. He just said it like a truth he’d never stop repeating.

You looked away. Didn’t say anything for a while. The silence wasn’t heavy, just full. Your eyes stayed locked on a spot near the corner of the coffee table, watching the grain of the wood blur and sharpen and blur again. Your chest was tight. Not in the way it got before a panic spiral, this was something slower, heavier. Like your ribs were holding in everything you couldn’t let out.

Then, without thinking, you took a breath.

A real one.

Not shallow. Not half-measured. One of those slow, full, chest-expanding inhales that felt like it reached all the way down to your gut. It hurt, a little. Like stretching after being curled too long. But it grounded you. The room came back clearer. The corners of it. The faint whir of the fridge. The way Bucky’s knee bounced just once and then stilled again.

You looked back to him. Really looked.

There was something in his face you hadn’t let yourself name. Something low and warm and so fucking real it made your chest ache. And you knew he felt more than he ever said. He wasn’t subtle, not really. He never had been. He just kept his hands off because he respected the line. Because he’d never cross it if you didn’t invite him.

But, his hand had drifted closer to yours. Not touching. Just… nearby. Like he was leaving the door open in case you needed something to grab.

You didn’t take it. But you didn’t move away either.

Your voice came out steadier this time.

“You ever think about walking away?”

He blinked. “From what?”

“From all of it. The team. The noise. Everything Val keeps trying to turn you into.”

Bucky’s jaw flexed slightly. Then he shook his head once, slow.

“Every day,” he said. “But then someone does something stupid and I remember why I’m still useful.”

You almost laughed. Almost.

He tilted his head toward you, just a little. You could feel the heat of his body next to yours again. The way he anchored so easily without meaning to.

“You don’t have to come back for everyone,” you said.

He nodded. “I don’t.”

That sat between you for a second.

“ But I'll keep coming back here,” he added.

You went still.

He didn’t say it like a confession. Just a fact. He wasn’t asking for anything. He wasn’t waiting.

You shifted, just slightly. Your shoulder touched his for a second before you pulled back.

The warmth stayed.

“I’m not going to be fun to be around for a while,” you said. “You know that, right?”

“You think I’m fun to be around?”

You snorted. Quiet. Barely there. But it was real.

His mouth twitched. That almost-smile. The one you remembered from car rides back from missions when the radio was just static and his boots were scuffed and his voice was low with exhaustion but full of something steady. Something solid.

After a few seconds, he cleared his throat. You turned your head slightly, just enough to catch the faint pinch of hesitation at the corner of his mouth.

“I think the team’s doing a movie night tomorrow,” he said. “Yelena’s picking the lineup, so probably something ridiculous. Walker’s gonna pretend to hate it and Ava’s gonna make popcorn no one eats. I think Alexei invited someone’s dog.”

You blinked.

“I mean—no pressure,” he added quickly. “Just… if you wanted to come. No mission talk. No gear checks. Just noise. And maybe food that doesn’t come in a plastic box.”

You didn’t answer right away.

But the idea of sitting on that shitty couch in the tower’s rec room—Walker complaining, Yelena loudly shoving her feet into Ava’s lap, Bob quietly slipping you your favorite candy without anyone noticing—it didn’t sound as far away as it usually did. It didn’t sound impossible.

“You can say no,” Bucky said again. “Or nothing. Either one’s okay.”

You didn’t say anything right away. Just let the offer hang in the air a little longer than necessary, like if you breathed wrong it might collapse. But it didn’t. It stayed. And Bucky didn’t rush you to fill the silence, didn’t jump to explain it again or soften it further. He just watched you with that same patience you remembered from briefing rooms and after-hours check-ins and late flights home when you could barely keep your eyes open but knew he was still watching your six.

Eventually, your fingers curled slightly against your leg. Not a big movement. Just something to remind yourself you were still here.

“That sounds nice,” you said finally. Quiet, but without hesitation.

It wasn’t much. But it felt like enough.

He nodded once, slow. “I can come get you. If you want.”

