returntodustt

[returntodustt]

guys i can’t post my bucky one shot because im afraid it isn’t good send help pls

[returntodustt]

i need this injected into my veins thank you very much

contrition | b.b. (2)

✮ synopsis: two years of healing. that's what it takes for bucky barnes to believe he might deserve you again. two years of therapy, of learning to sleep in a bed, of discovering what james barnes wants when he's not running from who he used to be. two years apart before a leaked video of his past forces him to confront the truth.

✮ pairing: post-thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader

✮ disclaimers (18+, minors dni): hurt/comfort, ptsd and trauma responses, references to past torture (hydra), trauma, panic attacks, explicit sexual content, dirty talk, praise kink, light dom/sub undertones (light), vibrating finger features (whoops)

✮ word count: 14k

✮ a/n: this is part 2 of 2! really recommend catching up at part 1 first 🤍

main masterlist

The apartment sounded wrong.

Bucky stood in the doorway of what used to be the bedroom—their bedroom—and cataloged the absence. No soft breathing. No rustle of sheets when you turned over in sleep. No quiet hum of your phone charging on the nightstand. Just his own heartbeat, too loud in the silence, and the hum of the refrigerator that had always been too loud but he'd never fixed because you said it was "charming."

Three weeks.

Three weeks since you'd left, and he still hadn't slept in the bed.

The couch had a permanent indent now, shaped to his body like a pathetic monument to his failures. He'd been meaning to flip the cushions. Hadn't. Same way he'd been meaning to call his therapist back. Hadn't. Same way he'd been meaning to do anything other than exist in this hollow space you'd left behind.

His phone buzzed. Sam, probably. Or Raynor. Both had been calling with increasing frequency, leaving voicemails that ranged from concerned to irritated to outright threatening. He let it ring out, watching his reflection in the black screen once it went quiet. He looked like shit. Felt worse.

The mission brief sat unopened on the kitchen counter where he'd thrown it two days ago. Valentina had sent three follow-ups, each more passive-aggressive than the last. He should care. Should worry about his standing with the team, about maintaining his pardon, about all the things that used to matter before you made everything else feel like background noise.

He didn't.

The apartment still smelled like you. Your shampoo lingered in the bathroom. Your coffee mug sat in the dishwasher—the one with the chip on the handle from when he'd knocked it off the counter during a nightmare. You'd laughed it off, said it gave it character. He'd been too raw from the dream to do anything but nod, but you'd seen through him like you always did. Made him tea instead of coffee that morning, kept your voice soft, didn't ask questions.

That was the thing that gutted him most. You'd always known how to navigate his damage without making him feel damaged. Until he'd made you feel like you were drowning right alongside him.

The journal you'd given him lay on the coffee table, still in its wrapping paper. He'd taken it out of the drawer the first night, set it there like placing flowers on a grave. Couldn't bring himself to open it. Couldn't bring himself to put it away either. So it sat there, gathering dust like everything else in his life.

But try for you, not for me.

Your words echoed in the empty space, bouncing off walls that held too many memories. The place where you'd slow danced at 2 AM to no music, just the sound of rain. The kitchen counter where you'd perched while he cooked, stealing bites and making him laugh. The doorframe where you'd stood that last morning, looking so fucking tired he'd wanted to drop to his knees and beg right there.

He should have.

Instead, he'd stood frozen like the coward he was, watching you leave with grief trapped in his throat like shrapnel. Three weeks later, he could still feel it cutting him up from the inside.

His metal arm whirred softly as he flexed the fingers. A recalibration, Shuri called it. Happened when the neural pathways got overwhelmed. Fitting, really. Everything about him needed recalibrating, and he didn't know where to start.

The velvet box hidden in his tactical bag mocked him from across the room. 

He'd bought it two months ago, in a moment of clarity where he thought he could push through his own bullshit long enough to do right by you. The plan had been simple: therapy, real therapy. Talk to Sam about going public. Stop letting fear drive every decision.

But clarity was a funny thing. It tended to evaporate the moment shit got real, and he'd gone right back to his patterns. Pushing you away so slowly you wouldn't notice until you were too far gone to reach.

Mission fucking accomplished.

His phone buzzed again. This time, he looked.

Raynor: Barnes. Answer your phone or I'm listing you as non-compliant. You know what that means.

He knew. Back to prison. Back to cuffs. Back to being the asset everyone was waiting to snap. Maybe that would be easier. At least in a cell, he couldn't hurt anyone else. Couldn't love anyone else into disappearing.

But even as the thought formed, he could hear your voice, sharp with frustration: "Stop. Just stop with the self-pity routine. You're not a weapon, you're a person who makes choices. So make better ones."

You'd said that after the nightmare, when he'd tried to punish himself by sleeping on the floor. Always cutting through his martyrdom complex with surgical precision. 

God, he missed you. Missed you like a physical wound, like something vital had been carved out of his chest and now he was just walking around with a hole where his heart used to be.

The front door opened—Sam, using the spare key you'd insisted on giving him. Because that was the kind of person you were. The kind who thought about safety nets and backup plans and making sure the people you loved were taken care of, even when they didn't deserve it.

"Man, you look worse than the last time I saw you," Sam said, not bothering with pleasantries. "And that's saying something."

Bucky didn't respond. Couldn't find the energy to deflect or defend. Sam's eyes swept the apartment, taking in the unchanged state of everything. The pictures still on the walls—you hadn't taken those. The blanket you'd crocheted still thrown over the couch. Your favorite cereal bowl still in the dishwasher.

"You planning on turning this place into a shrine, or you actually gonna deal with your shit?"

"Leave it, Sam."

"Nah." Sam moved into the kitchen, started making coffee like he owned the place. "See, I promised someone I'd check on you. Made that promise the day she called me crying because the man she loved was treating her like a ghost while she was still right there."

That got Bucky's attention. His head snapped up. "She called you?"

"Three weeks ago. Right after she left. Want to know what she said?"

Bucky's throat felt like sandpaper. "Sam—"

"She said, 'Make sure he's okay. Make sure he eats. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.' Even while her heart was breaking, she was worried about you." Sam turned, fixing him with a look that could peel paint. "So I'm here. Making sure. Even though what I really want to do is kick your ass for being the kind of idiot who lets the best thing in his life walk away."

"I didn't let her—" Bucky stopped, the lie dying on his lips. Because that's exactly what he'd done. Pushed and pushed until leaving was her only option. "I couldn't... I was going to hurt her."

"You did hurt her. Just not the way you thought." Sam poured two cups of coffee, set one in front of Bucky with more force than necessary. "You're so scared of the Winter Soldier showing up that you didn't notice Bucky Barnes was the one doing the damage."

The words hit like a physical blow. Bucky gripped the mug, needing something to anchor him. The ceramic was warm against his flesh palm, but he couldn't feel it with the metal one. Never could. Just like he couldn't feel you slipping away until it was too late.

"She's better off—"

"Man, if you finish that sentence, I swear to God." Sam sat across from him, leaning forward. "You want to know what she's doing right now? She's crashing on her sister's couch. Calling in sick to work because she can't stop crying long enough to get through a shift. Jumping every time her phone rings because she thinks it might be you."

Each word was a knife between his ribs. Bucky's hands trembled around the mug.

"But she's safe," he managed. "From me. From what I am."

"What you are," Sam said slowly, like he was talking to a child, "is a man too scared of his own happiness to let himself have it. You think pushing her away kept her safe? All it did was break both your hearts. Congratulations. Mission accomplished."

Bucky flinched. Those were the same words he'd thought earlier, but hearing them out loud made them real in a way that threatened to crack him open.

"I don't know how to fix it," he admitted, the words barely above a whisper.

"Start with therapy. Real therapy, not the bullshit check-ins you've been doing." Sam pulled out his phone, scrolled through his contacts. "I've got a guy. Specializes in PTSD, combat trauma. He's good. Discrete. And he won't let you get away with the stone-cold routine."

"Sam—"

"You said you'd try. She left, and you promised you'd try. So fucking try, Buck. Because I've seen you fight through impossible shit. I've seen you come back from the dead, literally. But you're gonna let fear kill the best relationship you've ever had?"

Bucky stared into his coffee, seeing your face reflected in the dark surface. The way you'd looked that last morning—hollow, exhausted, but still so fucking beautiful it made his chest ache. You'd been disappearing for months, and he'd been too wrapped up in his own damage to notice.

No. That wasn't true. He'd noticed. He'd just been too much of a coward to stop it.

"What if it's too late?" The question came out cracked, vulnerable in a way he hadn't allowed himself to be since that morning. "What if she's done?"

Sam was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was gentler. "Then at least you'll know you tried. Actually tried, not this half-ass self-sabotage you've been pulling. You owe her that. You owe yourself that."

Bucky thought about the ring hidden in his tactical bag. The journal gathering dust on the coffee table. The three weeks of silence that felt like three years. You'd asked him to try for himself, not for you. Because you'd known—god, you'd always known—that he couldn't heal for someone else. It had to be for him.

"The therapist," he said finally. "What's his name?"

Sam's smile was small but real. "Dr. Keene. He's got time Thursday if you're ready."

Thursday. Four days away. Four days to figure out how to walk into an office and crack himself open. Four days to stop running from the man he was so afraid of being.

"Yeah," Bucky said, and the word felt like the first true thing he'd said in weeks. "Yeah, okay."

Sam stayed for another hour, filling the silence with updates about the team, about Sarah and the boys. Normal things. Human things. The kind of life Bucky had told himself he couldn't have, didn't deserve.

After Sam left, Bucky sat in the too-quiet apartment and finally, finally opened the journal.

Your handwriting on the first page made his throat tight:

For all the stories you haven't told yet. You deserve to be more than your worst days. Always.

He picked up a pen, hand shaking slightly, and wrote the first words:

I fell in love with you on a Tuesday.

It wasn't much. It wasn't nearly enough. But it was true, and it was a start.

And maybe, if he could fill enough pages with truth, he'd figure out how to stop running from the only person who'd ever made him want to stay.

~ three weeks prior ~ The transport back to New York had been a special kind of hell.

Not the physical restraints—he'd worn worse, been treated worse. The titanium cuffs were almost gentle compared to HYDRA's methods. No, it was Walker's eyes that made him want to disappear. That mix of pity and disgust, the barely concealed I told you so hovering on his lips. It was Yelena going deadly quiet in the quinjet, which was somehow worse than her usual barbs. It was the way even Val—Val who'd seen every shade of monster there was—looked at him like a liability that needed containing.

Three bodies. Three ex-HYDRA scientists who'd been running a knockoff super soldier program out of a defunct pharmaceutical lab in Warsaw. The mission had been simple: infiltrate, gather intel, extract. No termination protocol. No weapons free. Just get in, get the data, get out.

He'd gotten in just fine.

Then one of them had smiled at him. Just a little quirk of the lips, and said, "Gotovy vypolnit' prikaz?" Ready to comply?

Not the words. Never the words again—Shuri had made sure of that. But something in the pattern, the cadence, the way the Russian rolled off his tongue like he'd been gargling broken glass. Something that bypassed all of Bucky's careful control and went straight to the place where the Soldier lived.

He'd come to with blood on his hands and Walker screaming in his ear.

The containment cell in the Tower's sub-basement was medical-grade, meant for enhanced individuals who posed a threat to themselves or others. White walls, no windows, temperature controlled to keep him comfortable while they figured out what the fuck had happened. He sat on the single bench, still in his tactical gear—they'd been too wary to let him change—and stared at his hands.

Flesh and metal. Both capable of equal damage.

His phone had been confiscated, but he could see it through the observation window, lighting up on the desk. Your ringtone—he'd assigned you something soft, something that wouldn't jar him awake from nightmares. It played three times in the first hour.

"You want me to answer that?" The tech on duty—Hollander, decent guy, three kids—gestured at the phone.

"No."

What was he supposed to say? Hey baby, I'm back in the city but currently in lockdown because I snapped and killed three people with my bare hands. How was your day?

Dr. Cho ran every scan imaginable. Blood work, brain scans, neural mapping. Looking for any trace of external manipulation, any sign that someone had found another way in. The results were horrifyingly clean. No drugs, no tech, no secret programming. Just Bucky Barnes, losing control because someone spoke Russian with the right inflection.

"It's a trauma response," Cho explained, professional but not unkind. "Like a soldier diving for cover when a car backfires. Your neural pathways remember the pattern, even if the trigger itself is gone."

"So I'm not safe." It wasn't a question.

"You're not unsafe," she corrected carefully. "But we should monitor—"

"How long?"

"Forty-eight hours minimum. Protocol."

Two days. Two days in a white box while you thought he was somewhere in Warsaw, doing hero work. Two days of your calls going unanswered because how could he explain this? How could he tell you that after all the work, all the fixing, he was still a weapon waiting to go off?

The door opened on day two. Yelena walked in like she owned the place. She dragged a chair across the floor, the screech of metal on concrete deliberately obnoxious, and sat backwards on it like they were having a casual chat.

"So," she said, examining her nails. "You had fun party in Warsaw."

"Go away, Belova."

"Cannot." She pulled out a bag of chips from her jacket—where the hell had she been hiding those?—and tore it open. "Valentina says I must watch you. Make sure you don't go—how she say—'full murder ‘bot again."

"I didn't—" He stopped. Because he had. Three bodies worth of had.

"You know what I think?" She crunched loudly, deliberately. "I think you are, eh, what is word... drama queen."

Bucky's head snapped up. "Excuse me?"

"You hear Russian, you freak out, you kill people." She waved a chip dismissively. "Is very dramatic. Like soap opera but with more blood."

"That's not—"

"'Oh no, someone spoke language of my tragic past, now I must murder.'" Her accent made the mockery somehow worse. "Is like me killing everyone who mentions Red Room. Would be very exhausting. Also, very messy."

"It's not the same thing."

"No?" She tilted her head, bird-like. "So trauma is competition now? Yours is special flavor?"

He glared at her. She popped another chip in her mouth, unbothered.

"You know what your problem is, Barnes?"

"Go ahead, enlighten me."

"You think you are only one with ghosts." She leaned forward, suddenly serious. "News flash—we all have them. Difference is, some of us learn to live with ghosts instead of letting ghosts live us."

"That's not—"

"Who calls you?" She nodded at his phone, still lighting up periodically. "Every twenty minutes, same ringtone. Soft. Like lullaby. Girlfriend?"

His silence was answer enough.

"Ah." She sat back, crunching thoughtfully. "And she does not know you are here, playing prisoner princess in tower."

"It's not her problem."

"Bozhe moi, you really are American again. Everything is 'not problem,' 'is fine,' 'don't worry about it.'" She switched to a terrible American accent for the last part. "Is exhausting, this pretending."

"I'm not pretending—"

"Your phone rings, and you look like someone is pulling out fingernails." She studied him with those too-sharp eyes. "But sure. Is not her problem."

Another call. The ringtone seemed louder in the silence that followed.

"You know what Natasha told me once?" Yelena's voice had gone softer, which was somehow worse than her mockery. "She said hardest part of having someone is letting them see you. All of you. Even ugly parts. Especially ugly parts."

