suniix

[suniix]

His Soft Spot

Summary: You’re a sunshine-hearted barista in a dangerous city, all smiles and soft edges. Unaware that the quiet, brooding man at your café table is the most feared name in the local mafia. But when Bucky Barnes starts carving gentle moments into his brutal world just to be near you, even he begins to wonder if someone like you could ever love someone like him. (Mob Boss!Bucky Barnes x Sweetheart!reader)

Word Count: 2.1k+

A/N: Been wanting to do a mob AU with this pair for a while now. I finally got to it, and they’re so cute! (Imo lol.) Happy reading!!!

Main Masterlist

The corner coffee shop was nothing special. Chipped counters, secondhand mugs, and a bell above the door that only worked when it wanted to. But you loved it. The soft clink of ceramic, the low hum of conversation, the smell of roasted beans.

You’d worked there for a little over a year now, always opening at 6 a.m. sharp, rain or shine. Most of your regulars were kind, or at least kind enough. Grumpy people in suits needing caffeine, half-asleep artists sketching in the window, moms with strollers and tired eyes. And then… there was him.

He wasn’t a regular in the traditional sense. He never came at the same time, never stayed too long. But you noticed him. Of course you did. Broad shoulders under expensive coats, a deep-set frown carved onto his face, and stormy blue eyes that rarely met anyone else’s. He always sat in the corner booth, never used his name, and always ordered a plain black coffee with two sugars.

You’d started calling him Quiet Guy in your head.

And he was. Quiet. Still. Intense. He didn’t smile, not once. But he tipped well, never complained, and never forgot to say thank you even if it came out in a low, quiet murmur that barely reached above the hiss of the espresso machine.

You didn’t think he noticed you much, not really. Especially not the way you always added a little extra whipped cream to his coffee, even if he didn’t ask for it. Not the way you smiled at him even when he didn’t smile back.

To you, he was like one of those paintings you stare at in a museum. Sharp, beautiful, and just a little sad.

Meanwhile, you were just the girl behind the counter. Apron stained with chocolate syrup, hair tied in a messy bun, a bandaid on your knuckle from an unfortunate knife-vs-avocado incident. Too smiley, too soft, too… naive, according to your friends.

But Quiet Guy never looked at you like you were silly. Never talked down to you and never flinched when you ended up rambling about your new cookie recipe or your dream of maybe, someday, opening a bakery with pastel tiles and big sunny windows.

If anything, he listened.

Really listened.

But it wasn’t until the third week of October that he spoke more than a sentence.

Rain was pouring that day. It was real ugly rain that soaked your shoes and stuck your hair to your face. You were closing up, locking the front door and tugging your jacket tight, when you saw him outside. No umbrella. No coat. Just standing there, rain dripping down his face, his shoulders hunched like a man carrying something heavier than water.

You hesitated. Then, without thinking, you held out your umbrella. “You’ll catch your death out here,” You said, half-joking, half-worried.

He looked down at it, then at you. For a moment, he didn’t move. Then he spoke, voice gravelly, “You always this kind to strangers?”

You smiled, sheepish and soft. “Only the ones who don’t complain about the coffee.”

A ghost of something flickered at the corner of his mouth, almost a smile as he took the umbrella, his fingers brushing yours.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” He said, eyes lingering for just a second longer than they should have.

You watched him walk away, the umbrella bright yellow against the gray street.

You didn’t know you’d just handed protection to the most dangerous man in Brooklyn. And he didn’t know he’d just started falling for someone who wore bandaids with cartoon fruit on them.

You didn’t see him for a week after the umbrella incident.

The streets were rougher than usual that week. There were more police on the corner, more closed signs on family-owned businesses, and more whispered rumors behind half-lowered blinds. You heard someone mention the O’Rourke deal and someone else murmur about a warehouse fire that wasn’t an accident. A few people joked nervously about the mob running wild lately– Who’s in charge now, anyway?

You didn’t pay too much attention to that kind of talk honestly. Not because you weren’t curious, you were. But you’d grown up in this city. Danger was background noise like sirens or subway screeches. You learned to stay in your lane, smile when it was smart to, and never ask too many questions.

Besides, you had your own problems: the espresso machine started leaking, your paycheck bounced for the second time this month, and you accidentally burned your fingers on a pan of fresh croissants.

You were wiping the counter, cursing under your breath and cradling your wrapped-up hand, when the bell above the door jingled.

He was back.

And this time, he looked different. More tired like he hadn’t slept. His coat was darker than usual, collar turned up high. There was also something stiff in the way he moved, like something hurt under the surface.

“Hey,” You said, immediately smiling despite the nerves fluttering in your stomach. “Rough week?”

He looked at your bandaged fingers first.

“What happened to you?”

You blinked. “Oh. Just being clumsy again, it was the pastry tray versus my hand. The tray won.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, like he didn’t find that answer as harmless or humorous as you did. He stepped forward, slow and quiet, placing a twenty on the counter.

“Black. Two sugars.”

“Same old?”

“Some things don’t need changing.”

You bit your lip to hide the smile that tugged at your mouth. He was… oddly comforting, even with the way he made your stomach flutter and your thoughts skip.

You turned to prep the coffee, carefully working around your bandaged hand, when he spoke again.

“This neighborhood isn’t safe lately.”

Your back stiffened slightly. “I mean… it’s never really been safe, has it?”

“Worse now,” He huffed. “Too many people trying to prove they belong at the top. They’re reckless.”

You glanced at him over your shoulder. “You sound like you know something.”

He didn’t answer that. Instead, he said, “You always walk home alone?”

“Sometimes,” You admitted. “I usually take the back route past the laundromat. It’s better lit.”

He looked genuinely displeased by that. “Don’t.”

You blinked. “Don’t… what? Walk home?”

“Don’t go through that alley again.” His voice was low and serious, like it wasn’t a suggestion. Like it was law.

You nodded slowly. “Okay. I won’t.”

You set his cup in front of him. He didn’t take it right away. He simply looked at you and for the first time, it didn’t seem as guarded as usual.

“You ever wonder why no one messes with this place?” He asked.

Your brows knit together. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, two blocks down, there’s a diner with bullet holes in the glass. There’s a liquor store that got torched. But your little coffee shop? Untouched.”

You looked around like you were noticing it for the first time and he wasn’t wrong.

“I guess we’re lucky,” You said, quieter this time.

He finally took the cup.

“Not luck,” He murmured. “Some places are off-limits.”

Your stomach did a slow flip. Before you could ask what he meant, he slid a small piece of paper across the counter. His handwriting was sharp and deliberate. There lied a number.

“If you ever feel unsafe,” He said, “Call. Don’t hesitate, just call.”

You looked up at him. “What should I save it under?”

He met your eyes, and for the first time, he smiled. Small, crooked, but real.

“James,” He said. “But you can keep calling me ‘Quiet Guy’ if you want.”

And then he was gone, the door jingling behind him, a gust of cold air in his wake.

You flushed, knowing he must’ve overheard you talking about him to your colleague. You stared down at the paper in your hand now and thought, James. Huh.

You didn’t know that name came with weight. You didn’t know that in certain circles, that name made grown men flinch. And you definitely didn’t know you’d just become the softest secret in James Buchanan Barnes’s world of blood, power, and control.

You never really called the number.

Not that day, not the next. You stared at it for a while. Once during your lunch break, once before bed, but you never dialed. You didn’t need to since nothing had happened. The streets were loud, the rumors kept circling, but your world stayed small, safe, and ordinary.

But something changed after that.

The Quiet Guy – James – started coming in more often.

Sometimes in the early morning, when the city was just beginning. Sometimes in the quiet lull between lunch and dinner. He never stayed long though, but he started talking more. Asking questions and not the kind people ask just to be polite; it was the kind that meant he was actually listening.

He’d ask about your recipes, about the books you liked, whether you preferred cats or dogs. One time he even noticed the way you hummed to yourself one of your favorite songs when you were focused, and he asked what the song was.

You told him it was nothing.

But the next day, he left a little radio on the counter when he left. It was old, scratched, but with the exact song loaded onto a USB inside.

You didn’t ask how he got it. And he didn’t ask what you thought of it. But you smiled a little bigger the next time he walked in, and that was enough.

Then, one afternoon, he came in without a coat. No shadows under his eyes. Just him. Solid, real, and standing in front of you with a calm you hadn’t seen before.

“Are you free Friday night?” He asked, like it wasn’t a question that made your heart trip over itself.

You blinked. “Me?”

“Yeah. You.”

You smiled. “I mean– yes. Yeah, I’m free.”

He nodded, like he’d already planned everything. “Wear something warm.”

You didn’t know what to expect.

He picked you up just after dark in a sleek black car you didn’t recognize the brand of. His jacket was pressed. His shirt was ironed. And when he offered his hand to help you inside, you hesitated just long enough for your cheeks to flush.

He noticed but he didn’t tease.

Instead, he said, “You look beautiful,” like it was the only truth he knew how to say.

You didn’t know that three hours earlier, he’d been standing in a warehouse near the docks, quietly threatening a man with a broken nose not to let a whisper of trouble near your neighborhood tonight. You didn’t know that Bucky had postponed a weapons shipment and moved a backroom poker game three blocks east just to clear the air around you.

All you knew was that the rooftop he brought you to had a string of soft, glowing lights, a space heater, a tiny table with mismatched chairs, and two steaming paper bowls of your favorite takeout.

You gasped when you saw it. “Is this…?”

“I remembered you said you liked the dumplings from Ling’s.”

“I didn’t think you were listening.”

“I’m always listening.”

You sat, half-nervous and half-stunned, watching as he poured you a cup of tea from a little thermos he brought himself. It was clumsy, imperfect, but somehow… it made the gesture sweeter.

“Why up here?” You asked curiously.

He shrugged. “I don’t like crowds and it’s quiet.”

“Do you always go to this much trouble for dinner?”

He hesitated. “No.”

You looked up at him and found he was already looking back.

There was something different in his eyes now though. It wasn’t cold or guarded. It was more like a storm had passed and left something warm in its wake.

You ate slowly, talking about everything and nothing: your favorite cartoons as a kid, the weirdest thing you’ve ever baked, your theory that the city pigeons are evolving to become smarter than humans.

He laughed at that one. Actually laughed. It was rough and low, a rare sound that made your chest ache in a good way.

Later, when the wind picked up, he moved closer. His arm barely brushed yours.

“Cold?” He asked.

���A little.”

He draped his jacket over your shoulders like it was instinct and maybe it was.

You glanced down at your tea, heart pounding, and asked softly, “James?”

“Yeah?”

“Why me?”

He didn’t answer right away. You thought maybe he wouldn’t but you’d asked anyways.

But then he said in voice low and almost vulnerable, “Because you're the only good thing I don’t want to ruin.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. So you reached for his hand and to your surprise, he let you hold it like he didn’t want to let go. It all felt like the beginning of something neither of you could name just yet.

[suniix]

[suniix]

I Thought We Were Already Dating

pairing | congressman!bucky x fem!reader

word count | 4k words

summary | you thought you were spiraling over a situationship—meanwhile, bucky barnes had been acting like your very committed, very oblivious boyfriend the entire time. one public meltdown, a congressional office full of witnesses, and a very intense kiss later… you're officially his girl (and he never doubted it).

tags | (18+) MDNI, unprotected sex, p in v, established situationship, mutual pining (but one of them doesn't know), miscommunication, public confession, soft!bucky, domestic chaos, comedy & angst, bucky barnes is your boyfriend (he just forgot to tell you), reader is unhinged (affectionate), FLUFF & SMUT, friends to lovers (but they skipped the "friends" and the "lovers" just happened), poor congressional staff, possessive!reader, love confession, bucky is so in love it hurts

a/n | based on this request. i love writing chaotic reader

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

divider by @cafekitsune

Your back hit the mattress in a blur of limbs and low groans, Bucky’s mouth never leaving yours, his hands already sliding under the hem of your shirt like he needed to feel skin, all of it, immediately.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he breathed against your lips, voice rough from hours of holding back everything but this.

You barely managed to smile before his teeth grazed your jaw, his scruff dragging just enough to make you shiver. His body blanketed yours, warm and solid, pressing you down in the most intoxicating way.

“You saw me this morning,” you murmured, fingers curling into his hair.

“Not like this.”

The shirt came off.

Then his.

You didn’t stop him.

You never did.

Because being under Bucky Barnes like this—held like something he didn’t want to let go of—was the only time you felt whole. His touch, his mouth, his breath in your ear as he whispered how good you felt, how fucking perfect you were when you were under him like this.

It was all consuming.

He kissed his way down your chest, every inch of skin worshiped like he didn’t just want you—he needed you. His fingers hooked into the waistband of your underwear, dragging them down, slow, like he loved the way you sounded when you gasped just from anticipation.

You watched him from above, chest heaving, skin flushed—and in that moment, something tight twisted in your stomach that had nothing to do with arousal.

It was the ache.

The quiet question in the back of your head that always came right before you let him *n.

What are we?

You didn’t ask.

You just let your legs fall open, let his body settle between them, and swallowed the question whole.

He looked down at you once more, eyes so soft they burned.

“You want me?” he asked, voice hushed, reverent.

You nodded.

“Say it,” he whispered, leaning down, lips brushing your collarbone.

“I want you,” you breathed.

He groaned, low and wrecked, and then he was inside you.

One thrust.

Slow. Deep.

Your back arched, your mouth parting in a gasp as he bottomed out, hands gripping your hips like he was anchoring himself in you.

He didn’t move at first.

Just breathed.

Pressed his forehead to yours.

“Fuck,” he murmured. “You always feel like home.”

You blinked.

Your heart stopped.

But then he started moving—hips rolling slow, dragging pleasure from your core in waves. Every stroke was measured, precise, like he wanted you to feel every inch of him. Like he wasn’t just fucking you—he was holding you, claiming you without a single word about what it meant.

You let your nails scrape down his back, your thighs tightening around his waist, chasing every thrust like it could answer the questions you didn’t dare ask.

He kissed you again.

Not hungrily.

Not possessively.

Just soft.

Like a man who thought you already belonged to him.

His pace stayed slow at first—torturously so. Each thrust sank deep, dragging friction that had your nails pressing harder into his skin, a soft whimper caught at the back of your throat.

He was watching you now.

Eyes dark, focused, mouth parted like he was trying to memorize the way you looked when he was buried inside you.

“You feel so fucking good,” he murmured, and the way he said it—it was too soft. Too real. Like it meant something. Like you meant something.

You arched up to meet him, hips rising into each roll of his body, chasing that dizzying edge as the room dissolved around you. The only thing real was the heat building between your bodies, the slick slide of his skin against yours, the way he groaned every time your walls clenched around him.

You could feel your release winding tight, breath ragged, body shaking.

And then—

His hand cupped your cheek.

His lips found yours again, tender and aching as he whispered into your mouth, “That’s it. Let go. I’ve got you.”

It hit you like a wave.

You shattered underneath him, crying out as your body clamped down, orgasm tearing through you with a sharp, wet sound of skin against skin and your name on his tongue like it was sacred.

He fucked you through it, his thrusts faltering, rougher now, deeper, desperate.

“I can’t—baby, I’m gonna—fuck—” he groaned.

You wrapped your legs around him, pulled him tighter, wanted him closer.

“Inside,” you whispered, dazed.

His eyes locked on yours—wide, vulnerable, wrecked.

Then he was coming—hot and hard and raw, his whole body shaking as he buried his face in your neck and let himself fall apart in you.

His voice cracked.

“I love you,” he gasped, barely more than breath.

And you heard it.

Your body was still trembling. Your mind was still fogged.

But your heart?

It snapped to attention.

Because he said it like it was obvious.

Like he’d said it before. Like you knew.

His breathing had slowed.

His body lay heavy over yours, arms curled protectively around your waist, lips pressed to your collarbone in a lazy, half-conscious kiss. You could feel the weight of his affection in every touch—adoring, familiar, like this was just another Thursday night in the life of Bucky Barnes, the man who clearly thought you were his.

Because he said it.

He said I love you.

And not like it slipped.

Not like it was some heat-of-the-moment moan tangled in a climax.

He said it like he meant it.

Like he’d said it before.

Like he thought you already knew.

Your hand twitched on his back.

Your heartbeat, which had only just settled, started racing again—but not with pleasure. With full-blown panic.

Because—

What the actual fuck?

You stared up at the ceiling, body still bare, skin still warm from him, and yet—

Your brain screamed: WHAT ARE WE?

He shifted slightly, nuzzling closer, mumbling something incoherent as he pressed a kiss to your chest.

Meanwhile, your soul was clawing its way out of your skin.

Because if he thought this was that—you being his, this being real—then you’d missed a crucial piece of the plot somewhere back in act one.

He never asked.

There was never a “will you be my girlfriend?” conversation. No official status talk. No expectations. Just great sex, unholy chemistry, soft sleepovers, texts that made your stomach flip, and a drawer at his place you never questioned.

You suddenly wanted to sit up and scream.

But instead, you lay there frozen, blinking at the ceiling like it had personally betrayed you.

His hand rubbed slow circles on your hip.

You resisted the urge to launch yourself across the room.

What the fuck is going on.

Are we dating?

Is this real?

He sighed against your skin, content and sleepy.

You swallowed hard.

One Week Later

Your phone buzzed beside you on the kitchen counter.

It lit up with his name, the one you still hadn’t changed in your contacts—just “James 🇺🇸” with a dumb little flag emoji he’d added himself the first week you started… whatever this was.

James 🇺🇸:

On my way back—what do you want for takeout?

You stared at the screen for a second too long.

The question was simple. Casual. Routine.

And that’s what made your stomach twist.

Because it was routine.

The texts. The keys to your place. The way he dropped his jacket over your chair like he lived here. The way he smiled when he saw you, like everything else melted away.

You typed, deleted, typed again.

Finally, you sent:

You:

thai? the dumpling place. y'know the one.

Your phone buzzed two seconds later.

James 🇺🇸:

Already reading my mind, huh?

I’ll be there in 30.

Got you extra peanut sauce because I know you hoard it like a gremlin.

You huffed a small laugh, despite the weight still coiled in your chest.

Then you stared at that thread a little too long.

The little hearts you’d sent last week.

The blurry selfie he sent you from his office at midnight, captioned "Thinking about you and losing a vote at the same time 🫡”

The I love you that still echoed in your ears like a gunshot.

You set the phone down.

Walked into the bathroom.

And stared at yourself in the mirror.

You’d never called him your boyfriend.

He’d never asked.

But he acted like he was yours.

And the scary part?

You wanted him to be.

You just didn’t know if he knew that mattered.

The door creaked open with a familiar scrape—he still hadn’t fixed the hinge.

You turned from the couch, face carefully neutral.

He stepped inside in that unbuttoned suit jacket, tie half-loosened, hair tousled from a long day of pretending not to want to strangle half of Congress.

And he was smiling.

“Hey, baby,” he murmured, like it was the most normal thing in the world, setting the takeout bags down on your kitchen counter without even looking.

Baby.

You froze.

Okay, he calls you that all the time.

Maybe he calls everyone that.

Does he call Sam that?

“Place was packed,” he continued, toeing off his shoes. “Some guy tried to skip the line and the little lady behind the counter threatened to beat him with a ladle. Reminded me of you.”

You stared.

He wandered to the fridge, pulled out your favorite seltzer—your specific lemon one—and cracked it open before sliding it your way.

You caught it on instinct, fingers brushing the condensation.

He hadn’t even asked.

Just knew.

Then, casually, he took off his jacket, draped it over the chair, and loosened his tie more, tossing it with a sigh. His white dress shirt stretched a little at the biceps. He was still talking—something about a subcommittee vote gone to hell—but you were barely hearing it.

Because now?

You were tracking everything.

The way he set down two sets of chopsticks like it was automatic. The way he separated the sauces—your peanut ones on your side, his spicier one near him. The way he snagged the remote and flopped down beside you like he lived here.

Like this was his couch.

Was it his couch?

Was he paying your utilities?

“I don’t know why I let them keep putting me in these budget meetings,” he muttered, cracking open a box of dumplings. “Every time I try to talk, someone from Indiana gives me a migraine.”

You nodded slowly.

Then: “Do you… have a toothbrush here?”

He blinked at you mid-chew.

“Yeah?” He swallowed. “Under the sink. Next to yours. Why?”

Your eye twitched.

“Do you… always leave a change of clothes here?”

He nodded again, popping another dumpling in his mouth. “Babe, half my henleys are in your closet. You know that.”

You did.

You just didn’t process it.

You turned toward him fully, food forgotten.

His arm was already around your shoulders, pulling you in.

You didn’t resist. You leaned in.

And then you stared blankly at the TV as he rested his chin on your head, warm and soft and so stupidly comfortable.

He sighed.

“I missed you today,” he murmured. “It was shit at the office.”

Your heart did a weird thing in your chest—flipped, twisted, frowned.

You blinked slowly.

“…Do you keep anything at anyone else’s place?” you asked, very casually. Too casually.

He snorted. “What?”

“Just wondering.”

He reached for a spring roll. “No? Why would I?”

“Just wondering,” you repeated, mechanically.

He made a soft mhmm noise and handed you a dumpling without looking, already distracted by the TV again, thumb grazing lazy circles against your arm like his body just knew where you were supposed to be.

Meanwhile, your brain was screaming.

Are we dating?

ARE WE DATING?!

And he just sat there, all warm and sleepy and Thai-food-happy beside you, like the man absolutely not at the center of an existential relationship spiral.

You chewed your dumpling, eyes narrow.

You were going to lose your mind.

A Few Days Later

The sky over Washington was a thick stretch of slate.

Fine rain fell in that soft, insistent way that made everything damp without ever fully raining. The streets were quiet, the air cool against your cheeks, and your lungs ached just enough to make you feel alive as your sneakers slapped against the wet pavement.

Beside you, Rachel kept pace effortlessly.

Of course she did.

She looked like she’d been born doing yoga on a yacht.

“I still don’t get how you convinced me to jog in this weather,” she said, breath easy, ponytail bouncing behind her. “You’re getting fit for a reason or just embracing the sad girl cardio?”

You huffed a laugh through your nose, ignoring the sting in your ribs. “Trying to keep up with a guy who’s genetically engineered and built like a statue.”

She smirked. “Oh, right. The Bucky Barnes. Still a thing?”

You didn’t answer right away.

Your feet hit a puddle, splashing your ankles.

Rachel didn’t wait.

“I mean… it’s cute. Really. Him bringing you coffee, showing up to all your little gallery events, texting you like a golden retriever with a crush.”

You squinted through the mist. “Is there a ‘but’ coming?”

She gave a mock innocent look. “No ‘but.’ I just think if he hasn’t made it official by now, he’s probably just riding the comfort wave. You know?”

Your stomach dropped—quiet, slow—like something sliding off a ledge in the dark.

“He’s… not like that,” you muttered.

Rachel made a noncommittal sound, the kind that sounded like “maybe” but meant “absolutely.”

“Sure,” she said lightly. “But a guy like that? Everyone wants him. Powerful, polished, and hot—but still gives off that ‘I could destroy you emotionally if I wanted’ vibe. It’s catnip.”

You bit your tongue.

She went on, like she didn’t just lob a grenade at your chest.

“I’m just saying. If I were dating him, I’d make damn sure everyone knew it. Otherwise…” She shrugged, smiling sweetly. “Kind of feels like letting a limited edition slip through your fingers.”

You slowed slightly, blinking rain from your lashes.

Rachel picked up her pace, unaware—or pretending to be.

Or maybe that was the point.

The worst part?