You swallowed. The offer shouldn’t have hit as hard as it did, but it did. The idea of trying to get up on your own tomorrow—trying to find the energy to dress, to move through public spaces, to exist around other people—felt impossible. But if he came for you… if he waited on your porch with that silent steadiness of his, like he always did when he knew you were struggling… maybe it wouldn’t be.

You blinked once, twice, and then it all started to catch up with you. Not as a flood, just as a shift. Like someone turned the volume back on inside your own head. The tension. The exhaustion. The self-loathing that had calcified over the last week. The part of you that hadn’t moved from the floor for hours because it felt easier to disappear than admit something was wrong.

The pressure behind your eyes grew sharper.

You took another breath. Not as clean as the first. It caught halfway in your throat, then pushed through.

Your face felt hot.

Bucky must’ve noticed the shift, but he didn’t call it out. He didn’t panic. He just shifted closer again, his knee brushing yours, then staying there like an anchor.

“I can come early,” he said, voice low. “Walk you over. If you change your mind, I’ll make something up. Say you got called into a last-minute intel brief. No one’ll question it.”

You let out a sound that might’ve been a laugh. Or a sob. It cracked, either way.

Your shoulders tightened. Your hands twitched like they wanted to curl into fists, like your body was gearing up to brace against something, but there was nothing to fight except the emotion creeping up under your skin like static.

You blinked hard. Your vision went shiny. You didn’t want to cry. Not like this. Not now.

But it was happening anyway.

One tear. Then another.

Not fast. Just steady. Like your body had finally decided it was safe enough to let go of something it wasn't allowing you to feel for so long.

You heard a small sound in your throat. Didn’t recognize it as yours at first.

“Hey,” he said, soft. “You’re okay.”

That phrase used to piss you off when people said it. It always felt performative. Too clean. Too quick to mean anything.

But from him, it wasn’t a fix. It was a touchpoint. A marker in the ground so you didn’t lose where you were.

Then there was movement.

Not loud. Not rushed.

Just the soft shift of fabric and the subtle dip of weight beside you as Bucky leaned in.

You felt his hand at your back first. A slow, gentle pressure—his palm between your shoulder blades, warm and steady like the weight of a coat. Not pushing. Just there.

You exhaled, shaky and long.

“I’m right here,” he murmured. “You’re okay.”

You weren’t sure if you nodded. But you leaned into the contact without meaning to. Just a little. Just enough that he didn’t have to hesitate before moving closer.

He wrapped an arm around you, slow and careful, giving you time to pull away if you wanted. You didn’t.

Your cheek hit his chest, and the fabric of his hoodie smelled faintly like clean laundry and city air and the kind of sweat that only came from being worn all day by someone who never stopped moving.

His hand moved gently over your arm once. Just a pass of his fingers. Then it settled, resting lightly, holding, not gripping. 

“You’re okay,” he said again. Quieter this time. “It’s okay.”

You didn’t mean to lean in further, but your body moved without asking. Your hands, which had been useless in your lap for hours, lifted just barely. Your fingers brushed the edge of his hoodie like you weren’t sure where to put them. You didn’t grab him. You didn’t cling. But you held on, lightly, like you might fall through the floor if you didn’t touch something real.

He shifted again.

You felt it first in the curve of his arm, the way it tightened around your shoulders, then in the slight pull at your waist.

“Is this okay?” he asked, voice low, close.

You didn’t answer with words.

Your weight shifted, almost imperceptibly. Your arm moved to rest more fully against his side. You let your body relax into his like your own skin wasn’t something you had to manage alone anymore.

That was enough for him.

You felt the movement in stages—his hands steadying you, adjusting so slowly it barely registered until your legs stretched across the floor and his body pulled back just enough to brace you both. He moved you into his lap. Not fully cradled, not like something fragile, but supported. His arm wrapped around your back again, his other hand bracing at your knee.

It was stupid how safe it felt.

You hated that word. Safe. It didn’t mean anything most of the time. People threw it around like it came cheap. But this wasn’t soft lighting and false promises. This was a man who had seen the worst of you, all of it, and was still holding you like nothing about you made him flinch.

You didn’t know how long you sat there like that. Minutes. Maybe more. Long enough for your breathing to steady again. Long enough for the trembling to pull back into something manageable. Your body had stopped trying to run from itself, and now it was just there—folded in his arms, stretched out enough that your muscles were no longer locked in place, your heartbeat no longer pounding in your ears.

