sam24

[sam24]

holy shit?? im crying??

attrition, part one | b.b.

✮ synopsis: six months. that's how long it takes for you to realize love isn't enough. six months of bucky sleeping on the couch, of missed anniversaries and empty drawers where his things should be. six months of being loved by someone who treats you like you're already a ghost.

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

✮ disclaimers (18+): heavy angst, toxic relationship dynamics, emotional manipulation (unintentional), alcohol use/intoxication, unwanted touching (from minor character), violence, ptsd and trauma responses, therapy avoidance, communication breakdown, emotional neglect, mild sexual content (minors dni), depression, co-dependency, anxiety, self-destructive behaviors

✮ word count: 14.7k (woof)

✮ a/n: ANGST CITY BABY. but this is part one of a two-part series and i p r o m i s e (promise promise) there's a happy ending on the horizon. but i've gotta drag everyone through the emotional trenches first 🤠

The candle wax had started pooling at the base, creating small rivers that threatened to spill onto the tablecloth your grandmother gave you. You'd been watching it for the past twenty minutes, cataloging its slow destruction while the roast chicken developed a skin that could probably deflect bullets.

Which, given who you were waiting for, felt grimly appropriate.

Your bare feet had gone numb against the kitchen tile, a bone-deep cold that crept up through your ankles. The dress—the one that made you feel like you could conquer an imaginary boardroom and bar fights with equal efficiency—now clung uncomfortably to your ribs, each breath a reminder of how long you'd been sitting here, waiting. Your stomach had given up growling an hour ago, resigned to its empty fate.

Six months. The number sat heavy behind your sternum, a weight that pressed against your lungs with each inhale. You'd moved in together at three months—a decision that had felt like destiny at the time. His toothbrush next to yours. His combat boots by your rain boots. His leather jacket slowly accumulating the smell of your perfume. 

It had seemed romantic then, this swift collision of lives. Now the apartment felt like a beautiful prison you'd both walked into willingly, locking the door behind you.

The wine had gone warm in your glass, taking on that sickly sweet quality that made your teeth ache. You'd stopped drinking after the second one, some optimistic part of you still believing he'd walk through the door in time to share the bottle. That same part of you had carefully wrapped the small gift sitting on the coffee table—nothing major, just something that had made you think of him. A leather journal, worn and vintage, the kind he always touched in antique shops but never bought. You'd written something inside it this morning, when hope still felt like a reasonable emotion.

Your phone sat dark beside your plate. No messages. No missed calls. The silence of it felt accusatory, like even the device had given up on pretending this was normal.

When the key finally scraped in the lock, your spine straightened involuntarily, vertebrae clicking back into alignment after hours of slumping. Your heart kicked up its rhythm, that Pavlovian response to his arrival you hadn't managed to train out of yourself yet. Even now, even angry and hurt and tired, your body betrayed you with its eagerness.

Bucky filled the doorway like he always did—not just with his physical presence but with that particular gravity that made rooms reorganize themselves around him. Exhaustion hung on him like a second skin, in the slope of his shoulders and the way he held his head. His shoulders carried that specific tension that meant the mission had gone sideways, muscles bunched under his jacket like he was still ready to fight. The cut on his cheek was fresh, still weeping slightly, and his tactical pants bore smears of something dark that could be mud or blood or both.

He stopped mid-step, keys still dangling from his flesh hand. His eyes—that impossible blue that still made your stomach flip traitorously—tracked from your face to the dress to the table set for two. The wine bottle. The wilted salad. The candles drowning in their own wax.

You watched the exact moment comprehension hit him. His pupils dilated slightly, jaw going slack before tightening again. The keys landed in the bowl with more force than necessary, the sound sharp in the quiet apartment.

"Shit." The word came out raw, scraped from somewhere deep in his chest. "Sweetheart, I—"

"It's fine." The words jumped out before he could finish, your voice pitched just high enough to sound almost believable. Already you were moving, hands reaching for plates like this was all part of the plan. The ceramic was cool under your fingers, grounding you. "You're here now. Are you hungry? I can reheat—"

"Don't." His voice cut through your bustling, low and rough like gravel. When you looked back, he hadn't moved from the entryway, just stood there like he was cataloging damage from a bomb he'd accidentally detonated. One hand braced against the doorframe, knuckles white.

"Really, it's nothing." You turned back to the table, focusing on the simple task of stacking dishes. Your hands stayed steady even as something hot and tight crawled up your throat. "I made too much anyway. You know me, always overestimating portions."

"What time did I say?" The question came out carefully neutral, but you'd learned to read the microscopic changes in his voice. The slight rasp that meant self-hatred was creeping in.

"Seven-ish?" You kept your tone light, breezy, the voice you used when pretending everything was fine during your mother's phone calls. "But honestly, I should have checked. I know how these things go."

"It's nine." He said it like he was confessing to a crime. "Nine oh seven."

"Bucky, really—"

You glanced at him, saw something shift in his expression as he took in the scene again. His eyes moved from the table to you, cataloging details with that sniper's precision that never quite turned off. The dress. Your bare feet. The careful way you'd done your hair. Then his gaze caught on something over your shoulder, snagging like fabric on a nail.

The coffee table.

His whole body went rigid, that predator stillness that meant his brain was processing a threat. Except the threat was a small wrapped package, sitting innocent and damning in the lamplight.

Your stomach dropped somewhere around your knees.

"What—" he started, voice strangled.

"Oh, that's nothing." The words tumbled out too fast as you moved, scooping up the gift before he could step closer. The paper crinkled under your grip, and you fought the urge to crush it completely. "Just something I saw. Picked up. Seriously, not important."

His face went pale—not the gradual drain of color but an instant bleaching that made him look hollow, ghostlike. The cut on his cheek, half-healed and forgotten until now, stood out angry and red against his bloodless skin. You watched him piece it together in real time, could actually see the moment understanding clicked behind his eyes.

His left hand—the metal one—betrayed him first. The plates shifted and recalibrated with soft mechanical whispers, the way they always did when his emotions ran too hot, too fast for his body to process. A tell he'd never managed to suppress.

His gaze drifted past you, landing on that stupid Seinfeld calendar stuck to the fridge. The one he'd bought you three months ago, cackling like an idiot in the checkout line about how George Costanza somehow perfectly captured your shared existential dread. It hung there between old takeout menus and photo booth strips from better days, garish and wonderful and so utterly them that it hurt to look at.

You watched him stare at it, watched him count backwards in his head. Watched the last piece slot into place.

"It’s today," he said slowly, like he was defusing a bomb. Like the words might explode if he said them too fast. "It's—fuck." The profanity came out as barely more than a breath. "Fuck. Six months."

"It's really not a big deal." You were already shoving the gift into the nearest drawer, the wood protesting as you forced it shut. Your chest felt tight, like someone had wrapped steel bands around your ribs and was slowly tightening them. "Just a random Tuesday, you know? I mean, who even counts months? That's so high school."

"You made dinner." His voice had gone hollow, echoing strangely in the small space. Each word seemed to cost him something. "You got dressed up. You bought—"

"I like cooking." The words came out too fast, too bright, like shattered glass catching light. Your smile felt like it might crack your face. "And this dress is comfortable, I wear it all the time. You probably just haven't noticed because you're—anyway, should I heat up the chicken? You must be starving."

"Stop."

The word came out rough, almost angry, but when you looked at him, you could see all that fury turned inward. His flesh hand was clenched into a fist so tight you could hear his knuckles pop. The metal one hung carefully still at his side, like he didn't trust it. Didn't trust himself.

"Just—stop pretending this is okay."

"But it is okay." You forced the smile wider, until your cheeks ached with it. The expression you'd perfected after months of practice. "I understand. Your work is important. The world needs saving. What's a dinner compared to that?"

Something shifted in his expression—frustration bleeding into something that looked almost like disappointment. His jaw worked like he was chewing on words, trying to find the right ones. You recognized that look. It was the same one he got when he wanted you to yell at him, to throw something, to be anything other than understanding.

But you couldn't give him that. Wouldn't. Because if you started letting the hurt show, you might never stop. The dam would break, and you'd drown both of you in the flood.

"I forgot our anniversary." He said it flatly, like stating evidence at a trial. Like maybe if he said it out loud, it would hurt less. It didn't.

"It's just a day." You busied yourself with clearing plates, needing the physical action to keep yourself anchored. The fork clinked against china, a tinny sound that made you wince. "We're together every day. That's what matters, right?"

"You don't believe that."

"Sure I do." Another lie, smooth as silk. You'd gotten good at them. Had to, living like this. "Besides, when you think about it, anniversaries are kind of arbitrary. Why six months and not seven? Why celebrate time at all when—"

"What was in the box?"

He'd moved closer while you rambled, silent as always. Ghost-quiet, they probably called it in his files. Now he stood between you and the kitchen, blocking your escape with his body. This close, you could smell the mission on him—cordite and copper and something acrid that might have been burning plastic.

"Nothing important. Just… something that made me think of you." You shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere around manic. Your hands fluttered like birds with broken wings. "But honestly, it's stupid. You probably wouldn't even—"

"Show me."

"Bucky—"

"Please." The word caught you off guard, soft and desperate. It hit you in the solar plexus, knocked the air from your lungs. "Just... let me see what you got me."

You could have refused. Should have, maybe. Instead, you found yourself retrieving the small package, the drawer sticking slightly as you pulled it open again. Your hands trembled as you held it out, and you hated them for the betrayal.

He took it carefully, like it might explode. Or like it was precious. The same way he'd touched you, in the beginning, before he'd learned you wouldn't break. The paper fell away with careful movements of his flesh hand, the metal one still hanging useless at his side.

The journal revealed itself slowly—leather worn soft with age, the color of whiskey in low light. You'd seen him run his fingers over similar ones a dozen times in antique shops, always putting them back with a small shake of his head. Like he didn't deserve nice things. Like he couldn't allow himself even that small pleasure.

"I thought—" Your voice caught, and you had to swallow hard to continue. "You're always writing on those loose papers, and they get everywhere, and I thought maybe—but it's dumb. You probably prefer the papers. It's not—"

"It's perfect." His voice came out raw, scraped. Like the words hurt coming up.

He opened it with careful fingers, found the note you'd tucked into the first page. You watched his eyes track over your handwriting, watched his jaw tighten with each word. You'd written it last night, three glasses of wine deep and feeling sentimental. Something about how his stories deserved a better home than scattered napkins and receipt backs. Something about being grateful for every day, even the difficult ones.

Now it felt like evidence of your naivety.

"It's really not," you said quickly, the words tumbling over each other in their haste to get out. "I can return it. Get you something more practical. Or nothing. Nothing's good, too."

He looked up at you then, and the devastation in his eyes made your stomach flip. It was the look he got sometimes when he woke up from nightmares, before he remembered where he was. When he was. Lost and guilty and carrying too much weight for one person's shoulders.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"This." He gestured vaguely between you, the journal still clutched in his flesh hand like an anchor. "Acting like nothing matters. Like I didn't just—like this doesn't—" He stopped, frustrated, the words tangling up behind his teeth. "I fucked up. I forgot something important. Why won't you be angry?"

"Because I'm not angry." Your voice stayed steady even as your nails dug crescents into your palms. "I'm fine. We're fine. Everything's—"

"Fine," he finished, bitter as black coffee. "Yeah. You keep saying that."

You shifted your weight, suddenly hyperaware of your body. How your feet ached from standing, cold and numb against the tile. How the dress pulled at your ribs with each breath. How your hands couldn't seem to stop moving, straightening things that didn't need straightening.

"Look, why don't you get cleaned up?" You couldn't meet his eyes, focusing instead on a spot just over his shoulder. "I'll put the food away. We can just... reset. Pretend this didn't happen."

"Is that what you want? To pretend?"

"I want—" The words caught in your throat like fishhooks. It felt like a test.

You forced another smile, felt it stretch your face into something that probably looked more grimace than grin. "I want you to eat something. And maybe put something on that cut. It looks deep."

His flesh hand went to his cheek automatically, coming away with fresh blood. He stared at it like he'd forgotten he was bleeding. Like physical pain was so far down his priority list it barely registered.

"It's nothing."

"Now who's deflecting?" The words slipped out before you could stop them, carrying more edge than you'd intended. A crack in the facade you'd been so carefully maintaining.

His eyes sharpened, zeroing in on that first real break in your performance all night. "Say it."

"Say what?"

"Whatever you're thinking. Whatever you're pushing down." He moved closer, and your body responded without your permission—heart rate spiking, breath catching, skin prickling with awareness. "Come on. Tell me what a shit boyfriend I am. Tell me how I'm ruining this."

"You're not—"

"I am." His voice was rough, urgent. Desperate in a way that made your chest ache. "I know I am. I can see it happening and I can't—I don't know how to stop it. So just say it. Please. Be mad at me."

"I can't." The admission came out small, tired. True. "I can't be mad at you when I know what your life is like. When I know what you carry. It would be like... like being mad at the rain for falling."

His metal hand clenched, servos whirring softly in the quiet apartment. 

"I'm not the weather," he said quietly. "I'm a person who makes choices. And I chose wrong tonight."

"You chose to save lives." You moved past him toward the kitchen, needing distance. Needing air that didn't smell like gunpowder and guilt. "Hard to argue with that math."

He caught your wrist—flesh hand, always the flesh hand when he was trying to be gentle. His thumb found your pulse point automatically, and you knew he could feel how it jumped at his touch.

"That's not... You know that's not what this is about."

"Isn't it?" You looked down at his hand on your wrist, at the blood still drying in the creases of his knuckles. At the flesh and bone that could be so gentle and so violent, often in the same night. "Every time you walk out that door, you're choosing them over me. And that's... that's right. That's what heroes do. I just need to be better at accepting it."

"Don't." His grip tightened fractionally. Not enough to hurt, never enough to hurt, but enough to feel the desperation in it. "Don't make me into something noble when I'm fucking this up. When I'm hurting you."

"You're not hurting me." The words tasted like ash. "I'm fine."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so bitter. "You keep saying that word."

"Because it's true."

"No," he said quietly, "it's not. And we both know it."

You stood there in your kitchen—his kitchen, this shared space that felt more like a crime scene now—and wondered how you'd gotten here. How six months of loving this man had taught you to swallow so much disappointment it had become second nature. Your throat felt full of unsaid words, accusations and pleas and declarations all tangled together into something too big to voice.

"I need to change," you said finally, extracting your wrist from his grip. The skin there felt too warm, like his touch had branded you. "This stupid dress is giving me a headache."

That was a lie too. The headache was from clenched teeth, from holding your face in that careful smile, from the effort of pretending everything was fine when it was anything but. But he let you go, watching you retreat with eyes that seemed to catalog every step like evidence of his failures.

You made it to the bedroom door before his voice stopped you.

"I love you."

The words hit you in the back like bullets. You closed your eyes, hand tightening on the doorframe until your knuckles went white. Your lungs forgot how to work for a moment, chest tight with everything you couldn't say.

"I know," you said without turning around.

Because you did know. That was the worst part. You knew he loved you the way he knew how—desperately, violently, silently. The way a soldier loves peacetime. The way a ghost loves being seen. The way a weapon loves being put down.

It just wasn't enough anymore.

But you couldn't say that. Couldn't risk the weight of that truth. So you did what you'd gotten so good at doing.

You pretended it was fine.

The bedroom was dark when he finally came to bed, but you weren't sleeping. Couldn't, with your mind running circles and your body still humming with the tension of the evening. You'd changed into one of his old shirts and curled up on your side, facing the wall, listening to the sounds of him moving through the apartment. The shower running. The medicine cabinet opening and closing. His footsteps, heavier than usual with exhaustion.

The mattress dipped behind you, and you felt the heat of him before he even touched you. He smelled like your soap now, the gunpowder and blood washed away, leaving just Bucky. Just the man you'd fallen in love with, who was somehow both exactly who you'd thought he was and nothing like it at all.

His flesh hand found your hip, tentative at first, then more certain when you didn't pull away. You never pulled away. That was part of the problem, wasn't it? You'd made yourself so available, so understanding, that he'd forgotten you had edges. Forgotten you could break.

"You awake?" His voice was rough in the darkness, barely above a whisper.

You didn't answer, but your breathing hitched, giving you away. You felt him shift closer, his chest pressing against your back, his arm sliding around your waist to pull you against him. The metal arm stayed wedged between them, carefully positioned so the plates wouldn't touch your skin.

"I'm sorry," he breathed against your neck, lips brushing the sensitive spot below your ear. "I'm so fucking sorry."

You closed your eyes, feeling the familiar routine begin. This was how he apologized when the words weren't enough, when his voice failed him like it so often did. With touch. With his body. With careful, focused attention that used to make you feel cherished.

His hand slipped under the hem of your shirt, fingers splaying across your stomach. Not demanding, just... present. Asking. Always asking, even after six months, like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed this. His lips pressed against your shoulder, your neck, the spot where your pulse jumped traitorously.

You turned in his arms because you were weak. Because despite everything, your body still responded to his like a flower turning toward the sun. His eyes were dark in the dim light filtering through the curtains, pupils blown wide with want and something that might have been desperation.

He kissed you like he was drowning and you were air. Like he could fix everything broken between you if he just tried hard enough, loved you thoroughly enough. His flesh hand cradled your face like you were something precious, thumb brushing across your cheekbone with aching gentleness.

You let him, because this was easier than talking. Easier than admitting that the distance between you had grown so vast that even this—this thing that had always worked—felt like putting a bandaid on a bullet wound.

He undressed you slowly, reverently, his touch mapping every inch of skin like he was memorizing you. Like he was afraid you might disappear. And maybe you were, in a way. Maybe you'd been disappearing for months, becoming less solid with each missed dinner, each forgotten plan, each night you fell asleep alone.

His mouth followed his hands, pressing apologies into your skin that he couldn't speak aloud. He knew your body like a mission he'd studied, every sensitive spot, every place that made your breath catch. He applied that knowledge with focused intensity, watching your face in the darkness for every micro-expression, adjusting his touch based on the smallest reactions.

It was good. It was always good. He made sure of that with technical precision, with the kind of attention to detail that should have made you feel worshipped. His flesh hand worked between your thighs with practiced movements, finding exactly the right rhythm, the right pressure. His mouth on your breast, your throat, swallowing the sounds you made like they were sustenance.

But even as your body responded, as heat coiled low in your belly and your hands tangled in his hair, some part of you stayed separate. Observing. Cataloging the way he held himself so carefully above you, weight balanced on his right arm while the left stayed pressed against the mattress. The way his breathing stayed controlled, measured, even as sweat beaded on his forehead. The way he watched you with that same focused intensity he brought to everything, like making you come was a mission objective to complete.

When he finally pressed inside you, your back arched and his name fell from your lips like a prayer. He stilled for a moment, forehead pressed to yours, sharing breath in the darkness. You could feel the tremor in his arms, the effort it took to maintain that careful control.

He moved like he was handling something breakable. Deep, measured thrusts that built a steady rhythm designed to take you apart by degrees. His flesh hand found yours, lacing your fingers together beside your head, while the metal one stayed planted firmly on the mattress, bearing his weight.

You wanted to tell him to let go. To stop being so careful, so controlled. To give you something real instead of this perfect performance. But the words stuck in your throat, trapped behind months of fine and okay and it doesn't matter.

He knew exactly what angle made you gasp, exactly how to roll his hips to hit that spot that made stars explode behind your eyelids. He applied this knowledge ruthlessly, efficiently, until you were shaking beneath him, nails digging into his shoulders as waves of pleasure crashed over you.

He watched you fall apart with dark satisfaction, like he'd successfully completed a mission. His own release followed shortly after, his body shuddering silently above you, face buried in your neck. Even then, even lost in his own pleasure, he was quiet. Just harsh breathing and the whisper of your name, barely audible.

After, he held you too tightly, both arms around you now that the careful control wasn't needed. The metal arm was cool against your overheated skin, and you pressed into it, into this part of him he tried so hard to keep separate.

"Better?" he asked quietly, and you could hear the hope in it. Like maybe this had fixed something. Like maybe you'd forgotten about the cold dinner and the lonely wait and the wrapped gift hidden in a drawer.

"Yeah," you whispered, because what else could you say? How could you tell him that technically perfect sex couldn't fill the emotional void between you? That you needed more than his body—you needed his words, his presence, his time?

"Good," he murmured, already drifting toward sleep. The mission was complete. Objective achieved. Girlfriend satisfied.

You lay there in the darkness, listening to his breathing even out, feeling the weight of his arms around you. Six months of this. Six months of being loved by a man who couldn't say it out loud unless he thought he was losing you. Six months of being held by someone who only knew how to hold on too tight or let go completely.

Tomorrow, you told yourself. Tomorrow you'd find your voice. Tomorrow you'd stop pretending everything was fine.

Tonight, you just closed your eyes and pretended to sleep, counting his heartbeats against your back and wondering when love had started feeling so much like loneliness.

The morning light was doing that thing where it slanted through the blinds just wrong, striping across your face in a way that guaranteed a headache by noon. You'd been awake for the past hour, maybe two, caught in that special purgatory between sleep and consciousness where all your mistakes liked to parade themselves for review.

Bucky was still wrapped around you, flesh arm heavy across your waist, metal arm tucked carefully behind his back. Even in sleep, he kept it away from you. Like his subconscious had been programmed with the same careful distance as his waking mind.

You studied the ceiling, counting water stains like constellations, and tried to remember when it had become like this. When you'd become someone who catalogued disappointments instead of joys. Someone who lay in bed calculating the exact weight of a sleeping man's arm across your ribs.

It hadn't always been like this.

Six months ago, you'd been the woman who'd laughed—actually laughed—when he'd awkwardly admitted his therapist had suggested he ask you out. Not a polite titter or an uncomfortable chuckle, but a real, surprised burst of laughter that had made him jump.

"Oh my god," you'd said, wiping tears from your eyes while he sat frozen across from you at the dive bar he'd chosen. "Shit. That's definitely the most honest thing anyone's ever said on a first date."

His face had done something complicated—surprise melting into confusion, then something that might have been the birth of a smile. "You're... not going to throw your drink at me?"

"Why would I?" You'd raised your beer, foam sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "At least you're, I don’t know. Working on yourself. Do you know how rare that is, these days?"

He'd clinked his bottle against yours, and there it was—a real smile. The kind that transformed his whole face, made him look younger, softer somehow. "To horrible first impressions?"

"To honesty," you'd corrected. "Even the awkward kind."

That had been the beginning. Or maybe the beginning had been earlier, in your bookstore that smelled like dust and old paper and the obscure eighties rock you played just loud enough to discourage teenagers from using it as a hangout. He'd wandered in looking lost, all broad shoulders and careful movements, like he was afraid of breaking something.

Five visits. That's what it had taken. Five separate occasions of him pretending to browse your stacks while stealing glances at you over copies of Kerouac and Murakami. You'd watched him work up to it like a man approaching a live wire, and when he'd finally asked—voice rough, words tumbling over each other—you'd said yes before he'd even finished the sentence.

You'd slept together after that first date. It had surprised both of you—the way you'd crashed together outside your apartment, the way he'd kissed you like he was starving for it, the way you'd pulled him inside without a second thought.

"I don't usually—" he'd said after, lying in your bed looking shell-shocked and unbearably soft in the lamplight.

"Yeah, me neither," you'd admitted, then traced a finger along his flesh arm, marveling at how someone so dangerous could be so gentle. "But I'm glad we did."