You didn’t even know what to say.

Because in your head, you were screaming: I don’t know if I’m dating him either.

You didn’t answer her.

You just picked up speed.

One second, you were jogging beside her—lungs aching, mind heavy—and the next, your legs were moving, not with purpose but with sheer emotional combustion.

“Wait—what the hell?” Rachel’s voice snapped from behind you, sharp with confusion. “Where are you going?”

You shouted over your shoulder, breath shallow, “Forgot—I left the oven on!”

It was a terrible excuse.

You hadn’t even used the oven that morning.

And Rachel, in all her smug, sculpted glory, definitely knew it.

But you didn’t care.

You turned down a side street without looking back, rain misting against your skin, hair sticking to your neck as you ran harder, faster, legs burning. You were vaguely aware of your own ridiculousness. You were sprinting through Capitol Hill in soaked leggings and adrenaline—not because of a fire, but because your chest was burning.

Because the words still a thing were still ringing in your ears.

Because her little smile made you want to scream.

And because deep down, you didn’t know how to answer her.

You didn’t know.

Your lungs ached, your sneakers skidded slightly on wet pavement as you turned a corner, and still—you kept going.

Toward the tall glass building you knew by heart now. The security desk that always smiled when you came in. The floor where the man who may or may not be your boyfriend spent hours arguing policy and quietly doodling in his tiny notebook between meetings.

You didn’t know what you were going to say when you got there.

You didn’t know what you wanted him to say.

But you knew this:

You couldn’t keep playing house in your head while the floor beneath it kept shifting.

You needed an answer.

Even if it hurt.

Even if Rachel ended up being right.

You just prayed she got splashed by a Metro bus on the way home.

The doors of the administrative wing slammed open with a bang.

You stumbled in, soaked from drizzle, cheeks flushed, ribs on fire, and about three seconds from a full cardiac event. Your leggings were clinging to your thighs, your hoodie had definitely seen better days, and your lungs were currently staging a mutiny.

Several staffers at their desks froze mid-keystroke.

Someone dropped a pen.

Bucky looked up from where he was speaking with a few of his aides, a file in one hand, coffee in the other—and blinked at you like you’d just teleported in from an alternate timeline.

“Hey—what—?”

“Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

Silence.

Every single head in the room turned.

Bucky’s coffee cup paused halfway to his lips.

You pointed at him, panting. “Because—I think it’s time. I want to be your girlfriend. Officially. Like—not just sleepovers and emotional eye contact over takeout—I mean actual, real-life, ‘we’re together’ kind of thing.”

You sucked in another breath and barreled on before you lost your nerve.

“I know you’re busy, and, like, technically running half of Congress with your jawline, but I just—I need clarity, okay? Because I was jogging with Rachel, who’s a menace to society, and she said some stuff and I started spiraling and I just—I ran here. I ran. Here. For this.”

There was a beat of complete silence.

Bucky’s eyes were wide.

His aides?

They were riveted.

One woman actually had her hand over her mouth like this was her favorite telenovela.

You blinked at the room.

Your mouth opened. Closed. You slowly lowered your arm.

“Okay,” you said, breathless. “So clearly, that was… too much.”

You looked around at the awkward stares, then back at Bucky, your voice flattening with pure, defeated embarrassment.

“So maybe I was delusional. Maybe this isn’t what I thought. And that’s fine.”

You nodded to yourself, a slow descent into insanity.

“If I’m just some situationship moron who caught feelings and made a public scene at a congressional office,” you continued dryly, “I’m going to kill myself and take everyone in this room with me.”

You made eye contact with one aide near the door.

He flinched.

Then you sighed heavily and scanned the room, noting every wide-eyed aide pretending desperately to become one with their laptops.

Then you snapped.

“Show’s over, folks. Go home. Or back to your unpaid Excel spreadsheets or whatever.”

No one moved.

One intern coughed.

You groaned, dragging both hands over your face in slow, mortified defeat, mumbling through your fingers, “This is literally my villain origin story.”

You barely heard his footsteps as Bucky approached, but you felt him—warmth, presence, tall and steady as he stopped just a few feet in front of you.

“Hey,” he said gently, “can you look at me?”

You shook your head without moving your hands. “I’ll die.”

“No you won’t.”

“I might.”

He chuckled quietly, and something about it made your heart twist. Like this wasn’t the end of the world. Like maybe it wasn’t even close.

You slowly peeked between your fingers.

He smiled softly, eyes full of that same calm patience he used when trying to explain to you how Medicare reform worked.

He stepped closer, brushing a damp strand of hair from your cheek. “It’s 2 o’clock,” he said, glancing around the room. “They all get off at five.”

You stared up at him.

“Oh,” you said blankly. “Cool.”

A pause.

Then, softly—almost hesitantly—he added, “I thought we were already dating.”

Your arms dropped from your face as your expression completely short-circuited.

“…What.”

He tilted his head, confused. “Yeah. For, like… a while now?”

You just stared at him.

Unmoving.

Mouth parted.

One eyebrow quirked in silent disbelief.

“…What.”

He blinked again.

Now he looked confused.

“You… didn’t think we were?”

“…No?”

He gave you the most innocent, baffled look known to man.

“I brought you to Sam's birthday party. You met his nephews. You wear my boxers. What part of this didn’t scream boyfriend to you?”

You opened your mouth.

Then closed it.

Then opened it again.

“I—You never asked me!” you accused, voice pitching.

“I didn’t think I had to!” he exclaimed.

You stared at him, absolutely scandalized. “How was I supposed to know then?”

Bucky blinked. “I—what do you mean? Everything I do is—”

“You’re from the 40s, James!” you snapped, throwing your hands up. “You guys used to, like, wear suits and give flowers and do grand declarations and ask girls to go steady in a diner over milkshakes! I was waiting for that!”

His jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“I watched Grease with you last week!” you cried. “You don’t get to act brand new!”

He dragged a hand over his face, groaning. “Okay, no more old movies for you.”

You crossed your arms, still damp and out of breath, glaring at him like he’d personally invented confusion.

Then he stepped back.

Took a slow, deep breath.

Straightened his posture.

And said, “Okay. Fine.”

He cleared his throat, eyes locked with yours, serious as a heart attack. Then he said your name—your full name.

“Will you do me the incredible honor of officially being my girlfriend?”

The room went so quiet you could hear someone’s chair creak.

You stared at him.

Then slowly, a dumb smile spread across your face.

“Wow,” you said, blinking. “This is… so sudden.”

Bucky paused, squinting

You pressed a hand to your chest. “I mean… we’ve only been sleeping together, sharing hoodies, texting nonstop, and eating Thai food three times a week for a few months. You barely know me.”

His jaw clenched.

“Don’t.”

“I mean, I barely know me, James. Are you sure about this? How could I possibly say—?”

He said your name—a low, gravelly warning that made your smile bloom full force.

You grinned.

“Yes,” you said. “I’ll be your girlfriend.”

And before he could react—before he could breathe—you launched yourself into his arms, hands gripping his shoulders, mouth crashing into his with every ounce of pent-up emotion and leftover adrenaline.

His arms instinctively caught you—one around your waist, the other beneath your thighs as your legs wrapped around him like you’d done this a hundred times before.

He kissed you back, hard and fast, like he’d been waiting for this moment—like maybe he needed it as badly as you did.

Somewhere behind you, someone definitely muttered, “What the fuck.”

Another staffer fumbled their phone like they were torn between reporting this to H.R. and posting this on the internet.

Bucky didn’t care.

He just kissed you deeper, right there in the middle of his office, as if the whole damn building hadn’t just watched him get emotionally hijacked by the woman he thought was already his.

Eventually, you pulled back, breath a little ragged, lips swollen, cheeks flushed, arms still looped lazily around his neck.

Bucky was wrecked—eyes dazed, mouth parted, chest rising and falling under you like he’d just run a marathon and won.

You leaned in once more, planted a sweet, casual kiss on his cheek, and whispered, “See you at home.”

You slid off his lap and smoothed your hoodie like you hadn’t just climbed him like a tree in front of half his professional staff.

Bucky blinked. “Wait—what? I was just about to go on break—”

You turned at the door, already tugging your hood up. “Yeah, no, I gotta find Rachel.”

He frowned, still catching up. “Why?”

“To tell her to her face that you’re mine now,” you said flatly. “And so hopefully, she dies of jealousy in front of my eyes.”

You opened the door and strode out like a woman on a mission.

Bucky watched you go, completely speechless, still half-hard in his slacks, shirt wrinkled from where you’d yanked on him like you were trying to break his will to serve.

His aides were frozen, stunned, borderline traumatized.

And then, slowly, that grin started to grow on his face.

A little crooked. A little stunned.

But proud.

Because that?

That was officially his girl.

And God help anyone who tried to say otherwise.

[suniix]

when the sun hits (it matters where you are)

pairing: bucky barnes x emergency room nurse!reader summary: it’s your name, written in the soft fog of his breath. and his name, traced endlessly across your skin. you've always been meant to cross paths this way. (soulmate au!) word count: 11.4k words content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem reader, praising, piv, overstimulation, shower sex, creampie, face riding, dirty talk, ungodly levels of yearning, mentions of violence and clinical situations, death, explores heavy themes

You’ve gotten very good at waking up without hope over the years.

Your alarm goes off at 4:48 a.m. because you refuse to wake up on the hour like everyone else. It’s a small rebellion—pointless, probably, but in a life built from shifts and protocol, those twelve minutes feel like something you own. 

The soulmark itches before you even lift the blankets. You don’t touch it. Haven’t in years. It rests on your left side, just under the ribs, where your arm folds when you cradle a patient or scrub blood from your skin. The name’s still there. James Buchanan Barnes. Etched like a brand. 

You learned to stop reading it a long time ago.

You were thirteen the first time you felt it — not the weight of it, not really, but the press of inevitability. The skin just under your ribs itched for three days straight, and no matter how you scratched, how you pressed cold washcloths to it or distracted yourself with school or swimming or the terrifying newness of puberty, it pulsed with the promise of something you couldn’t name.

"Maybe you're allergic to something," your mom said, more distracted than concerned, passing you a bottle of calamine lotion while balancing a phone call.

Then, the name came in the middle of the night.

You’d woken up disoriented, not from a nightmare exactly, but from the sense that something had shifted. That your body was no longer just your own. 

You pulled up your pajama shirt with trembling hands, stomach flipped inside out with something like fear. Or awe. And there it was, written in a careful, antique script like it had always been there — James Buchanan Barnes.

You said it out loud. Just once. Just to see if it sounded real. 

The next morning, you pretended to look up World War II details for an eighth-grade project. Typed his name into Google with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking.

This—this definitely wasn't what you were expecting. You were expecting someone… someone at least closer in age, someone who was maybe going through the same strenuous expectations of middle school, someone… someone who was alive.

It was underwhelming at first. Just a name. A war vet. Deceased. You didn't think you'd find him so easily. You spiraled past Wikipedia into forums your school firewall probably would’ve blocked if they knew what they were doing.  You dug deeper. Wikipedia spiraled into conspiracy forums. Articles turned into footnotes, turned into theories, turned into pictures. Redacted documents. Old photographs.

That was when your chest started to ache.

He wasn’t a boy.

He wasn’t even a man in the way people are alive. 

He was history, frozen in sepia. James Buchanan Barnes, colloquially know as Bucky, a soldier, missing in action. You found an old black-and-white photo with him half smiling in uniform, arm slung casually around the Captain America's shoulders, and your throat closed like you’d been punched from the inside. Because he looked real. Not just an idea, not just a ghost.

And you loved him. You didn’t mean to. But there it was.

That summer, you begged your parents to take you to D.C. "For the exhibits," you said. "The history. Please."

You cried in the car. Your mom reached back and handed you a bottle of water. “Carsick?” she asked.

"Yeah," you lied, watching trees blur past as the pit in your stomach grew deeper.

At the Smithsonian, your eyes scanned every exhibit like you were searching for a face in a crowd. You found him in a war display—just a photo, again. Yellowed and framed. A plaque. Sergeant Barnes. You stood there too long. An older woman beside you glanced over, then away, probably confused as to why this pre-teen was staring at the display with such fervent intensity.

You didn’t touch your mark. 

Not there. Not in public. But you felt it, a phantom pulse echoing under your ribs. Like it knew. Like it missed him too.

That was the first time you understood what it meant to lose something before you ever had it. To mourn a future that could never come.

That summer, you grieved a stranger.

The rest of those months passed in a fog. Friends talked about boy bands and sleepaway camps and the boy from seventh grade who cried during dodgeball. You started reading old war journals and relics and Stark experiments just to feel closer to a time you’d missed. By the start of the school year, you'd already gone through your U.S. History syllabus and back.

At night, you lay awake imagining what it would’ve been like to meet him before the fall. What you’d say. If he’d be kind. If he’d recognize you.

If he’d regret it.

By sixteen, you had your mind made up. Not because you wanted to save people—though you did—but because it felt like the only thing that made sense. Something tethered. Something present. You’d learned how to triage your own feelings, how to hold grief without crumbling under it. ER nursing made too much sense. You wanted the immediacy. The clarity of purpose. The adrenaline to chase out the what-ifs.

You told your guidance counselor it was about the job stability.

You didn’t say that you needed a life that moved fast enough to keep you from looking back.

You got good at it. Fast. Precise. Reliable. The type of person they called first when a kid came in coding, when someone’s chest had to be cracked open at bedside. You learned how to operate under pressure. How to compartmentalize. You learned to move toward chaos, not away from it.

And eventually, you stopped looking at the name. Not because it faded—it never did—but because it became too familiar. Like a scar. Like an old story you didn’t tell anymore, because no one would believe it.

Because you hardly believed it yourself.

.

You peel yourself out of bed, step into the shower. The water doesn’t stay hot for long, but you don’t need it to. You just need enough heat to convince your muscles to move, your brain to stop stalling. The morning ritual is muscle memory now: shampoo, rinse, conditioner (leave-in), scrub your face, try not to look at yourself too closely. By the time you’re dressed and out the door, you’ve spoken zero words and swallowed two ibuprofen with the stale dregs of yesterday’s coffee.

The drive to the hospital is quiet, but not peaceful. 

The city’s in that strange twilight lull between night and morning, where the drunks have staggered home and the nine-to-fivers haven’t yet left their beds. It feels like a ghost town with too many ghosts. Some days, you swear the silence carries weight. Residual grief, maybe. 

You park in the far corner of the lot because the closer spaces are already claimed by the truly unwell—nurses who never go home, residents who sleep in call rooms, attendings who live to round. You used to be like them. You’ve grown out of the martyrdom. Or maybe you’ve just run out of energy to perform it.

The hospital doesn’t smell like death, not exactly. It smells like ammonia and latex and that synthetic lemon cleaner that’s supposed to mask the rest. You wave to the front desk nurse, badge in, and clock your shift the way you have every day for the last six years. 

Your soulmark is never mentioned. Not because people don’t see it, though you keep it hidden well, but because no one talks about soulmarks anymore. It’s passé. Soulmate matching used to be romantic. Now it’s considered a statistical liability. There are support groups for people like you, sure, but they mostly spiral into grief therapy and long-winded self-help monologues. You tried one once. A woman wept about her soulmate dying in Sokovia. Another talked about her mark changing. Yours never did.

Soulmate politics are complicated now. Too many anomalies. Too many cases like yours.

There’s a thread on Reddit dedicated to soulmarks tied to dangerous people. Super soldiers. Villains. Politically gray mercenaries. Your name—his name—comes up sometimes. You don’t engage. You lurk. Scroll through the comments. Watch strangers try to figure out what they’d do if it were them.

The consensus always boils down to one thing: If your soulmate is a killer, you have a moral obligation to reject the bond.

You don’t know if you agree. You don’t know if you disagree either.

Most days, you just ignore it.

Your shift starts like any other. A stabbing. A toddler with a fever. An elderly man who doesn’t remember how he got here. The trauma bay gets two back-to-back ambulance drop-offs, both from the same freeway accident. The paramedics hand off a broken woman in pieces. You get her on oxygen. You get her to CT. You get her prepped for surgery. You don’t think about her name, or her face, or what might’ve been the last thing she said.

You think about the steps. You think about the chart.

This is what makes you good at your job.

You care. You just don’t let it show anymore.

Lunchtime—if you can dignify that title with a limp vending machine sandwich and fifteen minutes of couch—is spent in the staff lounge, watching reruns of The Great British Bake Off with the volume off. The man on screen is assembling an architectural sponge cake. You feel emotionally invested. Mostly because you think it might collapse.

One of your colleagues—Zoya, you think, though you’ve never quite decided if you like her or not—slides onto the couch beside you with the weary grace of someone who’s been on her feet for nine hours. She’s got a protein bar in one hand and her phone in the other.

“I read the polls,” she says, chewing like the bar personally insulted her. “People are actually fired up this time around.”

You hum in response. Noncommittal. You don’t take the bait.

“They say Barnes is running for Congress,” she adds casually, eyes flicking sideways toward you. “That surprises me. Who woulda thought?”

You don’t blink. Don’t flinch. Just peel a piece of lettuce off your sandwich like it’s offended you. “Guess being an Avenger's not the high-paying career it used to be.”

Zoya snorts. “Seriously. You think he’s for real?”

You lift one shoulder. “I think I’ve seen stranger things on C-SPAN.”

She lets out a low whistle. “Still wild, though. Imagine finding out your soulmate is, like… that guy.”

You glance at her. Smile. Tight. Unreadable. “Yeah,” you say. “Imagine.”

She doesn’t press. You both go back to watching a woman on screen cry over underbaked choux pastry.

It’s easy now. Easier than it used to be. Pretending he doesn’t matter. Pretending you don’t know his voice by heart. Don’t remember the way your mark burned that day in the laundromat. Don’t still check the news for his name the way other people check the weather. It’s a skill.

And like all your best skills, it was learned the hard way.

.

When you get home that night, your legs ache, and your stomach hurts from too much caffeine and not enough food. You drop your bag on the couch, toe off your shoes, and stand in the middle of your kitchen for ten full seconds trying to remember what it means to rest.

Your phone buzzes on the counter. A missed call. Your ex. You don’t call back.

Instead, you go to the sink, wash your hands out of habit, and glance down at the faint outline of the mark under your scrub top.

You trace it, just once. Not enough to mean anything.

Just enough to remember that it’s still there.

.

You were twenty-four when you first saw his face in motion. In reality.

It was a Tuesday. You remember because it was your one day off that month, and you’d spent most of it in a laundromat trying to get the smell of bile and bleach out of your scrubs. You were curled up on the plastic bench by the window, still damp from rain, watching a battered flatscreen overhead.

BREAKING NEWS: GLOBAL MANHUNT UNDERWAY FOR FORMER SOVIET ASSASSIN.

You didn’t flinch when the words came up. At first, they didn’t mean anything. But then the photo appeared, grainy and indistinct—a security cam freeze-frame. Dark jacket, metal arm, face caught mid-motion.

There he was. James Buchanan Barnes.

You felt it like a punch. Air gone. Sound sucked from the room. Your hands tightened around a bottle of Tide.

They said he bombed the Vienna International Centre. Killed a king. Injured dozens. Your brain refused the narrative, but not because you knew better. You didn’t. It was just … incongruent. Cognitive dissonance. You couldn’t square the name on your skin with the cold, feral man on the screen. But that didn’t stop you from watching.

You didn’t leave the laundromat. You sat there long after your clothes finished drying. Hours, maybe. Absorbing every second of the footage. Reading every chyron.

You watched the raw surveillance clips when they hit the web—him running, being chased, fighting like something born in a lab. Like something not quite real.

And then, all at once, the world tilted.

He was real.

Not a myth. Not a name in a book or a mark burned into your side to haunt you. Real. He was breathing the same air, walking the same crumbling sidewalks, looking over his shoulder beneath the same indifferent sky. There was this thrumming under your skin—louder than your heartbeat, sharper than breath—that said he's alive. Not long-dead. Not lost to time. But here. On this earth. Behind your eyes. And somehow, you had to keep living like that wasn’t the most destabilizing fact you’d ever known.

You memorized the cadence of how people said his name.

At some point, you realized you were shaking.

That week, your mother called, like she always did. You didn’t tell her. She asked how work was. You said fine. She asked if you’d seen the news. You said you hadn’t.

You started keeping your left side covered, even in the shower.

In the weeks that followed, he became a name everyone knew. The Winter Soldier. The media dug up every blurry photo from seventy years of history, every CIA leak, every whisper in a dossier. You catalogued them without meaning to. It wasn’t obsession. Not exactly. It was survival.

Then came the reveal: it wasn’t him. Not exactly. Not only him.

Mind control, they said. Brainwashed. Hydra.

You read the words like they were gospel. Like they explained something they didn’t. Like they offered you absolution by proxy. You hated that you wanted to believe it so badly. You hated how much of yourself you saw in the hollow of his eyes when he was caught on camera again—restrained, confused, a man unraveling.

You hated that you understood it.

.

Then came the Blip.

The morning the sky broke, you were in trauma bay three with a man who’d been impaled on a metal pipe. You blinked, and he was gone. Just … gone. The pipe, slick with his blood, clanged against the floor, still warm. Your brain froze. Your hands kept moving.

Your friend Ashley vanished mid-joke during lunch break. Half your ER staff was gone by the end of the day. You worked thirteen more hours without blinking. You only remembered bits—someone screaming in the stairwell. Someone trying to break into the pharmacy. A girl with burns and no parents left to consent to treatment. You remember the air smelling like copper and panic. The vending machines ran out by day two.

When you finally got home, your building was quiet. Too quiet. The streets were deserted, eerie and raw like the aftermath of a dream you couldn't fully wake up from. Someone had looted the gas station across the street. You stepped over broken glass to get inside.

You turned on the TV. Sat down on the floor. Let the flickering images wash over you in silence. Aerial shots of cars abandoned mid-commute. Apartment buildings full of empty beds. Hospitals choked with the chaos of subtraction.

Then his name came up. Just for a moment. In a reel of the missing.

James Buchanan Barnes. Missing. Presumed dust. It seems like the world would never get tired of those three words recurring in your life like a sick joke, like a sucker punch.

You knew it before they even confirmed it. Knew it in your bones. The soulmark burned for days after. A phantom itch. A psychic scream. You whispered to the room, “No. No, no, no—”

You didn’t go to work the day they called it. That he was gone. That it wasn’t speculation anymore.

You called out sick, which you never did. Stayed under the covers with your curtains drawn and your phone turned facedown. You didn’t cry. Not in the way that would’ve felt cathartic. There was no release. Just weight. A steady pressure under your sternum, like your lungs were packed too tight with silence.

Grief like that doesn’t come all at once. It drips. Slow. Insidious. A lifetime’s worth of maybes collecting in your throat.

You tried to tell yourself he wasn’t yours.

That you didn’t know him.

That the mark didn’t mean anything.

That you didn’t feel the loss like your own skin folding in on itself.

But you stopped wearing crop tops after that. Stopped sleeping on your left side. Stopped reading the news altogether, because every time they mentioned his name—even in passing—it felt like someone reaching inside your chest to twist the knife, just to see if you’d bleed.

Your friends thought you were just burned out. Work was hard. Everyone was struggling.

“Have you tried meditating?” someone asked once.

“Have you tried shutting the fuck up?” you almost said. Instead you smiled. Said you were fine. You let them believe it.

You threw yourself into the ER. Picked up extra shifts. Took on the worst cases. Became the one they called for the ugly ones—the resuscitations that didn’t work, the organ donors, the impossible parents waiting for bad news. It gave your hands something to do. Gave your grief a mask.