Your head stayed tucked against his collar. You could feel the soft scratch of the stitching where the seam of his hoodie had started to unravel. You focused on that. On the way his thumb moved in slow circles near your elbow. On the quiet, rhythmic sound of his breath above you.

You didn’t know why you said it. Maybe because it was true. Maybe because it was the only thing left that made sense.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

You felt him freeze, just for a second.

The smallest pause in his hand. A shift in the way his chest moved beneath you. Not tense. Just surprised.

You’d never called him that before.

Not once.

Not in seventeen months of working beside him, not in post-mission reports, not in morning coffee runs, not in late-night briefings or casual texts or quiet jokes in rented armored SUVs. You never crossed that line. Not out of coldness. Not out of fear. Just because Barnes had always felt safer. More neutral. More like armor for both of you.

But this moment had nothing neutral in it.

His arm tightened around you. Just a gentle pull, like he needed to make sure you were real. That this was happening. That you’d said his name like it meant something personal. Like it belonged to you.

His breath moved against your hair.

“Anytime,” he said, voice low. Serious in a way that made your chest throb. “You don’t even have to ask.”

And then, without rushing, without making it a big thing, he leaned in.

You felt the softest brush of his lips at the top of your forehead. Just one. No follow-up. No hesitation. Just a quiet kiss pressed into your skin like a promise he didn’t have to speak aloud.

Your eyes fluttered shut. Your body stayed still.

And for the first time in a week, you didn’t feel like a burden. You didn’t feel like a ghost. You just felt… held.

The rec room lights were too bright when you first walked in.

You blinked at the overhead fluorescents, already buzzing with that soft static hum that made the air feel warmer than it should’ve. Someone had cracked open a few windows, probably Bob, and the spring chill from outside drifted in just enough to cut the scent of microwave popcorn, lime seltzer, and three different kinds of pasta.

You were the last one to arrive.

Bucky had kept his promise—he showed up at your apartment thirty minutes early, said nothing when he saw you still half-dressed and staring at the same two shirts like the choice might split the earth. He didn’t comment on the dark circles under your eyes or the way your shoulders kept inching toward your ears. He just leaned in the doorway, sipping from the coffee he’d brought you, and waited.

Now, you stood in the doorway of the communal rec room, your fingers twitching against the hem of your sleeve.

Yelena looked up from where she was aggressively rearranging throw pillows and raised a single brow. “Well, well,” she said. “The ghost lives.”

You almost turned around right then.

But Bucky’s hand brushed the small of your back. Just once, just long enough for you to register the quiet pressure of it. It grounded you.

“Don’t give her shit,” he said to Yelena, voice easy.

Yelena didn’t flinch. She was used to Bucky’s moods by now. “I would never,” she said innocently, before throwing a pillow with surgical precision at Walker’s head. “You brought her. You deal with the consequences.”

Walker grunted without looking up from the beer in his hand. “Better her than Alexei. He tried to make us watch The Exorcist dubbed in Russian last week.”

Alexei, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a plate of ribs in one hand and a Capri Sun in the other, looked entirely unbothered. “It is a cultural experience.”

Ava, curled up in one of the beanbags, didn’t even glance up from her phone. “You fell asleep halfway through it.”

Alexei shrugged. “I trust my instincts.”

Bucky guided you to the couch with a quiet ease, like he’d been doing it for years. He didn’t lead you by the hand or hover, just existed beside you in a way that made your body stop bracing.

You sat down in the middle of the couch, spine too straight. He sat next to you, close but not pressed in. You didn’t lean into him. Not yet. But your knees touched.

It was enough.

Bob handed you a plastic cup full of something vaguely orange. “Hi,” he said with his usual too-soft voice. “Glad you made it.”

You gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

The movie started ten minutes later, some ridiculous vampire flick Yelena had apparently picked for research purposes. You didn’t ask what that meant. Walker made a show of groaning at every line of dialogue. Alexei laughed in the wrong places. Ava looked like she was cataloguing the stunts for later study.