He'd pulled you closer then, nose brushing against your temple. "Me too."

Those early days had been full of small revelations. You'd discovered he kept notes—actual handwritten notes on receipt backs and napkins and torn corners of newspapers. You'd found them scattered around his apartment like breadcrumbs: likes her coffee with cinnamon when she's sad and wears dad's old college sweatshirt on laundry day and laughs at commercials but only when she thinks no one's watching.

"Is this... about me?" you'd asked, holding up a scrap that read hates cilantro but won't send food back.

He'd flushed, reaching for the paper, but you'd held it out of reach. "My memory," he'd said quietly. "It's not always... Some days are harder than others. I don't want to forget the important things."

You'd kissed him then, soft and lingering, tasting the vulnerability in his admission. "I hate cilantro," you'd confirmed against his lips. "But I love that you noticed."

He'd come home bleeding more nights than not in those early months, before the move, when boundaries were still being negotiated. You'd gotten good at first aid by necessity, keeping supplies under your bathroom sink like some people kept spare towels. He'd sit on a stool while you worked, and inevitably—always—his hands would find your waist. He'd press his face against your stomach like he was trying to breathe you in, to memorize the feel of you through your sleep shirt.

"I'm okay," he'd mumble into the fabric while you cleaned a gash on his shoulder.

"I know," you'd say, even when he wasn't. Even when his hands shook against your hips and his breath came too fast. "I've got you."

Those were the nights he'd kiss you like a drowning man, desperate and deep, mapping your mouth with his tongue like he was trying to memorize the geography of you. You'd discovered early on that he loved kissing—could spend hours just making out like teenagers, all wandering hands and bitten lips and breathless laughter when you had to come up for air.

"This okay?" he'd ask between kisses, even after months together, checking in like he still couldn't quite believe he was allowed this.

"More than okay," you'd assure him, and watch his pupils blow wide before diving back in.

He'd sit through terrible spy movies with you, the ones with ridiculous plots and worse dialogue, because he'd noticed your collection and drawn his own conclusions. You'd curl up on his couch while Hollywood's version of espionage played out in technicolor absurdity.

"That's not how any of that works," he'd mutter when the hero rappelled through a ventilation shaft.

"That's the point," you'd say, tucking your feet under his thigh. "If I wanted realism, I'd watch the news."

But he'd watch anyway, adding dry commentary that made you laugh harder than the intentional jokes. During the love scenes, he'd trace patterns on your ankle with his thumb, pretending he wasn't affected while his ears turned pink.

The moving in together had been gradual, then sudden. Your toothbrush at his place. His favorite mug at yours. Until one day he'd looked around your apartment—at his jacket on your coat rack, his books mixed with yours, his reading glasses on your nightstand—and said, "This is inefficient."

"What is?"

"Paying for two places when we're always together anyway."

Not the most romantic proposition, but the way he'd been fidgeting with his car keys, nervous energy radiating off him in waves, told a different story.

"James Buchanan Barnes," you'd said slowly, "are you asking me to move in with you?"

"Maybe. Yes. If you want." He'd run his flesh hand through his hair, messing it up in that way that made your chest tight. "I want to wake up with you every day. Not just sometimes. Every day."

You'd said yes, of course. How could you not, when he looked at you like that? Like you were his anchor in a storm he couldn't name.

But somewhere between then and now, something had shifted. The notes stopped appearing—or maybe you'd stopped looking for them. The movie nights became fewer, his commentary sharper when they did happen. He still kissed you like he was drowning, but now it felt like he was already too far underwater to save.

"Hey," his voice, rough with sleep, pulled you from your reverie. "You're thinking too loud."

"Just thinking," you said softly, not turning to face him.

"Yeah?" His lips found the spot where your neck met your shoulder, pressing a kiss there that felt like an apology. "What about?"

The way we used to be. When loving you felt like breathing instead of drowning.

"The Donovans," you said instead, nodding toward the wall. "They're at it again. Who starts rearranging furniture at six in the morning?"

He huffed a laugh against your skin, and you could feel him listening. Sure enough, the telltale scrape of something heavy being dragged across the floor filtered through the thin walls, followed by muffled voices.

"Maybe they're trying to spice things up," he murmured. "New feng shui, new marriage."

"Is that what we need? Better feng shui?"

His arm tightened around you, pulling you back against his chest. "I don't think there's a furniture arrangement that fixes what I've mangled."

The honesty of it caught you off guard. For a moment, it felt like before. Like you were still those two people who'd found something unexpected in each other.

Then his phone buzzed on the nightstand, and you felt him go still. The mission alert tone. Because of course it was.

"I know," you said before he could speak. "You have to go."

"I—" He paused, and you could feel the weight of words unsaid pressing against your spine. "Yeah. I do."

You sat up, pulling the sheet around yourself, watching him dress in efficient movements. His tactical gear was kept in the closet now, easy access. When had that become normal? When had you stopped noticing the weapons hidden around your shared space like deadly décor?

At the door, he paused. "About last night—"

"Bucky." You finally looked at him, taking in the guilt etched into every line of his face. "Just... be careful, okay?"

Something flickered in his eyes—surprise, maybe, at the lack of accusation. "Always am."

"No," you said quietly. "You're really not."

He crossed back to you in three strides, cupping your face in his hands—both of them, metal and flesh—and kissed you like he used to. Like you were oxygen and he'd been holding his breath for too long. When he pulled back, you were both breathing hard.

"I love you," he said, fierce and desperate. "Even when I'm shit at showing it. I love you."

"I know," you whispered. "That's what makes this so hard."

He left then, and you were alone with the ghost of his kiss still on your lips and the weight of everything unsaid settling into your bones. You made coffee, adding cinnamon like you always did when you were sad, and tried not to think about how he'd remember that detail but forget your anniversary.

Love was funny that way. It could be in the small notes scattered like breadcrumbs and still get lost in the larger leaving. It could be desperately real and still not be enough.

You found a piece of paper stuck to the coffee maker as you reached for a mug. His handwriting, clearly recent—the pen he'd used was still uncapped on the counter:

she only listens to Fleetwood Mac when she can't sleep. Dreams instead of Rumours = the bad kind of insomnia

You stared at it for a long time, remembering last Tuesday when you'd played "Dreams" on repeat at 3 AM, curled on the couch while he'd been supposedly asleep. He'd been listening. Taking notes. Still trying to decode you like you were a mission he could complete if he just gathered enough intel.

You carefully folded it and put it in the drawer where you'd hidden his anniversary gift. Another piece of evidence that you'd been loved by Bucky Barnes. Another reminder that sometimes love, no matter how real, wasn't enough to make someone stay.

The nightmare came a few weeks later, on a Tuesday.

You'd been having a good day, or at least good by recent standards. Bucky had been home for a full week—some kind of record lately. He'd even cooked dinner, that pasta dish his mother used to make, though he could never quite remember if it was oregano or basil she'd used. You'd eaten together at the actual table, phones face down, talking about nothing important in that comfortable way that made you ache for how things used to be.

Maybe that's why you'd let your guard down. Why you'd curled into him that night instead of maintaining the careful distance that had become your default. He'd seemed present, actually there with you instead of wherever his mind usually wandered. His arm had been warm around you, and you'd fallen asleep to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

You woke to darkness and the sensation of being trapped.

At first, your sleep-addled brain couldn't process what was happening. The pressure around your throat was firm, mechanical, unforgiving. Metal fingers pressed against your windpipe with calculated precision, not quite cutting off air but making each breath a conscious effort. Your hands flew up instinctively, fingernails scraping against vibranium that wouldn't yield.

"Bucky." The word came out strangled, barely there.

His eyes were open but vacant, seeing something that wasn't you, wasn't this room, wasn't this year. In the dim light, you could see his face contorted with rage—no, not rage. Fear. Raw, primal terror that belonged to some other time, some other place where he wasn't safe, where he had to fight to survive.

"Soldat." The Russian fell from his lips like acid. More words followed, too quick and slurred with sleep for you to catch, but the tone was clear. Orders. He was following orders.

Your vision started to blur at the edges. Not from lack of air—not yet—but from the tears that came unbidden. This wasn't him. This wasn't your Bucky who kept notes about your coffee preferences and kissed you like you were precious. This was the Winter Soldier, and he was going to kill you in your own bed.

"James." You forced the word out, put every ounce of love you had into it. Your hand found his face, palm against stubble and scars. "Baby, please. It's me. You're home."

For a moment, nothing. The pressure continued, steady and sure. Then—a flicker. Something in his eyes shifted, pupils contracting as consciousness clawed its way back. You watched the exact second he came back to himself, watched the recognition slam into him like a physical blow.

The hand released so fast you gasped, air rushing back into your lungs in a painful burst. But the sound of your breathing—ragged, desperate—seemed to break something in him.

"No." The word ripped from his throat, raw and disbelieving. He scrambled backward so violently he fell off the bed, hitting the floor hard. "No, no, no. What did I—Oh god."

"I'm okay," you tried to say, but your voice came out wrecked, harsh. The sound of it—the damage he'd caused—made him flinch like you'd struck him.

He was on his knees now, staring at his metal hand like it was covered in blood. Maybe in his mind, it was. "I was—Jesus Christ, I was killing you. I was—" His breath came in sharp pants, heading toward hyperventilation. "Your neck. Let me see your neck."

"Bucky—"

"Let me see." It came out as almost a roar, desperate and wild.

You pushed yourself up, hand going unconsciously to your throat. Even that light touch made you wince, and you knew without looking that there would be marks. A perfect blueprint of his hand in bruises.

He saw your wince. Of course he did. And the look that crossed his face—you'd seen him shot, stabbed, thrown from buildings. You'd never seen him look like this. Like someone had reached inside and torn something vital loose.

"I… I put my hands on you. I tried to—" He couldn't finish, just stared at you like you were already dead, like he'd already lost you to his own monstrosity.

"You were asleep," you said, voice still rough but steadier now. "You were having a nightmare. You didn't know—"

"Does that matter?" He laughed, but it was a broken sound, closer to a sob. "Does it fucking matter that I was asleep when I'm strong enough to snap your neck without trying? When I—" He pressed his flesh hand to his mouth, shoulders shaking. "I could taste it. The mission. Kill the target, eliminate the witness. You were just—you were just a body to eliminate."

"But you stopped." You moved to the edge of the bed, needing to be closer even as he flinched away. "You heard me and you stopped."

"This time." He looked up at you then, and his eyes were wet, desperate. "What about next time? What happens when I don't wake up in time? When I squeeze just a little harder, hold on just a few seconds longer?" His voice broke completely. "I'll kill you, and I'll wake up with your body in our bed, and I'll have to live with that. I'll have to know that the last thing you felt was me hurting you."

"That won't happen."

"You don't know that!" He was on his feet now, backing toward the door. "Nobody knows that! I don't even know what's in my head, what they put there. Seventy years of programming, of turning me into a weapon, and you think—what? That love is enough to fix that? That I can just will myself better?"

You wanted to say yes. Wanted to believe it. But the words stuck in your throat—the throat that still ached from his grip.

"I'm sleeping on the couch," he said, and it sounded like a sentencing. Your heart dropped into the pit of your stomach.

"Bucky, please—"

"I can't." He stopped in the doorway, one hand braced against the frame like he needed it to stay upright. "I can't lay next to you knowing what I'm capable of. I can't touch you with hands that—" He looked down at the metal arm, gleaming dully in the darkness. "I was okay with being a monster when it was just me. But I can't—I won't let you be collateral damage."

"You're not a monster."

He turned then, and the look he gave you was almost pitying. "Tell that to your neck."

You sat there, on the edge of the bed you'd shared for three months, and listened to him settle on the couch. Heard him punch a pillow, once, twice, muffling what sounded suspiciously like sobs. You wanted to go to him, to hold him and tell him it wasn't his fault, that you weren't afraid.

But you were afraid. Not of him—never of him—but of the ghosts in his head that could turn him into someone else. Of the war between who he was and what they'd made him.

Your fingers found your throat again, tracing the shape of his hand in tender skin. Tomorrow, there would be bruises. Purple and blue and sickly yellow, a necklace of trauma you'd have to hide with scarves and makeup. But worse than the physical marks was the knowledge that he'd never forgive himself for this.

That he'd use it as evidence in the case he was always building against himself: why he didn't deserve love, why he couldn't have nice things, why James Buchanan Barnes was too broken to be saved.

You pulled his pillow against your chest—it still smelled like him, like cedar and something indefinably safe—and tried not to think about how this was the beginning of the end. How he'd pull away now, inch by inch, until there was nothing left but the empty space where love used to live.

In the living room, you could hear him moving restlessly, probably calculating the exact distance needed to keep you safe from him. Always the protector, even when the thing he was protecting you from was himself.

You wanted to tell him that the real damage wasn't the bruises that would fade in a week. It was this—the distance, the self-hatred, the way he was already grieving a relationship he'd decided was too dangerous to keep.

But your throat hurt, and your words weren't working right, and sometimes love wasn't enough to overcome seventy years of programming.

So you held his pillow and listened to him not sleeping on the couch, both of you alone in the dark, measuring the distance between what you had and what you were about to lose.

The bar was too loud and too warm, and you'd lost count of your drinks somewhere around the third toast to "getting the gang back together." Your college friends were all talking over each other, five conversations happening at once, and you were pretending to follow along while the room tilted gently to the left, then right, like a ship in uncertain waters.

Your phone sat face-up on the sticky table, silent. Three days. Seventy-two hours since the last check-in, which had been just one word: Alive. You'd stared at it for so long the letters had started to blur. Alive meant not dead. It didn't mean safe or whole or missing you or anything else your desperate brain wanted to read into it.

"Another round?" Derek—or was it Dylan?—appeared with a tray of shots that glowed an alarming shade of blue. He'd been in your International Relations class senior year, the guy who always sat too close during group projects and somehow never had his portion of the work done on time.

"I'm good," you said, but the words came out slurred, tongue thick in your mouth, and somehow there was already a shot glass being pressed into your hand. The glass was cold, wet with condensation, and your fingers felt clumsy around it.

"Come on," he said, sliding into the booth beside you. The vinyl squeaked under his weight, and suddenly the booth felt half its previous size. His thigh pressed against yours, heat seeping through your jeans. "Like old times."

Nothing about college had involved Derek-or-Dylan sitting this close, but your brain was too fuzzy to form the words. Thinking felt like trying to swim through honey. The shot burned going down, tasted like artificial raspberry and the kind of decision you'd regret in the morning. Your throat closed around it, body trying to reject what your mind had already accepted.

Someone was laughing too loud. Sarah? Stephanie? The girl who'd lived down the hall junior year. Her engagement ring caught the bar lights, throwing little rainbows across the table. Engaged. Normal. Safe. Her fiancé probably slept in their bed. Probably came home when he said he would.

Your phone buzzed. Your heart leaped—stupid, traitorous thing—but it was just your credit card app, politely informing you of suspicious activity at "O'Malley's Tavern." Yeah, you thought hazily, five rounds for people you haven't seen in years was pretty fucking suspicious.

You picked up your phone, thumb hovering over Bucky's contact. The little green dot that showed he was active had been gone for days. Off the grid. Radio silent. But that didn't stop you from opening the messages, from reading the last exchange from four days ago:

You: be safe Bucky: Always am.

Liar, you thought, and started typing.

You: hey

You stared at the word, deleted it, tried again. Your vision swam, letters doubling and tripling before reforming.

You: heyyyy. i miss u

Derek-or-Dylan was saying something about his job at a consulting firm, his hand gesturing wide enough to brush your shoulder, your arm, coming to rest on the back of the booth behind you. His cologne was too strong, something that probably had a name like "Masculine Musk" or "Power." It made your stomach roll. You shifted forward, but the room swayed with the movement, and you had to grab the edge of the table to steady yourself.

You: i know ur probly saving the world rn but i wanted u to know You: taht i love u You: that** You: even if ur being stupid lately

The words looked wrong on the screen, but you couldn't figure out how to fix them. Your fingers felt disconnected from your brain, moving of their own accord.

"You okay?" Derek-Dylan asked, and his hand was on your knee now, squeezing gently. His palm was damp through your jeans. "You seem distracted."

"I'm fine," you mumbled, trying to pull your leg away. But in the booth, trapped between him and the wall, there was nowhere to go. Your skin crawled where he touched you, but your body felt too heavy to properly react.

You: ur therapist called btw You: well not called but like. sent another email You: oh i hacked ur email. sry. You: i mean not rlly since u left it up on my laptop but whatever You: ur gonna get in troubel You: trouble* You: i dont want u to get in trouble

The shots were hitting harder now, making your thumbs clumsy on the screen. Everything felt like it was moving through water. Someone was telling a story about their promotion, their engagement, their perfect life that definitely didn't involve a boyfriend who slept on the couch and disappeared for days without warning.

Your chest felt tight. When was the last time you'd been able to breathe properly? When was the last time your lungs didn't feel like they were working at half capacity?

You: do u even miss me anymore You: or am i just another thing u have to manage You: like ur therapy u dont go to

Derek-Dylan's hand was back, higher this time, fingers pressing into your thigh. The pressure made bile rise in your throat. "You were always the quiet one," he was saying, voice low and too close to your ear. His breath was hot, smelled like beer and those terrible shots. "The mysterious one."

"Bathroom," you managed, practically falling out of the booth. The floor rushed up to meet you, and you caught yourself on the edge of the table, glasses rattling. Someone's drink sloshed over the rim, ice cubes scattering.

"Whoa there," he said, reaching for your elbow, fingers wrapping around your arm. "Let me help—"

"I'm fine," you said again, louder, yanking away. The movement made your vision blur, dark spots dancing at the edges. You stumbled toward where you hoped the bathrooms were, using the backs of chairs and the kindness of strangers to stay upright.

You: i went out tonight You: trying to be normal You: but nothing feels normal without u You: withuot You: without* You: fuck

The hallway to the bathroom was narrower than it should be, walls pressing in like they were trying to squeeze the air from your lungs. You leaned against the cool brick, phone bright in the darkness. The screen swam in and out of focus. More words pouring out now, without filter, without thought, like blood from a wound you couldn't stem.

You: dereks being creepy You: or dylan You: idk his name You: he keeps touching me You: i dont like it You: i want to come home but home doesnt feel like home when ur not there You: when ur on the couch You: when u wont even look at me

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:16 PM]

Your phone started buzzing. Not a text. A call.

Bucky's name filled the screen, and your heart lurched so hard you nearly dropped the phone. Your hands were shaking—when had they started shaking? You stared at it, paralyzed, watching it ring. Once. Twice. Three times.

[Missed call - 10:16 PM]

Immediately, it started again.

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:16 PM]

You should answer. Of course you should answer. But your hands were trembling and your throat felt thick with unshed tears and you were so fucking drunk and what if he was angry about the texts? What if he was calling to tell you to stop, to leave him alone, to finally say the words that would make this ending real?

[Incoming call from Bucky - 10:17 PM]

The third call. This time, your trembling thumb hit decline.

The texts started immediately.

Bucky: Hey, sweetheart. You okay? Bucky: Can you pick up? Bucky: Please answer Bucky: I just need to know you're safe Bucky: Baby, please

That last one made your eyes burn, tears hot and sudden. When was the last time he'd called you baby? When was the last time his voice had sounded anything but carefully controlled? Your chest ached with missing him, a physical pain that made you press your hand against your sternum.

You stumbled out the back exit into an alley that smelled like garbage and rain and piss. The cold air hit your overheated skin like a slap, and you had to lean against the wall to keep from sliding down it. The brick was rough against your palms, grounding you even as the world spun.

Your phone rang again. This time, muscle memory had you answering before your brain could catch up.

"Hey." His voice filled your ear, warm and worried with something sharp underneath. Like honey poured over broken glass. "There you are. You okay?"

"Bucky?" Your own voice came out small, wobbly, and you hated how desperate you sounded.

"Yeah, sweetheart. It's me. Where are you?"

"I'm..." You looked around the alley like it might provide answers. Dumpster. Fire escape. Puddle of something you didn't want to identify. "I'm out. With friends. College people."

"Okay." He kept his tone gentle, but you could hear movement in the background—keys jingling, a door closing, footsteps on pavement. "You having fun?"

The question broke something in you. The tears you'd been holding back spilled over, hot on your cheeks. "No," you admitted, and then the words just tumbled out, sloppy and slurred. "No, 'm not having fun. I miss you and I'm tired and everyone's talking about their perfect lives and Derek won't stop touching me and I just want to come home but you're not even there, you're in Warsaw or wherever saving the world and—"

"Who's touching you?"

The words cut through your rambling like a blade. All the gentleness gone, replaced with something cold and dangerous that made your drunk brain struggle to catch up.

"What?" You blinked, trying to process the sudden shift through the fog of alcohol.

"You said someone's touching you. Who?"

"I—Derek. Or Dylan? From college. He's just... he kept putting his hand on my leg and I didn't..." You trailed off, some sober part of your brain finally catching up to what you were saying. To who you were saying it to. Your stomach dropped.

Silence. The kind that made your skin prickle with unease, that made you want to take the words back, swallow them down with the rest of your mistakes.

"I'm coming to get you," he said finally, and his voice was too calm, too controlled. The voice he used when he was trying very hard not to kill someone. "Tell me where you are."

"You're in Warsaw," you said, confused. Your brain felt like it was operating on a five-second delay.

Another pause. When he spoke again, something in his tone made your chest tight. "I've been back for three days. Debriefing at the Tower."

The words hit you like cold water. Three days. He'd been in New York for three days and hadn't come home. Hadn't even told you he was back. The pain of it was sharp, sudden, cutting through the alcohol fog.

"Oh." It came out small, pathetic. You pressed your free hand against the brick wall, needing something solid to hold onto.

"Send me your location," he said, and you could hear him moving faster now, the sound of a car door opening. "I'll be there in twenty."

"You don't have to—"

"Location. Now." Not harsh, but firm. The voice that brooked no argument.

You fumbled with your phone, nearly dropping it twice before managing to share your location. The blue dot pulsing on the map looked lonely, lost. Like you felt.

"Good girl," he said, and the familiar endearment made your eyes burn fresh. "Now listen to me. You're gonna go wait out front where it's well-lit. You're not going back inside. You're not talking to Derek or Dylan or anyone else. You're just gonna wait for me. Understood?"

"Okay," you whispered.

"Say it back."

"Wait out front. Don't go inside. Don't talk to anyone."

"That's right. I'll be there soon."

"Bucky?" Your voice cracked. "I'm sorry. About the texts. I shouldn't have—"

"Don't." His voice softened, just slightly. "Don't apologize. Just... just wait for me, okay? We'll talk when you're safe."

Safe. Like you weren't safe now. Like you ever felt safe anymore, even in your own home, with him sleeping a room away like a stranger.

"Okay," you said again.

"Twenty minutes," he promised, and then he was gone.

You stared at your phone screen, at the string of messages you'd sent, each one more pathetic than the last. Your reflection in the dark screen looked distorted, wrong. Mascara smudged, lips still stained from whatever was in those shots, eyes too bright with tears and alcohol.

Twenty minutes. You could wait twenty minutes.

You pushed off the wall, the world tilting dangerously, and made your way to the front of the bar on unsteady legs. Each step required concentration, like walking a tightrope. Three days. He'd been home for three days.