You were so good at pretending you didn’t care that even you started to believe it.

But sometimes, on the drive home—when the city was too quiet and the sky too empty—you caught yourself glancing at the passenger seat like someone should be there. Like you’d forgotten to pick him up.

You imagined what he’d be like. Not the soldier. Not the assassin. Not the man they called the Winter Soldier like he was myth, not bone.

Just… a person.

Would he have been quiet in the mornings? Would he have let you take the last piece of toast? Would he have liked dogs? Would he have hated how sterile hospitals feel? Would he have looked at you like your name was written on him, too? 

The mark never faded. You used to check. Stupidly. Desperately. You read somewhere once that when a soulmate dies, the mark vanishes. But yours didn’t. Not even a little. It stayed sharp. Clear. Unforgiving.

You don’t know if that made it better or worse.

All you knew was this: it didn’t matter if the world called him a ghost. He was real to you.

And he was gone.

And you had to go to work tomorrow, like none of it ever mattered.

.

Time passed. You got used to the silence.

Then, five years later, he came back.

Just like that.

No fanfare. No press release. Just a name in a sea of billions. Alive again. Somewhere in the world.

You didn’t sleep for three days after that either.

.

He resurfaced differently this time. Tactically invisible. Not a headline anymore. Then, out of nowhere—a year or two later—he announced his candidacy for Congress.

You nearly laughed. Not because it was funny. But because it felt so surreal, so absurdly mundane, that your brain short-circuited. It had been three back-to-back 12-hour night shifts. Your scrubs still smelled faintly of antiseptic and vending machine coffee. Your eyes burned. Your feet hurt. And there he was—your mark, your ghost—printed five feet tall next to a mattress ad. 

You stared. Read the copy three times. Just to be sure it wasn’t a hallucination.

You told yourself not to look him up. Then you got home and did it anyway.

His campaign site was minimal. No donation pop-ups, no splashy endorsements. Just a simple landing page, a schedule of town halls, and a single embedded video labeled Why I’m Running.

You clicked play.

It started with silence. Then the low rasp of his voice, steadier now, filled your apartment.

“I’m not here to pretend I’ve always done the right thing,” he said. “I’m not here to sell redemption. Just accountability. I’ve seen what happens when systems break, when good people fall through the cracks. And I believe we can build better.”

There were no slogans. No party jargon. Just him, seated on a worn bench near a city garden, hair shorter than you remembered, jaw shadowed with a few days’ growth. Still armored, but softer. Realer. He didn’t mention soulmarks. Or the war. Or the weight of being a name that history couldn’t agree on.

But he didn’t need to.

You watched the video twice. Then again the next night.

And you didn’t vote for him.

You didn’t vote against him either.

You just… waited. Watched. Tracked the polls like you were taking a patient’s vitals. Checked for signs of movement. Hoped it wouldn’t all combust before the finish line.

When he won by 6.4%, you sat in your dark apartment, phone lit in your palm, and felt something in your chest go still. Not relief. Not pride. Just… a strange, anchored kind of knowing.

He was out there. Alive. Choosing something. Choosing this.

And somehow, that meant something to you, too.

.

You still don’t talk about it. But every so often, you read the transcripts from his interviews. You pretend it’s because he talks about legislation affecting healthcare infrastructure. It isn’t.

You’ve never reached out. Never driven past one of his town halls. Never liked a single post.

But you know which office he holds. You know the hours of his community clinic situated right by the VA. You know what color his suit was the day he was sworn in.

The name on your ribs has not changed. It probably never will.

And maybe he’s never thought of you at all.

It starts with a nosebleed.

You’re just off shift. Third one this week. Your badge is clipped to your hip, your hands smell like latex and soap, and your brain is somewhere between REM and resignation. You’re half-waiting for the crosswalk light to change when you see a man slump against the side of the public library and slide down like his bones have given up.

At first, you think: drunk. Happens more than you’d like to admit, and it's Brooklyn you're talking about. But then you see the way his hand curls against his thigh—controlled, but shaky—and the tight set of his jaw. His suit is immaculate. Not a homeless guy. Not a junkie. And that look on his face? That’s not intoxication.

That’s pain.

You cross the street. Instinct before thought.

“Hey,” you call, crouching near him. “You okay?”

He looks up. There’s a beat—half-second, maybe less—where neither of you speaks. His eyes are blue. Really blue. And he’s not just handsome, he’s specific. Recognizable in a way that drops into your stomach like a lead weight.

You know who he is. You've spent half your life committing him to memory, watching him coming and going like a revolving door.

Selfishly, instinctively, you can't help but glance down at his left hand—covered by a glove. He notices, shifting slightly, uncomfortably.

Finally, he blinks. “I’m—yeah. Fine.”

“That’s a lie,” you say, because you’re too tired to be polite. “You’re about to pass out. I’m guessing low blood sugar. Maybe dehydration.”

He breathes through his nose like it’s an old habit, like he’s used to being clocked and is choosing not to bristle. “I was just at a council meeting. Forgot to eat.”

“Drink anything?”

“Two coffees and a Red Bull.”

You stare at him. “Jesus Christ.”

His mouth twitches. Just barely. “I didn’t say it was a good idea.”

You glance around. It’s midday. Plenty of foot traffic, but no one’s stopped to help him. Of course not. Most people pretend not to see, even if he's a U.S. representative who's helped save the world a handful of times. New Yorkers have learned to mind their own business these past couple of years.

“Alright, Mr. Barnes,” you say, because you don’t want to say James or Bucky, not the name etched on your skin. “Can you stand up?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “You know who I am?”

You consider lying. “Yeah.”

His expression doesn’t change, but something in him goes still. A readjustment. Like he’s running probabilities behind the curtain of his eyes.

“And you still came over,” he says.

“Don’t take it personally. It's my civic duty; I’d help a mediocre politician too if they were about to eat pavement.”

A snort. Then, with the faintest tilt of his head: “Lucky me.”

You help him to his feet. He leans on the wall. Doesn’t quite use you for balance, though you think he might want to. You guide him into the nearest air-conditioned bodega and deposit him on a bench near the pharmacy counter. Buy two bottles of Gatorade and a protein bar. You don’t ask for reimbursement.

He drinks like it hurts to swallow. Like he’s out of practice with kindness.

“Thanks,” he says. Eventually.

You nod, sitting on the far end of the bench. “You should probably have a handler.”

“I do,” he says dryly. “She left five minutes before I remembered I hadn’t eaten.”

You glance at him sidelong. “So what, she’s in the wind?”

“Texted her,” he replies. “Told her I was fine.”

“You always lie to the people trying to keep you alive?”

Something flickers at that—too fast to name. “Sometimes.”

A silence settles. Not uncomfortable, exactly. But charged.

You glance down at your hands, then back at him. “Do you get nosebleeds a lot?”

“Not usually.”

“Good. If it starts again, you’re going to the hospital.”

His smile this time is faint, but real. He takes a glance at your scrubs, gears turning in his head. “You work there?”

“Yeah.”

“Doctor?”

“Nurse.”

He gives a little hum. “Makes sense.”

You frown. “Why?”

“Because you didn’t flinch.”

The statement lands oddly. “New Yorkers don’t usually flinch at guys hunched against the wall mid-day.”

“Not that,” he says. “Me.”

You meet his gaze. Don’t look away. “Well. Maybe they should.”

He stares at you for a long moment. You get the sense he’s parsing something. Not calculating. Listening. Not just to what you said, but how you said it.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” he says.

You open your mouth. Then close it.

And for the first time in your life, you think: If I tell him, he’ll know.

You’re not sure what scares you more. Him knowing. Or him not.

He notices the hesitation. His eyes drop—unintentionally, you think—toward your ribs. Just a flicker.

You say, quietly, “Don’t do that.”

He nods once. Doesn’t ask again.

Another moment passes. You hand him the rest of the protein bar.

He doesn’t say thank you again. He just eats it.

Eventually, he stands. A little steadier now. You watch him check his phone. You think he might offer to walk you somewhere, but he doesn’t.

Instead, he looks at you like he’s memorizing something. Then:

“You know,” he says, “there was a time I thought she’d be dead.”

Your heart skips.

You try to sound normal. “Who?”

He doesn’t smile. Not this time. Just studies your face.

“My soulmate.”

You freeze.

“Figured she’d died during the Blip,” he continues. “Or worse. Thought I felt it. But I came back and the mark was still there. So. Who knows.”

You inhale slowly. “What would you have done if it was gone?”

“Moved on,” he says.

You nod. Try to play it off. “That easy, huh?”

“No.” His voice drops a register. “But I would’ve had to.”

Silence again. He exhales. Checks the time. Nods once.

“Well,” he says. “Thanks for saving me from an embarrassing death outside a library.”

You stand too. “Wasn’t gonna let a congressman die on my watch, Mr. Barnes."

He gives a lopsided smile, and suddenly, you see a flicker of that man you saw in the Smithsonian all those years ago. “Call me Bucky. I'm just a guy, today.”

Then, softer: “See you around.”

You don’t say anything. Just watch him go.

When you finally look down at your ribs, you expect the name to be glowing or bleeding or something dramatic.

It isn’t.

It’s just there. Quiet. Permanent.

.

You don’t see Bucky again for months. He's gone from James Buchanan Barnes to Bucky, and it feels like foreign territory.

Not in person.

You follow his trajectory the way you follow the weather—warily, with one eye on the exit. A year into being entrenched in politics, and he gets pulled into a team, a superhero one, nonetheless. The new Avengers become a household name, or something close to it. You don’t pay for the streams, but you hear the headlines. They’re sent in to handle things that the rest of the government won’t touch. Places too messy. People too expendable.

Their first mission didn't have a name. Just a black void on every screen.

For New York, it was basically another Tuesday.

It starts mid-shift.

You’re in the middle of helping intubate someone when the power flickers—just once, like the building’s held its breath. Everyone stops. Monitors beep a half-second late. The trauma bay lights blink. Then come back. Then cut out again.

You keep your hands steady. Overhead, a resident says, “Is it just us?”

Someone else says, “No, it’s the whole block.”

And then your phone buzzes.

Not a call. A national alert.

EMERGENCY ALERT: ANOMALOUS EVENT IN PROGRESS. SEEK SHELTER.

You finish the procedure anyway. You don’t panic. You don’t run. You switch to battery-powered floodlights and keep your mask on. That’s the thing about being on the inside when the world starts to fall apart. You don’t get to pause.

Outside, the sky changes. It turns the color of old bruises. A gash opens above the skyline—wide, black, impossibly still. Something like a mouth. Something worse.

They call it the Void later. You never see it in person. Not really. You just feel the air change, the pressure drop. You feel the way every patient suddenly stops bleeding. The way everyone holds their breath.

And then, hours later, the lights flicker back on.

The void collapses into itself like it was never there.

And just like that, you keep working.

Afterward, the news trickles in. Bucky was there. Of course he was. He and the others were part of whatever last-ditch plan got the void to close. Whatever sacrifices were made, they’re classified. What isn’t: the look on his face when they put him on the podium afterward.

You watch it from the break room, over a vending machine lunch.

The new Avengers are announced. Not the old guard. A stitched-together lineup of whoever’s left, whoever didn’t run, whoever’s willing to keep showing up.

Bucky stands at the edge of the stage.

He looks like a man being honored at his own funeral.

You watch the broadcast until it ends.

You don’t say a word.

.

Two weeks later, you run into him again. And it’s so dumb, so ordinary, you don’t even realize what’s happening until you’ve already said yes.

You’re coming out of the pharmacy with three days’ worth of migraine pills and a jug of Pedialyte, and he’s just… there. Baseball cap, dark coat, looking like he hasn’t shaved in a week. The glove's off, his metal hand shining under the sterile lights. He spots you before you spot him.

“Hey,” he says, not quite surprised. “Funny seeing you here.”

You squint. “You okay?”

“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”

You glance down at the bag in your hand. “Pharmacy run.”

He nods. “I’m heading to get coffee. Want one?”

You open your mouth. Pause. And then, God help you, you say, “Yeah. Sure.”

You don’t talk about the void.

You talk about everything but.

The café is half-empty. He orders a black coffee and a lemon poppy seed muffin like someone trying to prove they’re still human. You ask for a chai. He insists on paying.

You sit across from each other, not touching. Not leaning. But there’s something in the air between you—charged, familiar. Like a room you’ve walked into before in a dream.

“Still at the hospital?” he asks.

“Yeah. We don’t really get to retire. Or take vacations.”

“That’s a shame.”

You shrug. “It’s a calling. Or a curse. Not sure.”

“I know the feeling.”

You sip your chai. He breaks the muffin in half and doesn’t eat it.

There’s a pause. Then—

“You never told me your name,” he says again. Not quite a question.

You watch him. Something in your chest thuds like recognition.

You set your cup down.

“I didn’t think you wanted it.”

He blinks. “Why wouldn’t I?”

You glance at the window, at the people outside walking past like none of this matters. Like the world didn’t almost end. Like the two of you aren’t teetering on some invisible edge.

“I don’t know,” you say finally. “Because you didn’t press.”

He doesn’t speak for a second. Just watches you, something gentle and old in his eyes.

Then he smiles. Soft. A little tired.

“Because I wanted you to give it when you were ready.”

The silence between you shifts. Not heavier. Just realer.

You say your name.

It fills the air between you like a quiet truth.

He breathes it in like it means something.

“Can I see you again?” he asks.

Your throat tightens. But your voice stays steady.

“Yeah,” you say. “I think you can.”

You don’t say anything as you leave the café. Just nod goodbye and let the door close between you. But later, when you replay the afternoon in your mind, it lingers. The quiet between words. The fact that he didn’t ask to see the mark. That he didn’t flinch.

The fact that when you said your name, it felt like exhaling. You don’t expect to see him again so soon. Not really.

But you do.

Twice that week, by accident.

First, it's after an especially gruelling night shift. The sun's barely even peeking through the trees yet, and you're covered in miscellaneous bodily fluids and there's bags under your eyes that weigh you down. Outside the bodega near your building, where you planned on getting bread and bananas and off-brand electrolyte packets. He’s coming out with a six-pack of seltzer and one of those microwave dinners that scream I-don’t-trust-a-stove as you're coming in. You nod at each other, and, looking down at your scrubs and your state, he asks if you just got done. 

You nod. "Every Tuesday at 7 AM."

He asks how your shift went. You lie and say easy. He doesn’t call you on it.

The second time, you’re on a park bench halfway through a sandwich you don’t want, getting some much-needed air during your lunch break when a shadow falls across your lap. 

It’s him, in jeans and a threadbare henley, hair mussed like he slept wrong. It's oddly domestic. You resist the urge to tuck a stray strand behind his ear. “Didn’t take you for a turkey club kind of girl,” he says, like this is the kind of thing you’ve always talked about. You offer him half without thinking. He takes it.

It’s not every day. Not even often. But you start to spot him in places you never used to. On the corner outside the pharmacy. At the edge of the farmer’s market. Once in the hallway of the clinic where you pick up your medical license renewal. He doesn’t make it obvious. He doesn’t insert himself. But he’s there.

And slowly, without meaning to, you start looking for him.

There’s a night when the ER is chaos and the weather is worse and your body is vibrating with exhaustion. Your car's given out on you. You miss your bus. You consider calling an Uber, then don’t. You’re standing under the overhang by the staff entrance, shivering in your scrubs, scrolling your phone for nothing in particular, when headlights sweep across your shoes and stop.

A car idles. Familiar. Black. Out of place like a shadow with wheels.

You squint into the window, and of course, it’s him. “Stalking me?”

He straightens, just a little. “You said your shift ended at seven.”

“I did,” you say slowly, walking toward him. “Didn’t mean it was an invitation.”

His mouth twitches. “Consider it a standing offer.”

You glance at the car, then back at him. “You gonna tell me how you got a vehicle this inconspicuous, or is that classified?”

He opens the passenger door. “Perks of being an Avenger.”

You eye him. “Is this kidnapping?”

“If it is, it’s the most considerate kidnapping ever. I brought snacks.”

You get in.

It becomes a habit after that.

That’s the first ride.

It becomes a habit. Not a routine, exactly. That would suggest he comes at the same time, says the same thing, follows a pattern. He doesn’t. He’s unpredictable in the way thunderstorms are—sudden, insistent, quietly necessary. He’s just… there. Enough times that your coworkers start raising eyebrows. Enough times that you stop pretending it’s odd.

You don’t talk about the soulmark. Not directly.

But you talk about other things.

The price of gas. The merits of different hospital coffee. He tells you, offhandedly, that he used to hate mornings until he had to start facing them at 5 a.m. with a loaded weapon. You tell him you’ve delivered twins in a supply closet. Neither of you laughs, but the air warms between you.

One evening, he brings you tea instead of coffee. He says it’s because you looked like you hadn’t slept. You want to ask how he knew. You don’t.

You get used to the way his presence takes up space. Quietly. Without pushing. You start saving podcasts to share. You start to notice the way his metal hand rests against the gearshift like he’s forgotten it’s not flesh.

He learns your tells. Which sigh means you’re burned out and which means you’re hungry. He doesn’t always talk, but he listens better than most people speak.

And slowly—terrifyingly—you start to want him to be there.

.

Bucky never texts.

Not once.

He calls.

Always.

Even for the smallest things. A grocery question. A movie suggestion. A let-me-know-when-you’re-done. Sometimes you don’t pick up, and he doesn’t leave a voicemail. Just calls again an hour later like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

One day, you ask him why.

He’s driving, one hand on the wheel, the other—metal—resting on the gearshift like it belongs there.

“I don’t like waiting for a response,” he says, after a beat. “Feels like talking to a wall.”

You nod. “Makes sense.”

He glances at you, then adds, “Also, I can't type for shit. And autocorrect thinks I’m a lunatic. My PR manager thinks I'm a walking liability waiting to happen." You don't know what makes you snort first; the thought of him keyboard smashing his phone or the fact that he has a goddamn PR manager.

Then, the first time you see the arm up close, he’s asleep on your couch.

You’re supposed to be watching a movie. You don't even know who initiated, who invited who over. But something old and black-and-white is flickering on the screen, one of his picks. But somewhere around the twenty-minute mark, he dozed off. His hoodie’s bunched up at the elbow, metal catching the lamplight.

You don’t stare. Not really. But you don’t look away either.

It’s not the glossy, hyper-chrome finish you remember from the surveillance footage. Not the Soviet brutality of jagged red stars and burnished steel. This one’s different. Sleeker. Sleek but brutal. Matte black and dark silver, subtle gold veins etched faintly between the segmented plates—Wakandan tech, you realize. Lightweight. Adaptive. The sort of engineering that moves with a person, not against them.

It looks like something alive. Something that remembers things.

You wonder if he remembers it’s there. If it registers temperature. Pressure. Pain. If the nerves ghost in that space the same way yours do when your fingers go numb from fatigue. If it ever aches when it rains.

You don’t ask.

Not yet.

He stirs, eventually. Looks at you through half-lidded eyes. 

“Did I miss the plot twist?”

“You missed a wedding, a car crash, and three dramatic monologues.”

“Damn,” he mutters, stretching.  His hoodie pulls a little higher. You glimpse the sharp, seamless lines of the elbow joint. Compact. Clean. Not like a machine—like an exoskeleton. Like armor. You look away. “We can rewind.”

You shrug, smirking into your mug. “I don’t know. I’m kind of emotionally invested now. I might want you to suffer through the confusion with me.”

He huffs a quiet laugh, still half-asleep, eyes flicking toward the screen.

You don’t rewind.

You just sit there, the credits rolling, and listen to him breathe as he falls back to sleep. You start to wonder what it would be like to fall asleep with his hand on your side. With the mark between you, not unspoken, but accepted. Real. You start to feel it again—that pull. The one you used to ignore. The one you used to press down like a bruise that wouldn’t fade.

This is what soulmates are about, you think. What they’re meant to be.

Not the fireworks. Not the rush. Not the storybook symmetry or the neat little bow at the end. Not the lightning strike of recognition. It’s quieter than that. Slower. Messier. Built of hours and questions and the space someone leaves you to be tired, to be flawed, to be real.

You think maybe it’s this — the way he handed you your coffee earlier exactly the way you take it without ever having asked. The way he watches the road when you don’t want to talk and turns the music up just a little, like a soft wall between you and the world. The way he never reaches for your hand, but always lets his linger close enough that you could.

It’s the consistency. The patience. The terrifying kindness of being seen when you’re not trying to be. When your armor’s off, not because you dropped it, but because he never asked you to put it on in the first place.

There’s something in your chest that loosens when he’s near. Some old tension that stops buzzing like an alarm.

And maybe that’s what the mark is. Not fate, not prophecy, but permission. A tether, yes—but one you can pull at your own pace. One you can choose.

And every day you don’t walk away, you’re choosing him.

Even if neither of you has said it yet. Even if neither of you knows how.

“You ever get tired of people looking at you sideways?” you ask him once, on a late-night walk back from a diner you guys have started to frequent together. You’ve both got milkshakes in hand because Bucky insists they’re a cornerstone of civilization, and you’re learning not to argue when he gets weirdly nostalgic.

He takes a sip. Shrugs. “Used to.”

“And now?”

“Now I don’t care.” A pause. “It helps that you don’t.”

You look over. He’s not smiling, but he’s softer. Always is, around you. Less edge. Less shield.

“I used to,” you admit. “When I was younger. I thought it’d fade. The mark.”

He nods, like he’s heard that before. Like he understands more than you meant to say.

“It didn’t,” you add.

He glances at you, then at your side. Not lingering. Just a flicker.

“Good,” he says, so quietly you almost miss it.

You stop walking. “Why?”

He doesn’t look at you. Just finishes his drink. Crumples the cup in one hand.

“Because I’m still here,” he says, like it should be obvious.

And it is.

Somehow, it is.

He cooks, occasionally. Not well. But with effort. One night, he burns a grilled cheese so thoroughly the fire alarm goes off. You have to wave a towel at the smoke detector while he swears under his breath and throws the pan in the sink.

You’re still laughing when he sets two very sad sandwiches on the table and mutters, “Fine. Next time, we order.”

“There’s gonna be a next time?”

He gives you a look. “Unless I’m banned from your kitchen.”

You pick up half a sandwich. “You’re on probation.”

He watches you take a bite. Raises an eyebrow.

You chew. Swallow. “Tastes like regret and cheese.”

That gets a huff of laughter. He doesn’t laugh easily—not fully—but you’re learning the sounds he makes when he’s amused. The little exhales. The under-his-breath muttering. The half-smile he hides behind his hand.

You’re learning all of it.

And you’re starting to think he’s learning you too.

One night, he’s quiet.

Not in the usual way — not in the half-aware, hands-in-pockets, I’ve-seen-too-much kind of way you've learned he wears like a well-worn, favorite coat. This silence is heavier. Not a thing he’s hiding from you, but a thing he’s holding. Something sharp and delicate and dangerous, like broken glass wrapped in cloth. You don’t know what it is yet, but you feel it.

You’re curled up at opposite ends of the couch, legs almost touching, the ghost of his knee brushing yours whenever either of you shifts. The movie’s still playing, long-forgotten. It’s just noise now. A screen flickering in the background while your heart waits.

He inhales like it hurts. And then—

“Can I tell you something?”

His voice is quiet. Too quiet. And he’s not looking at you Blue eyes staring straight ahead at the TV, the little space between his brows wrinkled into something indecipherable.

You blink, slowly. “Yeah,” you say, just as softly. “Of course.”