"Natasha never—"

"Had someone? No. But she wanted to." She stood, leaving the chip bag on the chair. "Is why I think she would be very annoyed with you right now. All this self-pity, very boring. She hated boring."

She moved toward the door, then paused. "Your girlfriend—she is normal person? Not spy, not Avenger?"

He nodded reluctantly.

"Then she chose you knowing what you are, yes? Winter Soldier, metal arm, whole package?" She didn't wait for an answer. "So maybe—just maybe—she is stronger than you think. Maybe she doesn't need protecting. Maybe what she needs is boyfriend who answers fucking phone."

She knocked on the door to be let out, then turned back. "Oh, and Barnes? Next time someone speaks Russian at you and you feel like killing? Try counting to ten first. In English. Is what I do when Walker talks."

The door closed behind her, leaving Bucky alone with her words rattling around in his skull. His phone lit up again. This time, he could see the preview of your text:

Just tell me you're alive. Please.

Twenty-four hours later, when they finally released him past midnight, he had a dozen voicemails he couldn't bring himself to listen to. Not yet. Not when he was standing outside the Tower in yesterday's tactical gear, still smelling like violence and metal and shame.

He took a cab back to the apartment—couldn't call it home, not when you weren't there—and saw the anniversary dinner he'd missed. The gift waiting on the coffee table. The careful way you'd tried to make something special out of another night alone.

Three days. Three days of choosing his shame over your peace of mind. Three days of letting you think he might be dead rather than admit he was exactly what he'd always feared—a killer waiting for the right words to flip the switch.

When you finally called from that bar, drunk and scared and needing him, he'd already been drowning in guilt since Warsaw. The way you'd said you missed him, the texts that got progressively sadder, the mention of some asshole touching you—it had all crashed together into perfect clarity.

He'd been protecting himself. Not you. Never you.

Because protecting you would have meant answering the phone. Would have meant trusting you with the ugly truth. Would have meant believing—really believing—that you were strong enough to handle it.

Maybe she doesn't need protecting. Maybe what she needs is boyfriend who answers fucking phone.

Yelena's words echoed as he drove through empty streets toward you, already knowing he was probably too late. Already knowing that three days of silence had probably cost him everything.

But he went anyway. Because after three days of being a coward, showing up was the least he could do.

Even if it was too little, too late.

~ 2 years later ~

The therapist's office smelled like leather and lemon furniture polish. 

Two years in, and Bucky still noticed it every Thursday at 3 PM, still cataloged exits (two), potential weapons (letter opener, paperweight, his own hands), and the exact number of steps from his chair to the door (seven).

"You're doing it again," Dr. Keene observed, not unkindly.

"Doing what?"

"The risk assessment. You're safe here, James."

James. Two years, and he still wasn't used to anyone but you calling him that. But you hadn't called him anything in 730 days. Not that he was counting.

(He was absolutely counting.)

His metal fingers flexed involuntarily, the plates realigning with soft mechanical whispers. A phantom pain shot through his left shoulder—psychosomatic, Keene had explained. His body remembering trauma that technically belonged to a different arm. The original one, the flesh and bone one, long gone. Sometimes he still felt it, especially on cold mornings. Ghost sensations of fingers that had once known how to hold a rifle steady, play cards, touch a dame's cheek without fearing what came next.

"Hard habit to break," he said, settling deeper into the chair that had molded to his body over countless sessions. The leather creaked, and his spine automatically cataloged the sound—not danger, just furniture. Another lesson in rewriting instinct. "But I'm working on it."

That was the thing about therapy—the real kind, not the court-mandated check-ins he'd half-assed his way through before. It was work. Brutal, exhausting work that left him feeling flayed open and reassembled wrong. Some days he walked out of this office feeling like he'd gone ten rounds with Steve in his prime. Bruised in places that didn't show, aching in ways that had nothing to do with muscle or bone.

"Tell me about this week," Keene prompted. The man had the patience of a saint and the perception of a sniper. Salt-and-pepper beard, kind eyes that missed nothing, hands that never moved suddenly. Bucky had hated him for the first six months. Now he just mostly tolerated him, which was progress.

"Good week. Mostly." The words came out measured, careful. His throat felt tight—always did in this room, like his body was allergic to vulnerability. "Taught a self-defense class at the community center. Helped Sam with a mission in Lagos—clean extraction, no casualties. Didn't have any nightmares until Wednesday."

"What happened Wednesday?"

Your birthday. 

The thought hit him like a punch to the solar plexus, made his ribs feel too tight around his lungs. He'd seen the photos your sister posted—you laughing at some rooftop bar, wearing a red dress that made his mouth go dry even through a phone screen. New friends, new life. A guy's arm around your shoulders in one shot, casual and possessive in a way that made Bucky's metal hand whir anxiously before he caught himself.

"Just a date," he said. "Nothing significant."

Keene hummed, that particular sound that meant he saw right through the deflection but would circle back to it later. The man was like a bloodhound for emotional avoidance.

"How are the anger management exercises working?"

"Haven't punched anyone in eight months." The words tasted bitter, defensive. His jaw clenched hard enough to make his teeth ache. "Though Walker makes it tempting."

"John Walker is still part of your team?"

"Unfortunately." Bucky shifted, the leather protesting beneath him. His body felt too big for the chair suddenly, restless energy crawling under his skin like ants. "But I'm... managing it. The breathing exercises help. The grounding techniques. When he starts his shit, I just—" He paused, forced his shoulders down from where they'd crept up toward his ears. "I count to ten in Romanian now instead of Russian."

That got a small smile. "Why Romanian?"

The question sat heavy in the air. Bucky's chest went tight, that familiar sensation of memories pressing against the inside of his skull, demanding attention. "Because Russian makes me think of..."

Ready to comply.

The words echoed even unspoken, carved into neural pathways that would never fully heal. He could still taste the rubber of the mouth guard, feel the electricity racing through his veins like liquid fire, smell the ozone and burnt flesh and—

"Things I'd rather not think about," he finished, blinking hard to dispel the sense memory. His hands had clenched into fists. He forced them open, finger by finger. "Romanian just reminds me of hiding. Which wasn't great, but it was mine, you know? My choice to hide. My choice to run."

"That's significant progress, James. Reclaiming agency over your associations."

Agency. Everything came back to agency in this room. The agency HYDRA stole with voltage and scalpels and words that rewrote his DNA. The agency he'd surrendered to fear, convinced that distance was the same as protection. The agency he'd taken away from others—from you—in the name of keeping them safe.

"Can we talk about the journal?"

Bucky's entire body locked up, muscles tensing like he was preparing for a blow. The journal you'd given him sat on his desk at home, leather worn soft from two years of handling. Filled with his chicken-scratch handwriting, pages warped from tears he'd never admit to shedding. Letters to you he'd never send. Memories he was trying to preserve before they got lost in the fog of everything else. Apologies that would never be enough.

"What about it?"

"You mentioned last week that you've been writing letters to—"

"I know what I mentioned." Too sharp. He forced his shoulders to relax, unclenched his jaw. The taste of copper in his mouth meant he'd bitten his cheek. Again. "Sorry. I just... those are private."

"I'm not asking you to share them. I'm asking how it feels to write them."

How did it feel? Like performing surgery on himself without anesthesia. Like talking to a ghost that haunted his apartment, his dreams, his every waking moment. Like keeping you alive in the only way he had left—through words you'd never read, apologies you'd never hear, love letters to someone who'd moved on.

"Necessary," he said finally.

Keene waited. The man had turned waiting into an art form, comfortable with silence in a way that made Bucky want to crawl out of his skin.

"I know she's moved on," Bucky continued, the words scraping his throat raw. His metal thumb pressed against his thigh, grinding in small circles that would leave bruises later. "I know it's been two years. I know she's probably—"

Happy. In love. Getting married to someone who didn't need a manual for basic human interaction. Someone who could sleep through the night without waking up screaming. Someone who could touch her without checking for exit wounds.

"But I can't seem to stop. Writing to her, I mean. It's like... if I stop, it makes it final."

"And you're not ready for it to be final?"

"I'm never going to be ready for it to be final." The admission ripped something loose in his chest, left him feeling hollow and too full at the same time. "But that's my problem to deal with. Not hers. Not anymore."

They talked through the rest of the session about his progress. The VA meetings where he sat in circles with other broken soldiers, swapping war stories and coping mechanisms. The kids at the community center who'd gone from flinching at his arm to hanging off it like monkey bars, their fearlessness both heartbreaking and healing. The way he could walk past a flower shop now without feeling like his lungs were collapsing, though the smell of roses still made him nauseous.

"Same time next week?" Keene asked as they wrapped up.

"Yeah." Bucky stood, knees creaking in protest. His body might heal fast, but it still kept score. Old injuries that should have killed him ached in the rain. Phantom pains from wounds that had healed decades ago. The left shoulder, where metal met flesh, a constant reminder of what had been taken and what had been given back wrong.

The walk back to his apartment—new place, Bed-Stuy, far enough from your shared space that he didn't see ghosts on every corner—took him past the farmer's market. He bought plums without having a panic attack, which felt like a victory. The vendor smiled at him, genuine and warm, and he managed to smile back without feeling like a fraud.

Bought flowers too, white tulips that reminded him of nothing in particular. No associations, no memories, just simple beauty that he could practice caring for without the weight of history.

His apartment was sparse but lived-in. Books on the shelves—philosophy, poetry, the science fiction novels you'd gotten him hooked on. Dog-eared and worn, read and reread during sleepless nights when your absence felt like a physical wound. A couch that had never been slept on, because he used the bed now like a real person, even when the mattress felt too soft and his body craved the punishing hardness of the floor. Plants by the window that were miraculously still alive after six months—a small jungle of green that required daily attention, routine, care. The journal on his desk, closed but waiting, like a patient confessor.

He made dinner—actual dinner, not just protein bars and whatever he could eat standing over the sink. Grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, rice. Sat at the table like a functioning adult, used both knife and fork, didn't shovel food into his mouth like someone might take it away. Did the dishes immediately instead of letting them pile up, the warm water soothing on his flesh hand, the metal one impervious as always.

The gym was less crowded in the evenings. He preferred it that way—fewer eyes tracking his movements, fewer people trying not to stare at the arm. He sparred with Sam, who'd gotten better at reading Bucky's moods over the past two years. Knew when to push and when to pull back, when Bucky needed to go hard and when he needed to be reminded that he wasn't fighting for his life anymore.

"You're getting soft," Sam said, panting after Bucky pulled a punch that would've laid him out a year ago. Sweat dripped down his face, soaked through his shirt. Even holding back, Bucky hit like a freight train.

"Maybe." Bucky unwrapped his hands, flexing the metal fingers. Shuri had added new features in the last upgrade—pressure sensors that helped him gauge his grip, temperature regulators that meant he didn't burn or freeze anyone he touched. Small improvements that made him feel less like a weapon and more like a man with a very expensive prosthetic. "Or maybe I'm just getting better at not being an asshole."

"Nah, still an asshole. Just a self-aware one now."

They grabbed beer after, sitting on the roof of Sam's building. The city sprawled below them, lights like stars that had fallen and gotten stuck. Brooklyn glittered in the distance, and Bucky's chest tightened at the sight. Somewhere out there, you were living your life. Maybe in the same apartment, maybe somewhere new. Maybe alone, maybe with—

He cut that thought off at the knees.

"Sarah's asking about Thanksgiving," Sam said carefully. Too carefully.

"I'll be there."

"You said that last year."

"Last year was... complicated."

Last year, he'd been convinced you might show up at Sam's door. That you'd be there laughing with Sarah in the kitchen, flour in your hair and wine staining your lips purple. That he'd have to sit across from you at dinner and pretend his bones weren't trying to crawl out of his skin from wanting to touch you. 

He'd spent Thanksgiving on his fire escape instead, eating Chinese takeout straight from the container and writing letters he'd never send.

I'm thankful for the time we had, he'd written, three beers deep and maudlin. Even if I ruined it. Even if it hurt. Even if I dream about you every night and wake up forgetting you're gone.

"It's been two years, Buck."

"I'm aware." The words came out sharper than intended. His body tensed, ready for a fight that wasn't coming.

"Maybe it's time to—"

"Sam." A warning, low and final. The metal hand clenched around his beer bottle, not enough to shatter but enough to make the glass groan.

"I'm just saying. You've done the work. You're in a good place. Maybe it's time to reach out."

"She's moved on." The words tasted like ash, bitter and choking. "I check— I know she's doing well. That's all that matters."

It was a lie, and they both knew it. He did more than check. He had a Google alert for your name, scrolled through your sister's Instagram with the dedication of a detective working a cold case. Knew you'd gotten a promotion at work, that you'd adopted a cat named Alpine, that you'd taken up pottery classes on Thursdays.

(Thursdays. His therapy day. Like even your hobbies were avoiding him.)

Sam was quiet for a long moment, the kind of quiet that meant he was about to say something Bucky didn't want to hear. "You know she asks about you sometimes. When she calls Sarah."

Everything in Bucky went still. The city noise faded to white static, his heartbeat loud in his ears. "What?"

"Just... how you're doing. If you're okay. If you're happy."

If you're happy. Like happiness was a switch he could flip, a state he could achieve instead of something he glimpsed in peripheral vision before it vanished. He was better. He was functional. He was surviving. 

But happy? 

Happy was your laugh in the morning, coffee brewing while you danced to music only you could hear. Happy was your hand in his, unafraid of the metal and what it meant. Happy was two years gone and not coming back.

"What does Sarah tell her?"

"The truth. That you're doing better. That you're healing. That you—" Sam hesitated, and Bucky's stomach dropped. "That you still love her."

The beer bottle shattered.

Glass and foam exploded everywhere, shards glittering in the low light. The metal hand recalibrated, servo motors whirring as they adjusted to the sudden loss of resistance. Blood welled on his flesh palm where a shard had caught him, the wound already beginning to close.

"Shit. Sorry." He stared at the mess, mind blank. Two years of therapy, of anger management, of learning to control his strength, undone by your name and the word love in the same sentence.

"Yeah, that's about what I figured." Sam handed him a napkin, not even fazed. They'd been through worse. "Look, I'm not saying grand gestures or whatever. I'm just saying... maybe she deserves to know you're better. Maybe you both deserve some closure."

Closure. Like you could close a wound that had become part of your anatomy. Like you could stitch shut something that had fundamentally altered your DNA. His metal hand still tingled with phantom sensations, memories of holding you that the arm itself had never experienced. The flesh remembered, and somehow that was worse.

"I'll think about it," Bucky lied.

But the universe, it seemed, had other plans.

Bucky woke to his secure phone buzzing like an angry hornet. 47 missed calls, texts flooding in faster than he could read them. Sam's name, multiple times. Sharon. Yelena. Valentina. Even Walker, which was never good. His blood went cold, mind immediately cataloging possibilities—compromise, attack, someone hurt, someone dead, you—

"What is it?" he answered Sam's callback, already reaching for his go-bag. His voice came out steady, all business, even as his heart hammered against his ribs. "Who's compromised?"