You wrapped your arms around yourself, suddenly freezing despite the warm night. Your skin felt too tight, like it didn't fit right anymore. Everything felt wrong. The streetlight above flickered, casting strange shadows that made you dizzy.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Time moved strangely when you were drunk, too fast and too slow all at once. You watched cars pass, their headlights blurring into streaks of light. Counted them to keep your mind off the way your stomach churned.

"There you are."

You jumped, nearly losing your balance. Derek-or-Dylan stood there, that same too-wide smile on his face. Up close, you could see the flush on his cheeks, the slightly unfocused look in his eyes. He was drunk too, but not as far gone as you.

"Thought you got lost," he said, moving closer. "Come on, let's get you back inside."

"No." You shook your head, which was a mistake. The world spun harder. "I'm waiting for someone."

"In this state?" He laughed, but it wasn't a nice sound. "You can barely stand. Here—"

He reached for you, and you tried to step back, but the wall was already against your spine. Nowhere to go. His hand wrapped around your upper arm, grip too tight, and you could smell his cologne again, that awful musky scent that made your stomach revolt.

"Stop." The word came out slurred, weak. "I said I'm waiting—"

"Don't be like that." He crowded closer, his other hand coming up to rest on the wall beside your head, caging you in. "We were having fun inside, weren't we?"

"No." You turned your head away, but that just exposed your neck. His breath was hot against your skin. "Please, just—"

The sound of tires squealing made both of you jump. A black car pulled up to the curb so fast it fishtailed slightly, leaving rubber on the asphalt. Your drunk brain took several seconds to process what was happening—car, familiar car, Bucky's car, Bucky—before he was already out, moving with the kind of purpose that made your foggy mind finally understand why people crossed the street when they saw him coming.

He didn't run. Didn't need to. He just strode forward with inevitable violence in every line of his body, and Derek-or-Dylan was already backing up, hands raised, mouth opening to form words that never made it past his lips—

The crack of bone was loud in the quiet street.

Derek-or-Dylan screamed, dropping to his knees like someone had cut his strings. His wrist—god, his wrist was bent like wrists weren't supposed to bend, and your stomach lurched hard enough that you had to swallow back bile. The world tilted sideways, and you gripped the brick wall harder, rough texture the only thing keeping you upright.

"Touch her again," Bucky said, voice conversational, almost pleasant, like he was discussing the weather, "and I'll break the other one. Then start on your legs."

He wasn't even breathing hard. Hadn't broken a sweat. Just stood there in dark jeans and that leather jacket you'd bought him for his birthday, looking like he'd done nothing more strenuous than walk across a room. But there was something in his stance, in the casual way he watched Derek-or-Dylan writhe on the ground, that made your drunk brain whisper dangerous even as your body sang safe.

"My wrist," Derek-or-Dylan moaned, high and panicked. "You broke my fucking wrist!"

"Yeah," Bucky agreed, matter-of-fact. "I did."

Then he turned to you, and it was like watching a storm clear. All that cold violence melted away, replaced with something soft, concerned, yours. His eyes tracked over you, cataloging damage—checking for hurt you couldn't even identify through the alcohol haze.

"Get in the car, baby," he said, voice gentle now. He held out his hand—flesh hand, always the flesh hand when he was being careful with you.

"Okay," you said stupidly, the word coming out slurred. You were still staring at Derek-or-Dylan clutching his wrist and moaning on the sidewalk. Your brain felt like it was operating on a ten-second delay, trying to connect crack with bone with Bucky did that with for you.

You pushed off the wall and immediately regretted it. The world spun violently, your legs deciding they were more suggestion than requirement. You would have fallen if Bucky hadn't been there, suddenly, impossibly fast, arm around your waist.

"Whoa," he murmured. "I've got you."

"'M really drunk," you informed him, like maybe he hadn't noticed. Your words mushed together at the edges. "Like... really, really drunk."

"I can see that." Was that fondness in his voice? You couldn't tell. Everything sounded underwater.

He guided you to the car like you were made of spun glass and bad decisions, opening the passenger door and basically pouring you into the seat. Your limbs felt disconnected, uncooperative. The leather was cool against your overheated skin, and it smelled like him—that mix of cedar and metal and something uniquely Bucky that made your chest ache even through the drunk fog.

He rounded the car, pausing to crouch beside Derek-or-Dylan. Through the windshield, you watched him say something that made all the color drain from Derek-or-Dylan's face. Even from here, even drunk, you could see the man nodding frantically, like a bobblehead having a panic attack.

Then Bucky was sliding into the driver's seat, the door closing with a solid thunk that felt like safety. Like coming home. Even though home didn't feel like home anymore and you were too drunk to remember why.

"Seatbelt," he said quietly.

You stared at the buckle like it was advanced calculus. Your fingers felt like they belonged to someone else, clumsy and too big. "Can't," you mumbled. "Fingers're drunk too."

He leaned over to help, and suddenly he was so close you could see the flecks of gold in his eyes, could count his eyelashes if your vision would stop swimming. His hands—even the metal one—moved with perfect precision while yours fumbled uselessly in your lap.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, pulling back to look at you properly. His eyes were doing that thing where they went all intense and worried. "Did he—"

"No." You shook your head, which was a terrible idea. The car started spinning. Or maybe you were spinning. Hard to tell. "Jus'... grabbed my arm. Wanted to..." You frowned, trying to remember. "Something. Dunno. His breath smelled bad."

"I know." His hand came up like he was going to touch your face, then dropped. "I know."

The engine purred to life, and then you were moving. You pressed your forehead against the cool window because it felt nice and also because holding your head up was suddenly very difficult. The city lights blurred past in long streamers of color that made you dizzy.

"You've been back for three days," you said, though it came out more like "you've'n back fr'three days."

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Yeah."

"Were you gonna tell me?" The words were getting harder to form. Your tongue felt too big for your mouth.

Silence stretched between you, long enough that you almost forgot what you'd asked.

"I needed time," he said finally. "To think. To figure out how to..."

"How to what?"

"How to keep you safe." The words came out raw. "How to be near you without being a danger to you. How to—" He cut himself off, jaw clenching tightly.

You wanted to laugh, but it came out as more of a hiccup-sob hybrid. "You broke his wrist."

"He was touching you."

"Could've jus'... asked him to stop." The words kept sliding into each other.

"No," he said, and there was something final in it. "I couldn't have."

You turned to look at him, which required way more effort than it should have. The streetlights kept catching his face in flashes—sharp jaw, furrowed brow, eyes fixed on the road like it personally offended him. He looked tired. He looked dangerous. He looked like everything you wanted and couldn't have and your drunk brain couldn't remember why that was important.

"'M drunk," you announced, like maybe he'd forgotten in the last thirty seconds.

"I know."

"Really, really drunk."

"I know that too." His lips twitched, almost a smile. "The texts kind of gave it away."

Oh god. The texts. You groaned, trying to sink through the seat and into the road below. "Fuck. 'M sorry. Shouldn't have—they were so stupid—"

"I told you not to apologize."

"But 'm being stupid, and you were prob'ly busy with... with whatever, and I just—"

"Baby." He said it soft but firm, like punctuation. "The texts were fine. More than fine. They were..." He paused, and you watched him search for words through your blurry vision. "They were the first honest thing either of us has said in weeks."

That shut you up. You stared at him, trying to process his words, but thinking felt like trying to catch fish with your bare hands. Slippery. Impossible.

"We need to talk," he continued. "But not tonight. Tonight, you're drunk and I'm..." He trailed off.

"Angry?" you supplied, though it came out more like "ang-ry?"

"Yeah." He glanced at you, something soft flickering in his eyes. "But not at you. Never at you."

"He was jus'... just some guy from college," you said, words tumbling over each other. "He didn't... didn't matter."

"He put his hands on you." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "That matters."

You thought about arguing, but the thoughts kept sliding away before you could catch them. Something about hypocrisy and beds and sleeping alone, but it was all too muddy, too complicated for your drunk brain to sort through.

"Missed you," you said instead, small and honest and probably too raw. "Know 'm not s'posed to say that. Know we're... whatever we are. But missed you so much I couldn't—can't breathe sometimes."

His hand found yours across the center console, fingers interlacing. It was the first time he'd touched you voluntarily in weeks, and the simple contact made your eyes burn with tears you were too drunk to control.

"I know," he said quietly. "Me too."

You squeezed his hand, probably too hard, but he didn't pull away. "Feel sick," you admitted.

"I know, sweetheart. We're almost home."

"Not home," you mumbled, the words spilling out before you could stop them. "Just 'partment. Home's where you are, but you're never there."

You felt more than saw him flinch, but the world was getting fuzzy at the edges and spinning faster now, and you couldn't remember why that was important. His thumb rubbed circles on your hand, and you focused on that sensation, let it anchor you as the city lights blurred past.

You were drunk. Really, really drunk. But somehow, in the midst of all that spinning and blurring and too-much-ness, one thought stayed crystal clear:

He'd come for you. He'd been home for three days without telling you, but when you'd needed him—really needed him—he'd come.

You didn't know what that meant. Didn't know if it changed anything.

But for now, for this moment, with his hand in yours and the familiar streets leading back to whatever home was these days, it was enough.

The rest of the night exists in fragments. Snapshots through a drunk haze that would embarrass you later, when sobriety brought all the sharp edges back.

Bucky's hands, impossibly gentle as he helped you from the car. The way you'd swayed into him, and how he'd let you, just for a moment, before steadying you with careful touches. The elevator ride where you'd pressed your face into his chest and breathed him in like you'd been suffocating for weeks.

"Easy," he'd murmured when you stumbled over your own feet at the apartment door. "I've got you."

And he did. Those careful hands working the zipper of your jeans. Pulling your sweater from each arm. The fabric pooling at your feet while you stood there, too drunk to be self-conscious, too tired to pretend you didn't need him.

"Arms up," he'd said softly, and you'd complied, letting him pull one of his worn t-shirts over your head. It smelled like him. You might have cried about that, but the memories blur together, everything soft and underwater.

His boxers, rolled at the waist to fit. A glass of water pressed into your hands. "Drink all of it." Two ibuprofen. "These too."

And then—miracle of miracles—the bed. Not the couch. The bed, with its too-soft pillows and sheets that had forgotten the shape of him. You'd curled on your side, expecting him to retreat to his usual post in the living room.

Instead, the mattress dipped behind you. Arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you back against a chest you'd mapped with your fingers a hundred times but hadn't touched in weeks. His lips found the nape of your neck, pressing kisses there like prayers, like apologies, like promises he couldn't keep.

"I love you," whispered into your hair. "I'm so sorry. I love you so fucking much."

You'd wanted to respond, to turn in his arms and demand he explain why love felt like leaving. But sleep was already pulling you under, and his warmth was the first comfort you'd felt in months, and so you'd let the darkness take you while he held on like you might disappear.

Consciousness returned like a slap.

Your mouth tasted like something had died in it. Your head pounded in rhythm with your heartbeat, each pulse sending spikes of pain behind your eyes. But worse than the hangover was the memory, creeping back in horrible HD clarity.

The texts. Oh god, the texts.

Derek's hand on your thigh.

Bucky breaking his wrist with the casual efficiency of someone opening a jar.

Three days. He'd been back for three days.

You opened your eyes carefully, squinting against the morning light that streamed through the curtains like an assault. The bed was empty beside you, but still warm. He hadn't been gone long. The indent of his body remained in the sheets, a ghost of pressure that made your chest constrict so suddenly you couldn't breathe.

Your ribs felt too tight, like someone had wrapped wire around them and was slowly twisting. Each inhale scraped against something raw inside you, something that had been bleeding quietly for months but suddenly felt fatal. You pressed your palm flat against your sternum, hard, trying to counter the implosion happening behind your bones.

From the kitchen, the sound of cabinets opening. The clink of a pan. Coffee brewing—the smell both nauseating and necessary.

You sat up slowly, the room tilting slightly before settling. Your hands shook as you reached for the water on the nightstand, downing what was left and wishing it was enough to wash away everything about last night. But it wasn't. Nothing would be.

Because now, in the harsh light of sobriety, you could see everything clearly. The past six months stretched out behind you like a road map of small heartbreaks. The progression from sharing a bed to him sleeping on the couch. From daily texts to radio silence. From being partners to being strangers who happened to share a lease.

And last night—last night he'd held you like he used to. Kissed your neck. Whispered that he loved you.

After being home for three days without telling you.

After weeks of treating you like a roommate he was too polite to evict.

After, after, after.

Your chest felt hollow, carved out. Like someone had reached in and scooped out everything soft, leaving just the sharp edges behind. Your lungs forgot how to expand properly. The air felt too thick, too heavy, like breathing through water. You could feel your pulse everywhere—throat, wrists, behind your eyes—each beat a reminder that you were still here, still alive, still hurting.

"Hey." His voice from the doorway made you jump. He stood there in sleep pants and nothing else, hair mussed, looking unfairly good for someone who'd probably been up all night. "I'm making breakfast. Eggs and—"

"I can't do this anymore."

The words fell out of your mouth like stones. Heavy. Final. They surprised you as much as him, but once they were in the air, you couldn't take them back. Didn't want to.

His face did something complicated—a flash of confusion before understanding hit. You watched the color drain from his skin, leaving him gray as ash. The spatula in his hand clattered to the floor.

"What?" The word came out cracked.

You pulled your knees to your chest, made yourself small. Your body curled in on itself like it was trying to protect what was left of your heart, arms wrapped so tight around your shins you could feel your own bones. The hangover pounded behind your eyes, but this pain was worse. Necessary, but worse.

Your throat felt like it was closing, muscles constricting around words you'd swallowed for months. When you tried to speak, it came out raw, scraped: "I can't... I can't keep doing this, Bucky. I can't."

"Hold on." He moved into the room, movements jerky, uncoordinated in a way you'd never seen from him. "Just—wait. We can talk about this. We need to talk about this."

"Do we?" Your voice broke, tears already burning hot. They came sudden and violent, like your body had been storing them up for this exact moment. Your sinuses ached with the pressure of holding them back, but it was useless. They fell anyway, hot tracks down cheeks that felt numb with shock. "Because we haven't talked—really talked—in months. You sleep on the couch. You were home for three days without telling me. You can't even—"

A sob cut off the words, harsh and ugly. It ripped from somewhere deep in your chest, from that hollow place where your heart used to live. Your shoulders shook with the force of it, whole body trembling like it might fly apart.

"You can't even touch me unless I'm drunk and someone else tried to first."

"That's not—" He stopped himself, running both hands through his hair. The metal one caught the light, gleaming dully. "Fuck. Fuck, that's not fair."

"Isn't it?" The tears were falling freely now, hot and humiliating. Your nose ran, and you didn't care. Your face felt swollen already, eyes burning like someone had poured acid in them. "Tell me what's not fair about it. Tell me I'm wrong."

He couldn't. You both knew he couldn't.

"Please." The word ripped from him, raw and desperate. He dropped to his knees beside the bed, and seeing the Winter Soldier kneel like that should have meant something. Would have, once. "Baby, please. Don't do this. Not like this. Not when you're—"

"Hungover?" You laughed, but it came out like another sob, wet and broken. Your chest hitched with it, breath coming in sharp gasps that hurt. "When should I do it, then? When you're on another mission? When you're sleeping on the couch? When you're here but not really here at all?"

"I'm trying—"

"No." The word came out stronger than you felt. "You're not trying. You're hiding. You're running. You're doing everything except trying."

His hands clenched into fists on his thighs. You could see the war in him—the need to reach for you battling the fear of what his hands could do. Had done. That eternal fight between who he was and what he'd been made into.

"I love you," he said, like it was an argument.

"I know." Your voice broke completely, dissolved into something unrecognizable. The words scraped your throat raw. "That's what makes this so fucking hard. Because I love you too. I love you so much I can't breathe sometimes."

Your hand pressed against your chest again, harder this time, because it felt like your ribs might crack open from the pressure building inside. Your heartbeat was all wrong—too fast, too hard, skipping beats like it was trying to escape.

"I love you so much I've been disappearing, piece by piece, waiting for you to see me. To come back to me."

"I'm right here—"

"No, you're not!" The words exploded out of you, ripping something on the way up. Your voice went hoarse with the force of it. "You haven't been here in months! Your body's here, but you—the real you—you're gone. And I can't..."

You pressed your palms against your eyes, trying to stem the tears, but they leaked through your fingers anyway. Your whole face felt hot and tight, skin stretched too thin over too much pain.

"I can't compete with your ghosts anymore. I can't compete with your guilt. I can't love you hard enough to make you stop punishing yourself, and it's killing me to try."

When you lowered your hands, he was staring at you like you'd shot him. Like you'd reached into his chest and torn something vital loose. His face was wet—when had he started crying?

"I'll go back to therapy," he said desperately. "I'll—I'll sleep in the bed. I'll tell my therapist everything. I'll—"

"It's not about the bed." Your voice came out small, exhausted. Empty. Like you'd cried out everything inside you and now there was just echoing space. "It's not about the therapy or the missions or any of it. It's about the fact that you've already left me. You just forgot to take your body with you."

"No." He shook his head, frantic now. "No, that's not—I'm here. I'm right here. Please, sweetheart, please just—"

"You were home for three days." You said it quietly, but it hit him like a physical blow. You watched him flinch, watched his whole body recoil. "Three days, and you didn't come home. Because this isn't your home anymore, is it? It's just... a place you keep your things. A place you sometimes sleep."

"That's not true—"

"Then why didn't you come home?"

Silence.

The kind that said everything.

"I needed time," he said finally, voice wrecked. "To figure out how to fix this. How to be better. How to—"

"You can't fix this alone." The tears had slowed but not stopped, steady streams now instead of the flood. Your eyes felt raw, lids swollen. Everything hurt—face, chest, throat, heart. "That's what you've never understood. You keep trying to solve me like I'm a mission. Like if you just find the right approach, the right angle, you can complete the objective without any mess. But love is messy. It's supposed to be messy."

"I know that—"

"Do you?" You met his eyes, those blue eyes you'd fallen in love with, that still made your heart skip even now. Even through the wreckage. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you've been trying to love me without letting me love you back. And I can't... I can't do that anymore."

Something in him seemed to break then. Really break, not the careful controlled way he'd been falling apart for months. His shoulders shook, and when he reached for you, it was with both hands. Metal and flesh, no distinction, just desperate need.

"Please." His voice was raw, ruined. "Please don't leave me. I'll do anything. I'll—Christ, I'll quit the team. I'll tell everyone about us. I'll—"

"I don't want you to quit the team." You were both crying now, the space between you salt-soaked and aching. Your chest felt cracked open, everything spilling out. "I don't want you to change who you are. I just wanted... I wanted you to let me in. To trust me with more than just the good parts."

"I trust you—"

"With everything except yourself." You pulled back, even though it physically hurt to do it. Your skin felt too tight, like leaving his reach might tear you apart. "And I can't build a life with someone who treats me like I'm too fragile to handle their damage. I'm not... I'm not some civilian you need to protect, Bucky. I'm supposed to be your partner."

"You are—"

"No." You stood on shaking legs, needing distance. Needing air. Your knees almost buckled, muscles weak from crying, from hurting, from holding yourself together for so long. "I'm your secret. Your liability. Your guilt. I'm everything but your partner."

He was on his feet too now, frantic energy radiating off him in waves. "Tell me how to fix this. Tell me what to do."

"I can't." The words tasted like ash, like endings, like everything you never wanted to say. "Because you're asking the wrong question. It's not about what you do. It's about what we do. Together. And you can't... you won't let there be a together."

"That's not—"

"You sleep on the couch." Each word hurt to say, like coughing up broken glass. "You were home for three days. You missed our anniversary. You haven't touched me without apologizing in months. You love me, I know you love me, but you love me like I'm already gone. Like you're just waiting for me to figure it out too."

He stood there, chest heaving, and you could see it—the moment he realized you were right. The moment he understood that he'd been pushing you away so slowly, so carefully, that neither of you had noticed until there was nothing left to push.

"I don't know how to stop," he admitted, and it was the most honest thing he'd said in months. "I don't know how to be in love without being terrified. I don't know how to wake up next to you without checking to make sure I didn't hurt you in my sleep. I don't know how to come home without bringing the blood with me."

"I never asked you to be perfect—"

"I know." His voice broke. "I know, and that's... that's the worst part. You never asked for anything except me, and I couldn't even give you that."

The silence stretched between you, filled with everything you couldn't fix. Six months of small abandonments. Six months of loving each other wrong. Six months of him leaving without moving and you staying without being seen.

Your body felt strange, disconnected. Like you were floating above yourself, watching this happen to someone else. The tears had stopped but your face still felt wet, tacky. Your chest moved with breath but you couldn't feel it, couldn't feel anything except the yawning void where your heart used to be.

"I need to pack," you said finally. The words came out robotic, empty.

"No." But there was no fight left in it. Just despair. "Where will you go?"

"I don't know." You couldn't look at him. Couldn't watch him realize this was really happening. "My sister's, maybe. Just... somewhere that isn't here."

"This is your home—"

"No." You turned to face him one last time, memorizing the way he looked in the morning light. Beautiful and broken and everything you'd ever wanted. "It was supposed to be. But homes are where you feel safe. Where you feel seen. And I haven't felt either of those things in months."

He made a sound then, wounded and raw, and it took everything in you not to go to him. Not to take it back. Not to settle for the half-life he was offering. Your body swayed toward him against your will, muscle memory overriding logic. But you locked your knees, clenched your fists, held yourself still through sheer force of will.

"I love you," you said, because it was true. Because it would always be true. "But I can't disappear anymore. Not even for you."

You made it to the doorway before his voice stopped you.

"What if I—" He swallowed, started again. "What if I go to therapy. Really go. What if I... what if I try?"

You paused, hand on the doorframe. The wood was smooth under your palm, solid. Real. An anchor in a world that felt like it was dissolving.

"Then try. But try for you, not for me. Because I can't... I can't wait anymore, Bucky. I can't put my life on hold hoping you'll decide you deserve to be happy."

"I don't know how to be happy," he admitted.

"I know," you said softly. "That's why I have to go."

You left him standing there in the bedroom you'd shared, in the home you'd built, in the life you'd tried so hard to make work. The sound of his grief followed you—not sobs, but something worse. The quiet, breathless keen of someone watching their world collapse and knowing they'd lit the match themselves.

You packed mechanically, throwing things into bags without thought or care. Your hands moved on autopilot while your mind went somewhere else, somewhere numb and far away. He didn't try to stop you. Didn't follow. Just stood frozen in the bedroom doorway like crossing the threshold might shatter what little was left.

When you wheeled your suitcase to the door, he was there. Red-eyed, hollow, looking like a ghost of himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "For all of it. For being too broken to love you right."

"You're not broken," you said, and meant it. "You're just... lost. And I can't be your map anymore."

The door closed behind you with a soft click that sounded like an ending.

You made it to the elevator before the sobs hit, great heaving things that made your whole body shake. Your knees gave out and you sank to the floor, suitcase abandoned, hands pressed over your mouth to muffle the sounds tearing from your throat. Your stomach cramped with the force of it, muscles seizing, lungs burning.

You'd done it. You'd left. You'd saved yourself from disappearing completely.

It was the right thing to do.

So why did it feel like dying?

[sam24]

Does he always just stare like that?

[sam24]

[sam24]

Black Sheep

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

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

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

Word count : 9.2k 

Requested by : Anon! Based on this request

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You were happy you could finally help— 

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

And… They were proud.