That gets a breath out of him. Not a laugh. Not quite a sigh. Just something let loose. You watch him stare ahead, fixed on a point in the middle distance like it’s safer than you. Like your face is too much to hold right now.

“I used to hate it,” he says. “The mark.”

You don’t move.

You don’t breathe.

“I thought—” He rubs the heel of his hand over his sternum, just once, like something aches there. “I thought it was some kind of punishment. Like the universe picked me just to prove it could.”

Your heart twists.

He still won’t meet your eyes. But he’s speaking now, and it feels like something old and knotted finally starting to unravel.

“I didn’t know what it meant, not really. Not at first. Just this pain. A weight. And then the name came, and it didn’t mean anything. Just letters. A future that didn’t make sense.”

His hand tightens, flexes, then drops into his lap again. You watch the way his fingers curl, restless and bare.

“And then it did mean something. And it got worse.”

He swallows. Hard.

“Because I looked you up.” His voice dips, almost like he’s ashamed of it. “When I got the chance. I knew. Who you were. Where you were. For years. I didn’t—I didn’t do anything about it. But I knew.”

Something tightens in your chest. A coil. A knot. He looked for you. All those years, he searched and he reached and he wanted all the same. You want to reach for him, but you wait. You feel like if you breathe wrong, he might vanish.

“I kept thinking—if I left it alone, if I stayed away, maybe the universe would rethink it. Give you someone better. Someone cleaner. Someone safe.”

Finally, his gaze flickers to you. Brief. Bracing. The kind of look you imagine he’s given a thousand times in battle — checking to see if the person beside him is still alive.

“And I thought I could carry that,” he says. “I thought if I ignored it long enough, maybe it’d fade. That maybe you’d forget, or never know. And I could just—live around it.”

His laugh is bitter. Not sharp, exactly, but cracked around the edges.

“But it didn’t fade. You didn’t fade.”

You feel like you’ve stopped breathing entirely.

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, fingers knotted together. The mark under your ribs aches in quiet sympathy.

“You know what’s worse than feeling like you don’t deserve someone?” he asks, eyes fixed somewhere near your ankles. “Feeling like you do, for just one second. Like you could, if only you were different. If only everything hadn’t already happened.”

He sits back again. Slower this time. Exhausted.

Your chest is tight, full of static. Your eyes sting.

“I used to see your name and think, how cruel. That someone like you had to carry the weight of someone like me.” Bucky finally looks at you again, and there’s nothing distant about it. It’s searing. Devastating. “But then you showed up. That day at the library. And I—”

His voice falters.

He swallows again, blinking hard. “I’ve spent so long being looked at like I’m a weapon. Like I’m a ghost. But you looked at me like—” He stops, breath caught in his throat. “Like I was real. Like you’d known me. Like I wasn’t a mistake.”

You blink fast, because the alternative is crying.

“And I didn’t know what to do with that. I still don’t know what to do with that,” He exhales, a quiet tremor in his chest. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be the person who deserves this. Or you. Or the mark. But I want to be.”

He turns toward you fully now, and for the first time, he doesn’t look away.

“I want to try,” he says, softly. “If you’ll let me.”

You reach for his hand. Slowly. Carefully. Like it’s something sacred, and your fingers meet his.

You don’t say anything right away. There’s no need. His hand tightens around yours like an answer. Like a prayer. And under your ribs, where the mark lives, you feel it — not a tug, not a weight, but a warmth. Like the sun, breaking through after years of winter.

He doesn’t let go of your hand.

His fingers are rough in some places, calloused in others, warm where it counts. He holds you like he’s learning how. Like maybe the trick is not to grip too tight, but not to let go either. That sweet, aching middle ground. Like maybe you’re something breakable—but not fragile.

You’re not sure how long you sit like that. Just the two of you, suspended in this strange, soft liminal space between the past and whatever comes next.

The TV hums in the background. The couch dips where your knees almost touch. You swear you can hear his pulse—yours too—skipping every third beat, then rushing to make up for it.

He’s still watching you like he’s waiting for you to vanish.

You speak first. Barely a whisper. “I think I started loving you before I even knew what it meant.”

His eyes close, slow. As if the words are a balm. Or a blade. You’re not sure which.

“I used to feel you before I understood how,” you continue, voice steady now, stronger with each word. “Not in the mark. Not in the skin. But in the air. In the quiet. I’d be washing blood off my hands at three in the morning and think—I’m not alone. Not really.”

His throat moves with the effort of swallowing. He doesn’t speak. Not yet. You’re not done.

“I hated you for it too, for a while,” you admit. “For making me hope. For giving me something to lose before I ever had it.”

You shift, close the last few inches between you. He doesn’t flinch. Just watches, gaze dark and wide and impossibly open.

“I didn’t want this to be real. Because if it was, it meant I could break. That I had something to break for.”

He breathes out your name. Just once.

You touch his face. Thumb trailing the edge of his cheekbone, slow and deliberate. He leans into it like he’s forgotten what it means to be held. “I see you,” you whisper. “I see you. Not the headlines. Not the soldier. Not the mark. Just… you.”

And something inside him unravels. Not all at once. Not like a dam breaking. But like a thread pulled gently, deliberately, until what’s been bound up for too long begins to loosen.

“I love you,” he says, and it’s not polished. Not pretty. It’s real. Broken around the edges. Bare and breathless. “I love you, and it’s terrifying.”

You nod. Because you know.

He exhales. Then moves.

He kisses you like he means it. Like it’s the first and last time he’ll ever be allowed. His lips press to yours, slow at first, exploratory. Like he’s trying to memorize the shape of it. The feel. You breathe him in. Let your hand slip to the back of his neck, anchor him there.

He doesn’t rush.

His hands, warm and steady, skim your waist like he’s relearning what it means to touch without taking. To be given something instead of stealing it. He pulls you closer—not to possess, but to be sure you’re still there.

When he parts from you, it’s just for breath.

You lean your forehead against his. “We’ve already survived so much,” you whisper. “What’s one more impossible thing?”

His laugh is soft, unguarded. It shakes a little at the end.

You tilt your face, kiss him again—deeper this time. His response is immediate. Hands tightening, lips parting. You taste the urgency in him, the tremble beneath restraint. Your mouth moves against his like a promise. Like maybe this—you—was what the mark was always meant to lead to.

Not fate. Choice.

His metal hand brushes your hip, steady and impossibly gentle. He maps the curve of your ribs like he’s memorizing the lines of his own name. You press your palm to his chest, feel the echo of your name there too. Not carved in flesh, but in feeling. In ache. In the quiet places only the two of you have ever touched.

“Come here,” he murmurs, voice wrecked and low.

You’re already there.

Bucky kisses your neck. Your shoulder. The space just under your jaw. He doesn’t rush the way his hands roam—careful, reverent, like he’s turning pages of something sacred. You think your heart's going to burst or stop at any given moment, because there's no way he's real. 

When he pushes your shirt and your bra up over your head, your hands quickly move up to knot through his hair, anchoring them there until he's groaning and mumbling against your skin. He leans down, open mouthed kisses along the way until he finds what he's looking for, taking a pert nipple into his mouth and playing with the other with his metal hand. "Bucky, I—"

He doubles down, holding you closer against his core so he can feel you bucking against him, grinding uselessly against the rough fabric of his jeans so he can feel you pulse, head flooding your core. "Fuck, don't stop. Please don't stop, Bucky, I'm—" You sigh breathlessly when you look down and he's got your nipple between his teeth, gently tugging as he looks up at you with too innocent blue eyes. Like he's not pulling you apart.

"I won't stop, sweet girl," Bucky shakes his head, laughing softly like he can't believe it. "Don't even think I could, if I tried."

The rest of your clothes end up as a pile on the floor, and then it was just Bucky slowly undressing in front of you between your knees. It's enough to make you lose your breath, but his next words sends another sharp heat to pool between your legs.  "I'm gonna make you feel so good. You're so good to me, you—fuck, I'm gonna take my time with you. You gonna keep being good for me?"

"Yes, yes," You whispered, arms coming to wrap around him as he carries you to your bed, nails scratching lightly on the toned muscles of his back. "I'll be so good, I wanna feel good—just be with me."

He comes back to you, bare and ready and when you glance down, you can't help the gasp that escapes you. He's big. Bigger than you've ever had, thick and heavy and weeping at the tip. Gorgeous. Fuck, he's gorgeous. At the quiet sound, he pulls back a little bit, just enough to ask, with concern that's mixed with a little bit of amusement. "You okay, baby?"

Baby. Baby. The word rings in your ears, pushing another quiet, needy sound through your lips that Bucky's all too eager to swallow. But then suddenly, he stops and you have to resist the urge to whine. He presses a kiss against your skin, eyes searching yours. "Baby," Fuck, there's that word again. "I'm—I didn't bring anything with me. I don't wanna—"

You part your thighs without being told and the want in your voice is so clear, so evident. "Bucky, I'm clean. I'm on the pill, and I want you so bad, I need it. I need you inside me, want you to mark me, fill me until I'm overflowing with you."

He curses, looking at the way you're spread out underneath him. His hand reaches out to cup you where you're glistening and swollen and impossibly soft. "I can't say no to that, can I?"

"No," Your legs hook around him as he situates himself between your legs, your heart rate rising as he's so, so goddamn close, you can feel his body heat. "No, you can't."

When he finally sinks himself inside of you, you feel like you're being consumed. It's like your birthday and Christmas and the fucking Fourth of July, all in one, making you moan and swoon in a way that you know will have your neighbors sending a strongly worded complaint in the morning.

He's hard and fast and brutal, rocking against you while he sings praises into your hair, and you're wondering how you've ever been able to live without this. How you can't possibly live without this ever again, but then his hand, warm and on a mission, snakes its way beneath your stomach and pulls and pinches at your clit, and it sends you on another high.

Bucky groans. "Just what you needed, huh, baby?"

You nod, moaning out his name in reply.

One particularly hard thrust, after pulling almost all the way out and then rearranging you in a way that should be impossible, and you're falling apart on him as he fucks you through it. He loves you, he loves you, and he means every single word.

When he cums, it hits you like a train, still reeling from the aftershocks of your last orgasm when he groans and roars, putting his face to your throat and babbles—baby, sweet thing, the love of my life.

Afterwards, you just wanna lay in the mess with him, tangle yourself up with his legs and arms and get stuck there, but you're–the mess between your legs is sticky and quickly drying and the though of Bucky, soaking wet and dripping with water under the spray of your—

"Shower," you murmur. And Bucky nods against you, leaning down so he can wrap his arms around you and carry you down the hall to the bathroom.

It doesn't end there.

You ride his face under the shower. He's so good, on his knees like this was penance. For not being there for years, for not coming home to you sooner. His name rattles around your mouth and his tongue makes delicate, soft little shapes on your clit and nibbles against your thighs when you squeeze him just the right amount to make him a bit dizzy. A cool hand on your back, heat rushing in between your legs. His beard sending pinpricks up your spine as you curl your hips closer to his mouth.

Then—all at once, you on his tongue with a stuttered gasp, head spinning as he laves you with all sorts of praise. His other hand snakes up, circling and rubbing your clit like a man on a mission. "Oh god, oh god."

"Let me have all of it, sweetheart, baby, god. Let me taste you."

You do, of course, fucking of course, you let him. "My baby, taking everything ya want from me. I'll always give it to you. Christ."

When Bucky moves over your body, standing up to his full height, you're all too eager to taste him on your tongue. He's smiling lazily against your lips, like he's won a fight. It's sweet, it's a little sticky, it's—god, it's so fucking attractive, the way his lips and his stubble shine under the bathroom lights with your juices. "Say my name, Bucky, say it—"

He says your name, over and over and over and it's perfect. The water continues to spray above you, soaking both of you, but especially him as it dribbles down to the base of his cock. When he sinks into you, thick and heavy and ready until your shoulder blades knock against the cool tile, you both hold your breath until he's all the way inside, flush against your skin. 

There's his hands on your hips, a momentary pause, before his hips start snapping against yours. His dark hair, sopping wet and falling into his face, barely concealing the way he grits through his teeth. "Fuck."

You love him so much. You don't think you've ever felt a love so all-encompassing, a love that sets you on fire. You'd give him absolutely anything, everything he wants. Your words fail you, but it's the only thing you can think of as he continues to pound into you, up against that sweet, sweet spot that sends your vision spinning. In the haze of your mind, you can hear yourself moaning, begging—

Then you're falling apart again, cumming with a silent scream.

"There you go," Bucky groans and suddenly, you can feel it too, the way he fills you up, throbbing and pulsing inside of you. Until he was empty and you were full. "There you go. So good, baby. Been so good."

All at once, it all comes back to you.

The bathroom is fogged with steam, the mirror a blurred memory of your shapes, blurred edges, the safe hush of water hitting tile. He doesn’t speak when you finally wrench yourself apart from him, just to move behind him, doesn’t tense when your hands press against his shoulder blades to guide him just slightly aside—enough to step in beside him, under the spray. He shifts automatically, lets you in. Like it’s instinct now.

The water is hot, almost too hot, but he doesn’t flinch. He crowds you a little, warm chest to your back, arms curving around your middle like you’re something to protect. Or anchor to. Or both.

You feel the kiss of cold tile against your front, his breath low against your shoulder. It should be overwhelming. Should make you squirm. But instead, it feels inevitable. Like exhaling. Like gravity doing what it always does.

You lean back into him, and he lets you turn. No push. No pressure. Just a subtle retreat that gives you space. When your eyes find his in the low light, he’s already watching you, his gaze open in the way it only is now, after. After everything. After the storm and the silence and the choosing.

“Pass me the soap,” you murmur.

He obliges. Hands you something dark and nondescript, expensive-smelling and deliberately plain, like everything else he owns now. The scent hits as you squeeze a dollop into your palm—cedar, maybe. Bergamot. Clean, and quietly masculine. Like him.

He runs a hand through his hair, rinses under the stream, half turning away from you, blinking water from his lashes.

“Uh-uh,” you chide gently. “Get back here.”

His brow lifts, bemused, but he obeys. Always does, when it’s you. You rub your hands together to lather the soap, then step forward—closer than necessary. Not because you want to tease. Because you want to see.

You start at his sides, palms gliding slowly over his ribs, where old scars have long since faded into muscle. He sucks in a breath, low and sharp. Not from heat. From the contact.

Your fingers move across his stomach, up over the dip in his chest, across the swell of his shoulders. He stands perfectly still—except for the breath hitching in his throat, the twitch of his jaw. You press your body to his, full skin-to-skin, and feel his chest rise beneath your breasts, slow and tight.

He watches you like he’s never been touched like this before. Like the softness is the part that breaks him. Not the hunger. Not the fire. But the care.

You rise up on your toes, sliding your hands over the back of his neck, around the nape. One hand slips down between his fingers, rubbing suds over the back of his hand. His metal arm stays still at his side, but his flesh hand… it flexes beneath yours. Tightens around your fingers like something unbearable is unraveling in his chest.

That’s when you look up. That’s when you see it.

He looks wrecked. Not from what happened in bed. Not from anything physical. But from this—this ridiculous, tender act of washing him like he matters. Like you’re not asking anything in return. No demands. No debt.

Just love.

And he knows. You can see it—see the realization in his face as clear as sunlight on glass. He knows now, as fully as you do, what this is. What you’ve been. What you are.

You want to look away. Want to laugh it off, run, bite something smart and quick and false between your teeth just to fill the silence. You don’t.

He takes your wrist gently in his flesh one—fingers cradling the inside like it’s something delicate. Then, with his other, his metal thumb presses to your skin, slow and deliberate.

He traces a letter. Then another.

It’s not rushed. Not uncertain. The motion is familiar. Repeated. You've traced over his name countless of times, and the rough pad of his pointer finger goes through a path you've known for half your life.

Your throat tightens.

“You,” he says quietly, voice rough from emotion and steam and everything in between.

He takes your hand gently and takes it to his ribs, where your name's resided for the better part of his life. “And me.”

You stare down at the mark he’s making, not because it’s visible, but because it’s real. You can feel it there, etched into the space between heartbeats.

“You and me,” he murmurs again. “Always was gonna be.”

Then, still holding your wrist, he lifts your hand to his lips and kisses your knuckles. Softly. As if you were made of prayer.

There’s nothing else to say. No big revelation. No sudden orchestral swell.

Just this. Just the sound of the water, the warmth of his chest against yours, the slow unraveling of every wall you ever built around the part of yourself that's wanted to believe in love since you were thirteen, staring at your skin in awe.

Later, there will be groceries. Buses. Shifts at the hospital. He'll have to go back to being an Avenger. Other lives moving in parallel lanes around yours.

But right now, it’s this.

It’s weightlessness.

It’s your name, written in the soft fog of his breath. And his name, traced endlessly across your skin.

[suniix]

breaking news: woman is insane about that fictional character, even more so than yesterday

[suniix]

mourning the fic i wrote in my head at 2am cause i can’t remember it now 💔

[suniix]

what if i started writing for marvel? what then?

[suniix]

Sebastian Stan filmography

[suniix]

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

[suniix]

Wishlist

Pairing Bucky x Reader

Synopsis Spring in New York. A quiet love growing louder. One gift from the wishlist at a time. Featuring a soldier who’d fight the world to make you smile.

“Wishlist” by TXT (Tomorrow X Together) inspired

Word count 7k

Themes + Warnings slow burn , friends to lovers , fluff , avengers tower chaos , soft masculinity / vulnerability , everyday intimacy , wishlist as a metaphor for love , GRUMPY X SUNSHINE !!!! , Heavy pining / internal angst , soft!bucky (you’ll love it)

— Wishlist “Please tell me now! Time's up, give me your wishlist ” - TXT

M. list | Request (open) | stream ‘Wishlist’

Spring has finally started to settle into New York.

The city feels warmer, softer. Like it’s healing from something. Pink flower petals drift along the sidewalks. Vendors sell tulips from little carts. Couples sit on stoops with melting ice cream cones and matching smiles. It’s the kind of weather that makes people believe again.

And inside the Avengers compound, it’s doing something to you, too.

You hum when you walk. You leave your window open at night. You wear that sparkly lip gloss again — the one that glints like magic when you smile. Bucky notices every time.

He notices everything.

You’re out in the city with the team that afternoon — no mission, no briefing, just a group day off. Steve claims it’s for “team bonding.” Sam claims it’s because he caught Bucky almost growling at the coffee machine again. Either way, you’re all downtown, weaving through the streets in civilian clothes like it’s normal. Like you’re not the most recognizable team on the planet.

You keep stopping to take photos on your phone — old buildings, neon signs, pigeons fighting over a muffin.

“What do you even do with those?” Kate asks, sipping her iced latte.

“Nothing,” you shrug. “I just like remembering things. Little stuff.”

You snap a picture of a LEGO flower set in a toy store window. Your eyes light up.

Bucky lingers near the back of the group, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, watching. Not in a creepy way. Just like you’re something rare. Like he’s scared the wind will carry you off.

You don’t see the way Sam glances over at him. Or the smirk Steve’s fighting off.

Spring in New York is a love letter Bucky never expected to read again.

The wind is soft, the kind that tugs at coat hems and hair strands like a gentle tease. The streets are still loud, still fast, but the air smells like wet sidewalks and blooming lilacs. It’s the kind of weather that makes you believe in things again.

And he thinks — maybe that’s why you like it so much.

You’re sitting across from him at a table outside your favorite café multiple chairs pulled out for the rest who are off in line for more pastries. The one with the chipped pink chairs and floral tea cups that don’t match. You’re wearing lip gloss again — that shiny, sparkly one — and every time you laugh, he swears the light hits it just right to make you glow.

You’re talking about some movie you saw, animated, something about stars and soulmates and missed chances. You wave your hands while you talk, wide gestures like you’re trying to physically throw your love for it into the air.

“There’s this one line,” you say, sipping your lavender matcha, “where they say ‘people are like stars, they just need time to burn bright again.’ I don’t know, it just stuck with me.”

Bucky doesn’t say much. He’s never been great with words. But he watches. He listens.

Later that night, the compound is quieter. Dim lights. Everyone winding down.

You’ve long since retreated to your room — third floor, two doors down from his.

And Bucky’s sitting on the floor by his bed, cross-legged, the little notebook open in his lap. It’s not fancy. Just a black journal Peter gave him for Christmas with a note that said, “For your brain spaghetti.”

On a fresh page, he writes:

✦ likes stars / scared of bees, spiders, wasps

✦ hates tea too hot — “tastes like regret”

✦ wants that honey-vanilla-amber perfume — didn’t buy it, said “too indulgent”

✦ LEGO flower bouquet — “they don’t die. that’s sweet.”

✦ gold & silver earrings — expensive. keep an eye on that boutique.

✦ Sony CyberShot digital camera — black preferred. she’s been scammed. check eBay reviews.

✦ bracelet?? something personal. something hers.

✦ red star?

And, tucked in the margin:

✦ her voice softens when she says his name.

✦ he’s not sure he’ll survive hearing her say it in bedhead and morning breath.

Then, at the very bottom — written small, like it might disappear:

✦ you’re the best thing I’ve never been brave enough to ask for.

✦ I think I’m falling. No.

✦ I’ve already fallen.

The next morning the chaos is immediate.

Tony’s complaining about someone messing with the thermostat (“Why is it 72? Are we running a sauna??”), and Yelena is loudly trying to microwave four different types of Trader Joe’s frozen pasta in the common kitchen.

you find the first gift.

Wrapped in brown paper. Twine bow. Sitting neatly on your bed.

No tag. No note. Just… sitting there. Like it’s been waiting

But the second you unwrap it, the scent hits you — warm, honeyed vanilla with that soft amber undertone. that perfume. Warm honey, vanilla, a hint of amber. The one you stood outside the shop window staring at for two whole minutes last week. The one you said was “too pretty” and “too much” and walked away from like it hadn’t already lived in your mind for days.

You glance out into the hallway.

His door is open. He’s not there.

You touch the bottle like it might shatter. Like it might vanish if you admit how it makes you feel.

And there it is — You look around, heart ticking. Did someone hear you say that? Did someone remember?

Outside in the hallway, you spot Peter.

“Hey,” you ask, holding up the box. “This yours?”

He peers inside. “Oh no. That’s fancy. You’ve got a secret admirer.”

You roll your eyes, but when you walk downstairs, the teasing is already in full swing.

“Ooooh, mystery gift #1,” Kate sings, waggling her eyebrows.

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Natasha smirks, sipping her tea. “Bet it’s someone on the team.”

“Bet it’s the barista from that café near Bryant Park,” Yelena says. “She always gives you extra foam.”

You shake your head, laughing as you try to escape the room.

“Just admit you’re in your rom-com era!” Wanda calls after you.

That night, when the compound settles down, two people don’t sleep.

One of them is you — lying in bed, twisting the perfume bottle between your fingers, heart warm and unsure.

The other is Bucky — two floors up, sitting cross-legged in his room, face covered in a sheet mask you gave him as a joke (“good for stress lines, Buck”), laptop open in front of him.

Sam and Steve knock once and barge in anyway.

“Bro,” Sam deadpans, squinting. “Are you Googling digital cameras in a moisturizing mask?”

“And LEGO flowers,” Steve adds. “Don’t think we didn’t see that tab.”

Bucky doesn’t look up. “Shut up.”

“You’re so in love, it’s disgusting,” Sam mutters.

“Disgusting,” Steve agrees.

They flop on his bed like big brothers who definitely aren’t leaving anytime soon.

“You should just tell her,” Sam says after a beat.

“She’s not ready,” Bucky mutters.

“No, you’re not,” Steve says gently.

Bucky goes quiet.