You didn’t realize how long you’d been quiet until Yelena tossed a piece of popcorn at your shoulder and leaned over with a grin.

“Bucky’s been weird all day,” she murmured. “You showing up has nothing to do with that, I’m sure.”

You shot her a look.

She smiled like she knew exactly what she was doing and turned back to the screen.

Bucky didn’t say anything, but he shifted next to you, just slightly, and you could feel him watching you from the corner of his eye.

You weren’t touching, but his hand was resting on the couch between you. Close. Not casual. His pinky brushed yours once when you both reached for the same handful of candy, and neither of you pulled back.

It was stupid. Small. But it felt like enough.

Halfway through the movie, Walker made a comment loud enough to earn groans from the whole room. You rolled your eyes, and without thinking, leaned your head back against the couch. You didn’t realize it had tilted closer to Bucky’s shoulder until your hair brushed his hoodie.

You stiffened. Started to pull away.

But then he leaned the slightest bit toward you. Just enough to keep the distance closed. Just enough to let you stay.

You didn’t move again.

No one said anything. No one stared.

Except Yelena.

You saw it in your peripheral—her narrowed eyes, the smallest twitch of her mouth like she was biting back a smile. She didn’t say a word. Just raised a single brow at you when Bucky reached forward and silently placed your favorite candy in your lap without saying a word.

You mouthed shut up at her.

She just grinned wider and turned back to the screen.

The rest of the night passed in flashes. Yelena muttered something about the film's budget. Ava shushed her with a rolled-up sock. Walker tried to pass off a real yawn as a fake one, then blamed the dialogue for both. Someone changed the lights on the smartbulbs to an awful neon green and no one owned up to it. The second movie started and no one acknowledged that the first one had ended.

You didn’t talk much. Didn’t need to.

Bucky kept his arm on the back of the couch, fingers ghosting just above your shoulder without touching. You could feel the shift in pressure every time he leaned forward—usually to snag more candy, once to toss a water bottle at Alexei that hit him square in the stomach and went completely ignored.

You sat still, mostly. Ate two pieces of candy. Drank half your cup of soda, warm and flat. When Bob leaned over to ask if you wanted one of the weird pudding things he brought, you surprised yourself by saying yes.

You didn’t notice you were still leaned against Bucky until your arm started to fall asleep. By then, his hand had drifted down from the couch and come to rest lightly against your shoulder. Not possessive. Not careful, either. Just like it belonged there.

Every so often, you’d catch him watching the screen with that faint, unimpressed squint of his. Like he couldn’t believe he was giving up a night for this. But he hadn’t moved. Not once. Not even when you shifted, when your body leaned closer without thinking. He didn’t shift away. He didn’t tense.

His fingers curled against the fabric of your hoodie like he was bracing. Like he was waiting for you to disappear again. You didn’t.

And when the second movie finally sputtered to a stop, some godawful horror-comedy hybrid that Yelena claimed was "underrated", the lights stayed dim and no one moved. You didn’t either.

You were tired. Not the kind that sleep fixed. The kind that felt like it lived in your bones. But your head stayed where it was, your weight tilted ever so slightly toward Bucky’s side. And for once, your chest wasn’t tightening at the thought of being perceived.

You didn’t say anything. Just let your hand drift a little closer on the couch, your fingers brushing his this time—intentional, quiet. Like maybe the next time he’d ask you to dinner, you’d say yes.

tag list (message me to be added or removed!): @nerdreader, @baw1066, @nairafeather, @galaxywannabe, @idkitsem, @starfly-nicole, @buckybarneswife125, @ilovedeanwinchester4, @brnesblogposts, @knowledgeableknitter, @kneelforloki, @hi-itisjustme, @alassal, @samurx, @amelya5567, @chiunpy, @winterslove1917, @emme-looou, @thekatisspooky, @y0urgrl, @g1g1l, @vignettesofveronica, @addie192, @winchestert101, @ponyboys-sunsets, @fallenxjas, @alexawhatstheweathertoday, @charlieluver, @thesteppinrazor, @mrsnikstan, @eywas-heir, @shortandb1tchy, @echooolocation, @inexplicablehumanbean, @maribirdsteele, @daddyjackfrost, @hyunjiniceamericano, @piston-cup, @imaginecrushes, @aishaarchivepks, @badl4nder, @themareverine

[readscreamrepeat]

Just rewatched Captain America : The First Avenger....and....