If only they knew.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hydra was predatory like that.

—

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

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

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

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

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

And still— he didn’t look away.

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

They called him It.

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

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

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

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

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

He walked out before you could respond.

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

And then there was just you— and him.

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

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

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

But he sat there, still breathing like a machine.

He didn’t flinch when you treated him.

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

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

It was the first time he looked at you. 

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

You worked in silence. He sat in silence.

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

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

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

The handlers noticed.

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

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

But you did it anyway.

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

He grunted when you pressed gauze to it.

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

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

Maybe not always. Maybe not fully.

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

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

—

Tonight, he came back worse than usual.

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

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

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

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

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

You froze.

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

He didn’t look at you.

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

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

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

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

A few seconds passed before the speaker crackled.

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

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

Then you turned back to him.

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

But his body thrashed again.

You dropped the needle.

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

He didn’t mean to, you reminded yourself.

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

Your hands shook.

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

Fuck.

You were losing him.

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

You… sang.

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

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

You saw his breathing slow down, just slightly. 

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full…”

He…  didn’t flinch again.

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

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

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

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

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

You paused, still stitching, thankful he calmed down. 

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

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

You didn’t expect a response. 

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

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

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

You froze.

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

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

Through all that, he watched you. 

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

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

But something had changed.

—

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

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

He… made a conscious choice. 

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

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

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

“Pressure here—sorry, hold on…”

He never answered at first. 

Then one day, he did.

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

“You always say that.”

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

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

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

Then, you resumed your work.

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

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

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

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

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

“No,” he said simply. 

You frowned. 

Still, your hands were steady.

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

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

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

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

“Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

One night, he asked for your name.

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

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

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

—

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

You called it the holding room.

They called it the kennel.

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

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

They joked about him.

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

But it got worse.

Much worse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You blinked. “What?"

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

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

“Too late.”

Their hands grabbed your arms.

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

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

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

And they enjoyed it.

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

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

But they didn’t care.

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

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

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

Then came the worst line.

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

The laughter didn’t stop.

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

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

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

You fell, and started trembling.

Everything hurt.

And then you looked up.

He was there.

The Asset — him. The Winter Soldier.

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

You froze.

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

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

You believed it for a second.

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

You were terrified.

You curled tighter.

He took one step forward.

And… stopped.

You took a chance and looked at your face.

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

He was staring at your injuries.

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

And his whole body… melted.

The heat was gone, almost instantly. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.

“Who…” he rasped, “did this to you?”

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

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

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

His teeth clenched.

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

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

He didn’t say anything for a while.

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

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

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

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

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

Once again, The Asset had made a choice. 

A human one.

—

Hours passed.

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

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

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

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

You barely had time to pull the blanket tighter.

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

And then you heard the voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You screamed.

And The Asset snapped.

No hesitation, No programming.

Just rage.

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

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

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

Anton raised his hands to surrender.

Too late.

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

He dropped the gun.

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

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

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

You blinked, still clutching the blanket, hands shaking.

—

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

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

He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t look at the corpses.

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even try.

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

“Come.”

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

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

—

The interrogation room was cold. 

Karpov stood across the table from you, arms folded.

“You will explain,” he said coldly.

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

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

Your mouth opened, then shut.

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

You froze.

He watched your reaction like a scalpel watches skin.

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

You nodded slowly, not trusting your voice.

“Then you know what heat was for.”

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

Karpov did not wait for permission to continue.

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

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

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

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

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

Your stomach lurched.

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

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

“You must have!” he snapped. 

You flinched. 

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

“I don’t know,” you said hoarsely. 

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

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

—

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

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

On the floor was a folded piece of paper.

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

You sank onto the cot.

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

—

The cot wasn’t meant for two.

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

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

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

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

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

Your eyes flicked up.

“What?”

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

You hesitated. Then nodded.

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

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

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

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

—

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

You stayed calm and gave him space. 

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

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

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

"No. Not her. Not her."

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

What?

Your mouth opened slowly, your breath finally catching up. 

He… remembered?

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

He did.

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

He looked real.

—

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

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

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

“What—what are you doing—?!”

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

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

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

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

Then you realised: 

Oh. 

Someone saw the footage.

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

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

But Karpov demanded more.

“Did he say his designation?”

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

“What did he tell you, girl?”

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

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

You heard a grunt. A thud.

And suddenly—he was there.

The Winter Soldier. No—Bucky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cuffs snapped off.

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

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

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

“You need to go.”

You froze. “What?”

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

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

He clenched his teeth. 

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

“I don’t care—”

“I do.”

That stopped you cold.

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

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

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

“I—please—”

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

“Go.”

So you did.

—

Thirty Years Later.

The world had changed. 

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

What would be the point?

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

So he never tried.

But he never loved again either.

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

He still did.

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

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

Until...

—

New York. Post-Void.

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

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

Bucky was scanning for movement in the fallen concrete.

That’s when he heard it.

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

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

His whole body went still. 

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

There.

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

And you… you hadn’t changed.

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

He was so stunned, he forgot how to breathe. 

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

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”

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

Bucky didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

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

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

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

And then—

You looked up.

Saw him.

And smiled.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then he started shaking.

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

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

And maybe it had been.

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

Alive.

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

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

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

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

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

Was that what he was to you?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It belonged to him. And you.

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

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

He barely nodded. 

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

—

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

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then you turned the final corner.

Oh.

That was all his mind could manage.

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

No. This place was…

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

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

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

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

He kept turning. The memorabilia… evolved.

A cracked Daredevil helmet, dark red and scuffed.

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

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

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

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

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

He turned to you. “Friends?”

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

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

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

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

Bucky swallowed, but you continued. 

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

He went still.

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

You kept working on the cuts on his face. 

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

Your fingers paused briefly, then continued.

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

Bucky winced as you moved on to the next cut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And yet you continued doing what you do best. 

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

But now…

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

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

“Can I…?”

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

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

And that was all he needed.

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

His thumb brushed along your skin, just once.

It was real. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t answer right away. 

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

Your breath hitched.

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

Oh.

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

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

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

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

He could only nod. 

And you kissed him.

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

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

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

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

You grinned, eyes still closed. “Better.”

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

—

You and Bucky had taken it slow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until now.

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

You paused.

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

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

There was a beat of silence.

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

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

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

“Or both,” Alexei said.

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

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

Mutual enemies? Yeah, right. 

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

– end.

General Bucky taglist:

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

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

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

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

@buckyslove1917 @notsostrangerthing @flow33didontsmoke @qvynrand @blackbirdwitch22

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

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

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

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

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

@samfunko @wh1sp @anonymousreader4d7 @mathcat345 @escapefromrealitylol

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

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

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

@yesshewrites1 @thewiselionessss @sangsterizada @jaderabbitt @softpia 

@hopeofwinter @nevereclipse @tellybearryyyy @buckybarneswife125 @buckybarneswife125

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

@biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @herejustforbuckybarnes @kitasownworld @shortandb1tchy @roxyym

@badl4nder

[sam24]

A Thousand Times Before

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: Bucky travels to an alternate universe for the sake of a mission. But he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a version of you that loves him, completely and openly. Back in his own world, he is left with a truth he can’t keep to himself anymore.

Word Count: 16.5k

Warnings: alternate universe; multiverse; so much yearning; identity confusion; emotional distress; guilt; self-worth struggles; unintentional non-consensual kiss (non-violent, due to mistaken identity); angst; heartbreak themes; slight mentions of Bucky’s past; self-preservation; self-doubt; Bucky is a man in love

Author’s Note: This ended up being longer than I intended. Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think! Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an alternate version where the roles are flipped. This time the reader travels to another universe where Bucky and your counterpart are already a couple. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in reading too! I hope you enjoy ♡

Divider by @cafekitsune ♡

Masterlist

The air smells of memory.

As though someone took the world he knew, put it through a sieve, and rebuilt it with hands that were almost - but not quite - shaking.

Bucky walks slow, even though his boots echo down a corridor that used to be silent. Used to be. In his world, the east wing of the Avenger’s compound is always cold, sterile, mostly unused. Here, the lights are warmer. Someone’s installed those vintage bulbs. They buzz faintly and flicker around.

There is a plant in the hallway. A real one. He steps past it. Looks down. A ceramic pot painted with little sunflowers. A tiny sticker peeling off the side.

This version of the compound is lived-in.

It’s unnerving.

He hates how it makes him breathe more deeply as though he is listening for something it shouldn’t. How everything is just off. The couch in the lounge is turned at a different angle. The vending machine is missing. There is a lavender-scented candle burning on the coffee table.

He doesn’t trust this. He doesn’t trust any of it.

Not the way the ceiling seems too low or how the hallways echo the wrong sound the longer he walks. The floor beneath his boots is almost the same. But almost is what gets people killed. And he’s not in the business of dying again. Not even here. Not even in a world that’s supposed to be some mirror image of his own.

It smells of lemon disinfectant and something faintly floral as though someone sprayed a bottle of room freshener and hoped no one would notice the rot underneath.

He runs his metal fingers along the wall as he walks, lets the vibranium whir quietly against the plaster. Feels the microscopic grooves in the paint.

In his universe, there is a crack near the main stairwell. Sam swears he didn’t do it. Clint insists he did. Here, it’s perfectly smooth. That bothers him more than it should.

He takes in this slightly different world as though maybe this is all some trick of the multiverse, some clever illusion designed to fool the worn-down man with the metal arm and the hundred-year-old ghosts. But the walls are still painted in the same color - off-white, barely warmed by the overheads. The hallway lights flicker golden. As though someone decided the compound shouldn’t feel like a facility. As though someone decided it should feel like home. His breath still fogs faintly in the colder patches of the corridor.

This could still be his universe somehow.

Even though it isn’t.

And even though he doesn’t want it to be.

He never wanted to be part of the mission.

He said no. Loudly. Repeatedly. With many adjectives and lots of glares. It didn’t matter. Fury said he was the only one who could go. That this universe had some piece of tech - some half-mythical Howard Stark prototype that their Stark never got the chance to build.

Something with the potential to rewrite temporal coordinates with precision. To fix anomalies. Maybe even to bring back the ones they lost.

He sat through the debrief like a man sitting on a bomb. Not moving. Not breathing more than he needed to.

And Bucky noticed, the way he always did, that you never ask quite so many questions during debriefing - unless the mission involves him. And this time, it’s only him. So that meant more questions from you. More concern you didn’t even try to mask.

And it made his heart clench.

You asked how they knew this tech even existed in that timeline.

You asked why Tony couldn’t just build it himself to which the man gave you a look.

You asked what would happen if Bucky saw someone he knew. If he saw himself.

You asked what exactly Bucky was going to walk into and what was expected of him.

You asked how much they even knew about this universe.

Steve had exhaled, hands braced against the briefing room table, blue eyes clouded. “We don’t know much,” he admitted. “This universe is close to ours in structure, but details are limited. No major historical deviations. No sign of HYDRA still in power. No active wars. Just small shifts. Choices made differently.”

Bucky had watched your face tighten as if the lack of data itself was a warning.

“SHIELD had a file on it, but nothing concrete,” Steve went on. “Stark’s readings say it’s stable - no time fractures, no reality collapses. Just another version of what we know.”

Bucky had listened, fingers flexing against his metal wrist. Close to theirs, but not the same. And he wonders, not for the first or last time, what choices this other world made for him.

The mission is simple. Locate the prototype. Extract it. Avoid unnecessary contact with variants. And get the hell back before anything breaks - him, the people, the timeline.

Bucky stopped listening entirely after receiving all the information he needed.

He only registered you shifting beside him, and it was the tiniest movement, but he noticed. You always get fidgety when something bothers you. He wanted to say something, reassure you, but he didn’t truly know if he even got this.

He knew you were worried. Knew you were angry. The kind that made your eyes too quiet and your hands too still. The kind that made Bucky feel like he was walking through a house where all the lights had been turned off, but every door was open.

When Dr. Steven Strange opened that portal, you stood in the corner of the room, watching him and giving him that guarded look that said you better come back whole. He couldn’t meet your eyes for too long.

And when the world rippled and bent, and the air shimmered as though it might break, and he stepped forward like a man walking into the sun with his eyes closed, he thought of you.

The stairs groan beneath his boots, familiar but not.

Same wood. Same color. But smoother. As though someone took the time to sand down the scars.

In his universe, the fifth step has a chip where Steve dropped a dumbbell. Everyone tripped on it at least once. Here, it is whole. Perfect. No history at all.

That’s what gets him. The lack of damage. As though this place hasn’t lived the same kind of life.

He reaches the second floor and hesitates.

The hallway is dim. Only the lights overhead are on, flickering just slightly. He hates the buzzing. It’s like something alive and trapped.

He turns left.

Your room is down this hall.

Or - your room in his universe is down this hall. He shouldn’t assume anything. Things are wrong here. Tilted just a few degrees off center. The kind of wrong you don’t see until it’s already unmade you.

But his feet are already moving.

It’s not like he’s planning to go in.

He just wants to look. Maybe see how different this version of you really is. Maybe see how different he is, through your eyes.

He reaches your door at the end of the corridor. It’s cracked open. That’s weird. You usually always have it shut.

Your voice isn’t behind it. You’re not laughing, humming, ranting about something. There is only quiet.

He steps closer.

The doorframe is covered in tiny indentations. Not scratches - these are deliberate. Someone’s been marking height on the trim. Two sets of lines. One lower than the other. Two sets of initials scrawled in black ink. Yours. And his.

He knows it’s yours. Because he knows your height. Like a number carved into his bones.

He’s memorized the space you take up in a room. Not just how tall you are, but the way your presence fills the air.

He knows where your head would rest if you stood beside him. Knows it would reach just beneath his chin. Knows the sound your footsteps make when you enter a room, and how the air shifts when you’re near.

He has painted you in his mind a thousand times before.

Eyes open, eyes closed.

In dreams, in silence.

In the echo of a laugh you left behind on a Tuesday.

He’s mapped you in the kitchen. Measured, in his mind, which cabinets you can stand beneath without hitting your head. Which shelves you can’t reach so he can be there, quietly, to help. So he can hand you that mug you always squint up at, the one you pretend you don’t need.

He knows how your arm swings when you walk.

Knows the rhythm of your stride. Knows your pace.

And sometimes, not often enough to be suspicious, he lets his hand brush yours.

Lets his fingers catch a hint of your warmth.

It’s not an accident.

It never is.

He carries you like a story he hasn’t told yet.

And he is aching, aching, aching to write you down.

Bucky stares at the markings like they might reach out and touch him.

He brushes his fingers against one. The ink smudges slightly under the metal pad of his thumb. Fresh.

He doesn’t understand.

Why would he-?

No. It has to be a coincidence. Just a prank. A weird joke. Someone else with your handwriting, maybe. Another version of him. One who doesn’t carry his past like a loaded gun. Or it’s just some odd inside joke he never got to know about in his own universe.

Bucky moves to step back, but his eyes catch on something else.

To the right of the door, hanging crookedly, is a small, square canvas. Acrylic. Textured.

It’s a painting. He knows it immediately. Your style.

He’s seen you paint a thousand times in silence, your jaw clenched, music too loud in your headphones. You always say you paint when you can’t say something out loud. When the words get stuck in your chest and rot.

This painting is familiar. A half-sky. A steel arm. Fingers open, reaching toward a red string that trails off the edge of the frame.

He knows what it means. He knows you.

But the painting doesn’t belong here. Not like this. It’s intimate. Meant for someone who understands the weight in your throat when you speak through colors.

Someone like him.

His stomach twists.

Maybe it is him.

He doesn’t like that thought. Doesn’t like how it makes his heart trip over itself.

He takes a step into the room because his brain told him to and his body didn’t want to argue. And he stops breathing.

Because you're not there.

But the room is.

The room is here.

And that’s almost worse.

It’s too familiar.

Not identical, not exact, but similar enough to tear him wide open.

The walls are a different color. Now necessarily lights. But just not how he remembers it. The books on the shelf are in new places, different spines, rearranged lives.

But the couch is the same shape, the same worn-out comfort.

The window still drinks in the light the same way - slanted, soft, forgiving.

And there’s a sweater messily folded on your dresser.

A book, face-down on the cushion like someone meant to come back to it.

Like you were just here.

Like maybe, if he stays long enough, you’ll walk back into the frame of this almost-life.

He doesn’t touch anything.

He’s afraid to.

Because this version of the world remembers you.

The shape of your existence lives here - in shadows and coffee rings, in the faint scent of something sweet and floral and you.

He walks the room like an intruder in someone else’s dream, eyes cataloguing the differences, chasing the sameness.

He notices that the cabinet doors hang slightly crooked in the same way.

And for just a moment he swears he hears your voice in the next room.

But it’s only silence, mocking him.

He wants to sit.

He wants to stay.

Wants to believe that if he closes his eyes, you’ll be beside him again.

He knows it isn’t true.

This isn’t his world.

This isn’t his home.

And this isn’t his you.

But the ache doesn’t care about reality.

The ache believes in the melodic sound of your laughter and the empty seat beside him.

There’s a coat draped over the back of a chair.

His coat.

Not one like it.

His.

The leather’s too worn in the same places. The collar stretched where he grips it with his right hand. There’s even the tear near the cuff that you stitched together with dark red thread, muttering that you weren’t a tailor but you’d seen enough war movies to fake it.

He steps inside without meaning to.

The room smells like you.

It’s your scent - soft, unassuming, threaded through with something sweet. Like worn pages and old tea and maybe vanilla.

It’s the same smell that clings to your hoodie when you get closer to each other on cold stakeouts to warm the other. The same one that lingers on your gloves when you pass him something, and he holds them a moment too long just to feel the warmth you left behind.

There’s a mug on the nightstand with faded text that reads I make bad decisions and coffee.

He bought that for you. In his world. As a joke.

You still used it until the handle cracked, and then you glued it back together and kept using it anyway.

He reaches out for it.

Stops.

His hand is shaking.

Bucky turns slowly. And sees the photo.

It’s not framed. Just pinned to a corkboard on the far wall, beneath torn paper scraps and to-do lists written in your handwriting.

It’s the two of you.

He recognizes the background - Coney Island. A bench by the boardwalk. Sunlight in your hair. His arm around your shoulder. His face not looking at the camera, but at you.

You’re laughing. And he looks-

He looks in love.

Like he has everything he ever wanted.

His breath hitches.

He steps back.

Back again.

Like distance might undo the gravity of what he just saw.

His ears are ringing.

None of this makes sense. Not fully.

He is stepping into a space he should not recognize but does.

The walls are a little brighter than in his world. Pale blue. Like the sky on cold days. There’s a candle on the windowsill—burned low and forgotten. Its wax has dripped onto a saucer, hardened into a small, messy sculpture. The bed is half-made. A throw blanket in a tangled heap at the foot of it. He recognizes that blanket. You two fought over it last movie night and then ended up sharing it.

There’s another book lying face-down, this time on the mattress. A knife on the nightstand. A half-written grocery list in your handwriting with his name scrawled at the bottom next to coffee and razor blades and more apples.

He stares at the list too long. At his own name like it sits in the wrong place. Like it’s foreign and familiar all at once.

His heart makes a quiet, traitorous sound in his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

This isn’t his room. It’s not his place. Not his world. He’s just a shadow slipping through someone else’s life.

The longer he stays, the more it feels like the walls are leaning in.

He has a job.

A mission.

A very, very clear objective and a limited window to complete it in. That’s the only reason he’s here. The only reason he agreed to this whole ridiculous plan.

He doesn’t belong to this life.

He doesn’t belong to you.

Not like this.

Especially not like this.

He steps back. Slow. Controlled. As if the room might lurch and pull him in again, keep him held tight inside the heat of it. The scent of lavender on your pillow. A half-drunk mug of something still faintly warm on the desk. A soft blanket, folded neatly over the back of the couch by the window. Woven wool, pale grey, fraying just at the corners. In his world, that blanket lives in the rec room. He draped it over your slumbering body a few times already after you fell asleep somewhere between the second and third act.

The room creaks as though it knows he’s not supposed to be here.

So he leaves.

Each footfall measured like a soldier retreating from a line of fire. Not because of danger.

Because of what it could mean.

He closes the door behind him. Doesn’t let it latch.

He is leaving your room because he has to.

Because he’s still Bucky Barnes, and he still has something to do with his hands that isn’t letting them hover uselessly over photographs he never shot, or standing in the middle of a space that smells like your skin and wondering how long it would take before he forgot this wasn’t real. Or wasn’t his.

The hallway is still and dim. It breathes around him, too familiar and too wrong all at once. Different lungs, but the same bone structure.

His boots scruff over the same tile. The grooves on the walls are the same, the small imperfections in the paint still visible where someone - Clint, maybe - banged a cart too hard against the corner and then tried to cover it up with exactly the wrong shade of touch-up.

There’s a duffle bag sitting outside the laundry chute with a name tag stitched in crooked red thread: WILSON. Of course. Even this Sam never takes his stuff all the way in.

And there is a vending machine. It stands in the wrong corner, but it too has a post-it note stuck to it - out of order, again, thanks Tony - with a penknife stabbed through it, just like Natasha used to do when the machine ate her protein bar credits.

These things shouldn’t exist here. But they do.

Everything feels so carefully replicated, as though this universe is a reflection cast on rippling water - almost right, except where it wavers.

The picture frames are all straight here. No one’s taped up drawings on the elevator doors. But the dent in the wall by the training room door is still there - Tony left it during a particularly aggressive dodgeball game. And the pillow on the corner of the couch is still upside down. Steve never fixes it.

Someone’s sweatshirt is slung over the railing. Sam’s. Same one he wore for three weeks straight after the Lagos op. It still smells like burned rubber and that weird detergent Sam insists is “eco-friendly but manly.”

The common room has a blanket folded over the arm of the couch.

It’s yours.

You always fold it the same way. Two halves, then thirds, then smoothed flat.

The corners of his mouth twitch. Not a smile. Just muscle memory of one.

He walks slower now. Like he’s afraid he’ll wake something up.

He turns down the south hall, toward the kitchen.

He tells himself it’s for the layout. That he’s retracing steps, building a map in his head, keeping sharp like they trained him to. But really it’s you. It’s always you. He knows you’re here, somewhere, and if he turns the wrong corner too fast he might see you in a way he isn’t ready for. Or worse - see you in a way he’ll never forget.

His hand curls into a fist. Flesh and metal both.

The light changes first.

The kitchen here is bigger. Airier. The windows seem to stretch wider than they should, the frame redone in something softer than steel. Someone left the lights low, warm glimmers buzzing faintly above, full of melancholy chords.

And then he freezes. Everything in him turns to stone.

He stops breathing.

Because there are you.

Standing with your back to him.

You are in fuzzy socks, standing at the counter, shoulders relaxed, a pot simmering on the stove, and a sway in your movements that hit him so hard his throat tightens. You shift your weight slightly, hip against the edge of the counter, your hand rising to tuck your hair behind your ear.

The way the light hits you from behind is exactly the same.

You are moving through a rhythm you don’t know he’s watching.

You’re cooking something - he doesn’t know what, can’t smell it through the barrier of this aching distance - but it all is so heartbreakingly familiar. The tilt of your head as you read the label. The absent little sway in your hips as you stir something in the pan.

It’s domestic.

Effortlessly soft.

The kind of moment he’s never had, but has imagined a thousand times before.