He highlights a camera listing. Reads the reviews. Double-checks the seller location.

“She’s been scammed before,” he murmurs.

Steve and Sam exchange a glance — part pity, part this man is down BAD.

You wake up to birdsong.

And a note slipped under your door.

Not signed.

Just two words, scribbled in tight handwriting:

“For spring.”

You pick it up, press it to your chest, and wonder how long someone’s been watching you this closely. How long they’ve been loving you like this.

“How about romantic?

The feeling can’t be caught…”

— TXT, “Wishlist”

—

It starts with breakfast.

You walk into the compound kitchen with a dreamy little smile, still wearing your sleep shirt and fuzzy socks, hair wild from the night. Everyone’s half-awake, nursing mugs of coffee — Wanda curled up on the couch, Kate upside-down in a chair with a pastry on her stomach, and Tony flipping through some tech blueprint that might actually be a takeout menu.

“Morning,” you say brightly, heading to the fridge.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Peter mutters, buried in a bowl of cereal he clearly doesn’t want to share.

You glance at the couch, cheeks warm. “I just… someone left me perfume yesterday.”

A pause.

You hold it up — you’d brought it down to show Wanda — and the scent drifts sweet and warm into the room like a memory. “It’s the exact one I wanted. The exact one.”

“Damn,” Kate says, biting into a croissant. “Whoever it is? They listen.”

From behind you, Bucky yawns.

You glance back and—

He’s standing in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the frame, still in his sleep shirt, hair pushed back, expression… soft.

There’s no other word for it.

He looks warm and full and lit from the inside, like someone cracked his chest open and sunshine poured out.

You blink.

“Did you use that face mask I gave you?” you ask, stepping closer, chin tilted.

“No,” he says immediately. Too quickly.

“Liar,” Sam mutters behind his mug.

“He absolutely did,” Steve adds. “Twice.”

“We have photos,” Sam grins. “I added sparkles to one.”

Bucky groans, dragging a hand over his face. “I hate all of you.”

You catch the faintest pink in his cheeks. The kind of glow you don’t get from sheet masks.

You smile. “It looked good on you.”

His eyes flicker to yours.

“Thanks,” he says, voice just above a whisper.

And you wonder — not for the first time — what it would feel like to be the reason someone softens.

Peter looks up from his cereal like he just remembered something vital. “Wait. Did you check your laundry yet?”

You freeze mid-step.

“Why would I check my laundry, Parker?”

He shrugs, way too casual. “No reason.”

“You’re being weird.”

“I’m never weird.”

“You literally wore Crocs into battle last week.”

“It was a stealth op!”

“You wore banana yellow Crocs.”

Peter waves a hand. “You’re avoiding the topic.”

Your voice gets flatter. “What topic.”

“The topic of how you’re clearly someone’s favorite person in the known universe.”

You turn away just as your cheeks flush. The perfume still sits on your desk upstairs. You’ve reapplied it three times since waking up. You keep smelling your wrist like you’re trying to memorize what love feels like.

“Don’t know what you mean,” you mutter.

Peter snorts into his bowl. “Yeah, okay, denial. Got it.”

Later, after you do check your laundry and nearly collapse over a tiny black box containing earrings too beautiful to be real, the teasing intensifies.

Peter finds you again before movie night and dramatically gasps when he spots the hoops dangling from your ears.

“OHHH it’s you,” he hisses. “You’re the main character.”

You roll your eyes. “Shut up.”

“No, no. You don’t understand. You’re in a cinematic universe of longing and secret gift drops. This is bigger than Endgame.”

“Peter.”

“There are probably sparkles following you when you walk. I swear I saw slow motion just now.”

“Goodbye.”

—

The team is sprawled across the common room couch and floor cushions when Tony walks in mid-movie.

“Alright, who finished my La Croix and left the can on top of the fridge like some sort of raccoon—”

He pauses mid-rant, eyes catching on your earrings.

“Huh,” he says, stepping closer. “These are… nice.”

“Thanks?” you blink.

“No, seriously. Good metal. Hand-hammered work, maybe local. Possibly vintage.” He squints. “Who’s your dealer?”

You open your mouth. Close it.

Peter doesn’t help.

“Mystery gifter,” he stage-whispers.

Tony pauses. Raises an eyebrow. Looks at you. Then —

He looks directly at Bucky, who is sitting stiffly in the corner of the couch pretending to be very invested in the movie credits.

Tony’s eyes narrow. His head tilts. The pieces click.

“Interesting,” he says slowly, like he’s discovered a secret engine blueprint.

But — to his credit — he doesn’t say anything else. Just pats you on the shoulder and walks away humming.

Bucky exhales only after the door slides shut.

After movie night ends, the chaos begins again.

You escape upstairs with Wanda and Kate, trying to downplay your smile the whole time. (Failing, for the record.)

Meanwhile, in Bucky’s room:

“Soooo,” Sam says, flopping backwards onto the bed, “jewelry now?”

“It’s not—”

“Yeah,” Steve cuts in, “because hand-selected artisan earrings placed on top of her laundry is totally something a stranger would do.”

Bucky groans and rubs his face.

“How do you even know she liked them?” Sam presses.

“She wore them,” Bucky mutters.

That’s all it takes.

Steve and Sam exchange twin looks of ohhh, he’s in it deep.

Then Nat leans into the doorway like she’s been waiting for her cue.

“So. Jewelry,” she deadpans, arms crossed.

“Not you too.”

“Come on, Barnes. You’re glowing.”

“I’m not glowing.”

“You literally are glowing. That’s a dewy finish.”

Sam snorts. “We told him. Sheet masks change lives.”

“Sam.”

“Bro. You spent twenty minutes tying that bow.”

“…shut up.”

Bucky sighs and sinks deeper into his hoodie.

“You’re all unbearable.”

“You’re the one playing secret admirer,” Nat teases. “At this point, you might as well start leaving riddles and roses.”

Steve laughs. “Oh god. Don’t give him ideas.”

Much later, after the teasing fades and the others clear out, Bucky is alone with his thoughts and the blue notebook in his lap.

He opens it, flips past the page with your tea preferences and your fear of bees, and adds:

✦ Earrings. Looked at them like they were magic. Like they made her feel known.

Then, underneath it:

✦ She asked about the mask again. Said it looked good.

✦ wears the gifts like armor. like hope.

✦ I think it’s just her. She makes everything look better.

✦ looks so happy in them. I’d do it all over again.

And on your end — when the compound is quiet and the lights are low — you sit cross-legged on your bed and stare down at the earrings in your hands.

You don’t say anything. Don’t need to.

But your heart is a little louder tonight. Beating with the rhythm of something growing.

And maybe, just maybe, you’re starting to wonder what it would feel like if the gifts stopped being anonymous.

What it would feel like if the next one wasn’t a surprise.

But a confession.

“A cellphone filled with a wishlist…”

— TXT, Wishlist

—

You wake to birdsong and golden light filtering through the curtain slats.

It’s a peaceful morning — until you notice it.

Something on your windowsill.

You blink blearily, shuffle closer, and see a box. Pink paper. Slightly messy tape job. But the bow is soft, tied by hand.

Your heart skips.

You open it slowly. Inside: a LEGO flower bouquet.

You gasp — an actual, full bouquet of tiny LEGO flowers. Sunflowers. Roses. Poppies. Snapdragons.

Flowers that don’t die.

And then you see the note, folded underneath the stems. No name.

Just:

For your spring.

(with a tiny red star drawn next to it.)

You sit down hard on the edge of your bed.

Your fingers hover over the bouquet. Your lips tug into a smile so soft it makes your own chest ache.

He remembered.

Two weeks ago – Downtown Brooklyn

The sidewalk buzzed with warm spring life. Outdoor cafés. Bikers whizzing past. You, Bucky, and the others meandering through after grabbing pastries. You stopped in front of a toy shop window.

Inside: a LEGO flower bouquet display.

“Oh my god,” you whispered, hand pressed to the glass. “Look at these!”

“They’re plastic flowers,” Bucky had said, puzzled but curious.

“Exactly. They don’t die. And they’re beautiful.”

You looked back over your shoulder, smiling.

“Permanent hope,” you added quietly.

He had barely blinked at the words. You didn’t notice the way he looked at you afterward. Not then.

But now?

You’re holding the proof that he did.

You FaceTime Peter.

“What.”

“He left me LEGO flowers.”

“Oh my GOD.”

“And a note!”

“Was it a poem?!”

“No, but it said ‘For your spring’ and it had a red star!”

Peter literally puts a pillow over his face and screams into it.

“Parker.”

“HE’S FLIRTING IN SYMBOLISM.”

“It’s not flirting.”

“It’s a declaration of seasonal affection. It’s romantic. It’s war.”

“You are so dramatic—”

“You’re wearing soft pink pajamas and holding hand-built plastic flowers like they’re treasure—you’re dramatic.”

You can’t stop smiling. You bury your face into your hands.

Peter’s voice softens through the phone.

“…you like him, huh?”

“I don’t know,” you whisper. “But I think I’m starting to realize I’ve liked him for a while.”

Downstairs, Bucky is nursing a mug of coffee like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. His hoodie’s rumpled. His hair’s still damp. He hasn’t slept.

Because he spent three hours the night before building that bouquet with his metal hand — slowly, carefully, making sure none of the pieces were crooked. Then taping the box shut with shivering fingers and signing it with the tiniest, stupidest star.

He keeps replaying it all in his head like it’s a mission gone wrong.

“You look like you murdered someone,” Sam says, sliding into the seat across from him.

“I left a note.”

“You what.”

“She’s gonna know.”

“You signed it?”

“…with a star.”

Sam slaps the table.

“HE SIGNED IT WITH A STAR, STEVE.”

Steve walks in holding his protein shake like a weary parent.

“It’s fine. You’re doing fine.”

“I’m losing my mind.”

“You’ve already lost it.”

“It was supposed to be anonymous!”

“You built her LEGO flowers.”

“So?”

“So,” Nat says, appearing from literally nowhere like a shadow with good cheekbones, “you are so screwed.”

Bucky groans into his hands.

“I hate all of you.”

“Not as much as you love her,” Sam mutters with a grin.

That afternoon, you find a quiet moment to sneak away — rooftop, warm breeze, the LEGO bouquet in your hands.

You sit on the edge, legs dangling, camera in your lap, bouquet beside you. The city stretches wide beneath your feet. Spring in full bloom. A little golden, a little messy.

Just like the person you suspect built this bouquet for you.

You pull out your film camera — the one Bucky helped you fix last month when you jammed the shutter. You snap a photo of the bouquet with the skyline in the background. Then one of your hand holding a tiny flower piece.

You don’t even realize he’s watching.

From one level below — balcony shadows — Bucky watches you from a sliver in the curtains. You, sitting in the sun, smiling at something he gave you. The wind catching your hair.

And for a moment, he doesn’t feel like a weapon.

He feels like someone who could give joy.

Someone who does.

That night, he almost throws out the notebook.

Almost rips the “for your spring” page out and burns it in the sink.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he writes underneath it.

She smiled.

She sat with them for a whole hour.

She called them “hope.”

She’s never looked more like spring than she does now.

Later, as you head back to your room, Nat passes you in the hall and raises an eyebrow at the bouquet in your hands.

“Secret admirer still going hard?”

You smile. “Looks like it.”

“Mmm. You know, when Barnes was Hydra’s weapon, he never did romantic flower drops.”

You blink.

“…what?”

“Nothing,” she says, walking off. “Enjoy your LEGO love story.”

And maybe, as you fall asleep that night — the bouquet on your nightstand, note tucked in your pillowcase — you whisper into the dark:

“If it’s you… I think I already knew.”

“How about romantic? (Yeah)

The feeling can’t be caught (What’s the best present?)”

— TXT, Wishlist

—

It’s a rare quiet morning at the compound.

You shuffle into the common room, tea in hand, eyes still sleepy, hoodie halfway zipped. The sun is spilling across the hardwood floors like honey. May in New York has that soft buzz of warmth—the kind that makes you believe good things are waiting.

You almost don’t notice it at first.

Just a small matte black box on the couch. Unassuming. A soft breeze from the balcony flutters the Post-It on top.

Your name. Written in a slanted, unmistakably careful script.

Your heart skips.

You set the mug down slowly and kneel on the couch. You unwrap the box with almost trembling fingers.

Inside:

A Sony Cybershot DSC. Matte black. Brand new.

You gasp.

“No way—”

You blink down at it, barely breathing. Your throat is already getting tight. You know this model. It’s the model. The one you told Peter about. The one you tried to win off an auction site. The one you swore off because it kept getting stolen out of your shopping cart or from sketchy sellers.

And now it’s here. In your hands. Fully yours.

You power it on with shaking hands. The screen blinks awake.

Gallery: 10 photos.

You hesitate. Click in.

Photo 1: A side profile of you — nose scrunched, talking animatedly. Must’ve been dinner at the compound.

Photo 2: You and Peter, sitting on the balcony with empty bubble tea cups and a shared bag of chips, sun blazing behind you. You’re laughing, hair messy. It’s candid. The kind of shot you didn’t know anyone could capture so perfectly. The light makes you look soft. Like someone’s muse.

Photo 3: A book on your windowsill. Your annotated copy of The Secret History next to your favorite mug. A quiet detail only someone paying attention would know.

Photo 4: Your shadow and his. Leaning together on the balcony during sunset. You didn’t know he was there.

Photo 5: The LEGO bouquet—framed like fine art. On your shelf. On your shelf. Taken before you ever found it.

You feel your chest clench. Your fingers tighten on the camera. You sniff once, barely holding it back.

Photo 6: You asleep in the rec room. Hoodie half-off your shoulder. Your lips parted. A blanket tucked gently over you. Not yours.

Photo 7: A shot of your reflection in the café window. Your gaze distant. Your hand cupping your cheek. You look like a dream. His dream.

Photo 8: You again. Reading. A pencil tucked behind your ear. You’re chewing your lip in thought.

Photo 9: A close-up of your hands lacing Peter’s sneakers into a triple knot. He’s mid-whine. You’re grinning.

Photo 10: The note he left. The tiny “Your name” written in all caps. Sitting next to the camera box. The present before the reveal.

“Holy shit,” you whisper. “He’s in love with me.”

Then you scream.

A real scream.

Out of nowhere. Just emotion and surprise and disbelief colliding in your chest and bursting out of your lungs.

And exactly 1.2 seconds later—

CRASH.

“GET DOWN—!”

Webbing flies. A taser baton nearly clips your bookshelf.

Yelena and Peter burst in from opposite doors—combat mode activated, full chaos.

“WHO’S ATTACKING—?!”

“DID YOU TRIP THE SECURITY—?!”

“ARE YOU POSSESSED?!”

You’re still on the floor, gripping the camera like a lifeline, face damp with fresh, stunned tears.

“Oh my god,” you wheeze. “I’m fine!”

Peter looks around wildly. “You screamed!”

“It was a happy scream!”

Yelena’s brow furrows. “What the hell is a happy scream?!”

“Look!” you cry, holding up the camera. “He got it for me! He—he remembered!”

Peter walks closer and sees the display. His brows lift. “Whoa…”

Yelena peers over his shoulder.

“These are all photos of you.”

“You guys, they’re like—beautiful. Like… heartbreakingly beautiful.”

“Okay, now I believe he’s in love with you,” Peter adds. “This one literally looks like an indie movie poster.”

You sniff again, laugh-shaking. “I think I’m gonna die.”

Yelena: “You better not. I have money on when he confesses.”

Peter: “Wait, I do too.”

You glare through watery eyes. “How many of you are betting on my love life?”

Peter: “Everyone except Bruce and Thor. They’re too scared to jinx it.”

Meanwhile…

Across the World – Mid-Mission

Gunfire echoes in an abandoned warehouse.

Bucky, Sam, Steve, and Natasha are mid-fight. Punches flying. Adrenaline high.

And suddenly—

And Steve yells over the comms:

“Hey Bucky?”

“What?!”

“Y/N got the camera!”

“—What?!”

Sam, dodging a blast: “She screamed so loud Peter and Yelena kicked in a door.”

“She screamed?! Is she okay?!”

Nat, voice smug over the line: “She cried.”

Bucky freezes for half a second. A beat too long.

“Was it—was it a bad cry or a good cry—?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Nat says, “it was a ‘he’s the love of my life’ kind of cry.”

Sam: “You are so done, man.”

Steve: “She’s gonna kiss you into next week.”

Bucky hides his face behind his metal hand.

“I’m gonna throw myself into the Atlantic.”

Steve’s already grinning. “Peter said she screamed. Yelena thought she was under attack.”

“Is she okay?!”

Sam: “Oh, she’s great. Peter said she’s crying and smiling like she’s in a drama.”

Bucky ducks behind a crate and groans, face in his hands.

“She saw the photos?”

Nat: “All of them.”

Steve: “You took ten, man. That’s not ‘casual.’ That’s ‘wedding montage.’”

Sam: “You put in one of her asleep?! Bro. You’re gone.”

“I’m not gone,” Bucky mutters.

Nat: “You named the file folder ‘For Her Eyes Only.’”

“Okay, maybe I’m a little gone.”

Steve, grinning, lands a knockout punch. “She’s gonna kiss you so hard you forget your name.”

Bucky: “I’m never showing my face again.”

Sam: “Jokes on you—we got the whole thing on camera.”

Steve: “And guess what? When you get back—bracelet time.”

“Oh god.”

Nat: “You’re doing great, sweetheart.”

Later that night, Bucky stares out the Quinjet window as New York lights come back into view.

In his jacket pocket is the charm bracelet. With the red star.

He’s one gift away.

One breath from finally saying it.

From finally being the sixth wish.

Bucky had pulled out his notebook and add:

Camera went well. She smiled. She cried. I didn’t die from it. Progress.

She deserves better than my silence.

But god, she’s beautiful. I want to be the person who sees her like that every day.

And you—back at the Compound—are curled in bed with a camera against your chest, smiling like you already know.

“A cellphone filled with a wishlist…”

“Please tell me your secret.”

— TXT, Wishlist

—

You hear the front doors of the compound open late that night. It’s almost midnight.

Bucky’s back.

And somehow… you don’t go to him. Not yet. You’re still trying to stop the trembling in your hands from the gift he hasn’t given you.

Because the camera? The LEGO flowers? The perfume? The earrings?

Each one made your heart flutter.

But the bracelet?

The little box that you found on your bed after you returned from a late training session — simple and velvet, tied with a red ribbon — that one left you breathless.

You open it again.

The bracelet is delicate and silver, lightweight on your wrist. Five small charms already dangle on it — each one unmistakably chosen by him:

A tiny LEGO flower.

A glinting gold hoop earring.

A miniscule Sony camera.

A teacup — with steam etched into the metal.

And a bright red star.

He is the sixth wish. And he gave you the star from his heart before he gave you himself.

You press the heel of your hand to your chest and exhale shakily. You almost miss the thin piece of paper beneath the satin lining. A note. Folded three times.

It’s his handwriting.

Y/N,

I don’t know if you’ll understand how long I’ve been working on this. Not the bracelet.

Not the camera.

But this —

Remembering the small things. Noticing the details. It’s the only way I’ve known how to say:

You matter to me.

You’ve always mattered.

I’ve spent more of my life losing people than learning them. But you… you made me want to learn again.

I don’t have the words yet. But maybe these will help.

— Bucky

Tears slip down your cheeks before you can stop them.

You don’t sob.

You don’t scream.

You just… sit in the quiet, overwhelmed, your heart trying to make space for a love that’s been there all along.

And then you see the notebook.

It’s half-tucked under the edge of your bed. A black journal with frayed corners. You know this cover.

This is Bucky’s.

He never leaves it out.

You hesitate, fingers trembling, then slowly open it to the first page.

Page One:

Y/N’s List — Important Things to Remember

• Hates tea too hot. Says it tastes like “regret.”

• Loves cherry lip gloss. Will fight Sam over the last one.

• Once said “I like stars because they remind me to breathe.”

• Scared of bees but will run straight into a fight with a HYDRA tank???

• Favorite matcha: the kind with oat milk, vanilla, and an extra scoop.

• Once fell asleep reading her book to the plants on the balcony.

• Asked Peter if ghosts can feel lonely.

• Laughed so hard once, she snorted tea out her nose. I haven’t stopped thinking about that sound.

You flip to a later page.

Page Thirteen:

*She was talking about earrings. Gold and silver mixed ones. Said they reminded her of sunlight and moonlight.

I’ve never seen someone so in love with things that sparkle. I hope she never finds out that nothing glows the way she does when she talks about things she loves.*

Another page.

Page Twenty-Two:

*I don’t know how to say it.

But I would give anything — anything — to be the reason she smiles after a long day.

I want to be her camera. Her flower bouquet. Her favorite song.

But mostly, I just want to be the thing she doesn’t give back.*

And there, tucked at the back of the notebook—

Final Entry:

*Red star. For the sixth wish.

She doesn’t know it yet.

But it’s me.*

BUCKY.

The moment the gift is dropped off, he panics.

He’s back in his room freshly showered, pacing, heart pounding like he’s under fire. His hands are shaking — not from fear, but from something far more dangerous.

Hope.

What the hell did he just do?

He gave her the bracelet.

The bracelet.

The final gift before he either loses his mind or tells her the truth.

He didn’t even stay to watch her open it. Coward.

But what if she hates it? What if it’s too much?

What if—

What if she doesn’t want me?

The thought guts him.

Bucky stares at the desk in his room — the wrapping paper scraps, the ink-stained fingers, the red ribbon he accidentally got tangled around his wrist earlier like some goddamn poetic joke.

He glances at his laptop, still open to the jewelry store’s confirmation page. A hundred tabs open. His Amazon cart is basically a shrine to her at this point. His notes are scattered like breadcrumbs.

And that journal — he left it in her room. He left the fucking journal.

He slams his hand on the desk, breath coming fast.

She’s going to read it.

She’s going to know.

She’s going to know everything.

And it’s not like a mission, where he knows what to do when the danger starts.

No.

This? This is scarier.

Because he doesn’t have a plan for heartbreak.

Because he’s in love with you.

He has been for months. Maybe longer. And he doesn’t even remember when it started — just that it never really ended. It grew quiet and steady. Like spring.

He learned the way you take your tea.

The lip gloss that leaves shimmer behind when you smile.

The look in your eyes when you talk about constellations and ghosts like they’re just neighbors.

How you make the compound feel like home just by walking into a room.

And now he might’ve ruined it. Over a bracelet.

Over a goddamn red star.

YOU.

You’re already on your feet before your brain catches up.

The notebook still in your hand. The bracelet clinks on your wrist with every step. The journal clutched in your hands.

You don’t think. You just go.

It’s late, the halls dim, but you don’t care.

You walk, no — run — toward the hallway. Past the common room. Past Peter and Yelena, who do a double take and high-five behind you.

When you see the soft kitchen light and the shadow moving inside, your heart leaps.

And there — in the kitchen — you find him.

You whisper, “Bucky?” and it’s not a question. It’s a confirmation. He’s here.

Bucky Barnes.

He turns at the sound of your voice.

He freezes.

Your eyes are glassy with tears — but you’re smiling. Glowing. And you’re wearing that damn lip gloss again, the one that catches the light when you laugh.

He barely hears himself whisper, “Shit,” before you crash into him like a comet of joy.

His hands catch you instinctively, arms around your waist as you bury your face in his shoulder. The journal thuds softly to the floor between you.

“Wait, wait—” he tries, but you’re already cupping his face, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye.