JAMES BARNES.

THIS IS ALL.

[readscreamrepeat]

I need more secret marriage trope fanfics with Bucky Barnes and Reader.

Please spam your favorites in the comments below!!!!!!!

I'm begging.

[readscreamrepeat]

You absolutely, 100% should read this.

letters through time (1) 𐙚 b.b

pairing: 1940s!bucky barnes x modern!reader

warnings: none, just so much fluff honestly

summary: you find a letter from 1944 hidden in the old brooklyn apartment you moved signed by one james buchanan barnes. you write back, he did too, and somehow, across decades, you both fall in love.

word count: 1.5k

author’s note: hi loves! so i’ve had this series completed, sitting in my laptop for a while now and wasn’t sure if i should post it, but here it is. if you’d like to read chapter two, let me know, your support means the world <3

i love bucky in the 40s | series masterlist

The apartment smelled like dust and old wood.

It wasn’t much—creaky floors, chipped crown molding, and a kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the seventies—but it was yours. After months of scraping together rent and tip money from your part-time museum job, you’d finally landed something livable. Cozy, even, if you squinted hard enough.

And the best part?

It had character.

The kind of character that came with water-stained wallpaper and antique furniture left behind by the previous tenant, who, according to the landlord, had “just up and vanished” one winter years ago. No warning. No forwarding address. Just left everything behind like they’d evaporated into thin air.

You didn’t mind. There was something about the place that whispered stories. The faded velvet armchair in the corner. The leaning bookshelf filled with weathered paperbacks—spines cracked and titles barely legible. A dusty turntable with a warped Billie Holiday record still on it.

And then there was the cabinet.

Tall and narrow, tucked against the far wall of your bedroom like it had been placed there decades ago and simply never moved.

Walnut wood, dulled brass handles, carved edges softened by time. You weren’t even sure it could open—it looked like something the building itself had grown around.

Curiosity got the better of you on your second day.

You ran your fingers across the surface, tracing the curves in the wood. It creaked under your touch. The drawers groaned when you tugged them open—empty, except for the bottom one, which stuck stubbornly like it hadn’t been opened in years.

You knelt.

Braced yourself.

Pulled harder.

The drawer yawned open with a reluctant creak, the smell of old paper and aged wood wafting out. You expected dust. Maybe some forgotten receipts or brittle ribbon. But instead, you found only one thing.

A single envelope.

Your brows drew together.

It was thick and off-white, the kind of paper that felt important just from its weight. The edges curled, yellowed slightly with age. You lifted it carefully, fingertips brushing over the smooth surface. A name was scrawled across the front in deep black ink, slanted and formal:

To whomever finds this, from James B. Barnes, 1944.

You blinked.

No—your heart stopped.

James B. Barnes?

You sat back on your heels, pulse suddenly loud in your ears. The name echoed in your mind like a bell.

Bucky Barnes.

It was impossible not to know it. He was carved into the walls of the Smithsonian. Immortalised in textbooks. Revered in documentaries and wartime exhibits alike. He wasn’t just a person—he was a symbol. The brave soldier. The lost hero. Captain America’s best friend.

And now that name was written in ink on a letter in your hands.

Your rational brain scrambled for footing. It’s a prank, it whispered. Some elaborate reenactment. The previous tenant could’ve been a collector, or just really into vintage ephemera.

But it didn’t feel like a joke.

You peeled open the flap gently, heart thudding, and pulled out a single sheet of stationery. The handwriting was clean and old-fashioned—neat lines, slanted script, the kind they don’t teach anymore.

You read.