"Buck..." Sam's voice was strange. Careful in a way that made Bucky's skin crawl. "You need to see the news. But—shit, don't watch it alone, okay? Come to my place. We'll—"

But Bucky was already pulling up news sites, his metal hand gripping the phone too tight. The screen cracked under his thumb as the headline hit him like a sniper round:

LEAKED: CLASSIFIED FOOTAGE SHOWS DECADES OF WINTER SOLDIER TORTURE

The blood in his veins turned to ice water. His vision tunneled, edges going dark. No. No, no, no—

The video was everywhere. Every major news outlet, every social media platform. Forty minutes of pure, unfiltered hell—footage HYDRA had apparently kept as some sick training material. Evidence of their success in breaking him down to base code and rebuilding him wrong.

His thumb hovered over the play button. He didn't want to see. Already knew what it contained, had lived it, bore the scars both visible and not. But there was a sick compulsion, a need to know what the world was seeing. What you were seeing.

The first frame made bile rise in his throat.

There he was, young and screaming. The footage was grainy, black and white at first—old film reels from the early days, when HYDRA still bothered documenting their experiments like proud scientists. Strapped to that chair that still featured in his nightmares, metal restraints cutting into skin that hadn't yet learned to stop feeling. They'd stopped bothering with anesthetic after the first few sessions—the serum healed him too fast, made pain relief pointless. More efficient to let him scream until his throat gave out.

The video quality evolved as it progressed through the decades. Jerky 8mm film giving way to steadier 16mm, black and white bleeding into washed-out color. By the sixties, the footage was clearer, the horror rendered in technicolor precision. Multiple angles capturing every convulsion, every plea. His younger self begging in Russian, then English, then wordless animal sounds as electricity rewrote his neural pathways. The technicians taking notes, adjusting voltage with clinical detachment. One checking his watch, bored.

He watched them attach the metal arm for the first time. No anesthetic for that either. Just a bone saw and cruel efficiency, his screams echoing off concrete walls. The smell—God, he could still smell it. Burnt flesh and ozone, metal cauterizing meat. They'd had to restart his heart twice during that procedure. The video caught that too, his body convulsing on the table, eyes rolled back to show only whites.

Three minutes in, and he was on his knees in his apartment, retching. Nothing came up but bile and the ghost of a sandwich from last night. His body shook, muscles remembering trauma decades old. The metal arm sparked, recalibrating frantically as his nervous system went haywire.

The video kept playing. He couldn't look away.

Year after year compressed into minutes. The chair. The words. The wipes that left him seizing, foam tinged pink with blood frothing from his lips. Training that was just sanctioned torture—bones broken and healed and broken again until he learned to move through pain like it was weather. They made him fight other Winter Soldiers, made him kill them bare-handed to prove his superiority. One had begged. The video caught that too, caught Bucky—no, the Asset—snapping his neck without hesitation.

But the worst parts were the moments between. When the programming cracked just enough to let James Barnes bleed through. Confused, terrified, trying to remember his own name. In one clip, strapped to the chair and waiting for the next session, he'd been reciting something under his breath. The audio picked it up clearly:

"Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038. Barnes, James Buchanan..."

Over and over, like a prayer. Like a lifeline. Until the technician hit the switch and the electricity burned even that away, left him empty and ready to be filled with purpose.

By the end, the Asset barely looked human. Eyes empty, responding only to commands. They'd point, and he'd kill. They'd speak the words, and he'd comply. No hesitation, no recognition, no trace of the man who'd laughed with Steve in Brooklyn and danced with pretty girls and had a favorite sandwich at the deli on the corner.

The video ended with a mission briefing. December 16, 1991. The Asset nodding, accepting orders to kill Howard and Maria Stark without a flicker of emotion.

Bucky stayed on his knees for a long time after it finished, shaking. His phone rang and rang—Sam, probably, or one of his therapists. He couldn't answer. Couldn't form words past the scream trapped behind his teeth.

This wasn't the sanitized version from his pardon hearings. This wasn't redacted files and clinical language that let people maintain distance. This was the raw footage. This was what had been done to him, to the person he'd been, to the man who'd just wanted to serve his country and come home.

Forty minutes of torture, and that was just what they'd chosen to document. Seventy years of this, and the world was seeing it over morning coffee. Commenting on it. Sharing it. Debating whether he deserved sympathy or a bullet, whether this made him more victim or more monster.

An hour passed. Maybe two. Time went strange when your past was being broadcast to the world. His apartment felt too small, too exposed, like the walls might collapse under the weight of all those watching eyes. He'd turned off his phone eventually, couldn't stand the constant buzzing. Everyone had seen it. Everyone knew exactly what had been done to him, what he'd been reduced to.

The knock at his door was soft. So soft he almost missed it over the sound of his own ragged breathing. He didn't move at first, couldn't seem to make his legs work. The knock came again, barely there, and then—

"Bucky?"

Your voice through the door, small and wrecked.

He was on his feet before conscious thought caught up, body moving on pure instinct.

Two years of staying away, of respecting boundaries, of keeping his distance—all of it evaporated at the sound of you saying his name like that.

He yanked the door open and you were there. Hair wild, face swollen from crying, wearing pajama pants and a sweater that didn't match. Like you'd thrown on whatever was closest and come to him.

Like after two years of silence, you'd seen that video and your first instinct was to come to him.

You looked at him for one suspended moment—taking in his red eyes, the tremor in his hands, the way he was barely holding himself together—and then you were moving.

You crashed into him with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. Your arms went around his neck and you were sobbing—great, body-shaking sobs that he felt in his bones. He caught you on instinct, metal arm around your waist, flesh hand cradling the back of your head. Your feet left the ground as he held you, held you like he'd wanted to for 731 days.

You were here. In his arms. Shaking apart, but here.

He'd imagined holding you again a thousand times. In those imaginings, it was always different—softer, maybe. Definitely not with you crying so hard you could barely breathe, not with his own eyes burning and chest cracking open. But even like this—especially like this—he hadn't felt this complete since the last time he'd held you. Like the world had finally stopped spinning wrong. Like his lungs remembered how to take in air.

You didn't say anything at first. Couldn't, probably, around the sobs. He just held you, one hand stroking your hair while you shook apart in his arms. You were warm and solid and real, and you still fit against him like you'd been carved from the same stone. He pressed his face into your hair, breathed you in—floral shampoo and something uniquely you that made his knees weak.

"I've got you," he murmured, the words coming out rough. "I've got you, sweetheart. It's okay."

But that just made you cry harder, fingers digging into his shoulders like you were afraid he'd disappear. He maneuvered you both inside, kicking the door shut without letting go. Muscle memory had him moving to the couch, sitting down with you still wrapped around him. You ended up in his lap, face buried in his neck, and he just held on while you fell apart.

Time went liquid. Could have been minutes or hours that you cried, and he just sat there, hand running up and down your spine in the same soothing pattern he'd used to use when you had nightmares. Your tears soaked through his shirt, and he could feel you trying to get closer, like you could crawl inside his chest if you just held on tight enough.

Eventually, the sobs slowed to hiccupping breaths. You pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him, and Christ—your eyes were swollen nearly shut, face blotchy and tear-stained. You looked absolutely wrecked.

"There she is," he murmured, thumb coming up to brush tears from your cheek. His hand moved without permission, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear with the kind of casual intimacy he'd lost the right to two years ago. "Hi, pretty girl."

Fresh tears welled in your eyes. "I couldn't—I tried to watch it all but I—I c-couldn't—" Your voice cracked, broke completely. You had to take several shuddering breaths before trying again. "Twenty minutes. That's all I could—and you lived it, Bucky, you actually—oh god—"

"Hey." He caught your face in his hands, thumbs sweeping away the new tears. "It's okay. It was a long time ago."

"It's not—" A sob cut you off. You pressed the heels of your hands against your eyes, shoulders shaking. "It's not okay! N-nothing about that is okay! I knew—fuck, everyone knows what happened to you, in theory. The trial, the pardons, all of it's p-public record. But seeing it—"

Your breath hitched, caught, turned into another sob. "Actually s-seeing what they—the chair, Bucky. The way you... you screamed. The way you b-begged them to stop and they just—they just—"

"Breathe," he said softly, pulling you back against his chest when your breathing went too shallow, too fast. "Come on, sweetheart. Match me. In and out."

You pressed your ear to his chest, and he breathed slow and steady until you started to match his rhythm. His hand found your hair again, stroking through the tangles. Your whole body trembled against him, little aftershocks of grief.

"Like you weren't even h-human," you whispered against his shirt. "Like you were just... parts to be rearranged. And the early footage, you were so—you were just a kid, basically. Twenty-six and sc-screaming and—"

Another wave of sobs took you. He held you through it, jaw clenched against his own emotions. 

This was why he'd never told you the details. Why he'd kept it vague—'conditioning' and 'programming' sounded so much cleaner than the reality.

"I'm being—" You pulled back suddenly, laughing through your tears but there was no humor in it. "God, I'm being ridiculous. You're the one who—who lived through it and here I am, cr-crying all over you, making you comfort me through your trauma—"

"Stop." His voice came out sharper than intended. He gentled his grip on your face, made sure you were looking at him. "Don't do that. Don't apologize for caring. Don't apologize for being human."

"But I—"

"No." He was firm on this. "You think I'd rather you saw that and felt nothing? You think I'd prefer indifference?"

"I just—" Your face crumpled again. "I asked you. Remember? About the n-nightmares. About what they did. And you said—you said 'standard Hydra shit' and I let it go. I should have pushed. Should have—"

"I wouldn't have told you." Simple truth. "I wasn't ready. Couldn't even say the words out loud in therapy, let alone to you."

"But you were so alone." The words came out broken, wet. "For d-decades, you were alone. They hurt you and broke you and put you back together wrong and you couldn't even—you couldn't even remember who you were supposed to be. And then you c-came back and I—"

You pressed a hand to your mouth, muffling another sob. "I left you alone again. You pushed me away because you were sc-scared and instead of fighting for you, I just—I left. I left you alone."

"You didn't leave me alone." He pulled your hand away from your mouth, laced their fingers together. "You left because I made it impossible to stay. Because I was too much of a coward to let you see all of me."

"You're not a c-coward." Fresh tears tracked down your cheeks. "You survived that. You survived decades of that and you're still—you're still kind. Still good. Still—" A hiccup interrupted you. "Still the best man I've ever known."

"Sweetheart—"

"I missed you," you said, the words tumbling out between sobs. "Every day. Every f-fucking day. Even when I was angry. Even when I tried to date other people. Even when I—" Your breath hitched. "I couldn't get you out of my head. Out of my heart. Like you were carved into my bones and I couldn't—couldn't scrape you out no matter how hard I tried."

"I know." His own voice cracked. He felt raw, exposed. "Me too. Every fucking day."

"I'm sorry." You were crying harder now, barely able to get words out. "I'm s-sorry I didn't fight harder. Sorry I wasn't strong enough to—to stay and make you see that you were worth fighting for."

"Hey, no." He pulled you closer, pressed his forehead to yours. "No apologies. Not for protecting yourself. Not for having boundaries. Never for that."

"But—"

"We both fucked up," he said quietly. He hardly meant it, he never blamed you, but it seemed to be what you needed to hear. "We both could have done better. But we're here now."

"Yeah," you whispered, voice small and wrecked. "We're here now."

You stayed like that for a long moment, breathing each other's air, existing in the same space for the first time in two years. Your body still shook with aftershocks, little tremors and hiccups that broke his heart.

"I should—" You started to pull back. "I should go. This isn't—you don't need me falling apart on your—"

"Stay." The word ripped out of him, desperate and raw. "Please. Just—you can take the bed. I'll take the couch. Not like before. Not—" He swallowed hard. "Just stay. Let me know you're safe. Let me—let me take care of you for once."

You searched his face, and he watched you see it—all the longing, all the fear, all the love he'd never learned how to hide.

"Okay," you whispered, and started crying again. "Okay."

Neither of you moved for a while after that. You stayed curled in his lap, his arms around you, while the city lights painted patterns on the walls. Every so often, a fresh wave of tears would take you, and he'd hold you through it, murmuring nonsense into your hair.

"I watched them put the arm on," you said at one point, voice hoarse. "No anesthetic. You were awake and they just—they just cut—"

"I know," he said when you couldn't finish. "I know, baby. It's over now."

"It's not over. You still dream about it. Still have days where you can't—" Another sob. "I should have been there. Should have helped somehow—"

"You did help." He pressed a kiss to your warm temple, tasted salt. "You helped by being the first person in years to look at me like I was worth saving. Even if I didn't know how to let you."

Later, he'd give you clothes to sleep in—soft things that would smell like him. You'd brush your teeth side by side, and he'd pretend his heart wasn't breaking at how right it felt. He'd make up the bed with fresh sheets while you changed, and when you emerged drowning in his henley, he'd have to look away.

When you paused in the bedroom doorway, looking back at him with swollen eyes and something fragile in your expression, he'd be ready.

"Thank you," you'd say, voice still rough from crying. "For letting me stay. For—for being here."

"Always," he'd reply, and mean it with every atom of his being.

You'd smile then—wobbly and complicated—and close the door. He'd make up the couch and lie there listening to you breathe in the next room, marveling at the miracle of your presence.

But for tonight, you were here. Safe in his space, under his protection, breathing the same air. After 731 days of nothing, it was everything.

It was enough.

For now, it was enough.

The couch was too short for his frame, but after two years of therapy, Bucky had learned to stop punishing himself with discomfort. He'd gotten good at making himself comfortable in spaces that didn't quite fit. Still, sleep came in fragments—twenty minutes here, an hour there. His body kept jerking awake, convinced he'd dreamed the whole thing. That you weren't really in his bed, wearing his clothes, breathing his air.

Around 3 AM, he heard the bedroom door creak open. Soft footsteps on hardwood, hesitant but moving closer. He opened his eyes to find you standing there in the darkness, silhouetted by the city lights filtering through the windows. You'd put his henley back on, and it hung to mid-thigh, making you look smaller than you were.

"Baby?" The endearment slipped out before he could catch it, voice rough with sleep and surprise. He squinted, trying to read your expression in the dark. "You okay? Need something?"

You didn't answer. Just stood there for a moment, arms wrapped around yourself, before moving toward him with purpose. He sat up, ready to give you the couch if you couldn't sleep in the bed, ready to move to the floor if that's what you needed. But you didn't ask him to move.

Instead, you crawled right into his space, onto the couch that was definitely not built for two people. He accepted you immediately, arms opening on instinct as you fitted yourself against him—chest to chest, your face buried in his neck. The couch groaned under the combined weight, but held.

"Hey," he murmured, pulling the blanket up over both of you. His hand found your hair, still messy from sleep. "Bad dream?"

You shook your head against his throat. Your arms went around him, holding on tight, and he could feel the way your breath hitched. Not crying, but close. He understood without explanation—you'd woken up remembering. The video, the torture, the decades of pain compressed into forty minutes of footage. You'd needed to touch him, to feel him solid and whole and here.