Hair still damp from a shower. Hoodie half-zipped. Barefoot. Soft. Startled when you crash into him.

“Whoa—Y/N?”

You’re crying. Laughing. Clutching his journal to your chest.

He looks like he’s about to pass out.

You don’t even give him a chance to speak.

You take his face in your hands. Tilt your forehead to his. Your voice barely a whisper:

“I found the star.”

He swears the earth tilts.

“What?”

You nod. “The sixth wish. It was you.”

Bucky swallows hard, blinking rapidly. “I was gonna… I had this whole—”

His voice breaks.

You kiss him.

It’s warm and unhurried. A promise, not a question. You taste like tears and flavored lip gloss — like honey.

And he’s gone.

He’s absolutely ruined now.

Because no serum, no war, no past life, has ever made him feel like this.

You pull back just a breath and whisper:

“I might as well confess… I like you.”

His whole face crumbles. Relief. Joy. Love.

He exhales like he hasn’t in months. Years, maybe.

His forehead rests against yours. He closes his eyes.

“Fuck,” he mutters, shaking his head. “You’re serious?”

You nod.

“I thought—” he laughs, but it cracks in the middle. “I thought I messed everything up.”

You shake your head quickly. “No. Bucky, this—this was everything. Every gift. Every note. That bracelet—”

“Has a red star,” he says quietly, like he’s giving you the truth for the first time. “Because you’re the only thing I ever really wanted to protect. The one thing I never wanted to lose.”

He says your name like it’s the first time he’s allowed to breathe it.

And then he kisses you again. And again.

The sixth wish.

Is him.

It’s always been him.

And now… you get to keep him.

FROM A DISTANCE…

Peter and Yelena peek into the kitchen from around the corner.

Peter whispers, “Do we… tell Sam?”

Yelena grins. “Oh, Sam already owes me fifty bucks.”

MEANWHILE…

Mission comms channel – earlier that night:

Sam: “Okay, so camera drop — successful?”

Nat: “Yeah, but he looked like he was gonna bolt to Wakanda.”

Steve: “Honestly, if she doesn’t kiss him tonight, I will.”

Sam: “Cap—”

Steve: “I’m just saying. Man’s been in love like it’s a classified operation.”

Nat: “Operation: Simp Soldier.”

Bucky (grumbling): “I can hear you.”

Steve: “And?”

Sam: “We hope you hear us.”

Nat: “By the way, you owe us a mission update and emotional clarity when you get home.”

Bucky: “I’m hanging up.”

Steve: “No, you’re not. We’re invested.”

Back in the compound, Bucky finally speaks, still holding you.

“I read once that the best kind of gift is something you never expected to want but suddenly can’t live without.”

You tilt your head, curious.

He lifts your hand, presses a kiss to the bracelet.

“That’s what you are. To me.”

You lean into him. “You should’ve just told me.”

He smirks faintly. “I was trying. With… flowers and jewelry and… LEGO bricks.”

You laugh — bright and startled.

And he kisses you again. Because now, he finally can.

“Please tell me now, Time's up, give me your wishlist ”

— TXT, Wishlist

—

Bucky Barnes has survived wars, brainwashing, and decades of solitude.

But none of it compared to the sheer hurricane that hit the Avengers Compound the morning after you kissed him.

You and Bucky are curled up on the kitchen couch, your legs over his lap, still in sleep clothes. He’s half-asleep with his arm around your waist, and you’ve got the charm bracelet glinting on your wrist as you sip your tea (not too hot, obviously).

Your head is resting on his shoulder. You haven’t stopped smiling since last night.

Then—

SLAM.

The kitchen door bursts open.

“WE TOLD YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!”

Sam, Steve, Peter, Nat, Yelena, all in full-blown chaos mode, cheering like you just won the Super Bowl.

Bucky literally flinches like he’s under attack.

“Why—why are you all awake right now?” he groans into your shoulder.

“Because we knew this was gonna happen!” Peter shouts. “I knew it! I said it! Sam said it. Natasha knew before anyone—”

“I told you he was pining,” Nat says smugly. “Called it six months ago.”

“I said three,” Sam argues.

“You said three because you wanted to win the pool,” Yelena smirks. “Speaking of—Tony? Pay up.”

Tony strolls in, coffee in hand, Pepper behind him. He glances at Bucky, who is flushed, lips bitten pink from where you kissed him thirty seconds ago.

“You cry yet, Barnes?” Tony asks with a smirk. “Fifty bucks says you’re the first to tear up.”

“He already did last night,” Steve says casually, eating a protein bar. “I was on the comms. There was sniffing.”

“I was not crying,” Bucky mutters, clearly lying.

Pepper leans against the counter, arms crossed. “This is what I wake up to?”

“This is what we’ve all been waking up to for the past year,” Wanda chimes in from the hallway. “This painfully slow descent into domestic longing.”

—

You pull out your little black digital camera — the one Bucky got you — and before he can protest, you snap a photo of the two of you right there.

“Wait—did I look okay?” he asks instantly.

You flip the screen toward him.

And he goes silent.

It’s… perfect. You’re both a little messy, sleepy, wrapped in morning light — and love.

You grin and say, “Lockscreen-worthy?”

He just nods, heart visibly softening.

You make it your lockscreen right there. And he literally melts.

That afternoon, after the chaos dies down (barely), you and Bucky sit on the floor of your shared living space at the compound with the LEGO bouquet spread out between you.

It’s quiet now. Just the two of you.

“You’re serious about this?” Bucky asks, turning the instruction booklet sideways.

“Dead serious,” you whisper, nudging his knee.

It’s slow and beautiful, both of you focused and laughing as you build. He fumbles the small pieces. You steal the yellow rose and claim it’s “your flower.”

And when it’s finally done, he sits back on his heels.

“I like the idea,” he murmurs. “Flowers that never die.”

You smile. “Like this feeling.”

You pull out your shared notebook — the one you once wrote your wishlist in.

Bucky taps his pen against the blank page.

You start writing in your messy, lovely scrawl:

“Things We Want To Do Together (Now That We Know)”

Bucky’s additions:

Go to that bookstore in the Village she always talks about

Make her favorite brownies from scratch

Stargaze on the roof without telling the others

Surprise trip to Coney Island

Let her kiss me every morning, just because

Write our own story

You add:

Keep wearing the earrings, perfume, bracelet

Let him keep taking pictures of me

Take pictures of him too

Let him hold my hand in front of everyone

Be the safe place he never had

Say “I love you” when I’m ready

Hear it from him first

You glance up at him.

He meets your eyes.

—

“You know,” Bucky says, his voice soft, fingers brushing your jaw, “that lip gloss you always wear? The sparkly one?”

You nod, surprised.

“I didn’t know it was flavored until you kissed me,” he admits, flushing. “Honey.”

You blink.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It’s—you. Sweet and bright and familiar. And now when I smell honey, it’s you. When I taste it, it’s you.”

You don’t speak. You just lean forward and kiss him again.

This time it’s slow. Long. Perfect.

Later that night…

Peter corners Bucky by the fridge.

“Okay, listen, I’m cool with it. You’re cool. She’s cool. It’s cool.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Thanks?”

“But if you hurt her—like even accidentally—I will get May to give me permission to emotionally destroy you.”

Bucky smirks. “You’d have to get through Yelena and Natasha first.”

Peter thinks. “Okay fair, but I’d still try.”

Bucky claps him on the shoulder. “Noted.”

—

You crawl into bed beside him that night — soft sheets, his arm already reaching for you. Your charm bracelet jingles faintly as you settle in. The earrings glimmer in the moonlight.

“Hey,” you whisper, voice against his collarbone.

“Yeah?”

You lift your head to look him in the eyes.

“I love you.”

He doesn’t hesitate.

“I love you, too.”

And outside the door?

Tony hands Yelena another fifty.

Sam high-fives Peter.

Nat records Bucky’s second happy cry of the week.

Steve just smiles.

Mission complete.

“A jewelry box with a star called you,

My heart overflows again…

I might as well confess… I like you.”

— Wishlist, Tomorrow X Together

(You’ve got mail!) WHAT DO YALL KNOW ABOUT THIS SONGGYGY. THIS IS MY SONG LIKE MY SONGGG MY SONG MY SONGGG. LIKE OUUUHHH THIS SONG HAS ME IN SUCH FEEELLLLSSSSSS. I’ve written tm angst Bucky and I feel like we need some happy slice of life soft solider James Buchanan Bucky Barnes. God that one txt oneshot popped off now here I am with my new improve TXT x Bucky Barnes branded one shots!!! YUP I LOVE THIS. I was geeking and gawking so badly when I was making this you don’t understand lmfaoooo.

Tag List (For Mr. James Buchanan Barnes is open!)

@bbsbrina @herejustforbuckybarnes @barnesandbouquets @winchestert101 @theycallmeanxiety @lovinqbella @starstruckfirecat

[suniix]

˚₊‧꒰ა GIRL'S NIGHT OUT ! — bucky barnes

𝓈𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎. you go out for a girls night with yelena and ava, drink more than you can handle, and remember how much love you have in your life.

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓈. f!reader, avenger!reader, takes place between thunderbolts and post credit scene, new avengers, found family, tower fic adjacent let’s goooo, established relationship, references to depression, reader is the same age as yelena, very light moments of angst but mostly fluff, pet names (baby, sweetheart), alcohol, non-descriptive scene of vomiting, drunk!reader who is kind of a lightweight lol, bucky (+ the others hehe) take care of her, honestly idk what this is it’s kind of silly goofy — 8.3k words

𝓌𝒾𝓉𝒽 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒. making my official comeback to the mcu after a few years, i am a bit rusty pls be nice to me <3 reader is based off my self-insert/oc, who was taken in by tony when she was a teenager and he’s like her older brother. so there are mentions of that, as well as being in the og avengers. also references to her having powers but feel free to imagine them as whatever you want :) also thank u to my lovely aimsies for reading over it for me mwah!! <33

You blinked down at your glass, feeling your vision already beginning to go in and out of focus, a camera trying to capture a moving image. But the longer you stared down at the alcohol, the more uncertain you became that the liquid was actually sloshing around the rim — the ice seemed rather stagnant. 

Perhaps it was just your head that spun.

You weren’t sure how you’d already drank enough to feel so disoriented. It was still early in the night. Moonbeams filtered through the few windows, but they were fresh, luminescent balls of light that had only just arrived. 

The club, wherever it was that Yelena had chosen to take the three of you, was obnoxiously loud, a heavy rhythm playing over the speakers. Although you’d never really minded the way music drowned out your own thoughts, the flashing, hazy lights made it difficult to focus on anything at all. 

A hand curled around your bicep, dragging your attention away from the drink below you, back towards the face of your friend. 

“Come on,” Yelena said, a laugh bubbling up out of her, choppy from the alcohol. Her accent sounded thicker, sticking harder to the syllables, as the words left her lips. “Don’t tell me you’re quitting already.” 

You made a face, but before Yelena could criticize your inability to hold your liquor any further, Ava had already interjected. 

“Right, so unlike you, the rest of us don’t consider Vodka to be our closest companion,” Ava snorted, rolling her eyes. Always getting a jab in, even though, half the time, she didn’t really mean the unkind words. She just couldn’t help herself. 

Yelena smiled, but there was sarcasm dripping from the corners of her lips, her eyes squinting with annoyance. She lifted her hand, flipping Ava off, as her rings reflected the neon lights of the interior. Then, without looking away, she took another shot. 

It made you laugh – the sound of your own humor was already beginning to grate at your ears, loud and off-putting. It said enough — you were tipsy, if not edging past it. 

Despite your strengths, of which there were many, you were not good at drinking. A talent that did not seem to improve upon with time, nor did it impress Yelena.

At the sound of your laughter, Yelena turned, and made a face, one that seemed dark and overdramatized in the blue tint of the club. “It wasn’t that funny,” she said, though it was without any surprise. “Bucky wasn’t kidding when he said you were a lightweight.” 

You pouted. “I’m not.” The objection was weak, even to you, and an exaggeration, at best, to the other two. “It’s just…” For a few, long seconds, you tried to think up an excuse, but nothing came. Straightening, you sobered your face, and took the shot in front of you. “Forget it.” 

“Okay,” Yelena snorted, drawing out the first syllable. “You’re a wonderful liar. Remind us to rely on you next time we’re in a bind.” 

The damn alcohol was already infecting your brain, and where you normally could muster up a witty remark, you felt slow, and horribly incompetent. “I’ve helped you out plenty of times,” you said, humming, “like…” 

You drummed your fingers against the counter, trying to think of a time where you’d actually needed to lie on a mission. Even before you’d become the New Avengers, your face was too recognizable, too famous, for you to be undercover in any capacity. 

“Give her some time. I’m sure she’ll think of something tomorrow,” Ava said, amused. “You two are already giving me a headache. I’m getting another drink.” 

“Is that it?” Yelena spared a quick glance at the glass in Ava’s hands, one which was only halfway empty. “Or are you going to go flirt with the bartender?” 

That sent you into another fit of giggles, to which Ava glared, her expression souring. “Well, we can’t all be lucky enough to be in happy, loving relationships, now can we?”

This was directed at you, and you only smiled in return, gesturing her away with the back of your palm. 

“Good luck!” Yelena called, smiling to herself. “Let us know if you need any help!” 

“I’ll manage,” Ava said, mouth in a thin line, before she disappeared into the crowd, a few people out of your line of sight. 

“Wonderful. I’m sure we’ll have to break up a fight soon.” Yelena’s face fell into resignation, as she sighed. “As usual. I don’t know why we ever invite Ava, anyway.” 

Ava’s attempts at flirting were usually laced with the undertone of sarcasm and cruelty, and though you had learned to see the fondness wrought within her words, it wasn’t something many accepted easily. 

Most people – men, in particular – reacted to it with a shade of aggression, one Ava never seemed to like. Nights like this often ended with you and Yelena intervening in tense interactions, gently reminding Ava that she was now a public figure, whether she liked it or not. 

“Well, we are your only friends,” you said, softly teasing Yelena as you leaned against her, already starting to become clingy in your intoxicated state. 

You weren’t sure why the alcohol brought that out of you – normally, you held everyone at a distance, awkward with physical contact.

Maybe what you really wanted was to be closer to them all, you just let yourself when you were drunk. 

“Besides, I think Ava invites herself half of the time. Better than hanging out with John and Alexei.” 

Yelena eyebrows raised, like she hadn’t considered the alternative. “You’re right. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone,” she said, suddenly serious. “Come on, we should go dance.” 

You laughed, and stumbled after her, grabbing her wrist, in an attempt not to lose her in the crowd. 

The music, paired with the alcohol in your bloodstream, made you feel lighter, like you were walking on a cloud. It infected every ounce of your being, rattling your brain, energizing you in a way so different from the adrenaline you normally felt on missions. 

There’d been a point, in recent years, where fun had been a foreign word to you, perhaps, as it had, with Yelena. But, being friends with her, even for a short while, had brightened some part of you that had dimmed. 

In other ways, before, you’d been fulfilled; whole, even. You loved Bucky, loved him more than you’d ever thought you’d be capable of loving anyone. You loved your job, most of the time. You loved yourself, on occasion. 

That was more than you could’ve asked for, after everything with Thanos had happened. 

Yet, you’d lost most of your friends, some of the people you’d called family, and that had left a gaping hole inside of you that you had ignored, for months. 

Pepper, who had always been there for you, tried her best. But she was a grieving wife, and a mother to a child who would never see her father again — she couldn’t be what you needed anymore, and you didn’t want to bother her, even if you had lost Tony, too. 

So, perhaps it was because Yelena understood, that had caused you to form a fast friendship. She’d lost someone who wasn’t quite her family, but was the only family she’d ever had. 

Whether you’d known it or not, you both had needed your friendship more than anything.

For a while, the two of you danced, letting your worries drift away, catch on the wind and leave the club behind. 

The air was smoky, the scent stagnant in the air, along with the smell of sweat that continued to accumulate. A song played, then another, and after a few more, you’d begun to feel more sober, no longer as light on your feet as you’d once been. 

“I’m going to get another drink!” you yelled to Yelena, over the music, and she gave you a thumbs up, glancing over at you for just a moment. A song she liked was on, and she was in her own world. 

You smiled, and pushed your way through people, hoping Yelena wouldn’t drift too far from where she was. It might be impossible to find her later, if she let the crowd carry her deeper into the dancefloor. 

As you made your way to the bar, you couldn’t tell if you were stumbling, or if people were just that clumsy, as you knocked into one after the other. A young woman nearly spilled her drink on you, apologizing profusely. 

You laughed it off and righted her carefully, before reaching the bar, and ordering the first thing you could think of. 

The bartender gave you a look — she recognized you, but couldn’t quite place you. But she didn’t comment on it, instead, turning back around to the bottles. 

As you waited, chin tucked into your palm, you felt someone come up beside you, far too close for comfort. The cologne on his collar was heavy, curling around you in a suppressive cloud, nearly making you cough. 

You did your best to ignore him, and it worked, for a few moments. Until a hand crept up on your back, gently brushing your shoulder, and you jerked away, shooting your gaze over to the man, a mix of surprise and disgust. 

“Woah,” he said, hands held up in surrender, though he looked anything but guilty. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I was trying to get your attention, but I guess you didn’t hear me.” 

He was older — much older than the majority of people here. His beard was grey, trimmed nicely, but there was something unkempt about him. The clothes he wore were expensive, but they fit poorly, and his watch was far too flashy for the rest of his attire. His smile was bright, teeth all the color of a shiny pearl, but he reeked of sharp whiskey and the overabundance of aftershave.

You held your tongue; as much as you would’ve loved to tell him you’d been ignoring him on purpose, he didn’t seem like the type of person who would take that very kindly. You didn’t feel like getting in a fight, tonight. 

“I guess not,” you said, coldly, instead. “Can I help you?” 

The bartender came over, placing the drink in front of you, before sliding her eyes between you and the man beside you. 

Gently, you smiled, assuring her you had everything under control. She really must not have recognized you, if she thought he would be an actual threat to you.

The man looked at your drink, voice going lower. “I just wanted to talk. Buy you a drink. You looked lonely over here.” 

“My friend is waiting for me,” you smiled, tightly, though a hint of poisoned sweetness seeped through. Although Yelena had a tab running, and you weren’t planning on leaving soon, you slid a card out of your wallet, wanting to make a point. “I’ll take care of the drink. Thanks for the offer.” 

You turned to the bartender, beginning to hand your card over to her. “You can close out the tab–” you said, but the stranger stopped you, a large, hot hand curling around your wrist tightly. 

It burned where he touched you, the grip tight and possessive, even though he had no claim on you. A sour taste swelled up in your mouth, anger flashing hot in your chest. 

“Come on, I insist. A beautiful woman like you shouldn’t have to pay for her own drinks.” 

Your jaw tightened, and you yanked your hand away, eyes cold. Although you’d been content to play nice, he wasn’t making things easy for you. “I’m not,” you said. “It’s my fiancé’s card.”

While your connection to Tony Stark meant you had, and would always have, more money than probably everyone in the club, you thought pulling the fiancé card might deter the man. Instead, he seemed to enjoy playing the game. His grin widened, like you were merely teasing him.

“Well, don’t you think your fiancé would appreciate having someone else take the bill off his hands?” The man placed his hand on top of your own, trapping the card beneath your palm, where you’d tried to slide it across the countertop.

Exhaling hot air through your nose, you looked up at him, narrowing your eyes.

“Hey, man, she’s not interested–” The bartender began, but quickly, you cut her off, not wanting the man to turn any anger onto an innocent employee, who was only trying to help. 

“I really don’t think he’ll mind,” you said, shrugging with indifference. “He used to be in Congress, up until recently. It was a whole mess. Not really his fault.” You stopped yourself before you could go any further, waxing poetry about your beloved. “Anyway. I’m sure he won’t even notice the charges.” 

With that, you gave him a satisfied smile, noticing that the comment ruffled his feathers, if only marginally. Men like that always hated when their material possessions did little to impress others. 

“Congress, huh?” He tried his best to remain unfazed, indifferent. “What’s his name?” 

You brightened. 

It was almost too easy, getting him to fall right where you wanted him. You supposed you could’ve gone the easy way, the I’m an Avenger way, the You know Tony Stark? way. But, you loved Bucky Barnes with every ounce of your being, and a part of you was always just waiting for the opportunity to bring him up 

“James Barnes – Bucky. Do you know him?” 

The man laughed, loud and exaggerated, a gut reaction without any thought. He pressed his hand to his stomach and shook his head, waiting for the punchline. “Hilarious. The Winter Soldier?” 

You tilted your head to the side, blinking up at him innocently. “What’s funny about that?” 

“Nothing. It’s just… That would mean–” Then, he squinted, regarding you carefully, eyes flitting from your irises to the curl of your lip, from ear to ear, down your body. Within a second, horror began to bloom in his dark eyes, even as he tried his best to subdue it. “Oh. Oh, shit–”

Maybe all those ridiculous superhero movies were right – putting someone in a baseball cap and glasses really could hide you from the world. You’d only done your makeup and hair differently this evening. It was hardly enough to look like a new person, but for some reason, people were finding it difficult to place you without your usual uniform. 

“Hey, is everything okay here?” Yelena came up behind you, eyebrows pinched together as she looked between the three of you. 

“Oh. Fuck. I’m– Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. Shit.” The man was still rambling like a fool, before he looked at Yelena, then back at you, combing his hand through his hair. His cheeks were flushed, visible even in the dim light of the club. “I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize you.” 

“Clearly,” you said, frowning as you leaned against the counter. “Lucky for you, I’m not in a bad mood tonight. I’ll let it slide.” 

You thought it would be enough to encourage him away, but for a moment longer, he stood where he was, chewing the inside of his cheek. 

Yelena, beside you, looked annoyed with the entire ordeal. It wasn’t the first time you’d been forcefully hit on, and it usually went something like this. 

“You’re not gonna– you’re not gonna send someone after me, are you?” 

You frowned. “Why would I do that? You think I can’t pick my own battles?”

“Oh, here we go,” Yelena said, under her breath. 

“No!” He said quickly, his voice growing louder. “I didn’t mean that. I just… You know…” The man stuttered through the words, afraid to say what you knew he was thinking. 

You narrowed your eyes. The pull of your powers swirled in your chest as you stared into the frightened gaze of the stranger. Fear curled around him, a chill sliding up his spine as he remained frozen in place, gaze locked onto yours. 

“First of all, I would never send someone else to do my dirty work,” you said, pointing a finger square into his chest. “The only person you should be worried about coming after you, is me.”

He nodded, his hands up in surrender, lips sealed together; a promise that he would leave you alone, after all this. It didn’t give you as much satisfaction as you would’ve liked.

Sighing, you deflated, a frown taking over your features. “Secondly,” you said, feeling fiercely protective, “Bucky doesn’t do that. I wouldn’t ask him to do that.” 

No matter how many years passed, no matter how many things changed, there would always be people who still hated Bucky for the things he could not control. Maybe he had accepted that, acknowledged that he couldn’t change everyone’s opinion, but you never would. 

“I-I know. Of course not. I’m sorry.”

“You are now,” you said, huffing. “Not that it matters.” 

The man opened his mouth, jaw going slack as he fumbled for something more to say. But you’d already grown bored of the conversation, and Yelena could tell. 

Swiftly, she cut in, patting the man on the shoulder, ushering him away with a few quick, steely words. 

Finally, he was gone.

“So dramatic,” Yelena said, rolling her eyes. “Can we be normal anywhere we go? You could’ve just punched him and been done with it.” 