His body goes very still. Maybe if he moves, the moment might shatter.

But it cleaves him open.

Because you move the same.

You move the way you do in his world - as though every room bends slowly toward you. As though you don’t know how much of your soul you leave behind in your trail. As though the air makes space for you because it wants to. Because it has to.

He watches.

Rooted to the floor.

This is doing something brutal to him. Seeing you here like this, in this soft golden kitchen that smells like tomatoes and thyme and something slow-cooked with patience and love, tucked into his shirt as though it doesn’t tear his heart apart.

You’re not just wearing it to steal warmth or tease him, the way you’ve done before in his world - tugging on his hoodie after a long mission, smirking when he raises an eyebrow, pretending it was an accident. You always returned it too quickly. Always laughed too loudly when he was too nonchalant about it. Always looked away too fast.

But here. Here you wear it as though you truly mean to.

Here you stir sauce in his shirt and sway slightly to a song you don’t know you’re humming and taste the spoon as though this is just another Saturday. Here, the shirt is not a stolen thing.

The hem skims your thighs. The collar is stretched slightly. The cotton even moves in your rhythm. His name is ghosted into the shape of you, etched along your silhouette. It’s almost too much. It’s absolutely too much.

Your movements are familiar in the way only time can make a person. And God, you move the same way. The same way. Like the version of you he left behind an hour ago. Fluid. Quiet. Self-contained. You hum under your breath, just barely.

He feels it like a bruise forming under his ribs.

His hand curls at his side. Metal fingers flex.

You don’t see him.

He’s not ready for you to. He knows he shouldn’t let you see him.

Not here. Not like this. Not when you’re standing in a kitchen that looks like the one you always complained was too small, in a shirt that is his - or the other Bucky’s - cooking with your whole body curled in that same subtle tension like you’re thinking about something else entirely.

And for one breathless second, he forgets.

He forgets this isn’t his kitchen.

That this isn’t his world.

That the you standing there isn’t the one who left a hair tie on his wrist last Wednesday.

That you’re not the one who laughed at him for not knowing how to use your espresso machine but then proceeded to teach him with that sweet voice of yours he doesn’t mind drowning in.

But God, he wants to walk across the room. Wants to slide his arms around your waist. Rest his chin on your shoulder. Breathe in your scent and feel your heartbeat under his hands.

Because he’s seen you like this before.

In his own kitchen, in his own universe.

Not often. Just enough to be dangerous.

You, in fuzzy socks. You, humming softly. You, squinting into a pot like it might confess its secrets.
You, looking over your shoulder and catching him staring.

Smirking. Amused. But with a warmth in your eyes.

And now, he just watches.

This version of you doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t feel him standing there, made of want and memory and too much tenderness for a heart that was never meant to carry this much.

He grips the doorframe.

Tries to swallow the pain.

Because this is what he’s always wanted, but it isn’t his.

And it won’t be.

But he can’t stop looking.

He knows he should move. Now.

He’s not supposed to linger.

Not supposed to look.

Not supposed to feel.

He’s a shadow in this world, a breath not meant to be heard. A presence designed to pass unnoticed.

But you-

God.

You are gravity and he is weak against it.

You are the glitch in every rule, the exception in every universe.

And he can’t help it.

He looks.

He stays.

Because there is no version of reality where he walks past you untouched.

You are the only thing in this place that hasn’t changed.

The only thing that feels right.

And that’s the worst part.

Because you feel like home.

And you’re not his.

You might never be.

But he stands there, selfish and still, pretending the silence could make him invisible. Pretending this version of you isn’t real. That your shape, your voice, your hands wouldn’t undo him in ways the war never could.

You reach for the spice rack, standing on your toes just a little, the hem of the oversized shirt lifting slightly. His name is written in the way the fabric hangs off your frame. It’s branded into this whole place.

He watches you like a man watches fire from the other side of glass - warmed, lit, and ruined all at once. You move like morning through him - and he, all dusk and dust, knows he is never meant to touch such light.

You wear that shirt on your shoulders as though it is normal for you. As though you want it to be there.

Bucky watches it stretch across the curves of a body he’s only ever worshiped in dreams.

You still feel like you, he thinks and the thought is so sudden and so violent that he has to step back - just a fraction of an inch, just enough to pretend he didn’t feel it, just enough to pretend it doesn’t mean something.

He doesn’t understand how this version of you still reads like poetry he’s already memorized.

He backs away, so slowly, he wonders if time might forgive him for the moment. For his hesitation to leave.

For the way, he just stands there and watches you as though you are the last good thing in the world.

As though you are the world. His world.

You turn, slow, stirring spoon still in hand. You haven’t seen him yet. You’re focused, brow furrowed just slightly, lower lip caught between your teeth, and he knows he should get the hell away from here.

But he is frozen in place. His muscles aren’t working.

He sees the angle of your cheek, the line of your neck, the quick twitch of your nose as though you’ve caught a scent you know too well.

And then you look up.

You see him.

Bucky’s mind is running on empty cells.

Your whole face changes. Clouds lifting. Sun rising. Your smile is instant. As though seeing him is something your body wants to do.

Everything in you brightens. As though the sun cracked open inside your chest. Your whole body jolts. Just a fraction. In surprise, delight. As though seeing him is something that rearranges the air in your lungs and makes it easier to breathe.

He is not prepared for the way you breathe his name.

“Buck-” your voice is thick with shock and joy and something lighter than either. “You’re back.”

He doesn’t move. Can’t.

The word back rattles in his ears. Echoes. Feels like a lie made of gold. He is not back. He is not yours. Not in this life. Not in this room. Not in the way you somehow seem to think he is.

You don’t give him time to speak. You don’t give him space to even think.

Because you’re already closing the distance between you, fast and sure-footed, and he has just enough sense left in him to realize he should say something, before you launch yourself into his chest, arms flung wide, a soft gasp of excitement still spilling from your mouth.

You collide with him hard and certain and unapologetic, and your arms wind around his neck as though they’ve done this a thousand times. So easy with him. Knowing the shape of him.

He stiffens. Every muscle in his body locks up, heart ricocheting against his ribs. He chokes on his breath.

He’s too overwhelmed with this situation to hug you back. His arms stay frozen at his side. His fingers twitch, trying to reach for you but remembering they shouldn’t.

You’re warm. You’re so warm.

You smell like that candle on your windowsill. Like a version of comfort he hasn’t earned.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” you murmur, voice muffled as you bury yourself into the crook of his neck, full of a joy so honest it makes his entire ribcage squeeze the life out of him. “I thought you were still stuck over there. I was starting to get worried. Were you trying to surprise me? Because you definitely surprised me.”

Bucky can’t speak. He can’t do a single thing and that’s absolutely pathetic. He wants to say something clever or distant or safe, but his mouth is a graveyard and the words are bones. He’s not sure he even remembers how to use them anymore.

Your breath fans across his collarbone, your nose brushing his jaw, and it’s too much.

The feeling of you against him is unbearable. You fit. Of course, you do. His body knows you, even if his brain is screaming that this is wrong, that this is not the life he is living, that this version of you is not his to touch.

But you don’t know that. You don’t hesitate. Your hands slide up his back. One of them tangles in the hair at the nape of his neck. The other rests against the curve of his shoulder. His flesh shoulder.

He feels like glass. Like a single breath could rip him to shreds.

You pull back just enough to look at him.

There is something tender in your eyes. Something known. Something that sees him without flinching. You’re beaming. And he is blinded.

You’re looking at him as though he’s something you loved for years and known down to the marrow.

And then, so quickly, so confidently - you kiss him.

Bucky freezes.

All the air leaves his lungs.

His heart stutters in his chest.

Your lips meet his as though the air between you has gravity, as though you have done this before, soft and sure, knowing how he likes it. You kiss him as though you’ve kissed him a thousand times and a thousand more.

Bucky is a rigid wall, thunderstruck.

But he doesn’t stop you.

He should. He knows he should. The second your hands touched his face, he should have stepped back. Should have told you the truth. Should have warned you that this isn’t him. Not the right one. That the man you think you’re kissing is a ghost wearing someone else’s memories.

But he doesn’t. He lets you. For a heartbreaking moment. Lets his mouth press to yours for the span of a beat and a half. Lets the warmth of you crack the ice he’s been carrying in his chest for too long.

Your lips are warm, soft, sweet, tasting of honey and cinnamon and nostalgia and the imaged version of a dream he’s buried too deep to name, one he’s never dared to reach for but still lingers in his bones. Bucky doesn’t know if he’s breathing or if that became something irrelevant.

He lets you press into him as though the whole world hasn’t changed, as though this you is not a stranger wearing your skin, your voice, your tenderness. And for a second, a small and selfish, shattering second, he melts.

His muscles go slack and his eyes fall closed and the universe falls into place. Your lips on his feel like relief, like the end of war, like something he didn’t earn. He lets himself sink into it, into you.

You kiss him as though you know him. As though you know the hollow places and where they go. As though your body is working off muscle memory forged from love he was never around long enough to deserve.

Your hands are on his face and you’re kissing him as though this means something and he wants to pull away, he does, but not for one split-second. He folds like wax in flames, pliant and helpless under your affection.

His heart stutters - skips, crashes, burns.

Your body is pressing forward as though it’s coming home.

His mouth moves with yours, slow and stunned and melted, like a man learning to breathe in a language he doesn’t speak.

This is what he has imagined. This is what has haunted the spaces behind his eyes when he lets his guard down. He has imagined this. Wondered what your breath would taste like when it caught between your mouths, how your fingers would feel fisted in his hair, how it might feel to be wanted by you - openly, without hesitation, without shame.

But then you whisper against his mouth, soft and breathless and full of joy.

“God, I missed you.”

And everything collapses.

The words strike like ice water down his spine. It’s like being shot. He grows tense again. His eyes snap open. His mind catches up to his heart. The sweetness goes sour in his mouth. The warmth becomes poison under his skin. Because it isn’t real. This isn’t real.

You’re not his.

Not his to kiss. Not his to miss him. Not his to touch him with that bright look in your eyes as though he is part of your story.

You think he’s your Bucky. The one who - as Bucky would imagine - kissed you on every hallway in this place, whenever he could. The one who knows which side of the bed you sleep on. The one who earned your trust, your touch, your history.

And so he breaks the sky.

He pulls away - rips himself out of paradise with shaking hands and a jaw clenched so tight it might snap. The breath that leaves him is ragged, torn.

Every muscle in his body is tight. This is not your kiss. Not yours to give or his to take. Not when you don’t know. Not when you think he’s someone else.

And even though it’s you - your warmth, your voice, your heartbeat fluttering against his chest - it’s not the version of you he’s imagined this with.

And it’s not right.

The guilt punches him all at once, shame and grief and confusion he’s never quite learned to survive. He recoils - not even fully on purpose - but instinct, instinct that tells him he has stolen something you didn’t offer him.

He’s just a stranger behind familiar eyes.

You freeze. Blink at him. Confused. Concerned.

Your smile falters. Disappears.

His chest heaves once, twice, too fast, not able to breathe properly with your taste still caught in his mouth. His hands curl into fists at his side, trying to remember what they are for.

And then he sees it - your worry folding into something smaller, something more ashamed.

And it murders him in slow motion, one heartbeat at a time.

Your hands drop away from his face and flutter against your lips for the smallest second as though maybe you’re the one who crossed a line.

And he watches, helpless, as the light behind your eyes dims.

You take a tiny step back, shoulders inching inwards as though you’re suddenly unsure of yourself.

And then your eyes widen, and the guilt spills out of you now, sharp and immediate.

“Buck, I-” you start, your voice soft and hesitant. “I’m sorry. That was… I shouldn’t have just- I didn’t mean to- God, you probably needed a second to just settle, and I-” you trail off and take another step back as though you think you hurt him.

Your face crumples, not dramatically, not completely. But enough to look a little wounded. Vulnerable in that way you only let him see when no one else is around. Even here. Even in this life that isn’t his.

It’s killing him.

That pain in your eyes. The sheen of doubt and confusion that he put there.

You wrap your arms around yourself, retreating inward, your expression far too close to shame.

His chest caves as though something vital just got torn out, and his body hasn’t caught up yet.

Because even if you are not his - you are you. And hurting you, even by accident, even like this, feels like peeling the skin of his ribs.

He feels it in the hollow beneath his ribs, a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

“No!” he forces out quickly, voice low and rough and all wrong. “Hey- no, no, you didn’t- You weren’t- I’m not-”

But he doesn’t know what to say.

He wants to tell you it’s okay, that you didn’t do anything wrong, that it’s him, it’s all him, it’s always him, it’s never you.

He wants to scream that his bones are made of want, that his blood sings only your name, that he is drowning in everything you don’t know you’ve given him.

But none of this is simple. None of it is clean.

And all he does is stand there.

Breath shaking.

Heart breaking.

Hands curled so tightly to keep from reaching.

Because you didn’t give this kiss to him, not knowing who he was. You gave it to the man you think he is. The man you trust.

And he accepted it anyway. Let it happen. For just a split second, but still, he let himself have it.

He feels sick.

And now you look like you’re folding in on yourself, and all he wants in the world is to pull you close and undo every second of pain.

“I just got excited,” you say timidly, even softer now, eyes dropping to the kitchen counter. “I missed you and I didn’t- I thought you’d- Never mind. I’m sorry.”

You’re already turning away, trying to tuck the moment back into yourself, trying to pretend it didn’t just break the air between you. As though you haven’t just handed him a piece of your heart and watched him flinch from it.

And Bucky feels like the worst kind of monster.

Because it’s not your fault. This version of you, who somehow but clearly loves him, who thought she was greeting the man who has kissed her a thousand times and more. Who thought this was welcome. Who probably counted down the days until he walked through that door.

He knows because he does the same thing although his you and him aren’t even a thing.

Because in his world, you’re his friend. Just that. A friend with soft eyes and sharper wit, someone who argues about popcorn toppings and sings loudly in the kitchen when you know he needs some cheering up. You’ve patched him up after missions. You’ve watched old movies with him in silence, both of you staring too long at the screen and not long enough at each other. You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder. You’ve tucked his hair behind his ear when it stuck to his cheek after a nightmare. You’ve told him - more than once - that you’re here for him.

But you’ve never kissed him.

You’ve never touched him as though you owned the moment.

You’ve never stood in his clothes and cooked dinner for the version of him who let himself be yours.

And god, he wants to hate this version of himself. This man who found the courage to step forward when he only hovered on the edge. Who earned the right to be held by his dream girl like a homecoming.

And now you are ashamed. Now you are hurt.

Because he couldn’t be the right Bucky.

He steps forward, frantic, needing, desperate to fix it, to say something, anything that would wipe that hurt look off your face.

“No- no, hey,” he rasps, voice frayed. His hands are hovering. He wants to touch you. He wants to hold your face in his palms and make this better. “It’s not your fault. It’s not you. I just… I mean, I didn’t think-” He knows he’s not making this better at all right now.

He sighs, mouth open but language failing him, and he scrubs a hand over his jaw as though he can erase the hesitation you saw there.

You search his face, your eyes too deep.

A trembling nod.

“Okay,” you say. “I just thought- I don’t know what I thought. I was just really happy to see you. But I should’ve given you a moment.”

And there it is.

The softness.

The part of you he has always tried to guard. The one he’d go back to Hydra to protect. The one that makes his chest ache and his hands shake at his sides.

He wants to tell you everything. The truth. The mission. That he’s not the man you think he is.

He almost does.

But his throat is choked up.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and that only breaks him in a new way.

Because you think you did something wrong.

“No,” he starts again, firmer this time, softer too. “You don’t need to apologize, sweetheart. I-” he hesitates, and you see it. “I missed you, too.”

He screwed up. Completely.

You bite your lip, unsure. Your eyes flick down to your shirt. His shirt. Not really his shirt. But Bucky’s shirt. You tug at the hem as though it suddenly doesn’t belong to you anymore.

And Bucky knows that this moment will haunt him long after he leaves this world. Long after he goes back to the version of you who wears his hoodies just to tease, who touches him only in passing, who is his friend despite him wishing for you to greet him the same way this you greets her Bucky. For the rest of his life.

You look at him as though he’s a wound.

As though he’s something tender and broken and half-open, and not in the way that frightens you but in the way that makes you reach for the first aid kit. As though you’ve seen the blood already, and you are not afraid to get your hands dirty to make him whole again.

Your voice turns softer now. Maybe trying not to shake the walls around him. Like you’ve already seen him flinch once and you’re afraid of making it happen again. He can hear the thread of caution in your throat, stretched thin with concern.

“Buck,” you say, slow, quiet. “Are you okay?” you ask and it’s not just a question. It’s a doorway. A key turned in a lock he hasn’t let anyone touch. You’re peering through the walls he built up as though you have done it before. Maybe you know all his hiding places. Maybe you’ve kissed every scar on his soul and memorized the way his silences mean different things.

But not this version of him.

Not here. Not now.

And it does something sharp to him.

Because he’s not okay. He is a thousand feet below the surface, lungs full of water and salt and regret. He is standing in a version of his life that is too soft for the callouses on his hands, and you are looking at him as if he means something to you, as if he still matters even after he’s flinched from your kiss, after he’s stood there in a borrowed skin, giving nothing in return.

He wants to say yes. Wants to lie because it would be kinder. Because maybe it would make your forehead smooth out and your mouth curl back up and your shoulders drop from where they’ve crept up near your ears. But the words catch in his throat. He can’t swallow them. He can’t spit them out.

You step closer, slowly now, more careful than before, and the guilt rises more than ever.

“Do you need anything?” you ask, as though you’ve asked him this a thousand times before. “Water? Food? A shower? A-” you falter, “- a second to breathe?”

Your eyes are so gentle he could cry. You’re hurting and you’re still soft with him, still reaching across this invisible crack in the earth, still offering care with both hands like it won’t burn you if he doesn’t take it.

He doesn’t deserve this.

He doesn’t deserve you.

Not when he’s not the man who earned the right to walk through that door and be met with your affection like sunlight. Not when you looked at him like a miracle and he gave you nothing back but a statue.

His hands remain in fists. His chest is too tight. Too small. His own skin is too loud.

“I’m fine,” he answers. Too fast. Too clipped. He regrets it instantly.

Your face drops a little, enough for him to feel it all over again. Another weight, another reminder that he is ruining something delicate, something not meant for him.

“Oh,” you murmur, nodding too quickly, stepping back as though your warmth was a mistake. “Okay.”

And there it is.

That thing he can’t stand.

That thing you do - both of you, all versions of you - when you feel shut out. That pull inward, that retreat behind your own ribs, as though maybe you’d overstepped, and now you need to fold yourself small enough not to take up space.

It crushes him.

Because he made you feel that way.

He made you feel as though you’re making it worse by caring.

He swallows hard, sorrow burning down his throat.

He doesn’t deserve your tenderness. He doesn’t deserve your care. He doesn’t deserve the way you’re moving again, back to the counter, shoulders tense. You’re trying to give him space and comfort in the same breath and it hurts to watch.

You stir something in the pan. Wipe your hands off a towel that looks as though it’s been used too many times. Domestic. Familiar. This life is familiar, too much so, and he is standing in the middle of it like a trespasser.

“I’m almost done here,” you note sweetly, glancing back at him with that look - gentle and worried and wounded. “If you do want something.”

You say it as though you’ve fed him before. As though he likes your cooking. As though this is something you fall into easily, the kitchen your common ground, your voice echoing off the same cabinets.

Bucky can feel his heart cave in.

You’re still looking at him like that. As though he’s someone you’d give your last spoonful of soup to. As though he isn’t just standing there like a coward with your kiss still on his mouth and your concern sitting in the hollow of his chest.

Even when he pulled away, even when he didn’t say a damn word, you didn’t get angry. You didn’t accuse him of anything. You just worried. And you’re still here. Still cooking. Still offering pieces of yourself like they’re nothing when they mean everything.

It makes him feel like a thief.

Because he’s not your Bucky. And he doesn’t know what yours did to earn you, but he can’t possibly live up to it.

His guilt is a creature now - gnawing and breathing heavy in his chest, pacing in circles behind his ribs. He feels it crawling through him, scraping at the back of his throat, making it hard to speak, hard to swallow. You are being careful with him, and all he can think about is how he should have stopped the kiss the second you leaned in.

You wouldn’t have kissed him if you knew who he really was.

And still, he wants to say yes.

Wants to sit at the kitchen table as though he belongs. Wants to take the plate you’d hand him and eat every last bite and listen to your stories and pretend just for a moment that this is his.

But it’s not.

It’s yours.

And it’s his job to leave it untouched.

“I’m good,” he lies, voice a gravel-dragged croak.

You pause, spoon in hand, frowning softly.

He hates that look.

That little line between your brows. The tilt of your head. Maybe you know he’s not telling the truth but don’t want to press. Maybe you’d rather hold the silence in your hands than make him bleed more words than he has.

“Okay,” you say again, quiet but still open, still gentle. “Just let me know if that changes.”

And you turn back to your pan, shoulders remaining to stay curled in. Like a window closing just enough to keep the cold out.

And Bucky just stands there.

Mouth dry. Hands shaking. Jaw tight. Chest full of something that feels like grief and guilt and anguish all tangled up in barbed wire.

And you’re cooking for a man who doesn’t exist in your world.

And the worst part - the part that scrapes down the back of his throat - is that he wishes he could deserve you.

He wishes this was real.

He wishes it were him.

He wishes it more than he’s wished for anything in his life since he lost it.

Since he became something else, since he forgot his own name, since his hands were turned against the world, against himself. Since all he’s done is survive.

He watches you like a man starving for sunlight. Terrified it might disappear if he blinks too long.

The way your shoulders move as you stir. The curl of your fingers around the wooden spoon. The tuck of hair behind your ear. The shift of your weight from one foot to the other.

He watches you move like he’s memorizing. As though this is the last time he’ll see you in motion. Like your movements are things he can bottle and carry with him, tucked deep into some pocket where the world can’t steal it. Where time can’t take it. Where even regret has no reach.

Your fingers fuss over something inconsequential now. Adjusting the position of a mug that didn’t need to be moved, opening a drawer, and then closing it again. You’re pretending not to look at him but he sees the way your eyes keep falling over, the way you keep folding and unfolding yourself. You’re waiting. Giving him the space he didn’t ask for and that he doesn’t actually want but knows he should take. Giving him something kinder than he’s ever learned to give himself.

And you are so familiar. You’re the same here. Even in this place that’s slightly sideways and tinted in colors, he doesn’t recognize. You move the same. You speak the same. You care the same way.

Even if your kindness isn’t meant for him.

Even if your kiss was meant for a version of him he doesn’t even understand.

Because this Bucky - the one you seem to love here - he must have done something right. He must have looked at you one day and not looked away. He must have let himself have you. He must have been brave enough to reach for you with both hands and hold on.

Bucky doesn’t know how to be that man.

He wants to be.

But he doesn’t know how.

Not in his own world. Not where he loves you from afar and pretends that’s protection. Where he swallows the way you laugh like it’s medicine and doesn’t let it show on his face. Where he listens to your questions in briefings - always you, always asking the most, as though you know people better than they know themselves - and he lets the sound of your voice guide him through the fog in his head like a rope he can follow back home.

But he never says anything. Never answers unless he has to. Never tells you how often he thinks about you, about your hands and your hair and your smell and the way your eyes find his in a crowd like a lighthouse built just for him.