"I've got you," he whispered into your hair. "I'm okay. I'm right here."

You made a small sound and pressed closer, like you could protect him retroactively from things that had already happened. One of your hands found the juncture where metal met flesh, fingers tracing the scars there with devastating gentleness. He tensed for a moment—old habit—then forced himself to relax. To let you touch. To let you see.

They stayed like that until dawn crept through the windows, dozing in and out of sleep. Every time he surfaced, you were there, heartbeat against his chest, breath warm on his neck. Real. Present. A miracle he still couldn't quite believe.

When morning came properly, neither of them acknowledged how naturally they'd fitted together in sleep. How your leg had hooked over his hip, how his metal hand had splayed possessively across your lower back. They extracted themselves carefully, both pretending not to notice the reluctance in the separation.

"Coffee?" he offered, voice still gravelly.

"Tea, if you have it." You stretched, his henley riding up to reveal a strip of skin that made his brain short-circuit. "Coffee makes me jittery these days."

These days. Two years of changes, small evolutions he hadn't been there to witness. He turned to the kitchen to hide the way that knowledge sat heavy in his chest.

"Still take it with honey?"

"Yeah." You padded after him, bare feet on hardwood. 

He busied himself with the ritual of morning—filling the kettle, finding the good honey (wildflower, local, from the farmers market you'd always loved), selecting eggs from the fridge. You perched on one of the bar stools at the counter, watching him move through his space with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"You cook now," you observed.

"Turns out eating actual food is part of that whole 'taking care of yourself' thing Keene keeps harping on about." He cracked eggs into a bowl, whisking them with practiced efficiency. "Who knew?"

"Your therapist sounds like a smart man."

"Don't let him hear you say that. His ego's big enough already." He glanced at you, taking in the sleep-rumpled hair, the way his clothes draped over your frame. You looked soft and accessible and untouchable all at once. "I've got some sweatpants that might fit better than the boxers, if you want—"

"These are fine." You tugged at the hem of the henley self-consciously. "If that's... if you don't mind."

"I don't mind." Understatement of the century. Seeing you in his clothes was doing something to his brain that felt both ancient and brand new. "Never minded."

Silence settled between them as he cooked, but it wasn't uncomfortable. You sipped your tea and watched him work, occasionally commenting on the changes in his apartment—the art on the walls, the plants that hadn't died, the general sense that someone actually lived here instead of just existing.

He was plating the omelets when you spotted it. The journal, sitting on the counter where he'd left it last night. Your whole body stilled, mug pausing halfway to your lips.

"Oh," you said quietly. "You use it."

Understatement of the century.

"Yeah." He set your plate in front of you, then leaned back against the opposite counter, giving you space. "Every day, pretty much."

You reached out, fingers hovering over the worn leather cover. "What do you write about?"

"Everything. Nothing." He shrugged, aiming for casual and missing by miles. "Therapy stuff. Memories I want to keep. Things I should have said."

"Letters," you said, not quite a question. "Sam mentioned letters, once."

"Yeah."

You were still staring at the journal like it might bite. Or like it might break your heart.

"You can look, if you want." The words came out steadier than he felt. "It's... a lot of it's to you anyway."

Your eyes snapped to his. "You don't have to—"

"I know. But we're doing honesty now, right? Being real?" He gestured to the journal. "That's about as real as I get."

You hesitated for another moment, then pulled the journal toward you. Your hands shook slightly as you opened it, and he had to look away. Focused on his coffee instead of the way your face changed as you read his messy handwriting, years of thoughts spilled onto paper.

He knew what you were seeing. Pages of apologies, observations, dreams he'd documented so he wouldn't forget them. Lists of things he wanted to tell you—your laugh sounds different in my memory than it did in real life. I bought plums at the market and almost called you. I still can't sleep on the left side of the bed.

The poetry was in there too, terrible attempts at capturing feelings too big for prose. He'd tried to write about the way you used to hum while cooking, how you'd steal his socks and act surprised when he'd find you wearing them. How loving you had felt like drowning and breathing all at once.

You were crying again, silent tears sliding down your cheeks as you read. Occasionally you'd make a small sound—half-laugh, half-sob—at something particularly pathetic he'd written. He wanted to take the journal back, spare you both this vulnerability. Instead, he gripped his mug tighter and waited.

Finally, you looked up. Your eyes were red but clear, seeing him in that way you'd always had. Like you could look past all the armor and see straight to the soft, desperate heart of him.

"Two years," you said softly. "You wrote to me for two years."

"Seven hundred and thirty-one days." He set down his mug, needing his hands free. Needing to move. "I know how it looks. Obsessive. Unhealthy, probably. Keene says it's—"

"Human," you interrupted. "It looks human."

You stood, rounding the counter until you were in his space. Close enough that he could see the flecks of gold in your eyes, count the tears still clinging to your lashes. You reached up slowly, telegraphing your movement, and he realized what you were doing. Giving him time to pull away, to redirect.

He didn't.

Your hand touched his face, and for the first time in two years, he didn't flinch. Didn't turn to offer the other cheek, the flesh side. You cupped his jaw with careful fingers, thumb brushing over stubble, and he let his eyes close. Let himself have this moment of being touched without apology.

"I wrote too," you admitted. "Not in a journal. In my phone. Little notes I'd never send. Anger, mostly, at first. Then just... observations. Things I wanted to tell you. Dreams I had where you were still there when I woke up."

He opened his eyes to find you closer still. Your other hand came up, and now you were holding his face between your palms like something precious. Something worth keeping safe.

"Can I—" you started, then stopped. Took a breath. "I want to kiss you. Is that—would that be okay?"

Instead of answering, he brought his metal hand up to cradle your cheek. Watched your eyes flutter closed as you leaned into the touch, no fear or hesitation. Just trust. Just love, somehow still intact after everything.

"Always," he murmured, and closed the distance.

The first press of lips was careful, tentative. A question asked and answered in the space of a breath. You made a small sound and pressed closer, and suddenly he was seventeen and eighty and every age in between, kissing you for the first time and the thousandth time all at once.

Your lips were chapped from crying, and you tasted like honey tea and salt. He'd never tasted anything better. One of your hands slid into his hair and he groaned, the sound swallowed between your mouths. Two years of missing this, of waking up reaching for you, and here you were. Soft and warm and real.

The kiss deepened, something desperate creeping in at the edges. He walked you backward until you hit the counter, lifted you onto it without breaking contact. You gasped against his mouth and wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer, and his brain went white-static at the feeling.

He'd always loved kissing. Loved the intimacy of it, the way it could feel more vulnerable than sex. Loved how you'd melt against him, how you'd make those little sounds when he found the right angle, the right pressure. He kissed you like he was relearning a language he'd never truly forgotten, muscle memory and discovery all tangled together.

When you pulled back to breathe, he trailed his mouth down your jaw, found that spot below your ear that had always made you shiver. Still did. Your hands tightened in his hair, and he smiled against your throat. Some things didn't change.

"Bucky," you breathed, and he had to kiss you again just for the way you said his name. Like a prayer, like a promise, like coming home.

His hands found your waist, rucking up the henley to find bare skin. You were warm and sleep-soft under his palms, and when he spread his fingers wide, he could span most of your back. The metal hand was gentle, sensors calibrated to exactly the right pressure. No hiding, no hesitation. Just touch.

You shifted against him, and he became suddenly, devastatingly aware that you were wearing his boxers and nothing else under them. His hand slid to your thigh, fingers brushing under the fabric, and you made a sound that short-circuited several major brain functions.

"Wait," you gasped, pulling back slightly. Your lips were swollen, eyes dark, and it took every ounce of control not to dive back in. "Are we—what are we doing here?"

"I don't know," he admitted, resting his forehead against yours. Both of you were breathing hard, bodies lined up in ways that made thinking difficult. "What do you want us to be doing?"

"I want—" You stopped, seemed to gather yourself. Your hands were still in his hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp in a way that made him want to purr. "I want to do this right this time. I want to be sure we're not just... falling back into old patterns."

"This doesn't feel like old patterns." His thumb stroked along your ribs, feeling the expansion of your breath. "This feels new. Better. Like we might actually know what we're doing this time."

"Do we though?" But you were smiling, small and real. "Because I'm sitting on your kitchen counter at 8 AM, wearing your clothes, and I'm about five seconds from doing something really stupid."

"What kind of stupid?"

"The kind where I drag you back to that couch and show you exactly how much I missed you."

Jesus. He pressed his face into your neck, trying to get his bearings. "That doesn't sound stupid. That sounds—"

"Like we're skipping steps again." Your fingers gentled in his hair, stroking now instead of gripping. "Like we're using physical stuff to avoid talking about the hard stuff."

She was right. Of course she was right. Two years of therapy for both of them, and here they were, ready to fall back into bed without addressing any of the things that had driven them apart.

"Okay," he said, pulling back to look at you. It took effort—every instinct screaming to stay close, to take what you were offering—but he managed it. "Okay. You're right. We should talk."

"Such a responsible adult," you teased, but there was affection in it. Love, even. "Therapy’s really done a number on you."

"You have no idea."

He helped you down from the counter, both of you adjusting clothes and trying to pretend the kitchen wasn't charged with enough sexual tension to power Brooklyn. You settled back at the counter with your rapidly cooling breakfast, and he took the stool next to you this time. Close enough that your knees touched. Small victories.

"So," you said, cutting into your omelet. "Talk. What do we do now?"

It was a good question. The question, really. Two years of growth, of therapy, of learning to be whole people instead of broken halves. They couldn't just slot back together and pretend nothing had happened. But they couldn't pretend they weren't still inevitably drawn to each other either.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But I know I want to try. Real try, not the half-assed thing I was doing before. I want to tell you about the hard stuff. I want to trust you with all of it, not just the parts I think you can handle. I want..." He paused, gathered courage. "I want to be the partner you deserved two years ago. If you'll let me."

You set down your fork, turned to face him fully. "I want that too. But I need—we both need—to be whole people first. Not trying to fix each other or complete each other or whatever codependent shit we were doing before."

"Agreed." He risked reaching out, covering your hand with his metal one. You turned your palm up, interlacing the fingers, and something in his chest eased. "So what does that look like?"

"I think..." You squeezed his hand, thinking. "I think it looks like taking things slow. Like actually dating this time, not just falling into living together because it's easier. Like being honest about the scary stuff, even when our brains are telling us to protect each other."

"Therapy homework," he said with a grimace. "Keene's gonna love this."

"Mine too. She's been saying I need to practice healthy boundaries for months."

"So... boundaries." The word felt foreign in his mouth when it came to you. But necessary. "What do you need?"

You considered this, thumb stroking over his metal knuckles absently. "Time. Space to keep being my own person. Regular check-ins about how we're feeling, even when—especially when—it's uncomfortable. And..." You looked at him directly. "I need you to trust me. Really trust me. With the missions that go bad, with the nightmares, with the days when you can barely get out of bed. All of it."

"That's gonna be hard," he admitted.

"I know."

"But I want to try."

"I know that too."

They sat there for a moment, hands linked, breakfast cooling between them. It wasn't the passionate reconciliation his body wanted. Wasn't the dramatic merger of souls that movies promised. It was quieter than that. More solid. Real in a way that all their previous attempts hadn't been.

"So," he said eventually. "Want to go on a date with me?"

You laughed, bright and surprised. "A date?"

"Yeah. Friday night. I'll pick you up and everything. We can do the whole first date thing properly this time."

"We already slept together on our actual first date."

"Which is why we're doing it better this time." He brought your joined hands to his lips, kissing your knuckles. "What do you say?"

"I say..." You pretended to consider, but your smile gave you away. "Pick me up at seven. And Barnes? Bring flowers."

"Yes ma'am."

You stayed for another hour, talking through logistics and boundaries and all the unsexy parts of rebuilding a relationship. He drove you home on his bike—you still remembered exactly how to move with him through traffic—and walked you to your door like a gentleman.

"Friday," you said, and it sounded like a promise.

"Friday," he agreed.

You went up on your toes and kissed his cheek, soft and brief. Then you were gone, leaving him standing on your stoop with his hand pressed to his face like a teenager.

He made it back to his apartment before the full weight of it hit him. You were back. Not in his bed, not in his life fully, but back in his orbit. They had a date. A real date, with parameters and boundaries and all the things Keene had been telling him he needed.

He picked up his phone, scrolled to his therapist's contact.

"I need an emergency session," he said when Keene answered. "Something happened."

"Are you safe?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm—I'm good. Really good. That's kind of the problem."

A pause. "This is about her, isn't it?"

"How did you—"

"James. We've been working together for two years. I know your 'she's back in my life' voice."

"I have a 'she's back in my life' voice?"

"You have several. Which one is this—the panicked one or the cautiously optimistic one?"

Bucky considered, thinking about your hand in his, the way you'd kissed him like you had all the time in the world.

"Cautiously optimistic," he decided.

"Then I'll see you Thursday at our regular time. And James? Good job on reaching out instead of spiraling."

"Thanks."

"Oh, and James? Flowers. Don't forget flowers."

"Already on it."

He hung up and stared at his journal, still open on the counter where you'd left it. Evidence of two years of missing you, wanting you, learning to be someone who could deserve you.

Time to put all that work to use.

He had a date to plan.

~ six months later ~

The couch had become sacred ground.

Not in the way it used to be—a monument to his cowardice, the place he'd slept to avoid your bed. Now it held different memories. Better ones. The afternoon he'd spent relearning your body. The night he'd finally told you about Warsaw, really told you, while you held his hand and didn't flinch. The morning he'd made love to you slow and quiet while rain streaked the windows.

Tonight, you were draped across his lap, wearing one of his t-shirts and not much else, pretending to watch whatever movie he'd put on. He wasn't paying attention either. Too focused on the way you kept shifting against him, the little sighs you made when his fingers traced patterns on your bare thigh.

"You're not watching," you accused, but your voice was breathy, distracted.

"Neither are you." His metal hand slid higher, fingertips brushing the edge of your underwear. The sensors registered heat, dampness, the way your muscles tensed in anticipation. "Got something more interesting in mind?"

You turned in his lap to face him, straddling his thighs with a flexibility that still made his brain short-circuit. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" He gripped your hips, pulled you flush against him. You were already wet—he could feel it through the thin fabric between you both, and it made his cock twitch with interest. "Gonna need more than maybe, sweetheart."

Instead of answering, you rocked against him, a slow roll of your hips that made you both catch your breath. Your hands braced on his shoulders, fingers digging in just enough to ground you both.

"Missed you today," you said, and it wasn't what he expected. Your voice was soft, honest in that way that still sometimes caught him off guard.

"I was only gone eight hours."

"I know." Another roll of your hips, more deliberate this time. "Still missed you."

Something in his chest went tight and warm. Two years back together, and you still missed him when he was gone. Still wanted him when he came home. Still looked at him like he was something worth keeping.