Brooklyn, New York March 12th, 1944 To whoever finds this, I know it sounds odd, writing a letter to the future. I don’t even know if anyone will ever read this, but something about it… well, it feels like hope. And right now, we need hope more than ever. My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Most people call me Bucky. I’m twenty-six years old, born and raised in Brooklyn. I’m a Sergeant in the 107th and currently deployed in Europe. But I’m back in New York for a short leave. The war is— God, it’s hell. That’s the honest truth. Every time I close my eyes, I see something I wish I could forget. But then I think about the future. About you. About the kind of world we might be building, and it keeps me going. What’s it like where you are? Is Brooklyn still standing? Did we win? Do you remember us? Anyway. If you’ve read this far, thanks for indulging a soldier’s ramblings. Maybe write back. Leave a letter in this drawer, and who knows? Maybe time really can fold in on itself. Yours, Bucky

You read it again.

Then again.

Your fingers trembled as you folded it back along the original creases. Every detail felt real. The texture of the paper. The faint, lingering scent of something smoky—gunpowder and cologne, maybe? The way the words had been pressed into the page like he’d written them with purpose.

You should’ve laughed it off.

You didn’t.

Instead, you stared at the drawer—still open, still waiting—like it held something sacred.

Your hand reached for a notebook on your desk before you could stop yourself. You tore out a clean page, grabbed a pen, and wrote the first words that came to mind.

Brooklyn, New York March 12th, 2020 Dear Bucky, Okay, I know this is crazy. You probably won’t see this. But your letter was tucked in an old cabinet I found in my new apartment, and I couldn’t not write back. I’m (Y/N), by the way. I live in your old neighbourhood. Well sort of. A lot’s changed in eighty years. The buildings are taller, the streets are louder, and people walk around glued to these little rectangles that hold the entire internet. It’s like a library and a phone and a camera all in one. You asked if Brooklyn’s still standing. It is. In some ways, it’s barely recognisable. But in others, it’s still the same. The brownstones. The corner delis. The noise and the chaos and the strange charm that keeps people here. And yes… we won. You and your friends, you guys did it. The war ended. You were remembered, Bucky. I don’t think you’d believe how many people know your name. Anyway, I don’t know if this’ll reach you. But if it does… write back? Yours, (Y/N)

You folded the page with care, tucked it into a fresh envelope, and slid it back into the drawer beside his letter like placing an offering on an altar.

Then you closed it, slowly, gently. You didn’t know what to expect—didn’t truly believe anything would happen. But still, that night, you slept with one eye on the cabinet, your heart curled tight like a fist.

You woke at dawn, the sun filtering softly through the blinds, casting pale gold across the room. Dust swirled lazily in the light like confetti, and for a few long seconds, you lay still, almost afraid to breathe.

Then, heart steadying, you rose and padded quietly to the cabinet. With hesitant fingers, you opened the drawer—and there it was. A new letter, resting neatly where the other one had been. Same paper. Same slanted handwriting. As if time had folded in on itself just long enough to bring him back to you.

March 14th, 1944 Well, would you look at that? You wrote back. I almost didn’t believe it when I saw your letter. Thought I’d finally lost my mind. But here we are. I read your words three times, maybe more. The future sounds wild. Phones that do everything? You sure you’re not pulling my leg, sweetheart? It’s funny, I keep wondering if you’re real. If this is real. But I guess even if it’s just a dream, it’s a damn good one. Thank you for telling me we win. For telling me I’m remembered. That’s more than I ever hoped for. Tell me more about your Brooklyn. And about you. You said your name’s (Y/N)? That’s a beautiful name. I bet it suits you. I’ll be waiting, Bucky

You stood there for a long time, staring at the letter in your hands, heart pounding like it was trying to catch up with reality. It was real—or if it wasn’t, it was close enough that you didn’t care.

Somehow, impossibly, James Buchanan Barnes had written to you from 1944. Not just a name in a museum, not just a faded face in a history book or a footnote in a war journal. A man. A soldier. Someone lonely, hopeful, aching for a future—and against every rule of time and logic, he’d reached you.

That night, you stayed up until well past midnight.

You told him about your work—how your days were spent cataloguing artefacts from the war he was still fighting, sifting through rusted medals and yellowed letters that felt different now, heavier.

You told him how, every morning, you passed the Captain America exhibit at the museum without realising you’d one day be writing to the man who walked beside the legend himself.