Because what would he even say?

Hey, I can’t sleep unless I replay the way you laughed when Sam dropped popcorn all over the floor last month. I still have the napkin you folded into a crane at that terrible diner. I know the shape of your handwriting better than my own.

And what would you say to that?

Would you smile?

Would you run?

He doesn’t know. He’ll never know. Because he never asked. Because he never tried.

But this Bucky did.

And now this is the price.

Standing in the compound’s kitchen that smells of roasted garlic and too many things he’s never had. Watching you move around as though this is all so very familiar to you.

He wonders if you’d greet him like this every day if he were yours. If you were his.

If you’d light up like that every time like he was coming come and not just showing up, arms open, voice warm, like there was no place he could be safer than here with you.

If you’d wear his shirts as though they are yours because of what he means to you, not because they are soft or convenient or too clean not to steal.

He aches with the idea of it.

He wants this.

He wants you.

And not just in the sharp pain that lives under his ribs. Not just in the sleepless nights and the imagined conversations. Not just in the way he stares too long when you’re laughing or how he makes excuses to sit beside you on the couch.

He wants this.

You, warm and open and lit up from the inside. You, the way you could be if you saw him like this. If you let yourself. If he ever earned the right for you to let yourself.

But he hasn’t. He knows that.

He’s just your friend. The one you trust with your coffee order and your spare key and the heavy things you don’t want to talk about until 2 am. The one you steal clothes from, but always give them back because they don’t actually belong to you. The one you fall asleep beside during late movies without worrying about what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. Not to you.

Not like it means to him.

And still, he always watches. From doorways. From shadowed corners of rooms that dim the moment you leave them. Not to possess you - but because to look away would be a small death he cannot bear.

You laugh, and he holds the sound like contraband. You glance past him, and he lets it wound him sweetly. He’ll love you like that forever - at a distance, in silence, in awe. A man carved hollow by devotion, wearing his yearning like a prayer no god will answer.

And this version of you belongs to someone.

Even if it’s just a different version of him, it’s not him. Not this one. Not the one still lost in the burden of everything he’s done. The one who still wonders if the blood on his hands will ever wash off. The one who doesn’t know how to be soft.

He doesn’t know what the other Bucky did to deserve this version of you. Doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Doesn’t know what he offered you, what words he spoke when you were doubting yourself, afraid of being too much.

He’s not sure if he even knows this Bucky. It sounds weird as fuck. But maybe he doesn’t. Because it seems impossible to Bucky that this guy actually managed to get his girl. To get you.

Though he sure as hell would start a fight if the other him ever took this for granted. If he ever walked through this kitchen distracted or tired or in a bad mood and missed the way you smile when you think he’s not looking. If he ever left you waiting too long.

Bucky thinks he’d kill to have what that punk has.

And he hates himself for that.

But he can’t help but watch you, and it feels like the axis of something turning. Like time folding in on itself to offer him one brief, borrowed breath of what could have been.

It feels like being kissed by a future he lost, and forgiven by a present he never dared to ask for.

Because he knows that if you knew his thoughts, if you knew what he is feeling right now, you’d feel betrayed. You’d feel wronged. Because this wasn’t yours to give and it wasn’t his to want and now you’re both tangled in something made of shadows and parallel paths that should never have crossed.

But you’re here. And he’s here. And the moment still smells of cinnamon and citrus and something sweet, like safety, like you.

And he can’t stop wanting.

He wants it so badly he feels like a child in his chest. Like a boy in Brooklyn again, heart too big, hands too empty. Wanting something too beautiful for his fingers. Afraid to touch it in case he ruins it.

He wants this kitchen, this quiet, this life. He wants to be the Bucky who you wrap your arms around without thinking. Without hesitation. The one you miss. The one you think about. The one you care about so deeply. The one you kiss without asking because of course he wants you to.

He wants to be the one you light up for.

He wants it so bad it hurts.

But you are too soft for the ruin of his hands. Too bright for the rooms he lives in. You drink from fountains he was never invited to approach, speak in tones that his rusted soul cannot mimic.

And this is gutting him. To know the shape of your intimate kindness, the tilt of your adoring smile, the poetry of your presence - yet remain nothing more than a silent apostle to your orbit.

And maybe that’s why he finally moves. Why he tears himself away, footfalls too loud in the silence, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

He can’t stay here, not with you standing in the soft yellow light looking like everything he’s ever tried not to need.

He clears his throat, tries to make his voice sound normal, even though nothing about him feels human right now.

Your eyes lift to his. Wary. Still warm. Still worried. Still too much.

“I should, uh,” he mutters, nodding toward the hallway. “I’ve gotta take a shower.”

He bites his lip in frustration at himself.

Your lip twitches. Tugs down ever so slightly. It splits him open.

“Okay,” you say, quiet. There is disappointment in your tone, you weren’t able to overshadow. “You’ll tell me if you need anything?”

He nods too fast. Too tight. “Yeah.”

And then he leaves.

Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to do something worse than kiss you back.

He’s going to beg.

And he knows he has already taken too much.

And he needs to turn away.

Because he has something to do.

Because this world isn’t his. And he wasn’t sent here to collect the storyline he’s too afraid to build on his own.

He’s here for a mission.

He wasn’t sent here to linger in your doorway and let his bones dissolve into longing.

He walks away with you still behind him. He feels your gaze on his skin and with every step, it’s like he’s leaving something behind he’ll never quite be able to touch again.

He almost turns around.

Almost says your name.

Almost asks what this Bucky did - how he said it first, how he reached for you, what it took.

But he doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t get to ask.

So he keeps walking, heart in his throat, your taste still on his lips, and the echo of your smile carved into his spine like something sacred he was never meant to keep.

****

“Did you run into anyone while you were there?”

Steve’s question comes as casually as a bomb dropped from the sky.

Voices rise and fall in the conference room - wooden chairs squeaking under shifting weight, pens clicking, someone’s fingers drumming absently on the table.

The room is too bright. The lights overhead white and clinical, burning a little too harshly through his eyes and down into the back of his skull.

The air smells like ozone and burnt coffee. The kind that’s been sitting in the pot too long, scorched at the edges.

Bucky sits at the far end. Back against the chair but not relaxed, never relaxed, spine too straight, jaw too tight, metal fingers tapping once against the glass of his water before he clenches his hand and stills it.

And he knew this was coming.

Knew from the moment Strange opened that cursed slit in the fabric of the universe and Bucky stepped through like he was boarding a train to nowhere. Knew the second he saw your face - your face, but not yours - that this would catch up with him. That this would unravel under fluorescent lights and scrutiny.

Every muscle in his body coiled tighter. A reflex. A learned thing. His mouth is already dry.

The table is crowded with Avengers, coffee cups clinking, files half-open and untouched because no one is really looking at the paper.

The prototype sits in the center of the table, carefully sealed inside one of Tony’s vacuum-shielded cases. A long-forgotten Howard Stark fever dream, something meant to bend energy fields into weaponized gravity. Or something. It doesn’t matter.

They have it. He got it.

But that’s not what anyone is talking about right now.

Not when Sam is already side-eyeing him. Not when Doctor Strange is seated in his dark robes like the warning label on a grenade, fingertips tented, waiting. Not when you’re sitting two chairs down - his version of you - and you’re watching him with that same knitted expression you always wear when something doesn’t sit right.

“Bucky,” Strange says, voice low and still too loud. “I need to know. Did you encounter anyone significant while you were there? Interacting with alternate selves is risky. Prolonged exposure can ripple. If you spoke to someone who knows you-”

“I know the damn rules,” Bucky mutters, sharper than he meant to, and instantly hates the way your brows lift at the sound of it.

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Tries to breathe. His body is still holding something that didn’t belong to him. Your smile. Your voice. The feel of your lips, pressed to his like they had every right to be there. Like you knew him.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

He dreads talking about it.

“There was someone,” he says, and the room quiets.

You sit a little straighter. Sam leans forward. Even Clint lowers his cup.

He can feel you watching him.

You, his version of you, sitting across the table with your arms crossed and your head tilted just enough to catch the shadows under his eyes. The real you. The only important you. And it’s so difficult to just look at you because he swears there’s a phantom echo still lingering in his chest. Of another you. Of another kitchen full of light.

“Who?” Strange asks.

Bucky exhales slowly, eyes fixed on the table. The grain of it. The scratch just under his knuckle. He imagines digging his fingers into it, splinters biting through skin, anything to ground himself.

“You,” He meets your eyes when he finally says it, and it feels like swallowing gravel. “I saw her.”

You blink.

“You ran into Y/n?” Sam asks, something like a smirk in his voice.

Bucky nods once. It feels like rust grinding his neck.

He can’t look up anymore. Can’t look at you.

He doesn’t need to look to know your breath has caught. He can feel it in the air. The absence of it. Like the moment before thunder.

He pushes through.

“She was there. She saw me.” His jaw clenches, his fists curl under the table.

Bruce exhales, pushing up his glasses. “That’s not ideal.”

Tony makes a sharp noise in his throat.

“Did you talk to her?” Strange inquiries, voice tighter now, more urgent. And Bucky has to refrain himself from wincing.

He sees you shifting in your seat in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah,” he sighs, quieter now. “We, uh- we talked.”

Silence.

Strange’s eyes are boring through him. “How close did you get?”

Sam leans forward. Bucky doesn’t look at him.

You’re staring at him now. Open. Quiet. You haven’t said a word. Your silence feels worse than anything else.

“I don’t think that matters-” Bucky starts, but Strange interrupts.

“It matters exactly. If she saw you, if you talked, if you touched, if anything that could destabilize your emotional tether occurred-”

Bucky laughs, but it’s hollow, breathless. Rotten. “What the hell is an emotional tether?”

“It’s you,” Strange answers simply. “And her. On a metaphysical level. The same person in different timelines can act as anchors. Or explosives.”

“Jesus,” Bucky mumbles, dragging a hand down his face.

His palms won’t stop sweating.

He hasn’t felt this kind of sick since HYDRA used to strap wires to his temples and ask him how many fingers they’d need to break before he forgot his own name.

The conference room is too still. Too sharp. His chair feels wrong under him, too stiff, too narrow. The soft, predictable sound of conversation from earlier has dropped into something tighter. Focused. Hunting.

He doesn’t want to lie. Not about you. Not when you touched him like that. Not when you said his name like that. Not when it almost felt like it could be true.

So he swallows hard and pushes words through his locked jaw.

“She hugged me.”

A pause.

He doesn’t look at anyone. Just the table. That one dent from Steve’s shield. The scratch Clint made with a fork because he talks with his hands. A small, folded paper crane tucked under your fingers. He doesn’t know where you’ve got that from but your fingers are bending the wings back and forth. He doesn’t think you even realize you’re doing it.

“She hugged you?” Sam repeats, brow raised. “Like… greeted you?”

Bucky nods slowly, heart thudding in his ears. “Something like that.” He can feel your gaze like heat pressed against the side of his face and it almost burns to meet it, so he doesn’t.

“What happened before that?” Steve wants to know, eyes narrowing.

“I-” Bucky starts, and then stops, scrubs a hand over his mouth. “I walked into the kitchen. She was cooking something. Then she saw me. She thought I- he- was back. From something. A mission. I don’t know the details.”

“And she hugged you,” Steve adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs.

He doesn’t mean to look at you, but he does. For a second.

And you’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. Something still. As though you are trying to understand.

“And you just let her?” Sam presses, not unkind, but relentless in the way only Sam can be. “You didn’t say anything?”

“What do you think I should have said?”

“Well, I don’t know, man-“

“Did I say anything? Or… she?”

It’s your voice.

And it makes his stomach flip.

His eyes snap to you. But you’re not looking at him directly. You look at the edge of his shoulder. The hinge of his jaw. The tension written across his face.

He shifts in his chair. “You- She asked why I hadn’t told her I was coming back. Thought I was surprising her.” His hands are pressed flat against his thighs as though he can keep himself from shaking if he stays grounded.

“And?” Steve asks, too gently.

“She kissed me,” Bucky manages finally, and the room stiffens around him like a held breath. His voice is almost flat now. Hollowed-out. Maybe he’s trying to bleed the memory dry so it stops spreading in his chest.

There is a momentary lapse of silence that feels like someone dropped something delicate and no one wants to be the first to point it out.

Clint exhales slowly, muttering something under it. Sam leans back in his chair, maybe trying to decide if this is funny or devastating. Steve just blinks.

And you go completely still. Not a twitch of movement. Not even your fingers on the paper crane.

“She kissed you?” Natasha says, brows high.

Bucky exhales. Nods.

“What kind of kiss?” Sam blurts, leaning forward again. “A welcome-home kiss? Or a- like a real kiss?”

Steve sighs exasperated.

“No, I mean- we gotta know. This matters.”

His hand is aching. Flesh thumb pressing hard against the knuckle. “It was- not friendly.”

And the room really freezes. Stunned.

Until Sam lets out this sharp, incredulous sort of whistle, and Clint groans, dragging a hand down his face.

You glance down at your lap, jaw clenched, breath held so still it barely moves your chest. And it twists something in Bucky’s stomach, the way you sit there trying to disappear. He’s not sure who it hurts more - you, hearing this, or him, saying it. There is shame curling behind his ears. Shame and something like grief. And it’s all turned inward.

Sam’s eyes narrow. “So she kissed you thinking you were the other Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He’s trying to keep still. Trying not to flinch. Trying not to look left. Trying not to look right. Trying not to look at you.

Because he feels the air around you shift like the press of a coming storm. It’s not anger. He knows that heat, and this isn’t it. It’s just quiet and tight and uncomfortable. A subtle withdrawal as though you’ve stepped behind some invisible wall only he can see.

And he hates it.

Bruce clears his throat carefully. “That implies a romantic connection. At least in her mind. Probably in his, too.”

Tony makes a face. “So we’re saying that Barnes and our girl are a thing in that universe.”

“Looks like it,” Natasha muses, eyes sliding toward you.

“Holy shit,” Clint remarks unhelpfully.

They say it so easily. As though this is nothing. As though this doesn’t wreck something fundamental in Bucky’s ribcage.

And suddenly everyone is quiet. Even the noise of the lights seem muted. It’s hot and awkward and strangely intimate.

Bucky stares down at his hands. They look like someone else’s. He can still feel your touch on them. Still feel the heat of your mouth against his. The softness. The way your lips pressed with such intention.

He says nothing.

He feels terrible.

Because a part of him still wants it.

Still aches with it.

Not the kiss. Not the accident.

The life.

That version of himself who gets to love you out loud. Who gets to be yours in daylight, in kitchens, in the moments that don’t demand heroism but just presence. That version of him that doesn’t have to swallow the way your voice makes something flutter in his chest like a broken-winged butterfly. The one who can kiss you because you already know him. Trust him. Want him. Miss him.

He wants that version to exist so badly.

And it makes him feel like a monster.

You’re sitting just far enough to be untouchable, just close enough that he can feel the space between you aching like a wound.

You are you. You are right there. And you don’t even know that in another universe, you loved him so much you ran into his arms without hesitation.

The light from the high windows drips in thin streaks across the long table, catching on Bucky’s knuckles, the tightness of his body.

There’s a long pause.

Then Tony exhales. “Well, that confirms it. Barnes is getting some in another universe.”

“Tony,” Natasha warns lowly.

Tony holds his hands up in mock innocence, but Strange interrupts them, turning to Bucky with a roll of his eyes. His cloak rustles.

“Did you tell her anything?” His voice is edged. “Did she suspect something?”

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He shifts in his seat. His back is too straight, and still, and his hands are bracing for something.

“No,” he relents. His voice is raw and rough like gravel pulled from the bottom of a riverbed. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

Strange’s eyes narrow. “Nothing?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Strange tilts his head slightly. His expression is unreadable. Calculating. “Her behavior. Did she seem disoriented? Odd? Suspicious? I assume you know Y/n well enough to tell if she’s acting off.”

The lump in his throat settles as though it lives there.

“She was hurt,” he admits, and the words punch out of him. “I froze up. She thought she’d done something wrong. But she didn’t suspect anything.”

Across from him, you shift. A small movement. But he feels it in his bones. He looks up. Meets your eyes.

You’re watching him as though you’re trying to learn something about yourself from inside of him.

He swallows hard.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he says again, and it’s not for Strange this time. It’s for you. “I didn’t compromise anything. I was careful.”

“You were compromised,” Strange says, not unkindly, but without sympathy. “Emotionally. Whether you said something or not.”

Bucky doesn’t argue.

Because yes. He was. He is. He doesn’t even know how to be anything else anymore. His chest still echoes with the memory of your laugh - not your laugh, but close enough to trick him. His arms still remember the shape of your body, the way you buried yourself into him. As though you’d been there a thousand times before and would be a thousand times again.

He wonders what that other you is doing now. If you are still standing in the kitchen, perhaps waiting for him. Still hurt. Still confused. Still so worried.

He wonders what that Bucky is doing now. If he’s back. If he’s home. If you’re in his arms, asking what took him so long. If he knows what he has. If he’s grateful. If he deserves you.

And he wonders too, if you - the you here, right across from him now, quiet and tense and real - will ever look at him that way.

Your eyes are on his and it seems as though you want to say something, as though maybe you’ve been wanting to say something for a while now.

He doesn’t hear the others anymore.

They’re voices in a room, sounds in space, language and logic pressing against the outside of a window he’s no longer looking through.

Because your eyes are on him and they are too open, too careful.

And, unfortunately for him, this is where the hope begins.

Small. Thin. Stupid.

Because there is a version out there who loved him already. Who ran to him as though he was safety and home and joy all wrapped in one reckless heart and it had been so easy for her. Natural, even. Like a reflex. Like a need.

And he has to think that if she could, then maybe you could too.

Maybe - if he just keeps showing up, if he keeps giving you pieces of himself even when it’s terrifying, even when he thinks he has nothing worth offering - maybe you’ll see something in him that you’ll want to keep.

Maybe he’s not beyond that.

Maybe he’s not on the edge of the world after all.

His heart stumbles inside him, a sharp jolt under his ribs, and he realizes too late that his breathing has gone shallow. His palm is sweating. His chest is aching in a way that is not just pain, but hunger, longing, desperate weightless wonder.

Strange is talking. Something about dimensional instability and neural resonance and all that science talk - but Bucky is no longer a soldier at a briefing.

He’s a man staring across a room at the person who has made his worst days survivable, and he’s remembering how it felt to see you in his shirt in a different kitchen, how you stood there with your back to him waiting for him to wrap his arms around you, how your lips tasted like things he should never know but can’t ever forget.

You shift again. Your knee knocks lightly against the leg of the table as you tuck your foot beneath you. And your hair falls forward, soft and a little tangled from the wind that always sneaks through the compound’s side doors. Your lips part, as though maybe you’re going to say something in front of everyone, and he braces for it, all of him going still like a wolf spotting something too delicate to touch.

But you don’t.

You break eye contact and tuck your hair behind your ear as though you caught yourself doing something you shouldn’t.

But Bucky doesn’t stop hoping.

Because he watched you do exactly that in a very different universe. Such a small gesture but it means so much to him.

Because yes, maybe he is not the Bucky she thought she kissed.

He’s not the Bucky who wakes up with you tangled in his sheets.

He’s not the Bucky who lets himself believe he could be loved without earning it first.

But maybe he could become that man.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, he too can get the girl.

Maybe if he works at this more than anything else that matters, you’ll love him too. Not just in some alternate world, but here.

In this one.

In your voice, when you say his name.

In your laugh, when he says something without meaning too.

In your eyes, when you don’t look away.

And he knows he would do anything to earn that.

He would do anything to be enough for you in the only universe that matters.

His fingers twitch. His shoulders square slowly, almost unconsciously, as though some decision has clicked into place without needing permission.

The room is still full. Voices layered over voices like shadows that haven’t realized the sun moved. Chairs creak beneath shifting bodies, Sam’s laughter breaking loose and grating on Bucky’s nerves.

The idiot is grinning, leaning back in his chair as though this whole situation is the best thing to happen this week. “Alternate-universe you is in a relationship, Barnes. What do we think about that, huh?”

“Sounds like he’s living the dream,” Clint mutters, giving Bucky a jab to the arm. “You finally got the girl, Barnes. Took a whole damn reality shift but you got there.”

Someone chuckles. Tony, maybe. Or even Steve. He can’t tell anymore. He can’t hear much over the buzz in his ears, over the sound of his own heart pounding behind his ribs.

“Hell, maybe all our multiverse selves are having better luck,” Sam remarks, amused.

Clint chuckles. “Ah, Barnes just grew a pair.”

“Well, that’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?” Natasha, calm as ever, lifts one elegant eyebrow.

“Alternate-universe Barnes has game,” Sam says delighted.

“Lucky bastard,” Clint mutters under his breath.

They mean well. They always mean well. This is how they show they care. With ribbing and teeth-bared grins, with shoulders nudged, and things they don’t say louder than the ones they do. It’s how they keep their own wounds in check. How they keep from bleeding all over the carpet.

But Bucky isn’t laughing. He isn’t smiling. His lip twitches but only with frustration at his teammates.

He notices your stillness. The lines around your mouth have gone soft and tight all at once. Your hands are folded too carefully in your lap and your gaze is pinned to the table.

With every mention - every offhand comment, every teasing jab - he can see it.

The way your shoulders stuck in closer to themselves. The way your breath grows quiet and shallow. The way you can’t seem to look at him anymore.

He swallows around it, the sharpness in his throat, but it doesn’t go down.

Everyone else seems to think this is a strange, mildly awkward, maybe slightly endearing detail in a weird mission story.

But Bucky feels sick.

Because he’s seen it on your face. The way the information about the kiss struck you like a misfired bullet. A shadow in your eyes, the small breath that caught in your throat, the way you shifted your legs like you needed to move, to run, to put distance between yourself and what you heard.

God.

He’s such a fool.

A lovesick idiot.

Because he let that brightness curl in his chest. The hope that even though you have every right to feel nothing at all, even though he’s spent so long training himself not to want this, not to wish for things he can’t have - he truly thought that if there was a version of you that looked at him that way, that reached for him without fear, then maybe this version, this you - maybe there was something possible here too.

But now he is watching it close again. Watching you feeling uncomfortable, retreating into yourself, folding inward like the paper crane you left behind. And he knows the fault lines are his. That even his silence can crack things apart.

When the meeting finally breaks - Strange dismissing everyone with a calm nod and a list of inter-dimensional protocols Bucky doesn’t hear - you stand before anyone else. Quiet. Not hurried. Just deliberate.

As though you’ve made a decision.

You don’t look at him. Not once. Just gather your notes and your coffee and the sweater you left draped over the back of the chair.

And you leave.

No goodbye. No glance back. Not even that half-smile you offer when the day has left you tired and the silence between you feels soft instead of loud.

Bucky is on his feet before he realizes it. He ignores Sam calling after him, something about needing to finish signing off the tech. Doesn’t respond to Steve’s “Buck?” Doesn’t glance at Strange, who’s looking at him as though he already knows where this is headed.

All Bucky sees is the hallway.

You, disappearing around the corner, just a whisper of your hair and the sound of your boots against the polished floor. And all he can think is no.

Not like this.

He walks fast, with his pulse in his mouth and panic blooming in his chest.

You’re so graceful even when you’re upset, even when your body is stiff with tension. You carry yourself with that strength that’s always pulled him in, and he hates that he knows it. Hates that he can read you this well, because it means he knows you’re hurting.