And in his bedside drawer, hidden beneath old mission reports and spare magazines, sat a small velvet box that had been waiting three years. The one he'd bought drunk on love and convinced he'd found forever. Even through your separation, through all the therapy and growth and pain, he'd never been able to throw it away.

Now it waited for the right moment—not rushing this time, not desperate. Just certain.

"Show me," he said, voice rougher than intended. "Show me how much."

Your eyes went dark at the command. You loved this—when he got demanding, when he stopped treating you like glass. It had taken months to learn your signals, to trust that you'd tell him if something was too much. Now he could read your body like his favorite book, knew exactly when to push and when to ease back.

He slid his metal hand between you both, pressing the heel against you through your underwear. You gasped, hips jerking forward, and he smiled. "That's it. Take what you need."

You ground against his hand with increasing desperation, chasing friction. He watched your face, cataloging every expression—the way your brows drew together when something felt particularly good, how your mouth fell open when he increased the pressure. Beautiful. Fucking perfect.

"Not enough," you whimpered, movements becoming frantic. "Need—"

"I know what you need." He pulled your underwear aside with his flesh hand, metal fingers finding your clit immediately. The temperature difference made you cry out—cool metal against overheated flesh. "Always so wet for me. So ready. Been thinking about this all day too, haven't you?"

You nodded frantically, beyond words as he circled your clit with devastating precision. The upgraded sensors were incredible, letting him feel every twitch, every pulse of need. He could tell you were already close, wound tight from anticipation.

"Want to try something," he said, slowing his movements just enough to make you whine. "Trust me?"

"Always." No hesitation, and that trust still humbled him.

He shifted his hand, two metal fingers sliding through your wetness before pressing inside. You were soaked, taking them easily, and the sound you made went straight to his cock. But that wasn't the best part—the best part was activating the subtle vibration function Shuri had installed for "therapeutic purposes."

"Oh fuck—" Your whole body went rigid, then melted against him. "Bucky, what—"

"Upgrade." He curled his fingers, finding that spot that made you see stars while the vibrations worked you from the inside. "Good?"

You couldn't answer, too lost in sensation as he worked you higher. Your wetness coated his fingers, dripping down to his palm, and he had to grit his teeth against the urge to forget the foreplay and just bury himself inside you.

"Look at you," he murmured, free hand tangling in your hair to keep you facing him. "Taking it so well. So perfect for me. Can feel how close you are—clenching around my fingers, trembling in my lap. You gonna come for me?"

You nodded desperately, movements erratic as you rode his hand. He increased the vibration, pressed his thumb to your clit, and watched you shatter. Your orgasm hit hard, back arching as you cried out. He worked you through it, drawing it out until you were shaking and grabbing his wrist.

"Too much," you gasped, but he didn't stop. Just gentled his movements, eased the vibrations down to a subtle hum.

"You can take it." He kissed your neck, felt your pulse racing under his lips. "Know you can. Always so good for me, aren't you? Can give me one more."

You made a broken sound as he resumed his rhythm, oversensitive and overwhelmed. Your whole body trembled, caught between pulling away and pressing closer. He loved you like this—completely undone, trusting him to take care of you even when it bordered on too much.

"That's my girl," he praised as fresh wetness coated his fingers. "Getting even wetter. Body knows what it needs even when your brain's all fuzzy. Just feel, sweetheart. Let me make you feel good."

The second orgasm built slower, your body fighting it even as it climbed. He could tell the exact moment you gave in, stopped resisting and just let it happen. You went limp against him, only his hand in your hair keeping you upright as you came again, quieter this time but no less intense.

"Beautiful," he breathed, finally easing his fingers out. They were soaked, glistening in the low light. "So fucking beautiful."

You made a small sound when he lifted you, rearranging you both so you were on your back on the couch, him kneeling between your spread thighs. Your underwear was ruined, twisted to the side and soaked through. He pulled them off, tossed them somewhere behind him.

"Look at this pretty cunt," he said, running a finger through your folds. You twitched, sensitive, and he smiled. "All swollen and wet. Can see how hard you came—still clenching around nothing, still dripping for me."

"Please," you whispered, the first word you'd managed in minutes.

"Please what?" He freed his cock, groaning at the relief. He was painfully hard, had been since you first climbed in his lap. "Tell me what you want."

"You." Your hands reached for him, shaky but insistent. "Want you inside me. Need to feel you."

"Yeah?" He rubbed the head of his cock through your wetness, coating himself. You were furnace-hot, slick enough that he had to grit his teeth for control. "Think you can take it? Already came twice, might be too sensitive..."

"I can take it." There was steel under the desperation in your voice. His girl, always stronger than you looked. "Please, Bucky. Need you."

He pushed inside in one smooth thrust, and you both groaned. You were molten around him, cunt fluttering with aftershocks that made him see stars. Perfect. Like you were made for him, shaped by him, existing just for this.

"Fuck," he breathed, having to stay still or risk ending this embarrassingly fast. "Feel so good, baby. So wet and tight and perfect. Can feel you trying to pull me deeper. Greedy little thing, aren't you?"

You clenched around him deliberately, and he had to press his forehead to your shoulder for composure. Two years, and you still affected him like this. Still made him feel desperate and possessive and completely fucking gone for you.

He started to move, slow and deep, watching your face for signs of discomfort. But you just gazed up at him with trust and heat and something that looked a lot like awe. Like he was something worth looking at that way, even after everything.

"Love fucking you like this," he told you, picking up the pace. "Love watching you take my cock. Love how wet you get, how you stretch around me. Could live inside this sweet cunt."

You moaned, arching into him. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, his arms, anywhere you could reach. He caught them, pinned them above your head with his metal hand. The position made you clench around him, and he smiled.

"Like that? Like being held down?" He thrust harder, deeper, watching your tits bounce with the force. "Like knowing you can't move, can't do anything but take what I give you?"

You nodded frantically, and he could feel fresh wetness where you were joined. Perfect. His perfect girl, who trusted him with your pleasure, who let him take control because you knew he'd take care of you.

"Gonna come again," he told you, rhythm getting rougher. "Gonna fill this pretty cunt up. Mark you from the inside, make sure you feel me all day tomorrow. Would you like that? Walking around full of my come, knowing who you belong to?"

"Yes," you gasped, and he could feel you getting close again. "Yes, please, yours—"

"Mine," he agreed, and reached down to rub your clit with his flesh hand. "All mine. This cunt, this body, this perfect fucking girl. Mine to fuck, mine to fill, mine to take care of."

You came with a cry, convulsing around him. The feeling of your cunt gripping him, trying to milk his cock, sent him over the edge. He buried himself deep and came hard, grinding against you as he filled you.

"That's it," he groaned, still pulsing inside you. "Take it all. Such a good girl, taking everything I give you."

You stayed locked together as you caught your breath, both trembling with aftershocks. He released your wrists, smoothing his hands over the marks he'd left. Not bruises—he was always careful about pressure—but evidence of his grip that would fade within the hour.

"Okay?" he asked, pressing kisses to your temple.

You hummed contentment, boneless and sated beneath him. "More than okay. That was..."

"Yeah." He knew what you meant. The intensity, the connection, the way it felt like coming home every single time.

He eased out carefully, both of you hissing at the sensitivity. His come immediately started leaking out of you, and something primal in him loved the sight. Marked. His.

"Stay there," he ordered, heading to the bathroom for a washcloth.

When he returned, you'd curled onto your side, looking soft and fucked out and perfect. He cleaned you gently, carefully, smiling when you twitched at the contact.

"Sensitive?"

"Mmm. Good sensitive." You caught his hand, brought it to your lips. "Love you."

"Love you too." The words came easy now, no hesitation or fear. Just truth.

He gathered you up, carrying you to bed properly. Tomorrow you'd deal with the real world—missions and therapy and all the work that went into building a life together. But tonight, you had this. Each other. A love that had survived separation and learned how to stay.

"Hey," you mumbled against his chest as he settled you both under the covers.

"Yeah?"

"We're really doing this, aren't we? Making it work?"

He pressed a kiss to your hair, pulled you closer. "Yeah, sweetheart. We really are."

And for the first time in your relationship, he thought of that ring in his dresser without a doubt in his mind.

feedback is always appreciated! ♡

[returntodustt]

whoever said no you’re a whore

guys i saw a tiktok that did something to me and now i wanna write for sub!loki

would you read?

[returntodustt]

guys i saw a tiktok that did something to me and now i wanna write for sub!loki

would you read?

[returntodustt]

writing my first ever Bucky oneshot (yay!) inspired by this edit and i’m so excited

[returntodustt]

“mean to everyone but her” bucky has me about to lose my absolute mind

𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Synopsis: When a visit to his office leaves you shaken, Bucky becomes determined to take care of you.

Word Count: 4.4k

Warning(s): CEO!husband!bucky x wife!reader. protective!bucky. no use of y/n. use of nicknames sweetheart and angel. established (secret) relationship. reader is a damsel in distress. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WIFE" 🗣🗣🗣 trope. public humiliation. physical violence (reader is manhandled - not by bucky). hurt/comfort. angst, fluff, smut (holy trifecta) (18+ mdni!!!). vaginal fingering. lots of praising. bucky is Scary™ and only soft for reader.

Author's Note: GUYS HI I'M ALIVE 👋🏼 so sorry for being MIA. work has been kicking my ass. I've literally been skipping lunch and working through weekends bcs of how crazy it is (yeah I know it's bad). but other than that, I've also been having the worst case of writer's block ever. I have three fics in my draft that I kept deleting and rewriting because none of them turned out good enough. this is the only half decent thing I managed to produce. not fully happy with this bcs I wanted to spend more time on it, but I've also been itching to put out something for you guys, so pls bear with me 😔 hopefully you'll still like it 🧡 don't forget to comment/like/reblog 💕

Bucky Barnes Masterlist

As soon as you step through the rotating doors, a relieved breath escapes your chest. 

The rain continues to patter outside, merciless in their mission to soak everyone who dares to leave the comfort of their home. Your wet hoodie clings to you like second skin; your cotton skirt dripping on the marble floors below. The back of your neck scorches as you notice a few sharp glances sliding your way. 

This is so not how you thought this day was going to go.

A quick coffee run with the girls had been the plan. The only plan. A chance to catch up with Wanda and Natasha amidst the unpredictability of everyone’s hectic schedules. Everything was going well. Up until the point you left the coffee shop, started the trek back towards the subway station, and realized something.

Your wallet was missing.

Not misplaced.

Not forgotten.

But actually missing.

You spent the next couple of hours retracing your steps—going back to the coffee shop, peering under evey chair and table, even asking the clueless barista if anyone had turned it in—but nothing. You even emptied your tote bag in the middle of the sidewalk at one point. Confirming that the wallet was, in fact, gone. To make matters worse, your phone had also died somewhere between Wanda showing you her latest painting project and Natasha's crude remarks about your sex life. In that raging desperation, you made a decision to resort to one last dramatic measure.

Bucky's office.

Inside your drenched sneakers, your toes curl. It’s silly for someone to feel this nervous about visiting their husband's place of work. But when the husband in question is none other than James Buchanan Barnes—CEO and founder of Barnes & Co.—you suppose the churning in your gut is somewhat justified. Especially when the prospect of visiting his office, impromptuly and without the dark cover of night, feels like crossing a threshold you've been avoiding for far too long.

You and Bucky have been together for over two years, married for one short, whirlwind month. The news of your wedding broke across the country like a hailstorm. Stirring a media frenzy and a nationwide intrigue revolving one question in particular.

Who is the woman that managed to conquer the heart of one of America's most eligible bachelors?

You've always dreaded the attention that comes with being Bucky's partner, hence why you asked to keep your identity a secret at the start of your relationship. And Bucky—despite having his reservations about not being able to love you loudly in front of the whole world—had agreed, but not before promising you that his world was yours to enter whenever you pleased.

You just never thought that the entrance would happen today.

The dribbles of rain have gathered into a puddle under your feet. You squirm as more eyes begin scrutinizing you as if you're a ketchup stain in their otherwise polished world of Rolexes and Armani-clad egos. Taking a deep breath, you will the thumping in your chest to abate, forcing your chin up as you stalk towards the front desk across the lobby.

The two receptionists are conversing among themselves when you approach, huddled over a phone on the desk. You’re about to open your mouth when the mention of a familiar name stops you dead in tracks.

“Bet she's just a ditzy arm candy,” one of them remarks. “I won’t be surprised if he found her at a yacht party.”

The other gasps scandalously, pausing mid-way of applying her dark red lipstick. “You think she's an escort?”

“I don’t think. I know.” The first one smirks. “But then again, a guy who looks like that? With that kind of money? Hell, he could probably get with any woman in the world.”

“Yeah, you're right. I'd gladly get on my knees and be the sidepiece if Bucky Barnes asked me.”

The two receptionists snicker.

A few paces away, you're standing with hands curled into fists, commanding the red hot emotion in your chest to dissipate before you do something you might regret.

Instead, you clear your throat.

Two pairs of eyes look up, and the moment they catch sight of you—teeth chattering and skirt trickling with mud—their expressions twist into something unpleasant. Dismissive. Judgemental in a way that causes your skin to crawl and your ears to ring.

“Can I help you?” asks the one with the red lipstick.

“Hi. Yes, please. I, uh—” you shift on your feet, “—I'm here to see Mr. Barnes.”

“He's in a meeting,” she replies, already tapping something on her keyboard. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but—”

“You need an appointment to see Mr. Barnes.” She smiles, so sickly sweet as she drags her eyes from your head to your toe. “I can't let you in. Sorry.”

“Okay. But I'm actually—”

“She said you can't go up, Ma’am,” the other receptionist interjects.

“If you could just call his office and tell them—”

“Mr. Barnes doesn't receive walk-ins,” says Red Lipstick, her gaze acrid when it lands on you. “Especially not from… strangers.”

You grit your teeth. “I'm his wife.”

The other receptionist snorts.

It takes everything in your power not to snap right then and there.

“Look,” you sigh, tugging at the hem of your drenched hoodie, “can I at least borrow a phone, then? Just to call his secretary?”

Red Lipstick sneers. “We're not a public phone booth.”

Next to her, the other receptionist doesn't even attempt to hide her smug smile. There is an ache prickling in the back of your eyes. You're soaked, freezing, and exhausted, and the last thing you need is to defend your identity in front of two people who seem to have resolved their judgement upon seeing your appearance. All you want to do right now is to get home, curl up in bed, and forget that this whole day ever happened in the first place.

“Fine,” you mutter, exhaling a stuttering breath, “I'll just wait then.”

You head towards the seating area several feet away, the leather squeaking the moment you sink down. Red Lipstick whispers something to her friend before picking up the desk phone.

Two minutes later, security shows up.

Chill licks up your spine as you watch the man in the uniform talking to the receptionist from earlier, the latter throwing daggers in your direction without bothering subtlety. You move your tote bag to your lap—as though the material can shield you from the impending confrontation—and clutch the canvas in a death grip when the security starts marching towards you.

“Ma'am.” The large man, all muscles and ear-piece, towers over you. “I need to ask you to leave the premises.”

You close your eyes.