Ignoring her, you slid the card back into your wallet, exhaling wearily. “You don’t actually have to close the tab,” you said to the bartender, apologetically. “Sorry for the trouble. I might need something stronger than what I ordered, though.” 

The bartender laughed. “Don’t apologize. I’ll get you something else – on the house. Not because you’re an Avenger, by the way, but that is pretty cool that you came here.” 

“Thank you.” 

You smiled as she turned away, but it was small, sad, as it formed on your lips. 

Still being an Avenger, using that title – it’d never felt right, not with half of your original team dead or gone. How many times would you see The Avengers rise and fall? How many people would die, and you’d still be alive? 

Yelena called your name, snapping you out of your haze, and you glanced over, right into her knowing eyes. She was like your reflection, sometimes. All the loved ones you’d lost, all the emotions you shared, all right in the glass of her dark eyes, shining back onto you. 

You shook your head, putting the smile back onto your face. “I’m okay,” you promised, squeezing her hand. “Come on, let’s dance.” 

It was hard to pinpoint the moment you went from being tipsy, to nearly throwing-up on the dance floor. 

You’d never been good at drinking in moderation, nor were you good at pacing yourself. You weren’t good at a lot of things which included alcohol, if you were being honest with yourself, and yet, you were too stupid to stay away from the stuff. 

Yelena, unlike you, had noticed when a queasy look had begun to form on your face, and had taken you outside before you could spill your dinner down the front of her shirt.

“Alright, we’re done,” she said, pushing you towards the door. “Time to go home.”

“I don’t wanna leave,” you complained, whining softly, but Yelena ignored you, too busy searching for something on her phone. You stumbled along with her outside, unwilling, and yet, complacent, as she sat you down on the curb. 

“Stay right there,” she said, a finger outstretched, like she was scolding a child. 

You frowned, but couldn’t think of the right words to say, and gave up. 

Yelena’s voice was hushed as she spoke into the phone, taking a few steps further down the sidewalk, to peek back inside the club. Aimlessly, you stared across to the other side, where a few people kept to themselves, blowing smoke out their lips. They paid you no attention. 

It felt like only moments you’d sat there, when Ava emerged from the doors, and Yelena said. “Finally. Bob’s here.” She shoved her phone back in her pocket, squinting down the street. “That was fast.” 

“Too fast,” Ava said, flatly. “I almost would’ve rather you called John. At least he could get us back in one piece.” 

“Well, I could’ve called Alexei.” Yelena’s voice grew closer as she bent over, grabbing one of your arms and throwing it over her shoulder. “None of our options are great.” 

You’d been zoning in and out, until she lifted you, pulling you to your feet. The conversation, though muddled, slowly but surely reached your ears, as you leaned against Yelena, letting her take most of your weight.

“You could’ve called Bucky,” you said, slurring your words together.

“Hmm,” Yelena said, huffing, as she practically carried you down the street. “He’s not home.” 

“Really?” you frowned, blinking heavy eyelids at her. That was news to you. “Where did he go? He didn’t tell me.”

“Emergency,” Ava said, waving it off. “Pointless meeting. Don’t worry about it.”

It didn’t make sense, but nothing really made sense then, with your brain so blissfully empty. You were certain that you’d talked to Bucky just minutes ago, sending him a mess of letters that probably spelled nothing, but neither of them seemed concerned about it, so you decided you wouldn’t be either. 

“Okay,” you shrugged, walking alongside the two of them, lazily. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”

“You just said you wanted to stay.” 

“I don’t anymore.” 

Yelena gave you an appraising look. “Well, trust me. We’re going home.” A pair of headlights blinked. “See, there’s Bob. Let’s go.”

You followed her and Ava, finally pushing off of Yelena to walk on your own, even if it was mostly stumbling. She remained just inches away, in case you tripped over your own feet. Which it took all of fifteen seconds to do. 

Another loud laugh escaped you as you grabbed Ava’s wrist, catching your fall. The two of them had both jumped for you, arms outstretched, which was even more ridiculous, considering you had powers. 

You didn’t need their help, even if you had almost landed face-first.

“Please don’t crack your head open,” Yelena said, lips pursed. “That would be such a mess.”

“Like Humpty Dumpty,” you said, pointing to your head with a wide, lazy grin. 

Yelena just blinked at you, preparing a response, though whatever she was planning on saying fell away, as Bob pulled up to the curb, idling beside the three of you. 

“Hi Bob!” you shouted, waving enthusiastically at him, your voice much louder than you’d meant it to be. “Look, it’s Bob, Yelena!” 

She shushed you, even though there was no one else on the street, and pushed you forward, towards the car. 

“Very observant,” Yelena’s words were full of sarcasm that you missed completely.

Stupidly unaware, you smiled back, proud of yourself. 

Bob stuck his head out the window, dark waves of hair falling onto his cheeks. “Hi,” he said, watching as you waved again, with even more enthusiasm. A few, slurred phrases of nonsense left your lips, and Bob’s eyebrows raised, eyes wider. “Oh, wow. How much did you drink?” 

“Not as much as you’d think,” Yelena answered for you. “Come on, in you go.”

Ava opened the back door, and the two of them practically pushed you into the car, causing you to land on the seat, flat on your face. It was cold, and the leather was rough against your skin, but you still laughed, rubbing your cheek as you righted yourself. 

Another loud sigh came from Ava, as she climbed in next to you. 

“You made it look easy,” you said, blinking at her as you slumped down, resting your head on her shoulder. The hint of a soft, sweet perfume still lingered on Ava’s skin, even under all the layers of sweat and grime from the club.

Ava stiffened, but then relaxed, humming to herself. “What, getting in the car?” 

You nodded, slowly, your cheek pressed into her shoulder.

“Well, it’s not exactly rocket science.” 

Yelena slammed the door behind you, shocking you back to attention. You watched as she made her way around the front of the car, into the passenger seat next to Bob. 

“Okay,” Bob said, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white. “Does everyone have their seatbelts on?” 

“Just drive, Robert,” Ava said, rolling her eyes. 

Bob hesitated as he looked at you through the mirror, concern flashing through his eyes. “Are you sure she’s okay? She looks like she might be sick.” 

“She’s fine,” Ava snapped, exhaustion becoming evident in her voice. “And if she throws up, it’ll be all over me. Just drive.” 

“No need to be so rude. Bob came to pick us up out of the kindness of his heart,” Yelena said, fumbling with the music, intent on picking the perfect song, even for such a short distance. 

Outside, New York became a blur as you began to move, and you returned your attention to the front of the car, watching Bob focus on each turn and stoplight.

“That’s so nice, Bob,” you said, each syllable being drawn out carefully, slowly. “You’re such a good friend.” 

The words hung in the air. It made you emotional, all of the sudden. A wave of sadness washed over you, dousing you in an ice bath that brought you back to a semblance of sobriety. There was a time, once, when it would have been Tony’s shoulder you rested on, Natasha adjusting the radio, Steve driving you home. 

Now, they’re all dead. 

An ache, like a blade piercing straight through your chest, carved out that empty, lonely part of your heart. You’d offered it to the other three, not a replacement for your old friends, but something new, something different. A risk, to be so vulnerable, but not one without the greatest reward.

“Oh,” Yelena said, and it was the softness of her voice, her eyes pinned on you with understanding, that made you realize tears were streaming down your cheeks, coating Ava’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?” 

“You’re all good friends,” you wailed, rubbing your eyes. “It’s nice… to have friends again.” The words hung there, before you were bursting into tears, profusely scraping at them like a child, apologizing over and over again. 

Ava put a soft hand on your forehead, brushing the stray hairs away from your face, sticking to your skin from your tears. As hard as she was on the outside, there was kindness, underneath it all, cased in the armor that had been crafted by a hurt girl who hadn’t had the chance to love. 

“You’re a good friend too,” Yelena promised, leaning over the backseat to squeeze your hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize.” 

She was understanding like that, so caring and warm, even when she thought she wasn’t. It only made you cry more, which made you feel more guilty, and had you curling in on yourself, shrinking away from the others. 

Drinking was always fine, until it wasn’t. Bucky would have never swayed you from doing anything you wanted to do, but he had reminded you, gently, that all the emotions you tended to bottle up were released when you mixed them with alcohol.

You probably should’ve listened to him. After all, he knew you better than anyone. 

“It’s stupid. I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m sorry. I’m ruining everything.” The optimistic evening had been lit on fire, burning into a pile of ash that wouldn’t die out with your tears, which only kept flowing, even as you tried your best to suppress them. 

“It’s okay,” Bob said, looking at you through the rearview mirror. He offered a self-deprecating smile, face wrinkling at the edges. “Remember when I had a bad day and made half of New York disappear? That was ruining the evening.” 

Despite yourself, you laughed through your tears, a hiccup erupting from your chest. Ava squeezed your arm, the most affectionate embrace she could offer you. 

“But now we’re all–” you choked through your own tears, “friends.” 

“Exactly.” 

You thought there was a message in there, somewhere, hidden beneath the letters strung together to make the word. But exhaustion was wearing on you, and your sadness had drained you, leaving you a mopey mess to seek comfort in Ava’s subtle embrace.

“Hey, Bob?”

“Hmm?” 

“Where’s Bucky? Ava said he had a–” you pinched your face together, trying to remember what she had said. Something… about a, “meeting. When will he be home?” 

“What? Bucky’s not–” Bob began, confused, before Yelena slapped him on the bicep, effectively shutting him up. They shared a glance, one you didn’t understand, before he exhaled, and continued. “Oh. A meeting. Right. I’m sure he’ll be back. It’s late now, anyway.” 

“Okay,” you said, satisfied. At some point, you’d stopped crying. What a relief. “I miss him.”

“You saw him, like, three hours ago.” Yelena wore a barely-contained grin. 

“Well. It feels like a long time,” you frowned, dramatically, your lips pulling down in a curve. “Maybe I can call him. Do you think he’ll answer?” You started to pull out your phone, though it was caught, somewhere in between you and Ava, wedged far enough into the seat that you quickly gave up. “I can’t reach my phone.” 

“We’ll get it when we get out,” Ava promised. 

“But I want to call Bucky,” you said, trying again for your phone. “Tell him I love him.”

“I think he knows, darling.” 

“What if he doesn’t? What if he thinks I went to the bar to find someone else.” A burst of panic sprouted in your chest, matched with an endless sadness that alcohol seemed to free in you. “What if he hates me?” you said, squeezing Ava’s arm, nails forming small, crescent indents. “What if–”

“Oh, for god’s sake, Bucky would rather die than leave you. You don’t need to worry about that,” Ava grabbed your hand, the one digging between the seats, almost stuck, as you searched for your phone. “Just – close your eyes.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. I’m always right.”

For a moment, you considered arguing more, but she was so stern in her words that the fight died out of you quickly. “Okay, fine. I believe you.”

You weren’t sure when Ava, of all people, had gotten so soft, but she seemed to have something in her heart that had latched onto you, in the way Yelena had with Bob. 

“You know, I love all of you too,” you mumbled, quietly. For not sharing an ounce of blood with Tony, you sure shared the Stark gene of being unable to effectively shut up. “You’re like my family, now. My best friends.” 

None of them replied, but you could feel the heavy blanket of emotion that settled over the car, a gift that came with the knowledge that they were loved.

You did, in fact, fall asleep on the ride back to the tower, and when you awoke, you were groggy and disoriented, all of the past few minutes a blur. All you wanted was your bed, yet it felt so far and out of reach.

“Alright. Here we go,” Yelena groaned, yanking you out of the car with all her strength. 

Bob helped her haul you up, the three of them lugging you into the tower. 

“Maybe you should stop her earlier, next time,” Bob mumbled, as your head lolled against his bicep, feet clumsily going in a jagged line. 

A small crowd of guards watched the four of you, but didn’t move a muscle as Yelena glared daggers at them, daring them to comment on your drunken state. 

Finally, the elevator stopped at your level, and you climbed into it, taking the ride to the top floor. 

Within seconds, the elevator dinged, and you were graced with a view of Manhattan glittering beneath you. You stumbled out, doing your best to hold up your own weight. With the three of them hovering around you, though, it was hard to move at all. 

It was still bright on the floor, but the lights had been dimmed, leaving an atmospheric glow to the room. John was sitting in front of the television, the images casting shadows on his face when he paused it, causing the room to go quiet.

Amused, he watched the three of you return home in a miserable state. “Jesus,” John said, laughing loudly as he leaned forward, elbows on his thighs. “Did you drink the whole bar? You look like shit.” 

Of course, the shit in question was you, but you were too dazed to realize who he was talking to. 

“Shut up, Walker,” Ava scowled. “You can thank Yelena for that.” 

That, for some reason, resonated in your brain. You looked up, smiling, before saying in a quick, clipped succession, “Thanks, Yelena.” Another fit of laughter erupted from your chest.

John’s eyebrows lifted. “That was rhetorical, genius.” 

“Rhetorical…” you frowned, trying to sound out the syllables. “That’s a long word.”

“Is it? I never noticed.” 

“Fuck off, Walker. If you’re not going to be useful, I’ll start a fire under your ass to make you evacuate the room.” Ava guided you to the couch, pushing you down into the cushion, right as John stood, regarding you with a thinly veiled uncertainty.

“Always resorting to violence.” John tucked his phone into his pocket, watching you move to lay down on the cushions, still warm from where he’d been sitting. “I’ll go get the lover boy. Surprised he wasn’t waiting by the door.” 

You perked up. “Bucky’s here?” 

John snorted. “Yeah, he’s been here all night.” He ignored Ava and Yelena’s gestures at him to stop. “They didn’t call him because they didn’t want to get in a crash – which would happen because you try to make out with him, in front of us, every time you’re drunk.”

“I don’t.” 

“Yes, you do.”

You frowned, but you were too relieved at the prospect of your fiancé being home that you forgot to be mad at your friends for lying. “Hm. I’ll go with you.” 

As you started to stand, the blood rushed to your head, and you took one step forward, knocking into the coffee table, before you nearly fell onto it, catching yourself.

“I think you should stay right there,” John said, amused, as a small smirk pulled at his lips. 

“But–” you knocked something off the table, then something else, glass shattering by your feet. “Oh no. I’m sorry,” your frown deepened, the frustrated tears rising to the surface again. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t move,” Bob screeched, grabbing your wrist before you could reach for the glass. “It’s okay. It’s just water. Not a big deal.” 

“I’m sorry, Bob,” you frowned. “I’m–”

“It’s okay,” he promised again, trying to force you back onto the couch. “We’ll clean it up.” Bob turned to the other three, his smile helpless. “Can one of you just go get–”

The elevator dinged again. 

“Hey, Walker, have you heard from–” Bucky stepped off the elevator, dressed in casual clothes, a pair of dark sweatpants and a regular t-shirt. He was freshly washed from a shower, wet strands pushed out of his face, falling around his jaw. There were a few damp spots around the neck of his shirt, droplets dripping from his hair. “Oh.” 

He looked at the floor, the mess of water and glass, then back up to your tear-streaked face, hazy eyes. 

“Jesus. Yelena, I told you.”

“Hey, it isn’t my fault!” Yelena said, defensively, hands raised. “She bought her own drinks.” 

“I’m sorry,” your lip stuck out, eyes blinking back the tears. “It was an accident. Are you mad?”

“What?” Bucky stared back, confused, before he realized you were talking about the glass – or maybe the state of your intoxication, and shook his head quickly, beside you in a second. “No, of course not, baby. It’s fine. Just a glass. Are you okay?” 

You nodded, slowly, as he came around the side of the couch, guiding you away from the mess of glass and into his arm. The scent of his body wash, still lingering from the recent shower, relaxed you immediately, evaporating your tears as you fell against him. 

“I’m okay. Tired,” you mumbled into his chest. “Love you. Did you know that?” You tilted your head, making to kiss him, but you missed his lips completely, landing somewhere between his cheek and his chin. “I wanted to tell you on the phone, but Ava said that was stupid, because you already know.” 

Bucky laughed, his eyes so soft as he smiled at you. How lucky you were, to still have the brilliant smile that took over his face, even after everything he’d suffered through. 

He took your head in his hands, thumbs gently caressing your cheekbones. One warm against your skin, the other, cool metal. “I do know. Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear it again.”

“Okay. I love you,” you drawled out, extenuating the letters, satisfied by his reaction. 

You stood tall to kiss him again, but that time, he dodged it on purpose, kissing your forehead instead as he pulled you back into him.

“Gross,” Yelena said behind you, but you could hear the affection in her voice, happy to see the two of you so in love.

Bucky laughed again, a small one this time, as he took your hand and kissed it. “Come on, pretty. You can barely stand up.”

“I’m fine,” you slurred, but you let him lift you anyway, one arm under your knees, the other against your back. “I can walk.” 

“I’m sure you can,” he agreed, but made no move to put you down. 

Bucky kissed the top of your head again, unable to keep his lips from pecking you gently, with a warmth that spread across your body. He said a few more words to Yelena, something about cleaning up the glass, but she promised she didn’t mind, and sent the two of you away, back down to the floor you shared. 

Technically, Bucky had his own floor – a product of Valentina’s ridiculous idea to discourage the two of you from acting like a normal couple. 

The Watchtower might have been your workplace, but it was also your home. It had been before, when it was Stark Tower, Avengers Tower, and now it was again, after it’d been renamed and renamed. 

Despite the challenges that never stopped coming, you weren’t going to keep yourself away from the man you’d loved for years, just because Valentina thought it would cause problems.

“Maybe I should buy the tower back,” you said, not to anyone in particular. “Tony would want that.” 

“Do you want that?” Bucky seemed unsurprised by the question. You’d mentioned it in passing, a few times, when Valentina had tried to enforce rules you didn’t approve of, paired with frustrated remarks of, “How could Tony sell it to her?” 

You’d already made a few deals with Valentina, all but forcing her to let you take over renovations, return some of the suites to exactly how they’d been before. You couldn’t bring Tony back, but you wouldn’t forget about him, any of them, just because it hurt.

“Yeah. I think so.”

At first, you’d wanted to stay far from the tower and the memories that haunted these walls, darkened by the lives that had been lost. Now, though, there were new ones, and it didn’t seem so scary to live in a place that had always, really, belonged to you. 

Bucky hummed, thoughtful. “How about we talk about it when you’re sober?” 

“Okay.” You made a face, uncertain if he was just humoring you. “I’m not kidding. I’m being serious.”

He smiled. “Oh, I know. I’m not going to try and talk you out of it.”

You searched his face for any hint of a lie, and when you found none, you relaxed back against him, satisfied. A peaceful calm began to wash over you, and you closed your eyes, the edges of rest reaching for you.

“Anyone hit on you at the bar?” Bucky asked, an effort to keep you from falling asleep in his arms. 

You opened your eyes, processing the question, before thinking hard on your answer. It had just been a couple hours ago, but it felt like a long time. “Just one person. An old man–”

“Hmm. Older than me?”

You laughed again, girlishly, as your grip around his neck tightened. “No one’s older than you.” A kiss landed on his cheek – somehow, some of your lipstick still remained, and it smeared on his skin. “I told him I was getting married. He didn’t care.” You yawned. “I scared him away, though.”

“I can imagine.” You’d never been good at accepting criticism of your relationship, or your lover, from anyone. Bucky had never thought he was worth all the trouble, but time was beginning to convince him otherwise. “You sure you still wanna marry me? I’m sure he’d forgive you if you called him, let him know you dumped your boyfriend.”

“You’re not funny, Bucky.” 

“No? I think I’m a little funny.” 

You hadn’t noticed that you’d gotten into your apartment until Bucky was sitting you down on the sink, kissing your forehead one more time. “I’ll be right back. Stay there, okay?” 

“Why?” You said, stumbling after him, rubbing your eyes. “I’m tired.” 

“Because you’re going to kill me tomorrow if I let you pass out like this.” Bucky lifted you back onto the counter, pushing you forward until you rested against the mirror. His eyes narrowed, serious. “Will you please listen? I’ll be right back.”

You glared at him, but felt too lazy to move, letting your head drop against the mirror. “Fine,” you relented, without much of a fight at all. Then, feeling stupidly childish, you stuck your tongue out at him.

Bucky rolled his eyes, before turning back around, leaving you. 

Exhausted, your eyes closed once you rested against the mirror. For a moment, you waited, attention fading in and out, before the room started to feel a little tilted, and your stomach lurched. 

You stumbled off the sink, suddenly feeling awful, before you covered your mouth quickly and took the two, quick steps to the toilet. It was only a moment before you were spilling the contents of your stomach, all the alcohol you’d drank, out into the toilet, head bent over your forearm as you heaved. 

A hand roamed over your back, pulling your hair away from your face as you waited a few more seconds, before you vomited again, tears pricking at your eyes from the taste. 

“Sorry,” you said, perhaps for the last time, the word tasting familiar on your tongue. “This is gross.”

“Sweetheart, I’ve seen a lot of gross things — this is nothing. I’m impressed you made it to the toilet,” Bucky’s expression was completely neutral, unfazed, when you tilted your head to look at him. “Feel better?” 

You nodded, a small movement, with wide, sparkling eyes, despite the disgust lingering from your actions. Every day, you thought it was impossible to love him any more, and yet, here you were, falling for him all over again. 

Bucky took a few squares of toilet paper, wiping your mouth before he flushed the toilet. When he stood, your head fell onto his thigh, the muscle hard against your cheek. 

“Come on,” he said, dragging you to your feet. “Back to the sink.” 

This time, you let him pull you along wherever, his hands gentle against your hips, as he settled you back down on the countertop. The granite was cool against your skin, a nice feeling after the hot flash that had come from spilling your insides. 

You slumped down, running on fumes of energy as you watched Bucky squeeze toothpaste onto a toothbrush, before attempting to poke it between your lips. 

Your eyes widened, and you swatted him away, groaning, even as he insisted. “I don’t want to,” you said, falling forward, in an attempt to sneak past him. 

But Bucky was stronger than you, and you were barely able to hold yourself up. He blocked your movements easily, releasing a heavy sigh. “Would you just let me help you?” 

“I’m not a baby,” you started to say, but the minute you’d opened your mouth, he’d stuck the bristles against your teeth, scrubbing quickly, worried you might reject the movements altogether.  

“I know you’re not, but you’ll feel better in the morning,” he promised, focusing on his task as he placed a thumb on your chin, gently forcing your mouth open a little wider. Reluctant, you let him, and he smiled, caressing your jaw affectionately. “Thank you.” 

You endured the toothbrush in your mouth for a solid thirty seconds, before you finally swatted him away, spitting in the sink next to you. Amused, Bucky handed you a glass of water, which you also fought, but managed to swallow down a few sips. 

“You were supposed to–” He stopped himself, giving up. “You know what, never mind. Drink the rest of it.” 

Bucky rinsed off the toothbrush and the sink, before reaching over to a drawer and pulling a singular wipe from a violet-covered package. He dragged it against your skin, careful not to scrub too hard, but made sure he got as much makeup off as possible. 

“Are you done now?” you asked, blinking at him, feeling dizzy and off-kilter. 

Your fiancé threw the cloth away, assessing your appearance before he yielded to your requests. “Alright. Come on.” 

Finally, you thought, as you hopped off the counter, practically falling into him as you staggered on your feet.  

Bucky let you rest against him as he slid a cool, metal hand down your back, unzipping your dress. It fell around your ankles in a pool of dark, burgundy tones, one he helped you step right out of. With a look of endless adoration, he pressed his lips to your shoulder, dipping around your collarbone, before slipping a soft, black t-shirt over your head, one that was warm and smelled like him.