He walks fast enough to catch up, to not give himself time to think about it too much. His hands are cold again. The way they get when he’s unsure. When something matters more than he knows how to handle.

“Hey,” he calls out, and his voice comes out too soft. Almost hoarse. “Wait- can you- can we talk?”

You stop. Slow, reluctant. As if the last thing you want to do is this but some piece of you can’t help it.

You don’t turn around at first. You’re breathing hard. He can see your shoulders rise and fall too quickly, your jaw tight, your arms folded across your chest as though you are trying to keep yourself together.

You turn.

And it’s worse than he thought.

Because your eyes are shiny and your expression is made of glass and restraint and you’re biting the inside of your cheek in that way you do when you want to pretend something didn’t bother you.

He hates this. Hates that he did this to you, even accidentally.

But god, you still are beautiful in a way that feels like gravity. Like the ache in his chest could drag the stars down to meet you.

You watch him as though trying not to give too much away.

“Can we talk?” He repeats, breath catching somewhere between hope and despair.

You shrug, not cold, not angry. Just tired. “If you want.”

He steps closer. Not too close. Careful. Always careful with you.

“I know it probably sounded bad in there,” he says, voice rough. “I didn’t want it to come out like that. Like I was… caught up in something.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Bucky,” you say quickly, voice too neutral. “You didn’t know. I get it.”

But he wants to explain. Wants to lay it out, piece by bloody piece. Wants you to understand that for a minute there, he forgot how to breathe because of how you looked at him. That he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I didn’t tell you- I mean, tell her,” he blurts, breathless. “I didn’t tell her who I was. Or where I came from. I didn’t say anything.”

You blink at him. “Okay.”

“She thought I was him. I- I didn’t say anything because I- I wasn’t supposed to engage and I wasn’t planning to. I swear I wasn’t planning to.”

You say nothing. Just stare at him with that sweetly confused expression.

Bucky steps closer. He’s aching, head to toe, something brittle in his chest like cracked glass.

“You kissed me,” he continues, and you bite your lip, looking away, “but I didn’t- I froze. It felt wrong. And when you said you missed me, I panicked. It felt like I was stealing something. From you. From you both.”

He stops. Swallows.

And there it is again. That dangerous spark. That sharp, flickering thing that’s lived inside him ever since he saw that other version of you, ever since your arms wrapped around his neck and your mouth pressed to his and your voice filled his chest with something whole.

He wishes for a version of that hope here, too.

But not if it means breaking you to find it.

You’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. He can’t tell if it’s pain or disappointment or confusion or all of it. He just knows it’s tearing him apart.

“I know it wasn’t me she kissed,” he goes on, quiet, every word dragging out of him as if it doesn’t want to be spoken. “And I know it wasn’t you, either. But it made me think that maybe-” He breaks off, exhales. “I know it’s not fair to say it, but-”

“Then don’t.” Your voice is soft when it comes.

And he flinches as though you touched a nerve.

But your face isn’t cruel. It’s sad. Honest. Tired in the way people get when they’re holding too many emotions all at once.

“I’m not her,” you clarify, but there is something fractured in the way you say it, like the words are paper-thin and barely holding shape. “I’m not whatever version of me you saw, whoever she is to you, that’s not me.”

“I know,” he croaks out. Bucky steps closer, just once. Not touching. Not yet. He doesn’t dare.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your arms unfold slowly, but not in surrender. You gesture at yourself, the smallest movement, but there is steel in it. “She looks like me,” you go on. Your voice is tight. Bitter. It’s not like you. Not how he knows you - the warmth, the patience, the fire and calm and kindness all mixed together. “She sounds like me. But she’s not. She’s not me, Buck.”

And then you turn as if you’re about to go. As though you can’t stand another second of standing still in front of him.

“No- don’t,” he pleads, and before he can stop himself, he reaches. His hand finds your wrist, not tight, not rough, just enough to stop you. “Please.”

You pause again, with an exhale that is sharp and hurt and too loud in the hallway.

He is closer now. Close enough to see how tight you press your mouth together to keep it from trembling. The twitch of pain in your brow, the soft crease between your eyes he knows only shows up when you’re trying really hard not to cry.

Guilt and desperation roll through him, thorough, like a tide pulling everything warm away. It unspools him from the inside.

“What?” There is no weight behind your words. Your voice is worn. Defeated.

Bucks swallows. His voice feels like rust trying to be rain.

“She hugged me. Said she missed me. She kissed me like she’d done it a thousand times before.” His voice is shaking, even if he’s trying not to let it.

“And I didn’t stop her. Not for a second,” he goes on, quiet. “I should’ve. I should’ve pulled away sooner, but I-”

You pull your arm back, but he doesn’t let go.

“Why are you telling me this?” you question him, voice breaking in the middle. “What am I supposed to do with that, Bucky? Be happy for some other version of me?”

There is so much pain in your eyes, so much confusion and hurt and jealousy and heartbreak and it cuts him right through the heart. He feels it bleeding into his organs.

He closes his eyes, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“I didn’t stop her,” he says lowly, slowly, “because, for a second, it felt like you.”

The silence between you is thick enough to drown in.

Your lips part, but no sound comes out.

“For a second, it felt like something I’ll never have,” he confesses, barely audible now. “And I was selfish. I let it happen. Because it wasn’t just a kiss to me.”

You don’t speak. You don’t move. Your chin trembles.

You look at him as though you want to say something but can’t trust yourself to do it.

“I’ve been trying to bury it,” he admits, voice strained. “This thing in my chest. This want. It’s been there for a long time. And I kept thinking- if I just waited long enough, maybe it would go away. Maybe you’d never have to know. But I saw what it looked like when I had it. When I had you. Even if it wasn’t really you. And I- I didn’t want to come back here and pretend I didn’t feel it anymore.”

You don’t move. Just stand there. Staring at him as if you don’t know what to do with the version of the world he is handing you.

“I’m not asking for anything,” he adds quickly, voice thick and gravelly. “Not expecting anything. I just- I couldn’t let you walk away thinking it didn’t mean anything. Because it did. But not because of that other you.”

Bucky loosens his hold on your wrist the way someone lays a weapon down.

Slowly. Gently. Like an offering. Giving you a choice. A chance to run. A way out, if that’s what you need.

His fingers brush fabric as he lets go, every inch of skin unthreading from yours just another stitch in the fabric holding him together.

He steps back. Not far, but enough. Giving you the room to run if you want to. Because he would never cage you. Not you. Not the girl he’s tried so hard not to need and failed so spectacularly at not loving.

The cold creeps in like a punishment.

He swallows, breath shallow, heart trying to climb out of his chest. He doesn’t look away.

“It meant something,” he breathes, and the words are low but steady, dragged out of some buried part of him where he’s kept the truth folded up too long. “It meant something because I love you.”

The words hang there. Open. Unarmored. His voice doesn’t shake but he feels the quake underneath it. He is already bracing for the ruin of it, for the way your silence might cut him down. It’s too much. He’s too much. Too much and too late and he’s saying it anyway, because what else can he do now, what else is left to do but burn with it.

“I love you. You. Only you,” he repeats, and this time it’s quieter, as if speaking it softer might hurt less if you break him.

He is bracing for your silence. For the recoil. For the slow turning of your back and the slam of a door, he won’t ever be allowed to knock on again.

But you don’t run.

You just stare at him.

Wide glassy eyes, lips parted, your whole face carved out of disbelief. Your chest rises with shallow, trembling breaths, and for a second, it’s like the hallway has no oxygen at all. Just the two of you standing in a vacuum made of shattered timing and aching things laid bare.

You look like someone trying to decide if the ground beneath you is real. If you are dreaming.

And Bucky is not breathing.

Doesn’t know how he will ever take in a breath again.

Then you move.

Fast. Sharp. Certain.

You close the distance between you with a speed that knocks his soul out of him, and before he can even process the intention behind the storm in your eyes, your hands are in his collar and your mouth is on his.

It’s not gentle.

It’s not careful.

You crash into him as though gravity has finally won. As though your body has been held back for too long and now it’s surging forward with years of restraint snapped at the root.

It hits him like an impact. Like a whole damn earthquake disguised as your mouth on his.

He makes a noise - somewhere between shock and surrender - and for the barest second, he is frozen.

He’s still.

Because this is you.

You.

One breathless, startled second he forgets everything - his name, the room, the hallway, the mission, the multiverse - and then he’s moving.

He melts.

His arms are around you in a heartbeat, tight, desperate, finding your waist, your back, the edge of your jaw, greedy and trembling and too careful all at once. He pulls you in, tighter, tighter, one hand threading into your hair, the other locking around your waist.

And then he is kissing you back with everything he has, with everything he’s been holding back, with every version of himself that ever wanted to belong.

He is kissing you back as though he’ll never get the chance again.

His whole body folds into yours, heart slamming into his ribs, mouth pressing against yours, like a question he’s been dying to ask. He kisses you like an apology, like a promise, like he’s been holding his breath for a century and only just remembered how to exhale.

It’s not a careful kiss.

It’s years of aching packed into the space between your lips. It’s soft lips and a metal palm and your nails digging in his jacket and his thumb shaking against your jaw. It’s a kiss that tastes of every unsaid word, every sleepless night, every time he looked at you and wondered what it would feel like to have you.

The second your tongue touches his lower lip, a low and tortured sound rips from somewhere deep in his chest. He answers you with open-mouthed hunger, tilts his head just enough to draw you in deeper, slants his mouth over yours as though he’s living out every dream in which he’s imagined this before.

He feels the warmth of your lips and the way you lean into him, the way you give yourself over completely, and he pulls you even closer, as though he’s trying to kiss every version of you that exists in every universe just to get back to this one. You. Here. Now.

His tongue brushes yours and everything goes tight inside him - his stomach flips, his spine arches ever so slightly, his body not knowing whether to hold steady or fall apart entirely.

Your lips are sweet and urgent and you make a sound - quiet, somewhere between a sigh and a gasp - and it knocks the air in his lungs every which way.

His mouth moves faster when your fingers curl into him tighter and tug him closer, dragging him under. His metal fingers are splayed over the small of your back, and his flesh fingers are tangling at the nape of your neck, holding you still as his tongue licks into your mouth, gentle but full of everything he’s feeling.

He moans softly into you, doesn’t even realize it’s happening until he feels the sound buzz against your lips. His pulse is pounding in his ears. His knees feel untrustworthy. There is heat spreading through his chest, through his limbs, and he wants to live in this moment forever, suspended in the place where you chose him.

When you finally pull back, your lips are swollen, flushed. He presses his forehead to yours just enough to breathe, but not enough to let you go. Never that.

His hands are on your face. His thumbs brush under your eyes. His breath shudders out against your lips.

When he opens his eyes, slowly, he is met with yours. Glistening and wide and so full of feeling it almost floors him.

He stares at you as though he’s seeing the sun rise for the first time.

“I love you too,” you breathe against him.

Bucky shivers.

It lands like a heartbeat he forgot to hope for.

Pleasure surges through his veins, straight to his heart. His eyes fall shut, lost in it.

And something in him tells him he will hear this at least a thousand times, maybe even more, if he’s lucky.

“I loved her not for the way she danced with my angels, but for the way the sound of her name could silence my demons.”

- Christopher Poindexter

[sam24]

mockumentaries, my beloveds

[sam24]

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014)

[sam24]

gorgeous man

SEBASTIAN STAN AS BUCKY BARNES IN CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) dir. THE RUSSOS

[sam24]

Steve: Hey Buck? Bucky: yeah Steve: *makes eye contact for two seconds* Steve: ok thanks Bucky: mhm *goes back to reading* Sam, standing in the doorway: what did I just witness

(check out my blog!!)

[sam24]

help he's so pretty

captain america suit + chris evans’ own hair 🔥

[sam24]

princess james

Captain America: Civil War (2016) // Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) 

[sam24]

against the gods

Summary: Running way from a forced marriage proposal with a man twice your age, you pray to Lady Artemis to save you. In response to your pleas, she sends you a protector.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

alternate universe | ancient greece

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

Tiny stones bit into the soles of your bare feet. A branch tore the hem of your white chiton.

Your breath caught as you pressed forward through the thicket, each ragged inhale bringing a sharp pain to the middle of your chest.

The moonlight slanted through the trees, silvering the leaves and casting spear-like shadows across your path.

You didn’t dare stop running.

Somewhere far behind you, your father’s voice still echoed — sharp, final.

You will marry him.

No one defied your father. Not the servants, not your mother, and not even the gods.

But tonight, you would try.

The shrine was small — a stone altar tucked in a clearing, guarded by overgrown thorns and crowned by a full moon that hung low, watching. You fell to your knees, heart thudding like a drum, and pressed your hands together.

You were never taught how to speak with the gods. 

You closed your eyes, pressing your forehead to the cool stone. 

You were, however, taught how to beg.

“Oh, my lady,” you croaked quietly. 

The wind stirred softly, rustling the leaves above you like robes brushing the marble tiles of a temple.

“Oh, my lady, where to start?”

The trees were your only witnesses now, tall and ancient, reaching for the dusky sky with their twisted limbs.

“I was to be traded,” you breathed out, your words barely audible even to yourself. “Traded for livestock.”

Your fingers curled against the stone, scraped knees digging into the forest floor.

A breeze whistled through your hair.

“Is that really all I’m worth?” A shudder passed through you. 

The moon slipped from behind a cloud, casting a silver glow over the altar, over your hand, over the soft tremble in your shoulders.

“I’ve heard rumors,” you said into the chill of the night. “Rumors from the river nymphs down in the streams.”

Your breath hitched.

“They say you save girls like me.”

The tears that had been threatening to fall for the past week began to lose their will.

“They saw the bruises on me,” you whispered hoarsely, tracing a gentle finger through a crevice in the stone as your vision began to blur. “They told me you could help me.”

With your words, a sense of hope blossomed in your chest. 

Fragile. Flickering.

You pressed your palm against the stone. It sent a shiver up your spine.

Perhaps from the cold.

“My mother used to tell me your stories growing up.”

The cicadas chirped and a waterfall roared.

“Of how you ran. How you chose freedom. How no man could ever claim you.”

You exhaled, slow and shaking. Your knees pushed deeper into the moss.

“I am not brave like you, Lady Artemis,” you said, barely more than a whisper. A tear ran down your cheek. “But I’m running too. Isn’t that something?”

The wind answered with a soft hush through the trees, like a lullaby remembered from long ago.

Your throat was thick with the salt from your tears.

“I cannot offer you much” you whispered, the words barely rising past your lips. “I have no bow. No oath to pledge.”

A branch above you shifted, almost like it was leaning closer to listen.

“But all I ask for is mercy. Only the smallest of mercies.”

An owl hooted and the bushes rustled.

“Let me be free,” you breathed. “Let me belong to no man. Let me run where I choose.”

The words fell into the night like petals into a still pool.

A hush followed.

Not silence. Something deeper.

Something listening.

You pressed your forehead once more to the altar. The stone was damp with your sweat.

“I am not asking to be powerful,” you whispered, “just to be allowed. Allowed to breathe, to choose, to exist without being bought.”

The tears streamed freely now, hot and silent.

“If that is too much to ask, then let me disappear here.” The words left your mouth in a final breath of hope. 

“Let me be taken by the woods,” you whispered, “by the wolves…”

A shiver ran through the trees.

“…by you.”

And then—nothing.

Not even the wind.

You held your breath, your eyes still squeezed shut and your heart pounding against your ribcage.

The forest stopped speaking.

The crickets stopped chirping and the birds stopped singing and the water stopped flowing and the trees stopped rustling and the wind stopped whistling—

Snap.

A twig, behind you.

Your head turned sharply, every muscle bracing. You weren’t sure whether to flee or kneel.

Another step.

The crunch of boots on fallen leaves. Measured. Certain.

You rose slowly, breath caught in your throat.

From the shadows, a man emerged. 

No, not quite man.

Something more.

At first glance, he was dressed as a warrior. 

But something was off.

His chest plate didn’t just reflect moonlight, it seemed to be made of it.

Silver, but not forged from an earthly metal. It shimmered like liquid starlight, chased with faint carvings that seemed to shift when you weren’t looking directly at them— constellations, you realized. Orion. Ursa. Lyra.

His pauldrons were shaped like crescent moons, edged in blackened steel as if dipped in eclipse. 

Vines curled up the seams of his greaves, delicate as embroidery, yet forged into the metal like ivy climbing a temple.

His belt bore the likeness of a stag, antlers sprawling across his waist like a forest crowned in iron.

This was no armor made for war. No blacksmith had forged it.

Lady Artemis had heard your prayer.

And she had sent you a protector.

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

His name was Bucky, you learned.

You asked while he was helping you cross a rushing stream of water, and he answered the next morning when you offered him a berry.

Bucky did not speak much. But you learned a lot just from observing.

The forest seemed to part for him. Branches shifted, roots flattened, and the very air changed as he moved.

He wore no crown, no laurel wreath, but he walked like he was owned by no man but the moon itself.

You learned to follow in his silence. 

To step where he stepped.

To breathe where he breathed.

To listen to the hush between birdsong, to the snap of twig beneath his heel, to the stories the wind only told when he was near.

He didn’t flinch when wolves howled.

Didn’t falter when the earth grew steep or the shadows thickened.

At night, he’d sit near the fire—never close, never far.

You’d pretend to sleep, watching the way the flames caught in his silver-wrought armor, how his eyes never stayed still long, like he was waiting for something to return.

You were enthralled by him.

By the aura he radiated, by the strength in his shoulders, by the courage in his steps.

But more than that—by his stillness.

How a man carved by battle could sit beside you without demanding anything.

How he never asked your name like it was owed, only waited until you offered it freely.

He carried sorrow like a shadow, always behind him, always just out of reach.

And you, foolish with hope, wanted to touch it. To understand the shape of his silence. To press your palm against the wound the gods had left in him and see if it pulsed the way yours did.

But you didn’t dare. Not yet.

You only watched the way the firelight danced in his eyes and the moonlight sharpened his jaw.

For now, you only offered him warmth.

Berries in your hand. Water cupped in your palms.

It was a strange kind of companionship, but in the hush of the wild, it was enough.

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

The sky had split itself into stars, and the cicadas had begun their evening hymn. You were both seated near the flickering flame, its light throwing long shadows over the forest floor.

This autumn evening, you had decided to ask him the question that was on your mind for weeks now.

Bucky was sharpening a dagger with slow, methodical strokes. You watched the curve of his wrist, the way his hands moved like he’d done this a thousand times.

“Were you always this quiet,” you asked softly, “or did the gods make you that way?”

He didn’t answer right away. Just glanced up, his mouth tugging into something just shy of a smile.

“I was louder,” he said eventually. His voice was low, rough, like it had been buried and only just unearthed.

“You?” You cocked your head slightly with a giggle. “I don’t think I could imagine that.”

The lines around his mouth, so often drawn tight like a sword in its sheath, loosened.

Not a smile, not quite. But the way his shoulders eased felt like spring after a long winter.

“Me neither,” he said after a beat.

You leaned forward, balancing your elbows on your knees. You watched the way the moonlight made his porcelain skin glow. 

“Don’t you miss talking?”

He didn’t answer right away. The fire crackled between you, a chorus of tiny pops like distant applause.

“I miss being heard,” he said finally.

Your heart ached. You leaned in a little closer.

“I hear you.”

He looked at you then. Really looked. Eyes silver in the firelight, hair tousled by the forest wind, that grief still carved into the angles of his face—just... softer now. Human.

And this time, he did smile.

Only a little.

But it felt like sunrise.

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

In the winter, Bucky came to the realization that you needed a pair of sandals.

“Have you ever been in love before?” You peered over his shoulder as he braided a strip of leather.

The rays of a new morning washed over his sharp features, his lashes casting delicate shadows on his face and his jaw catching the light like an edge of a blade.

He paused from his work, looking back at you. The corners of his lips tugged up into a slight smile. “You ask a lot of questions.”

You immediately looked down and your face flushed with embarrassment. Your father used to say the same thing.

“I’m sorry.”

You started to shift away, but Bucky’s voice stopped you.

“Don’t be.”

You blinked, glancing up. He was watching you now, fully, the leather resting idle in his hand.

“I like your questions,” he said.

Your heart stuttered.

“I think I was," he answered after a beat. “But before I could be sure of it, it was too late.”

You squinted with curiosity. “Too late?”

He looked at the blue sky. “She came from a family of hiereis. She wasn’t allowed to love.”

You leaned forward, eyebrows furrowing with concern. “Did they…?”

He nodded, closing his eyes. “He killed her. Her father.”

A sharp ache settled in your chest. 

Bucky’s hand tightened around the leather strap in his lap.

“She devoted her life to the lady Artemis. But she chose me over her duty. And he killed her for it.”

You slowly began to put the dots together. Your voice was barely a whisper. “That’s why Artemis cursed you.”

He looked up, eyes meeting yours with a mix of pain and something almost like relief.

His voice fell into a measured cadence, each word carrying the weight of a command long etched into his soul:

“Cursed to guard eternally, yet forever barred from love’s embrace.”

He raised the sleeve of his tunic. A crescent moon-shaped mark was glowing faintly at the top of his arm.

Your heart cracked. “But that’s unjust.” Your words were somewhere between a whine and a plea. “You did nothing to deserve this.”

And in that moment, beneath the indifferent stars, you learned a bitter truth—

the gods were never meant to be just.

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

The trees were burning.

You were running barefoot through ash, lungs raw, breath clawing at your throat. Smoke curled into the sky like a warning. You could hear your father behind you.

“Do you think the gods will save you now?”

You stumbled through the forest, branches clawing at your arms. Your sandals were gone. Your feet bled.

And then you saw her.

She was lying on the altar of Artemis, white robes soaked red, hair fanned out like spilled ink. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t see you. They were staring through you. Past you. Gone.

You tried to scream, but no sound came.

Then your father’s hand was on your arm, yanking you back. His face twisted with rage. “Poutana.”

You turned, already bracing, but there was never time. His hand found your cheek before the fear could even reach your eyes. The sharp sting bloomed, hot and immediate. Your knees hit the ground.

“You think you can run? You think Artemis will keep you safe?”

You didn’t answer. You never did. You just clenched your fists and bit your tongue and tried not to cry. 

Then another blow, sharper this time. The world tilted.

And you screamed.

You bolted upright with a strangled gasp, your whole body shaking, soaked in sweat. The fire had died down to cinders. The forest whispered around you. Your breath came fast and shallow.

Then—

“Hey, hey—” Bucky’s voice. Soft. Urgent. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

You didn’t even know when he’d crossed the space between you, but his hands were on your shoulders, steady and warm.

You turned blindly into him, the sob tearing from your chest before you could stop it.

Bucky didn’t speak. He just pulled you against him. His arms wrapped around you, one hand cradling the back of your head.

He held you like he’d done it before in another life—like he knew exactly how to keep the pieces of you from falling apart.

Your fingers curled into the fabric of his tunic. You couldn’t stop shaking.

“I was back there,” you whispered, your voice splintering. “My father was— I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe—”

“I know,” he murmured, his chin resting lightly against your temple. “I know.”

The fire let out a quiet hiss as a coal gave way, the only sound besides your breath catching on the edges of his name.

“I hate that it still finds me,” you said, barely audible. “Even out here. Even with you.”