This can't be happening.

“I'm not doing anything wrong.”

“You're causing a disruption.”

“Disruption?” you seethe, your voice shakier than you would like it to be. “I'm only sitting.”

“Please, Ma'am—”

“I'm just waiting for my husband, alright?” Your voice cracks. “Just—just please… give me five minutes. I'll just wait for his meeting to be over and—”

You don't get to finish your sentence.

Before you can fully process what is happening, the security guard has stomped forward, plunging his claws around your forearm, and jerks you up to your feet. You yelp as he begins to try and drag you away, scrambling to peel his vicious grip.

“Hey! What are you—? Let me go!”

“You need to stop resisting, Ma'am.”

“I'm not! Please, just… just let me go, you're hurting me!”

All around you, people have paused and begun watching. Businessmen halt mid-call. Women with perfect sleek buns turn their heads to lour at the sudden commotion. You're half certain that someone in the crowd has even pulled out a phone to record the whole thing. 

And yet, none of them steps forward to help.

Shame creeps up your neck, burning in tandem with the ache that now travels through your arm. Your sneakers screech against the marble floors as the security heaves you across the lobby, unperturbed by your whines of pain and your desperate pleas. 

No one seems to care.

That is until a voice breaks through your choked cries.

“What the hell is going on here?”

The crowd falls into a sudden hush, panting like the Red Sea to reveal the figure standing in front of the closing elevator doors.

Bucky Barnes.

His suit jacket is unbuttoned, tie slightly loosened from the tumult of the day. You can almost picture him tugging repeatedly at that piece of fabric as he sits in one of his tediously long meetings—the same tie that you bought for him several months prior. His steel-blue eyes scan the surroundings, flicking from the mass of foreign faces standing in his lobby to the scene that has seemingly rendered everyone frozen on their spot. His gaze lands on you—dripping, scared, and on the verge of crying—and immediately zeroes in on the security guard's iron grip around your forearm.

Bucky steps forward.

And something inside of him snaps.

"Get. Your fucking hands. Off my wife."

The meeting is running long.

Too long.

Bucky keeps glancing at the clock above the screen monitor, counting down the minutes until the longer hand strikes twelve. He barely hears the pitch being presented. Not when his mind isn't even present in the room. His phone sits face-down on the table, buzzing occasionally with email notifications, meeting reminders, missed phone calls, but not from the one person who matters the most.

You.

He sighs quietly.

When the final slide clicks off and the lights turn on again, Bucky doesn't waste time standing to his feet. “Good work,”  he says, already halfway out of the door. “We'll review the proposal and follow up. That's all.”

He doesn’t even give his team a chance to respond.

The hallway is deserted as he walks past. Bucky enters his office and shuts the door behind him, checking his phone to see the last four messages he has sent to you.

[08.28 AM] Have fun with Wanda and Nat. I'll see you tonight, angel ❤️

[11.47 AM] Still with the girls, sweetheart?

[12.04 PM] Let me know once you're home

[01.58 PM] Angel?

His jaw clenches.

Bucky presses the call button and brings the device to his ear, cursing when the line goes straight to voicemail. You never do this—leave his messages hanging for hours like this. You always answer—with a text or a phone call, sometimes with a single emoji response when you're too busy or too tired to form a proper one. A total silence is unheard of, and Bucky knows that this can mean one of two things.

Either your phone is dead… or something is wrong.

Bucky’s gut plummets.

He hits another number on his phone, his driver instantly answering on the second ring.

“Bring the car to the front,” Bucky orders. “I'm heading home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bucky moves in quick lightning. Gathering his things and shoving important documents into his briefcase. He leaves the office and stops by his secretary's desk, who shoots out of her seat immediately upon seeing him.

“Cancel everything else for today. I'm going home.”

“Wait, what? But, Mr. Barnes, you still have—”

“I don’t care,” he says, already turning towards the elevator. “I need to check on my wife.”

Inside the elevator, Bucky fiddles with his cuffs, trying not to imagine the worst. There is a good chance you probably just forgot to charge your phone and got way too caught up reuniting with your friends to notice the time. Maybe you're already back home, asleep, snoring softly into his pillow. Maybe there really is no reason for Bucky to worry.

But he does worry.

Bucky has been worried for sometime. Particularly since the story of your wedding broke a month ago. 

He didn't say anything to keep you from stressing, but on the second week of your honeymoon in the Caribbean, Bucky received word from his security team that a stalker had tried to break into his house in Westchester. The perpetrator was caught and handed to the police before things could escalate, but it still wasn't enough to ease Bucky's mind. He had to relocate your residence temporarily to his penthouse in Manhattan—telling you a little white lie about doing some renovations at the house. Thankfully, you're none the wiser. You've always loved living at the heart of the bustling city, anyway.

The elevator doors open with a ding.

Bucky steps out, pausing in his tracks when he realizes there is a horde gathering in the lobby. People are murmuring among themselves, their necks craning as they attempt to sneak a peek at the center of the ruckus. Bucky's brows furrow.

“What the hell is going on here?” he bellows.

The crowd parts.

Bucky examines his surroundings. Seeing at least two people with their phones out, receptionists standing behind their desks, and heads turning towards a scene unfolding near the sofas.

There is a man there.

A man in uniform—a security guy—who has his hand around a woman's arm, trying to drag her away across the lobby.

The woman is drenched and shaking, voice hoarse from pleas that have fallen on deaf ears. When he finally catches her eyes—your eyes—blown wide with panic, the rest of the world seems to evaporate.

Bucky sees red.

“Get. Your fucking hands. Off my wife.”

The security guard falters, just for the briefest of milliseconds, but it's all Bucky needs to yank his hands off you. He shoves the guard so hard the man stumbles nearly five feet back. Bucky doesn't stop there—he grabs the guard by his collars, the man now trembling with fear in front of him. It doesn’t matter. Not to Bucky. Not after what he just saw this man was doing to you.

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?!” Bucky froths, face twisting into stone. “Touching my wife like that? Dragging her out? Do you want me to fucking kill you?!”

“S-Sir, I—”

“Bucky.”

His head snaps.

Your voice is meek beneath the tense air of the lobby, but it reaches him nonetheless. It always does. One short utterance of his name from you is all it takes for Bucky to loosen his grip on the security guard, his breath catching in his throat as he finally takes you in—soaked to the skin, shivering, shoes drenched under your feet.

Everything else melts away.

In two long strides, Bucky is now standing before you, his large palms cradling your face with a softness that startlingly opposes the man that has threatened death upon another human being five seconds ago. There is a pinch in his forehead as he studies your face. His face contorting as if the sight of you alone has plunged a blade so deeply into his soul.

“Sweetheart.” His voice breaks. “What happened?”

Your lips quiver. “I-I'm sorry, Bucky. I didn't mean to… I lost my wallet, and my phone’s dead. Then it just—it started raining, and I—I didn’t know what else to do—”

“Shh, angel. It's okay.” He tugs you close, arms wrapping around you without hesitation, not caring the fact that your rain-soaked clothes are probably ruining his expensive suit. You press into him, an involuntary shudder running through your limbs. “Shit, angel, you're freezing.”

Bucky shrugs out of his jacket and wraps it around your shoulders, firm hands rubbing your back to transfer some of his warmth to you. His voice is so unbearably tender as it falls on your ears.

 “I’ve got you now,” he whispers. “You’re safe, angel. I’ve got you.”

Then, Bucky turns. 

Slowly.

“You,” he barks at the security guard, blue eyes burning with hellfire. “Explain. Now.”

The guard swallows. “Sir, I-I didn’t know. The receptionist said she was causing a disturbance. Said she was crazy. Claimed she was your wife. I was just following—”

“She is my wife.” Bucky’s voice is deathly quiet. Venomous. “And you fucking manhandled her.”

“I-I didn’t mean to—”

Bucky turns his gaze towards the front desk.

The girl with the red lipstick is now as white as a sheet. Beside her, the other receptionist doesn't seem to be doing much better.

“Mr. Barnes,” Red Lipstick begins. “I didn’t—I didn’t know. She didn’t look like… She just sat on the furniture like she owned the place, and she—”

“She does own the damn place,” Bucky snaps. “And she told you who she was. And instead of doing the one job you have—calling my office—you humiliated her. Called security. Let this entire lobby watch while you treat her like dirt.”

“I—I was just trying to—”

Bucky raises his hand.

The girl's jaw snaps shut.

“I want all of you gone. Now. Security. Receptionists. Both of you. Fired. I don’t want to see any of you here again.”

The other receptionist tries to speak, “But sir—”

“Do you want me to fucking repeat myself?”

The three of them stay quiet.

Bucky turns back to you then, still enveloped in his jacket, looking smaller and more vulnerable than the person he knows you to be. Something inside him splinters at the sight.

“Let’s get you home, sweetheart,” he murmurs.

He guides you through the lobby, tucking you against his side as if he's afraid to let even an inch of space separate the two of you from now on. Before he reaches the rotating doors, Bucky halts his steps. He sweeps his gaze across the crowd, a raging flame in his sternum when he sees some people with their phones still out.

Bucky takes out his own mobile, typing in something without ever retracting his other arm away from your frame. Seconds later, his driver appears through the rotating doors, taking a subtle double take at your state, before nodding dutifully at the two of you.

“I want you to get all the names of the people in this lobby,” Bucky commands. “Give them to me by tomorrow. Check their phones. Confiscate them if you find anything of my wife. Prepare a fund to reimburse them for the device, we will not be returning them.”

The driver nods.

“Oh, by the way—” Bucky adds, gesturing at the security guard and the two receptionists, “—those three? I want them gone by the end of the day. Make sure to blacklist their names. Notify our partners as well.”

With that, Bucky leads you away again. Out of the office, out of the rumpus, and straight into the safety of his arms.

By the time you reach the apartment, New York City is in mourning.

The rain has exploded into a full-blown storm. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, you can see the darkness that has befallen the entire city. The roar of thunder echoes through the floor, still rough, still formidable, but a little quieter now that you're swaddled in the safety of your home.

Next to you, another thunder is subsiding.

Bucky doesn't let go of your hand as you step further into the apartment. He holds you like you're procelain, tucking you a little closer into his side every time he feels a tremble running through you. His lips are pressed onto your temple as he leads you towards the hallway.

“You're shivering, sweetheart,” he points out. “Let me run you a bath, okay?”

You don't have the energy to respond.

In the bathroom, Bucky guides you to sit on the toilet. He moves through the space like a domesticated cyclone—filling in the tub, lighting up your favorite candles, adding in that lavender and eucalyptus oil that he knows you love. Steam is rising within minutes. Bucky turns back to you with the gaze of a man who is trying to spell out love with his eyes alone.

“I'm gonna take off your clothes now, alright?” 

He sheds each layer with reverence. As if he was revealing your secrets rather than taking off rain-soaked worn cotton. Bucky pauses every now and then to squeeze your hand, peppering tiny kisses along the knuckles, shifting closer every time he detects gooesbumps on your skin.

The whole thing is so sweet.

He is so sweet.

And it makes the whole dam you've been straining to uphold finally collapses.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, surprising him.

“Sorry?” Bucky is perplexed. “Angel, why are you sorry?”

“S-Sorry for… for showing up like that. For making a scene. I shouldn't—I must’ve embarrassed you—”

“Hey,” he says firmly, cupping your face in his hands. “No. Don’t do that.”

Tears cling to your lashes.

“You can never embarrass me, sweetheart. You’re my wife. The most important thing in my life. If anything, I should’ve been there sooner. None of this is on you.” Bucky brushes his nose to yours, massaging the nape of your neck. “I'm so sorry, angel. You didn’t deserve to go through any of that.”

Your breath stammers. 

Bucky leans back and presses his lips to your forehead.

“Come on.” He smiles. So tender and loving you think you might unravel completely. “Let me take care of you.”

He helps you into the tub, guiding you down into the warmth with a steady hand on your back. The water laps against your skin, chasing the chill from your aching bones as well as your bruised heart. The next thing that comes out of your mouth is a relieved sigh.

Bucky moves to stand.

Your hand shoots out and curls around his wrist before he can rise.

“Join me,” is all you say.

He doesn’t need to be told twice.

Bucky never takes his eyes off you even when he starts stripping down his clothes. He steps behind you in the tub, tugging you to his chest the moment he has settled into the bath. Your whole body liquefies on instinct the second his arms engulf your middle.

“I’ve got you now,” he murmurs, pledging the words to your temple. “You’re safe.”

Bucky reaches for your soap, lathering his plams with the scent of lavender and peppermint. You sigh and sink deeper into his chest as you feel his touch working over your skin—shoulders, arms, the curve of your back. He kisses each spot every time he finishes rinsing it off, running his tongue down your neck, whispering praises with each breath.

“So strong. So brave.” He nips at your ear. “So proud of you, sweetheart. I love you so much.”

Bucky continues peppering your skin with kisses. Experimenting with the graze of his teeth and the scrape of his tongue. You squirm in his hold when his fingers begin swiping at your chest. Subtle, at first, but then he takes a nipple between his fingers and twist it just enough to make you mewl in delight.

It's the best goddamn sound he has ever heard on this planet.

He begins massaging your breast with his left hand, the other one sliding lower and lower with every bruise he is sucking into your neck. Bucky parts your nether lips, feeling you soft and compliant under his touch. You jolt in his arms the moment he skims over your sensitive nub.

“B-Bucky—”

“Shh, I got you, angel. Don't worry,” he soothes, burying his face in your throat. “Just feel me. Gonna make you feel so good, okay? Just lean back and relax for me.”

You follow his instruction, letting yourself fall back onto his chest. Bucky starts rubbing you slowly, earnestly, circling his fingers around the one place that is yearning for him, never quite touching it just to tease those breathless sounds out of you even further. In front of him, you're panting. Your hips grinding against his hand as you attempt to chase more of those heavenly feelings.

“Look at you,” Bucky muses, relishing the way you're chasing more of his touch. “Always so beautiful for me. You know that, don't you, sweetheart?”

“Bucky,” you whine.

“Shh, I know, angel. I know. Doing so good for me.”

Bucky rubs his fingers over your clit, groaning when the motion tears a wrecked sound out of your throat. He carries on with his ministrations, playing your body like a musician would their favorite instrument. Alternating between lazy strokes and desperate flicks that have you gasping and writhing against him. 

“Oh God.” You close your eyes, brows creasing when Bucky eventually plunges two fingers into your heat.

He moves them in and out of you languidly. Curling his digits, feeling your walls contract and suck him deeper each time he stimulates that one spot that always paints your vision with stars. You're gripping his forearm now. Your head falling back onto his shoulder as his other hand slides downward towards your bundle of nerves.

Everything feels heightened.

Everything feels good.

You angle your head to the side and kiss his jaw as you feel a familiar knot forming in your abdomen.

“Bucky,” you whimper, locking your eyes with his. “I-I'm gonna—oh God, don't stop—I wanna—”

“Wanna cum, angel?” Bucky purrs, running his nose down your cheekbone. “Can feel you squeezing my fingers—shit. Go ahead, sweetheart. Let go for me. Let me see you.”