You painted him a picture of your world—of your quiet apartment, the rain that whispered against your windows in the early hours, and the warmth of your favourite red scarf as you ducked into the little corner bookstore you loved.

You described the neighbourhood: the gentrified coffee shops where everything was oat milk and soft jazz, the thrift stores where history lived on hangers, the vibrant murals of old veterans painted across crumbling brick walls.

How American flags still fluttered from windows, even if most people had forgotten what they were saluting.

And before you sealed the envelope, you wrote one more line:

Write back soon. Please.

Because you already knew—

You couldn’t bear it if he didn’t.

a/n: i used to write just for myself and honestly never thought i’d post anything on tumblr… but here we are. this is one of my most loved serie, one i’ve been super hesitant to share, so i really hope it doesn’t flop 😭 thank you for stopping by, it means so much to me <3

[readscreamrepeat]

Dating Bucky Barnes Would Include…..

He doesn’t fall in love easily—but when he does, it’s forever. He’s not just loving you, he’s choosing you, every day.

• Sometimes you catch him staring at you like you’re a lighthouse in a storm he didn’t think he’d survive.

• When you’re tired, he tucks your hair behind your ear and whispers, “You’re safe. Just rest.”

• Likes sitting in the kitchen with you in the mornings, both of you in your pajamas, reading in silence while the coffee brews.

• His love language? Acts of service. Fixes squeaky doors, replaces broken zippers, makes sure the knives are always sharp—quiet things that say “I see you. I’m here.”

• You dance with him to old jazz music in the living room, barefoot, heart to heart. It’s slow, swaying, like time has forgiven him for a while.

• He has nightmares sometimes. When he wakes up shaking, you hold him while he clings to you like you’re his anchor.

• Occasionally he speaks in Russian or Romanian in his sleep—and though you don’t understand the words, you understand the longing in his voice.

• He keeps a photo of you in his wallet. It’s worn at the corners from how often he takes it out to look at it when he thinks you’re not watching.

• Once, you asked him what he wants most out of life. He just said, “To grow old with you. To have the time to.”

[readscreamrepeat]

Weighted Blanket:

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader.

Warning: only a little angst, discussion of phantom pain. I feel like this one is pretty safe and soft.:)

~

Authors Note: I offer you all my first Bucky drabble/one shot. I'd like to explore Bucky's recovery, and the work he does to heal his psych and mental health in future writing.

I think he'd like weighted blankets, be a fan of Sinatra, Nat Cole and others. He'd definitely love simple domestic task (like dishes, or folding laundry.) What do you think?

Also this has MIN Edits! Sorry for errors. :)

I will be back to update and edit later.

~

Bucky sits on the edge of the bed, head in his right hand, his vibranium arm, resting beside him not yet attached. The ghost of the missing arm was causing electric currents through his spine, phantom pain, causing him to delay his morning routine. The scarring around his shoulder throbs, tender, and feels as if it's wiggling around his skin. Maybe he'd forgo the arm today, you and him had no plans, no work, just a nice quiet Sunday morning scheduled.

Bucky can hear you in the kitchen, the door sits open just a bit, some slivers of light shining into the dark bedroom. Your feet pitter-patter around, cushioned by slippers, humming to the Frank Sinatra song you have playing in the background. Bucky was usually right beside you, helping with breakfast, or cleaning dishes from dinner the night before but he could not gather himself together to exit the room.

Bucky flops backward hard onto the bed, his arm now covering his eyes, his scarred shoulder twitching. Groaning, he rolls his head to the side and stares at that small gap of light. Wishing for you.

“Doll…”

He doesn’t say it very loudly, he's not sure if you can even hear him over the radio, but he waits a few moments, and the door opens just a bit more, and the light in the background casts you in a silhouette. His breath hitches a bit, as he realizes you're only in the shirt he was wearing yesterday, and heat stirs low in his stomach.

“Yes, Sweets.” your voice is light, a bit sleepy, your side of the bed still warm, you have not been awake long. As you head further into the room, he can smell the coffee brewing from the kitchen. He raises his arm to motion you to come over to the bed, you notice his other arm lying off to the side.