“It won’t always,” he said after a moment, voice low and certain. “One day, it’ll be just a scar. And you’ll only touch it when you want to remember how strong you are.”

You swallowed hard as something pulsed in your chest.

Bucky leaned back just enough to see your face, his thumb brushing beneath your eye like he could erase the dream itself.

“You’re not alone anymore,” he said. “Not while I’m here.”

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

You lay on your back atop a sun-warmed hill, the spring sky stretching vast and blue above you, as if the gods had peeled back the veil of the world just a little more.

Bucky was beside you, one arm folded behind his head, the other resting lightly between you two. His fingers grazed the grass, twitching now and then as if he were tracing patterns in the earth. 

You turned your head slightly, watching the way the sunlight caught in the strands of his hair, making them look almost bronze.

“I used to climb trees when I was little,” you said, your voice lazy with the heat. “I thought if I got high enough, I’d be able to hear the gods talking.”

Bucky let out a quiet hum. “Did you?”

“Sometimes,” you said, smiling. “But I think it was just the wind.”

He turned his head, eyes half-lidded from the sun. A slow smile spread, like a wave of memories washing over him.

“I used to climb trees too,” he chuckled to himself. “To pick plums.”

You smiled, picturing him as a boy, barefoot and daring, reaching for the sweetest fruit.

“Did you ever fall?” you teased gently.

He grinned, the ghost of a laugh in his eyes. “More times than I can count. But I always climbed back up.”

A quiet settled between you, the sun casting gold across the grass.

“What did you dream about back then?” you whispered, as if the hills might listen in on your conversation.

He exhaled softly. “Talking clouds. The sweetest figs in the world. A pink sea.”

“I used to dream about owning a baby drakon.”

He laughed. The sound made you blush.

You sighed, letting your head drop onto the damp grass. “I wish we could have met when we were kids.”

He smiled, his gaze drifting toward the horizon, lost for a moment in a world only he could see. 

As if he were imagining the life the both of you could’ve had. 

The life you could’ve shared.

Then, slowly, his eyes found yours again, soft and sincere.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, “me too.”

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

It came summer again.

Summer meant your birthday.

Which meant Bucky took it upon himself to meticulously carve you a gift.

You never asked him to.

He never asked if he should.

But as surely as the cicadas began to sing and the pomegranates fattened on the branch, you knew he’d be hunched over a piece of wood by moonlight, blade in hand, hair tied back with one of your ribbons.

It was a doe.

Small enough to rest in your palm, delicate ears pricked in quiet alertness, eyes wide as if she too had just stepped into a clearing and seen you for the first time.

He polished the wood smooth, left her legs unfinished— wildness should never be fully tamed, he said.

When he handed it to you, he didn’t speak.

He just watched your fingers curl around it.

"Do you like it?" he asked after a long pause, as if the silence had started to ache.

You nodded, too full of something to say yes. Your heart was flooding with joy.

"You didn't have to do this for me, Bucky," you said as you clutched it preciously to your chest.

He looked at you, eyes steady and unflinching.

“I would do anything for you.”

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

“Has anyone ever broken a god’s curse before?”

The water lapped gently around your knees, cool and clear beneath the pale light of dawn.

You waded deeper into the river, droplets catching the morning sun like scattered jewels.

Bucky stood beside you, the current swirling around his calves. He didn’t answer at once—his gaze fixed on the ripples moving downstream.

“I’m not sure.”

You glanced over at him. “Have you ever thought about breaking your curse?”

He was quiet for a long moment, the river’s hush filling the silence between you.

His brows knit, like he was pulling something fragile from the depths of his memory. “I used to,” he said finally, voice low. “When it was new. When the grief still burned and I thought… maybe if I was good enough, brave enough, loyal enough, Artemis would forgive me.”

You said nothing, just let the water wrap around your legs and the morning light kiss your shoulders.

He went on, almost to himself now. “I thought the curse might crack if I saved enough lives. Protected enough mortals. But the years passed, and I stopped dreaming.”

You looked at him then, really looked. The soft gleam of water on his skin, the weight in his eyes. “And now?”

He exhaled. “Now I just hope I’ll know it if it ever does break. That I won’t miss it.”

Your hand brushed his beneath the water. He didn’t pull away.

“Maybe the gods don’t undo curses,” you said softly. “Maybe they just wait until someone else finds a way through them.”

✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧✧☽✧☾✧

You placed the platter of berries in front of him, your fingers trembling just a little. Butterflies erupted in your stomach, your pulse quickening with every stolen glance.

He looked up, eyes locking onto yours, moonlight tracing the sharp angles of his face. Surprise flickered there, as well as something deeper. Something raw and unguarded.

“It’s been a year since you … appeared,” you offered shyly, eyes cast down and toes tracing into the cool soil. "It's a sort of thank you, I guess."

He didn’t say anything at first. Emotions battled in his eyes.

“No," he whispered. "Thank you.”

Before you could think twice, your hand was brushing his. Tentative, but deliberate.

“Do you ever wonder…” you murmured, voice thick with something unsaid, “…if some things are meant to be?”

Your heart pounded louder, as if it were answering.

“I do,” he replied, the low husk of his voice sending a shiver up your spine. “A lot.”

“Do you think,” you paused to swallow. “That we … are? ”

He looked at you like the question mattered more than anything he’d ever been asked in his life. “Yes.”

His hand turned, and his fingers slowly laced into yours.

“I had a dream last night,” you whispered. 

His thumb brushed gently over your knuckles wordlessly.

You continued, the memory still vivid behind your eyes. “We were standing in a field of stars. Not under them—in them. Like the sky had bent down to meet us.”

He smiled softly, gaze not leaving yours. “Were we saying anything?”

You hesitated, then nodded again. “You said you loved me.”

Silence wrapped around you.

And then—his voice, quiet but sure. “I think I’ve been dreaming that too.”

The breath hitched in your throat. “Is this love, Bucky?”

He swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Will the lady be mad?”

There were tears shining in his eyes. “Yes.”

He leaned in, and you met him halfway.

The kiss was soft—softer than you'd imagined, yet somehow heavier too, like it carried the weight of every unspoken moment between you. His hand cupped your cheek, trembling slightly, reverent. Yours curled into the fabric at his chest like an anchor, as if you were afraid he might disappear.

And maybe you were right to be afraid.

Because when you pulled back, the night was still and breathless, and for a heartbeat he just looked at you like he’d never seen anything more sacred.

Like you hung the moon and the stars.

Then his expression flickered. Pain. Panic.

“Bucky?” you whispered, your fingers still tangled with his.

He staggered back a step, breath hitching. The mark on his arm—his curse—was glowing, pulsing like a heartbeat of its own.

“No,” he choked, like he already knew what was happening.

You reached for him, but your hands passed through air.

And just like that—he was gone.

Lady Artemis had given you a second chance at life. 

And now, she’d taken it away.

[sam24]

"tumblr's the only social media without algorithms!" "you can still be anonymous on tumblr!" "tumblr's so nice because you don't have to show your face!" WRONG tumblr is special because you can have 3000 followers and still get an average of seven likes a post. i'm doing stand up comedy at a packed venue and one person is laughing

[sam24]

When you're reading an x reader fanfic but suddenly your name is Rachel

Not mad, just confused

[sam24]

this bucky with this steve

[sam24]

lumberjack bucky got me giggling and kicking my feet

The Splinter and the Spark

Pairing: Lumberjack!Bucky x Neighbor!Reader

Summary: Your cabin’s heating breaks in times when you need it, so you try yourself at chopping firewood. But the last person you want help from is your smug, axe-swinging neighbor.

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: enemies to lovers; mild injury; slow burn tension; Bucky being smug; Bucky being worried

Author’s Note: Gosh, this grew way too long for this challenge again. But I just didn’t want to cut anything. I love them so much. Thank you for sending me this amazing request, my lovely!! I hope you’ll enjoy ♡

2k Drabble Challenge Masterlist | Masterlist

It started with the axe.

Not a chainsaw - no, that would have been too simple, too civilized, too modern. It was the thud of an axe that first made you hate him.

Every morning at 6:17 sharp, right when the sky was still learning how to be blue, you’d hear it. The clean, smug crack of metal meeting wood. Again and again. Like a heartbeat that belonged to a different kind of human - one with too much muscle and not enough consideration.

That first time, you’d stormed outside barefoot in your robe, clutching a coffee as if it might serve as a weapon. You asked him if he could wait until at least 8 am and he’d only given you a slow, lazy grin that stretched too wide on a face carved too perfectly and said, “Didn’t know we were keepin’ princess hours around here.” You had half a mind to actually throw your coffee at him.

The next time, he only grinned at you, blue eyes glinting under the brim of his flannel-lined cap. “Mornin’, princess,” he had greeted you with a voice that suggested he knew exactly that you’d come out. “Don’t call me that,” you’d snapped. “Would sweetheart be better?” he only teased back with a spark in his eyes.

You’d gone back inside fuming.

And that was just the beginning.

Since then, Bucky Barnes - your lumberjack neighbor with the smug jaw and unfairly sculptured arms - had accidentally parked his truck partially on your side of the gravel driveway twice. He’d borrowed your Amazon package - “didn’t even look at the name, swear it” - so you were forced to walk over to him and ask for it back, which he finally agreed to only after a discussion lasting over thirty minutes.

You had tried to out-snark him. Out-quiet him. You even filed a passive-aggressive noise complaint with the HOA, only to find out he was on the damn committee.

You hate him. You hate how his flannel sleeves always roll up just enough to show his thick forearms. You hate that his hair always looks a little too perfect for someone who supposedly lives without WiFi. And you especially hate that he looks amused every time you get mad.

Today, you need firewood, yourself.

The heating in your old, overpriced cabin went out last night - again - and the guy who promised to come fix it flaked for the third time in a row.

Your backup electric heater fried with a dramatic sizzle that nearly took your cat down with it, and now you’re left with a fireplace, a stack of unsplit logs, and more pride than sense.

You tie your hair back.

You’ve got gloves. Thin ones - meant for gardening. But that’s close enough, you guess. It has to be.

You’ve got a borrowed axe from Mrs. Caldwell down the lane. Pink-handled. Surprisingly heavy.

And you’ve got determination. Stubbornness. An undying loathing for asking Bucky Barnes for help.

You’d rather die barefoot in the freezing cold than ask him for help. He’s already smug enough, with those thick hands and smirking lips and Jesus Christ, the way he wipes his forehead with the back of his hand when he is sweating as if it’s performance art.

The air is harsh on your cheeks as you step outside. The wind snatches at your coat. There are logs stocked beside the chopping block. You plant your boots.

You drag the axe overhead, trying to remember what your uncle taught you once at a campground years ago.

You let the axe down. And you miss. The log shudders under the dull weight of your poor aim, laughing at you, maybe. You feel the reverberation up your arms.

Gritting your teeth, you reset, and swing again. Nothing. Just a dull smack, as if hitting a pillow made of shame.

“You tryna kill the wood or yourself?”

You freeze. You curse internally.

But you don’t turn around right away. You can hear the grin in his voice and you want just one second to school your face into something that won’t betray your flustered rage.

“I don’t recall inviting commentary,” you state annoyed. Only briefly granting him a glare.

He’s already at the fence line, one hand braced on the top rail, other gripping a thermos. He’s chewing on something. A toothpick? A matchstick? His own smugness?

“Y’gonna hurt someone with that form, princess,” he assesses easily.

“Mind your own business, Barnes,” you hiss unkindly.

He grins. Pushes off the fence with the easy grace of someone who knows they’re built like mythology.

“Hard not to when you’re over here looking like an axe-wielding toddler.”

You roll your eyes. Hard. But a fire burns low inside your body. It’s as if you’re trying to summon the strength of the gods for this conversation.

“Don’t you have logs to scream at or whatever it is you do every morning? Why are you even looking over here?” you bite out through clenched teeth.

There is steam curling from the lid of his thermos and he’s got the audacity to sip it slow as if this is all very amusing to him “You’re louder than I am today,” he remarks smoothly, still grinning with sparkling eyes. “A real accomplishment, considering how much you complain ‘bout me.”

You huff out a breath. It clouds around you. You grip the axe tighter.

“I didn’t choose to do this, Barnes. But I can.”

“Oh, I believe you,” he eases, sauntering through the open gate now, because he has no respect for boundaries. “I just don’t believe the logs will survive your technique.”

You don’t dignify that with a response. Instead, you turn back, lift the axe in indignation, and swing again.

Thunk.

“Y’know,” he drawls, getting closer, boots crunching across the frosted ground, “if you wanted me to come over, all you had to do was ask real nice.”

“I’d rather freeze.”

“Kinky.”

You spin, axe hanging at your side, panting more from rage than effort.

“Go away, Bucky.”

But he doesn’t. He only moves closer, ignoring you. As always. He smells of cedarwood and coffee and damn it, effortless masculinity. His beard is a little too neat, the plaid stretched a little too tight across those shoulders, and he’s looking at you with those annoying, laughing eyes.

He’s enjoying this.

You lift the axe again, jaw set, and swing.

This time, it lands. The log splits just a little at the top, not much, but enough to make you stand a little straighter.

Bucky whistles now. “Look at that. She’s got claws.”

“I told you I don’t need help.”

“I heard you,” he drones out, stepping closer again, and now his hand is on the handle of the axe with yours. The heat of his skin sears through your glove. “But I’ve also seen what you’re doing to these poor logs. You don’t have to be a martyr.”

You want to yank your hand back, yell, bite, something. But you just look up, ready to glare.

Suddenly, a sharp sting shoots through your palm. You flinch. Just subtly.

But he sees it.

“What is it?” he asks, voice shifting a little softer, quieter. Concern elbowing amusement out of the way.

“Nothing,” you lie, too fast.

He catches your wrist. Gently. His fingers are rough and warm and careful and it makes your stomach twist. “You okay?” he asks without sarcasm this time.

You want to say yes.

But your pride is bleeding out of your palm with the little splinter lodged deep beneath your skin, and somehow your hand is already in his.

“Lemme see.” He peels off your glove, gentle but fast, as if he’s done this a hundred times.

You try to pull away, but he holds on.

“Hold still.”

His thumb brushes over your knuckles. His face is different now - focused, brows knit together, all the flirt and teasing gone. And for the first time, you feel the quiet in him. As if under all that swagger and plaid, there’s a silence he doesn’t let out often. It makes your chest churn uncomfortably.

“I’ve got tweezers in the shed,” he says, voice low and grim. “Stay here.”

“I can-”

“Don’t argue.” His eyes meet yours. “You’ll dig it in deeper.”

You nod. Small and jerky.

He’s back in seconds, unsurprisingly quick, and he orders you to sit on a log before he kneels at your side. You expect him to be rough, maybe uncareful, but he’s not. He works delicately and precisely, eyes flicking up to yours every so often to check if it hurts, and when he finally pulls the splinter free, you don’t even feel it.

His fingers don’t let go. Not right away. Not even when the splinter’s gone completely and your hand is wrapped in the warmth of him. You feel the heat of his touch and you hate that it calms something in you. That it quiets the buzzing in your chest.

He’s still crouched in front of you, thick brows pulled together as though your skin is glass and he’s afraid to leave a mark. His eyes are focused entirely on your hand, sweeping over the lines of your palm. And it does things to his face. Softens it. Opens it. As if someone peeled away the cocky grin and the smart mouth and what’s left underneath is quieter, deeper.

You’ve never seen him like this.

And the worst part is, you don’t know if you want it to stop.

“You should disinfect this,” he notes, voice low, nearly hoarse.

“It was just a splinter.”

His gaze drifts up to yours. Locks in. But he doesn’t look at you like a man who enjoys the game. Not like the neighbor who calls you princess and sweetheart with a grin in his voice and a challenge in his eyes. This look he’s giving you right now scrapes across your bones. “Doesn’t take much. Even a splinter can fester. Get infected. They carry bacteria. Especially out here, with all the dirt and bark and- can get infected faster than you think. Fever. Swelling. Might need stitches if it goes bad. You don’t want to mess around with that.”

His voice is anything but teasing now. There is no glint in his eyes. Just steel. Seriousness. Something else that looks like concern.

It’s as if someone rearranged the pieces of his face and gave him a conscience.

You blink at him. He’s still holding your hand. Still cupping it as if it’s something valuable. As if you’re something worth careful handling. Just enough softness to keep you wondering.

You’ve fought with this man. Argued over property lines, over noise, over the fact that he whistles while he works like some Disney lumberjack. You’ve accused him of waking the dead with his morning routines. You’ve shoved snow back into his yard with passive-aggressive vengeance. He once left a Get Better Soon balloon on your porch after you sneezed twice on the way to your car.

And yet now. Now, his thumb brushes your wrist as if he forgot he was touching you. As if maybe he wants to keep forgetting.

“You’re starting to sound as if you care,” you murmur, maybe a little amused, but confused nevertheless.

Something flashes across his eyes. Behind them. He looks away for a second. One breath. Two.

“Next time,” he starts, quiet but sharper. Firm. “Come to me before you try to do something like this on your own.”

Your pride bristles, instinctive and stubborn. You straighten your spine, try to pull your hand back, but he doesn’t let you go just yet.

“If I remember correctly, and I do, I didn’t come to you at all, Barnes. It was you who walked into my-”

“I mean it, Y/n. You can always come to me. Promise me, you will,” he insists intensely, lowly.

There’s something in his voice that sits heavy in your chest. You feel it. All of it.

“Fine,” you relent finally, reluctantly.

Only then does he release you.

With the clear of his throat, he steps back. The loss is sudden. Cold. You almost feel foolish for missing it.

“I’ll disinfect it,” you say at last, trying not to sound too much as if you’re surrendering.

Bucky nods once. “Good. But go do it inside. Warm up.”

Your mouth opens immediately. “I’m not fragile, Barnes. A splinter doesn’t knock me out of the game.” You say it with a small teasing tone, but Bucky doesn’t seem to pick it up. Or he ignores it.

He only crosses his arms. Tight. His flannel strains across his chest. “Didn’t say it did. But that doesn’t mean you should be swingin’ an axe anytime soon. I’ll do it.”

He says it with a kind of dominance that makes you scoff. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Don’t need you to ask.”

There is no grin. No smirk. Just the stubborn set of his jaw and the firm intensity in his eyes. It unnerves you. Not because it’s sharp - but because it’s gentle. Because he’s not teasing you. Because he’s worried, and you don’t know what to do with that version of Bucky Barnes.

So, with a sigh and slightly trembling hands, you turn and head inside. But the warmth in your cabin is nothing compared to the heat still lingering in your chest. You rinse your hand under water that runs slow and cold, and dab antiseptic. But your thoughts stay outside. Stay with those blue eyes watching for signs of weakness as though he’s reading a weather report.

He’s never been like that before. Never so serious. Never so close.

And when you step back outside, your breath catches.

Bucky is already splitting your wood.

His form is fluid, practiced. Each swing of the axe is poetry. Violence tamed. He doesn’t grunt or growl - he just moves with expertise. One hand on the handle, the other steadying the log, shoulders flexing beneath that worn flannel with every arc. The axe comes down like thunder. Wood cracks, clean and quick, falling in neat halves at his boots.

He’s got his sleeves rolled up past his elbows again, breath misting in the air. The sound of the logs cracking echoes through the trees like a song with no chorus.

You lean against the railing of your porch and watch him work.

And you hate that he’s mesmerizing.

He doesn’t look up. Just sets another log in place.

“Sit down,” he says, calm as a lake.

You stare. “What?”

“Or go back inside. Warmer there. I’ll finish up.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Are you seriously ordering me around?”

“Nope,” he deadpans, finally glancing at you. “I’m instructing you. There’s a difference.”

You’re still staring.

He gives you a look. Not mean. Not commanding. Just firm.

“You don’t have to do everything by yourself, you know.”

You flinch as if the words are sharp. As if they know something about you they shouldn’t.

You want to argue. To say watch me. To toss something sarcastic just to get back the balance.

But you don’t.

You sit. On the porch steps, cold wood stinging the backs of your thighs but you stay and watch him work.

His swings are controlled. His jaw is clenched. No more cocky remarks. No smile. Just focus. He splits like a man trying to prove a point - to you, or to himself, you don’t know.

“You can stop now,” you voice after a moment.

But he doesn’t.

“Bucky.”

Still nothing.

He sets another log. Lifts. Crack.

You cross your arms. Raise your voice.

“Barnes. That’s enough for now.”

Finally, he pauses. Looks over to you. His cheeks are flushed from the cold. He’s starting to sweat slowly. And still, he doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t tease.

“This won’t last long,” he says gruffly, nodding to the pile of wood at his feet. “You’ll be left freezin’ in less than a month.”

“That’s alright,” you try to argue. “I’ve got this guy coming by-”

But he interrupts you with the almost too-loud crack of another log splitting to pieces, his arms winding up to thunder down another time. He’s not even listening to you anymore. Just keeps going.

He looks so determined, it might even be endearing.

But you don’t say anything. You wouldn’t be able to bring out another word. Because this man surely is an enigma.

You didn’t know a man could be this quiet and still make so much noise inside your body.

You’re not sure how long you stay there, watching. But when he’s done, he gathers the logs in his arms as if they weigh nothing at all. Walks them to the side of your house, where the covered racks wait. He stacks them neatly. Tucks a tarp over them.

And then he turns to you.

His breath is ragged slightly, his eyes are unreadable, but there is something softened in them. Like thaw.

“You’re all set.”

You swallow, mouth dry, hands restless in your lap.

“Thank you,” you say. It feels like swallowing rocks.

He nods. Doesn’t say you’re welcome. Doesn’t wink.

He just turns and walks back to where the axe is resting. He picks it up. Fingers sliding over the pink handle. His expression is unreadable.

“Is this yours?” he asks, voice low, thick with something you never heard in his voice before.

You shake your head slowly. “Mrs. Caldwell’s. She loaned it to me.”

He nods. Slow. Thoughtful. As if he is filing that away in the same place he stores the weather, the weight of wood, the sound your boots make when you’re frustrated and trying not to show it.

“I’ll bring it back to her,” he voices. Deep and sure.

You’re thrown for a second.

There’s nothing performative about it. No smirk. No spark. He doesn’t even look at you when he says it - he just studies the axe again as if it’s dangerous.

You stare at him, hands curled into the sleeves of your coat. Trying to decide if the stuttering in your chest is from the cold or something far less logical.

Is he just trying to be polite? Returning something for you? Or is this about control? About making sure you won’t be getting your hands on that thing again?

You search his face for a clue, but he’s turned now, adjusting his grip on the handle as if he’s already taken care of this for you.

“You don’t have to,” you still try.

He moves around to you again, his gaze falling onto yours. “Nah, I’ve got it,” he insists, but his gaze is not as nonchalant as his voice is.

“Uhm, okay,” you start, a little unsure. “Thanks.”

Another one of his nods and it starts to make you uneasy. He keeps standing there for a moment too long, looking at you as though he might say something more.

But he doesn’t.

He just turns. Walks back across the yard, his boots crunching slightly on the ground, the axe hanging over his shoulder like some kind of burden he’s used to carrying.

You watch him disappear, into the warm glow of sunrise burning between the pines.

And you wonder.

You wonder what it means when the person you thought was your enemy touches you as though you’re important to him.

You wonder why it felt safer than anything else ever has.

[sam24]

Why you little dumb??

- Dc to mark webber

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