You come apart within seconds. The murmurs of Bucky's encouragement as your music and the kisses he leaves on your shoulder as your anchor. His fingers continue to drag in and out of you with reverence, prolonging your pleasure, never once relenting until he is sure you've given him everything that you could.

“That's it, sweetheart. You did so well.” He tilts your chin up, leaving a chaste kiss in the corner of your lips. “Such a good girl for me.”

He holds you until your breathing slows, until the thrum under your skin quietens and your nerve endings stop lighting up in flames. Bucky helps you out of the bath with a towel already warm in his hands, drying you carefully, each brush a well-concocted plan because he knows you deserve nothing less than the utmost form of care.

Once you're dressed, Bucky leads you to your shared bed. You're already half asleep by the time he tucks the covers around your frame, brushing his thumb across your cheek.

“I love you,” he confesses into the quiet. “You’re my whole world, angel.”

You blink at him, eyes drowsy but warm. “Love you, too.”

Bucky slides in beside you, pulling you close until your head is rested on his chest and your hand finds the steady beating of his heart.

Outside, the storm continues to rage. Anguish in its name and its promise, chasing thunders with the stable clatter of the rain.

Inside, though, it's quiet. A stretch of silence merely rustled by the intakes of breath and the soft snores of Bucky's whole life—his wife. His world. Kept securely inside the certainty of his embrace where nothing and no one else would be able to lay their hands on you.

And with that reassurance, Bucky closes his eyes, drifting off with his heart stitched solidly to yours.

[returntodustt]

Bucky Barnes NSFW Alphabet

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+, explicit content, MDNI, curse words, bondage, mentions of masturbation, dirty talk, overstimulation, unprotected sex, use of sex toys, mentions of a multitude of different kinks including: spanking, biting, choking, mommy and daddy and pet play, oral fem!receiving, riding Bucky’s metal arm

Word Count: 3k

Author’s Note: this is my first attempt at smut so pretty please be nice!! If you have suggestions or constructive criticism, please feel free to let me know!! Requests are open!! If you have something you wanna see, you can dm me, leave an ask or a comment! Love you all 🤎

A = Aftercare (what are they like after sex?)

After sex, Bucky is gentle and caring. As soon as he pulls out, he is quick to leave the bed and head to the bathroom. He grabs cloth and wets it with warm water, squeezes out the excess before taking it to you. He kneels between your legs, putting a soft hand on your thigh to spread your legs. With tender hands, he cleans you, wiping up the mess that the two of you created.

Once that is done, Bucky tosses the cloth into the hamper before taking his rightful place lying under the covers next to you. Neither of you bother to dress, he just pulls you in close to his warm chest.

Bucky is definitely a talker after sex. He asks you what you liked, if there was anything you didn’t and if there was anything you wanted to try next time. He always wants there to be complete honesty and comfortability around sex, as there should be. If anything hurts, or goes too far, he wants to know about it. He has never once been upset at you when you bring up something that didn’t work for you. He just strokes your hair, the two of you having a conversation about how to make it right next time.

B = Body Parts (their favorite body parts of theirs and their partners)

Bucky doesn’t necessarily have a favorite body part of himself as he sees his own body as something that is broken. However, when it comes to being in the bedroom and his favorite thing to please you with, it may come as a shock to know that it is his mouth. You realized this one night when he spent so long between your legs that you felt numb by the time he was finished, and he didn’t need to be touched at all to get off.

The two of you had already gone to bed for the evening, your back pressed against Bucky’s warm bare chest. You were just beginning to doze off when you felt his warm flesh hand that had been draped loosely over your stomach, drift downward to grip your hip. He pulls you against him and that’s when you feel the growing bulge in his boxers pressing against your ass. You felt as though you were half asleep, but you were definitely awake enough to know what he wanted. You were always willing to give it to him of course, but not without a little teasing first. Bucky became especially needy and whiney when he was sleepy so you knew you had to play with him a little bit.

“Buck,” You practically purr at him, “We’re supposed to be going to sleep, we have to go to a birthday party tomorrow, remember?”

Bucky pulls you in closer, pathetically pressing his hips into your back side as he whines into your neck, “M’need you baby, please.”

And who are you to deny him?

You turn around to face him, cupping his cheeks as he whimpers at the loss of contact. You coo at him and his pouty, sleepy face and say, “Poor, baby. What do you want? Hm? Use your words.”

Pressing his forehead to yours, he pleads to you, “Please, I need to taste you, I just wanna make you feel good, please.” The words tumble out of his mouth like he can barely keep them in. As soon as permission leaves your lips, he is already moving.

Bucky maneuvers you so you are lying on your back, covering you with his large frame as he leans down, pressing a desperately messy kiss to your lips. His hands are on the move, running up under your sleep shirt groping any inch of skin that he can. He pulls away from your lips, just long enough to pull his shirt that you are wearing up over your head and toss it to the ground. When your bare chest is revealed to him, he dips his head down to press kisses haphazardly around your breasts. He doesn’t linger, no, he has a goal in mind. He kisses down your stomach until he reaches his intended target.

Bucky glances up at you, a silent ask of do you want this as much as I do?. When you give him an eager nod, he hooks a metal finger into the hem of your worn bed time panties and rips them straight off. It was so quick that you barely felt the pull of the fabric against your skin. As soon as the barrier is removed, Bucky quite literally dives in.

With trained precision, his mouth is on you, not wanting to waste any time as he goes straight to your clit. No teasing, no fan fair, just his tongue swirling around the little bud with a delicious amount of pressure. And it goes on for what feels like hours. Bucky brings you to orgasm more times than you can count, until you physically have to lace your fingers into his hair and pull him off of you.

Your legs are shaking from overstimulation and his lips are shining with your slick. Your eyes trail over him, landing on his boxers and where you expected a bulge to be, is only a large wet patch. When you connect the dots, your mouth quite literally falls open. He came just from eating you out and you don’t think you’ve ever seen anything hotter in your entire life.

Now moving onto his favorite body part of yours. We can sit here and argue about whether Bucky is an ass or a boob man until we are blue in the face but the truth is, Bucky is a thigh man.

Anytime that he can have his hands on your thighs, he will. He loves to touch, squeeze, and kiss them. They are by far his favorite thing to put hickeys on, and he will do anything to get in between them.

C = Cum (basically anything to do with cum)

I have to speak my truth…BUCKY IS A CUM EATER!!!

Whether you headcanon sub or dom Bucky doesn’t matter, either way that man is gonna clean you up. Bucky is finishing in you, every time without fail, and every single time, he’s gonna lick you clean, his tongue gently swiping through your folds to clean the mess you made together.

D= Dirty Secret (a dirty secret of theirs)

Bucky will never, ever admit it, but one of his favorite things is stealing a pair of your panties to take with him on missions. He always gets so lonely, dreaming, wishing that you were in the bed with him. Really the only way he can survive is sneaking one of your panties in his pocket before you can see.

Laying alone in his bed that night, mind drifting from the mission and on to you, he has a hell of a time wrapping your panties around his cock and fucking his own fist. And you’re none the wiser.

He always makes sure to wash and put away the panties as soon as he’s home. You always wonder why you can never seem to find your favorite pair, but as soon as you get suspicious they reappear. You gotta quit misplacing those.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Bucky’s experience is… well let’s say fluid. Okay let me explain. He definitely was one that got around in the 40s, his name being ran through the mouths of every woman in town. However, back then, he was still young and didn’t have time to really explore what he liked. He knew he wanted to cum and that’s all he was there for so that’s what he did. There was no time to build the relationships or the trust that was needed for him to explore the kinkier sides of his wants.

When he met you, he finally was able to. And now after being together for a few years, he knows exactly how he wants and what he enjoys.

So long story short, very experienced, with your help of course.

F = Favorite Position (pretty self explanatory)

Bucky’s favorite position truly does depend on how he is feeling at the moment and what the circumstances are. I’ll give you a few examples.

When he gets home from a hard mission, feeling pent up and angry, his favorite position is doggy. Bucky wants to be able to roughly grip at whatever parts of you he can get ahold of. He loves to wrap your hair around his metal hand, pulling you up so your back is pressed to his chest, never stopping the brutal pace of his thrusts. His other hand comes to your throat, not squeezing but holding, as he growls into your ear, “You’re mind you know that?” The hand in your hair would let go, quickly sneaking down to rub at your clit. “This little pussy here? *Mine*”

Shifting gears a little, when he is feeling more submissive, just wanting to be taken care of, his favorite position is cowgirl. He wants to just shut his brain off and lay there to take whatever it is that you want to give him. He especially loves it when you have the time to tie him down. He pushes out all of the thoughts swimming through his mind and only focuses on your presence.

G = Goofy (How serious are they in the moment?)

The only time that Bucky is goofy during sex is when he’s drunk, or very sleepy. Even then, it only starts that way and ends up devolving into him being a whiney mess.

Bucky is always so in the moment, taking whatever roll he chooses for the night very seriously. He is always in his headspace 100%.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? Does the carpet match the drapes?)

Bucky has never groomed downstairs a day in his life. He lets his dark, scruffy pubes run free, untamed. You have offered to trim them up for him, and he would let you, but deep down you love it. You wouldn’t wanna change it, it just adds to everything that makes him, him.

I = Intimacy (what are they like in the moment?)

When he’s having sex, but is always completely there. His mind isn’t wandering to what he wants to have for dinner, his sole focus is on you. He is wholly captured by the way you feel, taste, smell, etc.

He is careful, making sure to constantly check that you indeed still want this and are comfortable. He is absolutely devoted to you and that shows whenever you two are in these intimate moments together.

J = Jack Off (masturbation headcanon)

Bucky almost never jerks off for two reasons: 1. he has you, and 2. he likes to take his time with it.

When he is alone on missions, he gets so pent up that some nights, he feels like he’s going to explode. When he does finally get the time to do it exactly how he wants, that’s when your previously mentioned panties get pulled into the mix. He also has a naked polaroid of you stuffed into his wallet, just for the occasion.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Oh boy, strap in folks. I’m going to be brief here, but if you want me to go more in depth, feel free to request!

Spanking, biting, choking, ya know all of the fun stuff. Daddy or mommy kink, depending on the mood he is. Maybe even some light pet play, you are his good little kitty after all.

L = Location (favorite place to do the deed)

Bucky is a little old fashioned so his favorite place to have you is right on top of your plush mattress. He likes to have the doors shut, some candles lit and soft music playing in the background. Now that’s not to say that he hasn’t and isn’t willing to do it in other places, that is just his favorite.

M = Motivation (what turns them on and gets them going)

Bucky is very words motivated. More than visually, more than touch, he loves when you talk to him. If you come up to him, sit on his lap and whisper in his ear exactly all of the dirty things that you want to do with him, he’ll be carrying you to your bedroom before you can finish your sentence.

N = No (what is something they absolutely will not do)

Doing anything for someone else to watch. He is very protective of you so the thought of someone else seeing what is for his eyes only is an immediate turn off.

O = Oral (giver or receiver, skill level)

Bucky is happy being on either end of giving or receiving, but his personal preference is giving. He will (and has) get lost between your legs, cumming in his boxers completely untouched just from the taste of you.

I would say that Bucky is pretty skilled in terms of you. He takes his time to learn what you like, what makes you squirm and what makes you grip his hair, tugging him closer into you.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc)

Like almost everything with Bucky’s sex life, his pace changes depending on his mood. He can switch between rough, fucking you like he hates you, and slow and soft, treating you like his delicate little flower.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies)

Bucky isn’t the biggest fan of quickies as he wants to be in the moment and take his time whenever he gets the opportunity to be with you. He isn’t against quickies however, if the two of you have been out all day and he just can’t handle it anymore, he may just have to drag you into the nearest closed space and take you just the way he wants you.

R = Risks (are they game to experiment? do they take risks?)

Bucky is always down to try something that you want to do. He always says he’ll try everything at least twice. He’s not much for being the risky type though. Sure, you’ve fucked in a supply closet before but he always knows there is no risk of being caught. He would never want to be in a situation where there was a chance of someone seeing what is his.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long can they last)

Well, Bucky has super soldier serum running through his veins and it not only gave him strength in the battlefield, but in the bedroom as well. There are some nights where you have to tap out, letting him know that you can’t take it anymore.

Even after he has already came, he kneels down between your legs, licking and sucking up all of his mess as he waits to get hard again, not yet being done with you.

T = Toy (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves)

Bucky didn’t own toys before he met you, but since you have introduced him to the wonderful world of pleasurable plastics, he now has added his own pieces into your now shared collection.

His favorite pieces he has are cock rings, a silky pink slip of fabric that can be used as a blindfold or restraints, and a lovely little app controlled vibrator.

Bucky understands that his view on vibrators differ from some men’s, but he doesn’t mind, he enjoys using them on you and himself.

The cock rings he owns are all a bit too tight and have a vibrating component which he just goes crazy for.

You enjoy them too. You take the opportunity to use that pink cloth to tie his arms up to your bed frame. You’ll get him all lubed up and slide the cock ring down to sit at his base before grabbing your phone, opening up a specific app and powering up the low yet powerful vibrations. You’ll swing your leg over to straddle him, taking his cock in your hand and once you have it lined up, you sink down, the vibrations from the ring causing a delicious pleasure to run through your body.

U = Unfair (how much do they like to tease you?)

Bucky LOVES to tease, it just puts that snarky smirk on his face knowing he can have you squirming and whining under him when he has barely even touched you.

His favorite method of teasing you is when you both are doing something mundane like watching a movie. Bucky’s hand will wander, fingers lightly brushing the bare skin of your thigh exposed under your sleep shirt. His focus won’t deter from the screen, but his hand seems to have a mind of its own as it wanders higher up your thigh. When he reaches the hem of your panties, he just brushes along the edge. You feel like you’re barely hanging on while he acts like it’s the most nonchalant thing in the world.

He stays there for a while and when you think he’s content where he is and you turn your attention back to the screen, his hand is on the move again. This time, Bucky’s fingers go straight to the growing wet patch on your underwear. He barely puts any pressure, just petting you through the fabric.

And that’s how your movie night goes, him getting closer and closer but never fully giving you what you want. He wants to see how far he can push until you break.

V = Volume (how loud are they, what sounds will they make?)

Bucky is fairly vocal when it comes to loans and grunts, but most of his vocalizations are the dirty things he loves to growl to you while you’re in the heat of the moment.

That man will say the filthiest things to you while he’s deep inside of you, making you shudder, unable to respond as he just starts thrusting harder.

W = Wildcard (a random headcanon)

Listen, this one is really just own personal horny brain taking over but I’m convinced that Bucky’s arm can vibrate and he uses that to his advantage. In fact, it is one of his favorite things to use with you. And his favorite way to use it, is to have you sit on his fingers, facing him with your clit pressing against the cold metal of his forearm, grinding to your hearts content. He wants you to use him and take exactly what you want.

X = X-Ray (what’s going on inside those pants?)