“Do you need help?” You say as you push your legs between his dangling off the bed. “No..” hesitantly he responds, stretching his hand out for you, you quickly give him your hand, he's warm, his hand rough, as he gently pulls you, signaling that he wants you to lay on him. Crawling up Bucky's body is something you'll never get sick of, as your hand skims along his bare sides, your fingers skip his scarred shoulder, and you throw your legs over his waist to straddle his hips, for better leverage.

“Then what are you doing still in the dark?” His hand rests on your side, a bit back, fingers digging into your soft backside.

“Didn't feel motivated, doll.”

There's just enough light spilling into the room now, that his baby blues are bright in color, but you can see he looks tired, the dark bags under his eyes, the lack of his arm, the exhaustion leaking from his body.

Your fingers graze along his forehead, and move some of his longer hair away from his face.

“Yeah?” You say, thumb pressing into his temple, moving in small, gentle circles. You watch as his chest, rises and falls with his deep breathing. Bucky hums, at your touch, his fingers kneading into your flesh.

“Phantom pain in my arm, real pain in my shoulder. Don't think I had nightmares but I feel exhausted.”

As he speaks, you fold yourself down onto him, a small grunt pushing out of him as your full weight settles on his chest. His one hand slides up your back, to rest in between your shoulder blades. His lips land gently on your forehead.

“So you needed your weighted blanket?”

You feel his mouth curve into a smile, as you adjust a bit, now facing his scarred shoulder, the metal where it attached looked cold, maybe even a bit red and angry. As if it was a fresh wound. You run your fingers where the metal and skin meet, gently tracing the scars on his body, you watch as goosebumps splash across his shoulder and neck. Bucky doesn't say anything as you rub near his missing arm. Honestly knowing you'll even touch him there, leaves him feeling warm, wanted, loved.

Bucky's hand slips around your other arm and glides across the nape of your neck and into your hair, he wiggles a bit to bring you up onto his chest more. Applies just a bit of strength to press your bodies together harder.

It's your turn to smile, as you push up on his chest and hover for a moment over his face, you close the distance, leaning down you capture his mouth in a kiss, soft lips, meld together with ease, and he smiles against your mouth, as you break the kiss, he whispers against your lips.

"You're the best weighted blanket.”

~

[readscreamrepeat]

Emotional Walls Your Character Has Built (And What Might Finally Break Them)

(How your character defends their soft core and what could shatter it) Because protection becomes prison real fast.

✶ Sarcasm as armor. (Break it with someone who laughs gently, not mockingly.) ✶ Hyper-independence. (Break it with someone who shows up even when they’re told not to.) ✶ Stoicism. (Break it with a safe space to fall apart.) ✶ Flirting to avoid intimacy. (Break it with real vulnerability they didn’t see coming.) ✶ Ghosting everyone. (Break it with someone who won’t take silence as an answer.) ✶ Lying for convenience. (Break it with someone who sees through them but stays anyway.) ✶ Avoiding touch. (Break it with accidental, gentle contact that feels like home.) ✶ Oversharing meaningless things to hide real depth. (Break it with someone who asks the second question.) ✶ Overworking. (Break it with forced stillness and the terrifying sound of their own thoughts.) ✶ Pretending not to care. (Break it with a loss they can’t fake their way through.) ✶ Avoiding mirrors. (Break it with a quiet compliment that hits too hard.) ✶ Turning every conversation into a joke. (Break it with someone who doesn’t laugh.) ✶ Being everyone’s helper. (Break it when someone asks what they need, and waits for an answer.) ✶ Constantly saying “I’m fine.” (Break it when they finally scream that they’re not.) ✶ Running. Always running. (Break it with someone who doesn’t chase, but doesn’t leave, either.) ✶ Intellectualizing every feeling. (Break it with raw, messy emotion they can’t logic away.) ✶ Trying to be the strong one. (Break it when someone sees the weight they’re carrying, and offers to help.) ✶ Hiding behind success. (Break it when they succeed and still feel empty.) ✶ Avoiding conflict at all costs. (Break it when silence causes more pain than the truth.) ✶ Focusing on everyone else’s healing but their own. (Break it when they hit emotional burnout.)

[readscreamrepeat]

★ group grocery run