In my humble opinion, the man has got such a bush and I'm here for it. I think he’d be a grower, and would have a nice 6.5-7 inches. I think he’d be fairly thick but not enough for it to hurt. He’s circumcised, with a tip that turns a dark red when he’s turned on, and he’s got one big beautiful vein that runs up the bottom. His balls are hefty and hang down a little low. A nice size for you to hold in your hand.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Bucky has a fairly normal sex drive, the two of you lying down together 2-3 times a week. However, when he has to be away from you, he feels like he is horny 24/7. He constantly thinks about you and your teasing pictures and videos don’t help. When he returns home, he has to go at least three times before he is fully satisfied.

Z = Zzz (how fast do they fall asleep after)

Bucky’s energy doesn’t really dip after sex which is a good thing as it means he has the energy to take care of you when everything is done. He likes to help clean you up, maybe give you a bath and a snack. If things were more intense, he sits with you, slowly stroking your hair as he tells you how good you did it while you slowly float down out of your sub space.

🤎🤎🤎

TAGS: @lovinqbella @sebastianstansecretwife

[returntodustt]

gonna post Bucky NSFW alphabet tonight and i thought about this gif the entire time i was writing so i hope you enjoy 🤎

[returntodustt]

Navigation

Hi! My name is Raven (she/her) and I am 23! Please be kind while you're here and enjoy your stay!

Requests Status: Open!

total works: 2

Fandoms

Marvel

Bucky Barnes

Bucky Barnes SFW Alphabet

Bucky Barnes NSFW Alphabet

[returntodustt]

yeah

doing my bedtime reading and thinking of cockwarming bucky’s cock while he makes you read out what you’re reading 😵‍💫

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i just fell to my knees all of sudden how crazy

Bucky Barnes + White Tank Tops

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guys i put these on my work bag and i work at a law office and one of my boomer coworkers asked what district he is running for because he’s never heard of him TEEHEE

i have made another purchase

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i have made another purchase

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yall…look at what i bought

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chat should i write a nsfw bucky alphabet?

[returntodustt]

Bucky Barnes SFW Alphabet

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Warnings: brief reference to sexual activity if you squint, mentions of Bucky’s past traumas and how it affects him now, so much fluff it’ll make you sick

Word Count: 3k

Author’s Note: Hey everyone is my first post so I hope y’all enjoy! I really enjoyed writing this so please let me know if you want me to expand on any of the subjects or ideas in this. Also! I am taking requests! Feel free to DM me or drop an ask. Love you all 🤎

A = Affection (how affectionate are they? how do they show affection?)

In the beginning, affection is hard for Bucky, giving and receiving it. He doesn’t want to let you in, afraid of somehow hurting you, and he feels as though he doesn’t deserve to receive your affection. However, as your relationship progresses and he gets more comfortable, he slowly starts to let you in.

It starts small, placing a hand on your thigh when you are sitting next to each other, rubbing small circles on your skin with his thumb. It progresses as he settles into you. When you’re cooking, he will come and hug you from behind. When he walks past you, he leans in for a small kiss. On the days when he really needs you, he cuddles up to you like he never wants to let go. He silently lays with you in bed, his head resting upon your chest as you twirl his hair in your fingers, eventually lulling him to a much needed peaceful sleep in your arms.

B = Best friend (what would they be like as a best friend? how would the friendship start?)

You would most likely meet at one of the restaurants that Bucky frequents after his therapy sessions, always convincing himself a bite to eat is his treat for sitting through those sessions. He usually sits at a booth alone, using the time to truly decompress and repack his mind after his therapist picked it apart.

One day, he is sitting in the booth waiting on his usual order and the restaurant is unnaturally packed. He was looking down at his phone, still trying to figure out how the thing worked, when he is startled by you sliding into the booth across from him, seemingly out of breath. Before he can question what the hell you’re doing, you quickly spit out, “I’m so sorry but the waitlist is literally so long at every single place within two blocks, and I forgot to pack my lunch and I only have 30 minutes for my lunch break please let me stay. I promise I won’t bother you, I will just eat my food and leave.” He was about to tell you to leave, but his therapist has been telling him how he needed to expand his social circle after embarrassingly pointing out his meager 10 contacts on his phone. So he agrees, allowing you to stay and the rest is history!

Now he is very thoughtful, although sometimes distant. He always makes sure to reach out and check on you. Whenever he goes days without texting you, he makes sure to tell you he is just having a hard time but he still cares and wants to make sure you’re doing good.

Whenever you need him, Bucky is always there, offering advice or just a shoulder for you to cry on. He’s not much for hanging out, but when you do, it is always an unforgettable time.

C = Cuddles (do they like to cuddle? how would they cuddle?)

At first, like stated in the affection section, Bucky isn’t much of a cuddler. It takes a lot of work for him not to flinch whenever you go to reach for him. It’s not your fault, just the trauma that he has been through flashes through his eyes no matter how hard he tries.

But you’re patient, you wait with him and you help him work through it.

When you finally get to the point where he allows you to hold him, he gets addicted to the feeling of being so close to you, being curled up in your arms more often than not. He enjoys being held in any capacity, but his favorite is with his head in your lap, your hand in his hair as you lay on the couch, quietly watching one of your favorite tv shows. It is in those moments that the racing thoughts slow to crawl, and he can truly be free.

D = Domestic (do they want to settle down?)

For the longest time Bucky was against ever getting married. He thought he had too much baggage to bring into a marriage. That all changed when he met you. You made him feel safe to heal and he never doubted how loved he was.

One night, while you were fast asleep with your head resting on his chest, he made up his mind. He knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you. Never before did marriage sound appealing, even before his Winter Soldier days. He always thought it was a sham to get the government involved in your relationship. But he’s seen how your eyes linger on the rings and the dresses prominently displayed in the shops you two pass on your day outings. The crazy part is, he feels himself wanting it too.

E = Ending (if they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

I am of the firm belief that Bucky wouldn’t break up with a partner, even if the relationship is toxic. He has lost so much in his life, I just have a feeling he would be too attached to let go. I don’t think he could handle the heartbreak.

F = Fiancé (how long do they want to wait before getting married?)

Like I said before, trust issues and attachment issues. So I think Bucky making the decision to get married would take a bit of time. However, after the decision is made, he wants nothing more to whisk you away to the courthouse that night. He waits though, has enough resistance so you two can plan out the wedding of your dreams.

G = Gentle (how gentle are they?)

Okay I’m gonna say it; Bucky is the classic trope of rough exterior to the outside and soft and sweet with you. Okay I SAID IT. It takes you to calm him down and give him the peace he needs to be gentle.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like)

Bucky loves a nice warm embrace after a hard day. There is nothing like being welcomed into your arms, even after you know his past, you still treat him as if he’s soft, as if he has value.

He tries to hug you whenever he can, but he especially always makes sure to give you a hug right before bed, whispering in your ear how much he loves you.

Bucky's hugs are a source of comfort for you, as he wraps you up in his arms like a place of solace. His solid, strong arms wrap around almost the entirety of your torso as your arms rest perfectly around his neck. He leans down enough so you don’t have to be on your tiptoes and he can bury his face in your neck.

I = I love you (How fast do they say it?)

Surprisingly, Bucky was the first to say I love you.

You had taken him out to celebrate his birthday. Of course the night involved getting drinks, which Bucky had had a bit too much of. You ended up carting him home, trying to take care of him the best you could. You drove him home and helped him balance his way into the house and up to the bedroom where you sat him on the bed with the intentions of getting him undressed and ready for sleep, but before you could reach for the buttons on his shirt to undo them, he slings his arms around your hips and buries his face in your chest. He shuts his eyes and exhales so hard it felt like he had been holding his breath for ages.

“I love you,” he murmurs softly into your plush skin, “more than I ever thought I was capable of.”

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Bucky has two very distinct types of kisses; soft and slow, when he just wants to feel connected to you, and the rough needy ones filled with teeth and tongue feeling as though he may swallow you whole.

His favorite place to kiss you, other than your lips of course, is in the plush center of your inner thigh. Bucky knows how sensitive you are in that spot, and can feel the way your legs tremble around his head as soon as his lips grace your skin. He loves the feeling of control he has, bringing your body to shake just at the very notion of him being between your legs.

On the other hand, Bucky's favorite place to be kissed is right across his jugular. You could rip his throat out if you wanted to, but instead you give him the kindness of a kiss.

L = Little ones (How are they around kids?)

Bucky is…hesitant around kids to say the least. He wasn’t really a fan of children before Winter Soldier and now when loud noises have a chance to trigger his fight or flight response, kids are definitely a no for him.

M = Mornings (how are mornings spent with them?)

In the earlier parts of your relationship, Bucky is definitely a morning person. He rises before you even think about waking up to go on a walk before the sun is up. You know he has a lot on his mind at times and figure it helps him clear it.

He starts sleeping in later and later until eventually, you rise together, waking up in a comfortable cuddle, your limbs tangled together. You spend the morning with slow, gentle touches, every second spent with each other.

When you finally make your way out of the sheets, you settle into what has now become your regular routine. You slip away to take a shower while Bucky makes his way to the kitchen to prepare a simple breakfast for the two of you to share before the day inevitably pulls the two of you away.

N = Nights (how are nights spent with them?)

Nights in your household are slow and you both like it that way. You eat dinner while you take turns picking shows, he’s fond of old black and white sitcoms and you enjoy showing him whatever new thing on Netflix you’re enjoying.

After you’ve cleaned up from dinner, Bucky grabs a shower while you do your skin care, a comfortable silence between the two of you.

P = Patience (how easily are they angered?)

Bucky hates to admit, but he does get frustrated very easily. Although he used to be quick to anger out of this frustration, he has done a lot of work to keep himself in check. Whenever he feels himself getting to a place where he knows he needs a break, he lets you know and walks out of the room. It used to hurt your feelings when he would just up and leave, but you’ve come to know and trust that he is doing what is best for the both of you.

Q = Quizzes (how much do they remember about you?)

Bucky is a firm believer that cell phones have ruined relationships on many fronts, one of them being remembering what your partner likes. You just have to stalk and instagram profiles and bam, all of her favorite things. But Bucky grew up in a time when you had to remember what a girl tells you, and he likes to prove it to you.

He always comes home with random little gifts of things you mentioned in passing, or things you may have touched in the store, briefly mentioning that you thought it was cute.

He knows your phone number by heart, allergies, blood type, and the name of your childhood dog. He tells you that you’re the most important thing in his life and that wouldn’t be true if he didn’t know everything about you.

R = Remember (What is their favorite memory in your relationship?)

Hands down, Bucky's favorite memory in your relationship is the day you let him know just how safe he was now that he’s with you.

He came home from therapy, accidentally slamming the door with angry tears in his eyes. You could tell he was on the verge of panicking and you knew if you didn’t intervene he would spiral. It was hard to try to help him sometimes (not that you mind), he just made it impossible to get close to him, especially during these heightened times as that’s when his walls were the strongest.

You quickly go to him, taking his hands in yours and squeezing them gently, trying to get him to look at you. You ask softly what is wrong. And that breaks him. Sobs leave his lips and it’s almost as if his body simply cannot bear the weight of his mind anymore as his legs give out and you both end up kneeling in front of each other on the floor. Bucky's shoulders are trembling as he says with a shaky voice, “Do you know how much I hate that everyone just expects me to bounce back? Just like that? I was pardoned and somehow everything is supposed to be okay and I just-“ a sob claws its way from deep in his chest and he just collapses into you.

You don’t push, you don’t judge, you just meet him where he is at. You let him cry and scream about everything going through his mind and you hold him through it all, gently stroking his hair.

When the sobs have turned into soft sniffles, you move a bit to make him sit up so he can look you in the eyes. You cup Bucky's cheeks, gently rubbing away his tears. “Buck, I want you to know I will never expect you to be okay with what has happened to you. So every day that I see a smile from you, is a day that I recognize how hard you’re fighting just to be here with me. I will never ever take that for granted.”

That night has never left his memory and he knows it never will.

S = Security (How protective are they?)

Bucky is hands down the most protective man that you have ever met. Whenever you two are out, his hands are on you in one way or another, whether that be holding hands, his arm slung around your shoulders or his hand on your thigh when you’re sitting together.

He sends glares towards any man who may look in your direction for too long. He has no issues with showing that you’re his to everyone around.

T = Try (how much effort do they put in?)

Bucky puts more effort into your relationship than you could’ve ever been prepared for. It definitely is partially because of the era he grew up in, but also it is because of the undying love he feels for you.

For every date, every anniversary, he is always going all out. Flowers, a fancy dinner, maybe a night of dancing. And when you arrive home, he carts you up the stairs, helps you undress, pressing a kiss to every inch of skin that is revealed to him.

He gathers you into his arms and carries you into the bathroom, his metal arm making carrying you the same as carrying a feather, and sets you on the counter top. He applies your skincare, knowing exactly how to do it from many times watching meticulously how you move. As his fingers gently rub the various serums into your skin, he is murmuring how much he loves you.

When finished, Bucky whisks you away to lay you into the bed, snuggling up with you, holding you close to his warm chest. He whispers sweet nothings to you while gently rubbing up and down your back.

U = Ugly (what is their bad habit?)

Bucky’s bad habit has got to be skipping his mandatory therapy. He knows he has to go and he knows at the end of the day that it is good for him. But sometimes, especially on days when he’s already annoyed, he just walks around town for an hour or two before returning to the apartment you two share. He always comes clean eventually, and you scold him, but you know he’ll never stop. And if that’s the worst of his vices, then you can handle that.

V = Vanity (how concerned are they with their looks?)

Literally couldn't care less. He had a buzz cut. Case closed.

W = Whole (would they feel incomplete without you?)

Not at first no, but the further into your relationship I fear he would take the Wanda path if he had the ability to do so. He is fiercely loyal to a fault and would be so attached, he wouldn’t be able to let you go.

X = Xtra (random headcanon)

Bucky loves to slow dance. He loves to put on an old record with a romance song from the 40s, place his hand in yours and dance the night away. Some nights, he would prefer that over any other activity. It is one of the ways he feels closest to you.

Y = Yuck (something he wouldn’t like in a partner)

Bucky would not tolerate a liar. He has to deal with so much deception in his life that he simply cannot handle it coming from someone he is supposed to hold dear.

Z = Zzz (what are their sleeping habits?)

Bucky’s sleeping habits are well…odd. It took you maybe a month to convince him to join you on the bed for night instead of sleeping on the floor. He also must always wear his dog tags, which sometimes you don’t mind, but on occasion, when he is being the big spoon, the cold metal presses into your back and causes cold shivers to rack up your body.

However, his most notable sleeping habit, one you so badly you wish you could take from him, were the nightmares. Every night without fail, he bolts upright in bed, sweaty and panting from whatever was haunting him behind his eyes. You are a light sleeper so you always immediately wake up with him. You don’t get annoyed or angry. Instead you wrap your arms around him, pulling him to your chest and help lull him back to sleep.

[returntodustt]

guys i’m gonna post Bucky sfw alphabet tonight im so excited teehee