“There,” Bucky said, kissing you, for the first time all evening, on the mouth. “All done.” 

You chased after his lips, but he didn’t indulge you as he dragged you to the bedroom, making a comment about how you were far too gone to do anything more than sleep. The sheets had already been pulled down, the pillows organized exactly how you wanted them.

Without another thought, you fell on the mattress, eyes closing as soon as your head hit the pillow.

The bed dipped beside you. Bucky slipped off both your heels, his lips lingering around your ankle. “My gorgeous girl,” he said against your leg, the words tickling your skin.

You hummed softly to yourself, feeling like you were floating on a cloud as he squeezed your calf, before retreating back into the bathroom.

Bucky was only gone for a few minutes, organizing the mess you’d left behind, before the lights went out, and he was back in the bed beside you, pulling you into his chest. You went easily, tucking your head under his chin, one arm draped across his stomach. 

Although sleep called for you, you were kept awake by a lingering regret that you’d spoiled the evening by being such a mess. You tilted your head, propping your chin up on his chest, before whispering his name in the darkened room.

Bucky made a small sound, barely an acknowledgement. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry.” 

This time, he cracked open his eyes, sharply blue in the moonlight, before sighing. “What can you possibly be sorry about now?” 

“I feel bad.” It was difficult to form the right words for the horrible ache that struck your chest at that moment.

Bucky shifted, a warm palm resting on your cheek as he turned his head to face you. The tip of your nose brushed his own. “Why?”

“I’m… stupid.” 

His eyebrows raised, and then he laughed, hot breath ghosting the bridge of your nose. “Well you’re not stupid, you’re just drunk, and no one gives a shit about that. Pretty sure they all just think it’s funny.” 

Somehow, that calmed you. It must have been exactly what you needed to hear, the words soothing over that anxious knot in your mind. “And you?” 

Bucky’s face softened, knowingly, like this wasn’t the first time you’d had this conversation. “Yeah, it’s funny, but I also think it’s nice that you trust me so much – and them.” He squeezed your hand that was lodged between the two of you. “Besides, we’ve been through a lot worse than this, and I still asked you to marry me, didn’t I?”

“I guess,” you said, mumbling, but you were running out of arguments that he couldn’t refute.

Your stomach was beginning to ache, a weird feeling in your gut, paired with a growing headache that was a mixture of exhaustion and the effects of intoxication. A few more incoherent words left your lips, and Bucky listened for a while longer, blinking back in exhausted confusion, before he finally pressed one last kiss between your brows.

“Go to sleep, baby,” he said, closing his eyes wearily. “You can tell me in the morning.” 

Despite another anecdote on your tongue, you gave into the wave of exhaustion that rolled over you, your mind finally beginning to still. You let the heavy wave of rest curl around you, a blissful comfort, before, at last, you were asleep.

thank you so much for reading! please consider leaving a or reblog if you enjoyed it ❤︎ feedback is greatly appreciated!!!

[suniix]

Ease My Mind

summary: When Bucky is drugged into a coma plagued with nightmares and his heart rate has risen to dangerous levels within his sleep, you are the last resort to wake him before his heart gives out. But you must enter his mind to do so; enter... his nightmares. pairing: bucky x psychic!reader word count: 11.4k warnings: canon level violence, a fun little memory lane down Bucky's trauma, mutual pining dummies in love a/n: the title for this fic comes from the song Ease My Mind by Ben Platt ✨

Help me leave these lonely thoughts behind When they pull me under, and I can feel my sanity start to unwind Darling, only you can ease my mind

The universe must have a sick sense of humor, Bucky decided. Cruel and vindictive and almost certainly biased against him. It was the only explanation for why he was currently strapped to a cold, unforgiving table at the heart of a Hydra base; arms restrained to his sides, bars pressed down over his chest, shackles on his ankles. Old, rusted metal cutting into his skin.

A faceless scientist casually slipped around the room, carrying a clipboard in hand as if he didn’t have the Winter Soldier himself rendered helpless on a table no different than the one Hydra had used to force the super soldier serum into his veins decades earlier.

An IV was embedded in Bucky’s right forearm, the tube slithering up a silver pole where a bag of pale blue dripped an unknown substance into his bloodstream. Bucky tried to stretch the aching pinch on the left of his neck from where the scientist sedated him, but found no relief. His eyes were growing heavier with every breath. His body working against him. Urging him to the comfort, the destruction, of his own mind.

“Welcome back, Sergeant Barnes,” the scientist hissed. He leaned over the edge of the table, intrigued by Bucky’s fight against his desperate need to slip to the unconscious. The mask over the man’s face gave no indicator of what lied beneath – whether his grin curved up as sinister and unnerving as the men who had ripped Bucky’s body to shreds and bore the scars on his shoulder that would never heal – but he could sense the evil lying in wait.

Where the hell is Steve? Bucky thought desperately, his gaze flickering to the open hallway. Begging for a shadow, a scuffle of footsteps, anything, but all that remained was silence. Cold, mocking silence.

“No one is coming for you,” the man snickered, catching Bucky’s hopeful glance at the door. “And I have such wonderful plans in store.”

The last remnants of hope fading from Bucky’s grip as the door sealed shut; locking him inside the room as his body betrayed him once again, as his mind sank deeper into the dark embrace of the unknown. As the scientist inched closer to him, holding a syringe high in the air while Bucky was helpless in its path.

Helpless. Helpless. Always so fucking helpless.

He didn’t even remember how he got caught. Didn’t remember the blow to the back of the head that knocked him out or the needle that sedated him long enough to be strapped to the hard press of a metal table. But he could feel the matted mess of blood at the nape of his neck, could feel the dull ache of a sedative in his bloodstream.

He knew Steve would come for him. The reckless kid from Brooklyn and Captain America himself – he'd come for his friend. Eventually. Bucky only hoped it wasn’t long after his body had grown cold and silent.

Because for once, Bucky had something he was hoping to get back to. A reason to come home. A cause to fight for each sunrise, to get through each tough day in search of a better one, to shut out the demons as they dug their claws into his chest in an attempt to drag him back to the shadows.

But his eyes were too heavy, the scientist snickering under his breath, and Bucky knew the second he gave in, he’d be done for. This man held no affection for the Winter Soldier. No interest in using Hydra’s greatest asset for his own gain. No – he sought to punish the man behind the soldier, to destroy what little was left of what Bucky had become in the wake of Hydra’s downfall. Bucky didn’t know whether it was vengeance or jealousy that motivated the scientist, but he knew it would spell his end.

There would be no mercy for the Winter Soldier. No forgiveness. No kindness in his death.

So, he held on as long as he could.

He held onto the memory of your face, of sunlight dancing over your features and the bright lines by your eyes while you smiled; to the gentle sweep of your hair over your nose and the slight huffed of an annoyed breath as you blew it away.

He clung to the first glimpse of a tender touch on his forearm, patient, asking, and how easily he’d accepted it, craved it, when it was your hand lingering so sweetly over him. Unafraid of the horrors his hands had caused, unafraid of him.

He drew on the comfort, the wash of relief, for each night he crept into your bedroom in the dead of night and you had simply pulled the covers down for him. No questions of the cold sweat on his skin or the skittish terror in his veins. You had allowed him to crawl in beside you without so much as a word and he’d count your breaths until sleep took him again. Safe. Always safe when he was with you.

He imagined a world where he might have told you how much he ached for you, how badly his heart beat when you walked in a room. He hoped that you might smile at him, that you might throw yourself to his arms and he might kiss you the way he’d so often dreamt of.

He held onto you as long as he could.

And then, Bucky fell prey to his nightmares.

***

You woke with a sharp breath – violent, painful, like the air had been ripped from your lungs. Sheets pooled around your waist, the cool touch of the air conditioner chilling the line of sweat on your skin. You set a shaking hand over your heart, nestling against the rapid pulsing underneath. Thunderous, aching beats. It was a struggle to draw in a full breath.

It hadn’t been this bad in a long time, not since Bucky had started seeing the therapist Sam had begged him to talk to, not since he’d learned to lean on his friends and the people who cared for him, not since he learned to sleep through the night from the comfort of your bed. Close enough to feel the dip of the mattress, but still – out of your reach.

You hadn’t even felt a glimmer of his nightmares in months, much less anything like this. It was like were on the verge of a panic attack, something worse than terror projecting under your skin. Not even in the early days of Bucky’s recovery before he’d learned to put up mental shields to spare you as much as he could from the demons in his sleep did they slither this deep into your psyche, grabbing such a vicious hold you could hardly tell the difference between his fear and your own.

But Bucky was supposed to be on a mission with Steve across the Atlantic. The lingering aftermath of his nightmares shouldn’t be able to reach you here. It shouldn’t be able to cross an ocean to you. Your power wasn’t strong enough for that.

It could always be someone else in the tower, you considered. Natasha, maybe. She always held such stoic grace in the face of her trauma, no one would be the wiser if she was plagued with nightmares when she slept.

But you could feel Bucky’s imprint in each shallow breath, could feel his presence in every shattered heartbeat. Too familiar. Too aching; infested with a terrible, devastating acceptance. Acknowledgement that this fear and this torture was deserved. This panic was his.

You’d spent enough nights restless with his nightmares, woken only by the stuttering pounding of your own heartbeat, to recognize Bucky’s pain when you felt it. You’d never managed a glimpse inside the horrors that plagued him, unwilling to cross a boundary he was not eager for you to witness. But you felt his fear within the dead of night worse than anyone else within the tower. Perhaps because he’d endured more than anyone else you knew. Or perhaps, because your connection to him ran deeper than either of you allowed yourselves to consider.

You swung your legs off the side of the mattress. If Bucky couldn’t find his way to you on his own, you’d go to him. All it would take would be a gentle coax of your hand along his spine, a glimmer of golden reflection under your palm to soothe the burden in his mind. Never seeking more than to ease the symptoms of the nightmare, to draw him into a gentle, dreamless sleep.

Just as your feet hit the ground, your bedroom door creaked open.

Steve appeared in the framing, a painstaking lack of surprise on his features to find you awake with the sheen of cold sweat on your skin and a trembling in your hands. Steve – with his pale blue eyes coated in ghosts of shame and remorse, with moonlight dripping over the lines of exposed muscle and open wounds where his tac suit had been shredded in combat. The aching question lingering within his silence.

“What happened?” you dared to ask, hands clutching to the edge of the bed. The thin straps of your nightgown slipped over your shoulders as your heart began to cleave in two. Blood dripped from the open cuts on Steve’s chest. “Where is he?”

“Here,” Steve was quick to respond, though it did nothing to lessen the panic rustling through your veins. There was no need to clarify who you spoke of. There was only one man who could cause such tremors in your grip, the slight waver of fear in your own that was entirely your own.

“He’s alive,” Steve added, brushing a tired hand through the short strands of unkempt blonde hair. There was no relief in his reassurance. His gaze fell to the damp stains of sweat on your gown, the sweat beaded on your forehead. “I know you can feel him, Y/n. The nightmares. I... I found him like this in Berlin. They put something in his blood; something to... induce it. He won’t wake up.”

Dread coiled deep into your stomach. “How long?”

“Hours. He should have woken up by now. His heart...” Steve exhaled a tense breath and whatever restraint, whatever energy held you paralyzed to stone upon your bed, shattered.

You lunged for your robe, wasting no time as you sprinted out into the hallway. Bare feet scrambling over the cold, hardwood floors as you raced to the med wing. You barely registered Steve following closely behind if not for the reflection of the shield still strapped to his back catching the florescent lights in the empty hallway. His shadow appeared on the wall beside yours.

When you got close enough to hear the faint echo of a whimper around the bend of the hallway, you nearly stumbled over your own feet. You caught yourself against the wall, devastation rattling deep into your bones. You’d nearly forgotten the sound – the cry that slipped past Bucky’s lips with nothing but the comfort of darkness surrounding him. It was worse than you remembered.

Steve set a hand on your shoulder, urging you to slow down, but your adrenaline was racing too much for that. You could hardly tell whether it was Bucky’s or your own.

You skidded to a stop in front of the only occupied room in the medical floor, hands catching on the hinges of the door.

Bucky was laid under the thin cover of cotton sheets, the fabric bunching around his waist with every movement. His hands were curled to fists, trembling. His legs shifting under the sheets, as if the stillness physically pained him. Muffled whimpers escaped his lips. The features that often rendered him years younger in his sleep were contorted – lower lip quivering, brows pinched tight, eyes squeezed shut. He tossed and turned; his breaths so shallow you were surprised he was able to draw in any air at all.

Your legs might have given out at the sight if you let them.

“We’ve tried everything.” You jumped at the sound of Sam’s voice, not having noticed him standing in the corner of the room, still dressed in his pajama pants and a faded white t-shirt. His arms were folded tight over his chest, his jaw clenched tight. He didn’t tear his eyes away from his friend as he spoke. “Super soldier or not, his heart’s gonna give out if he keeps going like this.”

It was a struggle to suffocate the lump building in your throat, to swallow back the stone that threatened nothing but tears and agony. Your fingertips grazed over Bucky’s hand, trying to relax his grip. He wouldn’t budge. Still, you let yourself slid a hand along his arm in long, soothing strokes. Gentle as you could manage.

“I’ve never seen him like this before,” you said, though it was barely a whisper. You glanced up to the heart monitor hanging over Bucky’s head, the frequent peaks of each beat pinched close together on the screen. You turned back to Steve. “I’ll do what I can.”

A warm, ambered glow lit under your palm as you eased your hand along Bucky’s tense muscles. It sank down deep into his body, soothed every piece of him from rapid course of adrenaline in his bloodstream to the restlessness in his limbs. Gentle and kind and soft in its path. It usually took a few seconds before the murmuring stopped, before his breathing evened out again, and he stilled into a dreamless sleep. Just a few seconds.

But those few seconds turned into a minute. And then two. Three, as Bucky shifted franticly under your touch, his shaking only worsening with each passing moment. You concentrated the energy around his chest, both hands pressed above his heart, desperately willing his mind to release the hold it had over his body, to allow him just a moment of rest. Just rest. An ounce of peace. Please.

A tear slipped down Bucky’s cheek and your heart lurched at the sight of it, trailing over flushed skin, dampening into the sweat in his pillow. The amber light faded from your palms and you brushed your fingertips along his cheek – so impossibly soft he would not have awoken even if he were able. The ends of your fingers were wet when you curled your hand back against your chest.

“I don’t understand...” you murmured, voice trembling. There hadn’t once been a time you were not able to draw him gently away from his demons, to ease him back to sleep. It was the gift of your power – the kinder side of a psychic ability you never asked for. This ability to soothe such dangerous emotion.

“Whatever they injected him with must be keeping him trapped inside his head,” Steve said, the heaviness laced in his tone sinking with confirmation he’d been hoping to avoid. “I brought Dr. Cho a sample of it when we returned, but it could take hours – days, even – to break it down enough to find a stabilizing agent. Bucky won’t last that long.”

Your gaze shifted to the heart monitor and the mountainous peaks inching closer and closer together. That terrible, bright green line pulsing across the pitch-black screen – mocking you. You were grateful only for the beeping to be silenced. Sam must have turned it off before you arrived. It would have been relentless.

“Y/n,” Steve called, an aching plea in his voice.

You turned to him, to Sam. They were both watching you, barely able to meet your eye. Guilt sank into their features, tugged into the lines on Steve’s forehead, wrung as Sam’s hands as he shoved them into his pockets.

You knew what they were asking – the silent desperation behind it.

“No,” you managed to choke out, wiping tears from your eyes. “I can’t. I—I promised him.”

Steve swallowed, giving a short nod as he looked to his friend. He chewed at the edge of his lips, rendering them a raw and swollen pink. “I don’t think we have a choice.”

“He’ll never forgive me,” you whispered, tears slipping over your jawline, spilling onto the edge of the mattress. You gripped at Bucky's wrist, unable to open his fist to hold his hand. This simple gesture of comfort and you could not even offer him that.

It would be a violation beyond trust – to enter Bucky’s mind like this. At his most vulnerable, plagued by the very nightmares he’d spent years shielding you from to keep his demons from spilling out from behind the shadows and stealing him from the light – unwilling to allow his burdens to touch the little good he’d managed to hold onto. It was unforgiveable to bear witness to his greatest fears, to expose the darkest parts of him.

“Maybe,” Sam sighed, “but he’ll be alive.”

It was all that mattered to you – that he was safe. You wondered if Bucky would feel the same way.

“Okay.”

Steve pulled the simple folding chair up along the side of Bucky’s bed and gently ushered you to take a seat. You gave him a graceful smile, one that did little to hide the guilt quickly seeping into your pores. Steve barely returned it at all.

Bucky whined in his sleep, his lower lip trembling with every hollow breath he was able to draw in. His hands shook against the thin sheets, sweat beading on his forehead. Shivering and burning warm. You leaned forward, gently laying your right hand along the side of his face. Your thumb centered on his temple, his ear in your palm. The ends of your fingertips brushed into the short strands of hair behind his head and between the pillow.

“I’ve got you,” you whispered quiet enough only he might be able to hear you, if he even could.

With a deep breath, you allowed the warm amber glow to circulate through your veins – brightening the lines under your skin as it traveled from your heart to the ends of your fingertips. Spider-lines sprang from where your thumb met Bucky’s temple. Golden webs glistened under his skin. You glanced briefly at Sam, who only settled himself into the chair at the edge of the room, waiting, and then to Steve, who stood with one hand rested on his hip, the other on the edge of the desk, his body tense.

Then, you closed your eyes and gave into the pull of Bucky’s nightmare. You followed the rush of adrenaline, the panic. You walked the pathways lined in fear and distress. They led you closer to him, deeper into his subconscious until slow, a picture began to form. The endless comfort of darkness molding into something new.

Voices echoed from the abyss in a language you did not speak. When you looked around the darkness had subsided in favor of a long stretch of hallway with beige wallpaper peeling from the corners and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling.

It had been years since you dared to step foot in someone else’s dreams. You didn’t care to use this side of your power for a reason – it was disorienting, unnerving. Because the hallway led to nowhere but the crushing cold void, the only other space within existence was the room to your left. A room, you noticed with horrific realization, held a long metal table and operating tools.

The voices were getting closer. Their quiet mumbling in what you believed to be German grew louder with every step. But there was a low, dragging sound at their feet you couldn’t place. It was only as the first of the men came into view – the short, round face of a scientist you'd seen a dozen times in the federal archives – that your stomach began to drop.

Arnim Zola led the soldiers behind him with a clipboard in hand and terribly smug look upon his face. He adjusted the brim of his glasses as he turned past you without so much as a glance. He couldn’t see you, couldn’t even acknowledge your existence. He was only a figment of Bucky’s memory, of his own imagination. It would have to be Bucky’s attention you gained and his only in order to wake him up.

The soldiers filed in line into the room, but the dragging sound remained. You knew – deep down – what it was. The only thing that could make that terrible sound and the low, pained sounds that followed. Tears were already in your eyes before you saw him.

Barely conscious, his head lulled to the side as two soldiers dragged him by the straps of his jacket along the floor, a Bucky decades-younger than the one you knew left a trail of blood in his wake. His arm was freshly severed from the fall, his skin still blue from the snow. Blood soaked into his jacket, his pants, and left behind an awful stream of glistening red. Thick and oozing. You could smell the metallic sheen from where you stood.

“Bucky,” you whimpered his name, hardly able to use your voice at all.

The soldiers dragged him into the operating room, giving little kindness to his body as his right shoulder caught on the doorframe. They yanked him onto the table as if he were little more than a ragdoll and strapped him down. What remained of his left arm hung over the edge of the table.

You were shaking in the doorway, forgetting briefly why you were bearing witness to such a horrific memory to begin with. But when Bucky’s pained cries broke through his unconscious haze, you snapped yourself out of your paralyzed trance.

You rushed to him, sprinting through the soldiers who broke apart to clouded mist before reforming again. Ghosts. Memories. Dreams. They weren’t real. As you glanced over at Arnim Zola, the man who caused Bucky so much pain throughout his long enough, it was difficult to remember that. He bore so many details upon his face from the wrinkle along his brow, to the sharp tug of pink on his cheeks. Even the brim of his glasses was slightly uneven, unbalanced over his nose. The tiniest details Bucky’s mind held onto – details that made his nightmares so impossibly real.

“Bucky,” you called, hovering over the side of the table. You reached out for him, trying to slide your hand over his hair – the short strands of a 1940s haircut – but your fingers slipped through him as if you were a ghost, as well.

“Bucky, can you hear me?” you tried again, hovering your hands along his cheeks. It was agonizing not being able to touch him, to ground him to something safe. His eyes were fluttering closed, the pain sinking him back into the cold comfort of unconsciousness.

Tears slipped over your eyes as the room began to fade as he did. Darkness swept in and before you could utter his name again, the scene changed.

When your eyes adjusted to the dim light, you found yourself now standing in a concrete room. Bucky was no longer laid upon the metal table, left arm exposed and bleeding into a bucket on the floor, but instead, sitting stiffly on the edge of a worn-down cot. His gaze was fixed on the wall, as if he was seeing straight through you. His eyes red and puffy, bruising marking much of his skin. His hair had grown out somewhat, the ends only brushing over the tips of his ears.

You looked up to find no ceiling hanging over you. Only darkness. You suspected more of the same beyond these walls. The dreamworld held no need for completed blueprints – only what was necessary. You shivered, struck with derealization.

“Bucky, listen to me,” you started, crossing the room to him. You knelt to his right, not allowing your gaze to slip over the stains of faded red on the floor or the loose springs in the mattress that likely cut his body as he slept. “You have to wake up, okay? You’re safe. You're home at the compound. I’m there with you. So is Steve and Sam. You’re safe, Bucky. It’s okay to wake up.”

He didn’t so much as glance at you. A lump burned in your throat.

“Don’t do this. Come on,” you said to yourself, desperate to keep from crying again. You tried to set your hand on his knee, to draw him any kind of comfort because footsteps were beginning to approach from down the non-existent hall and his hands curled into the edge of the mattress in anticipation. You hand slipped right through his thigh but this time, he narrowed his eyes, his gaze turning to where you had touched him.

He’d felt something.

You moved to try it again when suddenly the door to his cell slammed open. Bucky flinched as if he’d been struck and then quickly scrambled to his feet. He inched backward as the men approached carrying long batons in their hands, the ends flickering with electricity. They wore little more than malice and greedy excitement on their faces.

“Bucky, if you can hear me, I promise I’ll get you out of this,” you said to his ear. He didn’t acknowledge whether he could hear you, not over the pounding in his heart that seemed to echo throughout the room. You ran your hand down his right arm, if only to offer him a semblance of comfort amongst this horrific room though it could not touch him at all. Still, a shiver slid up his spine.

“You’re okay.” You eased your hand along his arm again. “You’re dreaming, Bucky. It’s only a memory, I promise. You’re safe. You’re okay.”

But Bucky was trembling despite his efforts, a frantic look at the men and then to the corner he was backing into. There was nowhere for him to go. No one that would come to save him. He knew what was going to happen – he'd lived it enough times. He still bore the burn marks on the sides of his face to prove it.

“It’s only a memory,” you told him more urgently as the men approached, the electric ends of their batons sparking to life. “It can’t hurt you. It can’t--”

You choked back a scream as they plunged the tasers directly into Bucky’s ribs. He collapsed to the ground, his knees giving out easily under his weight and the uneven balance of metal on his left side. He shook with violent tremors as the men began to laugh, snickering to one another as they jammed the tasers against his body again and again. Laughter echoed into the room and drowned away Bucky’s muffled whimpers.

“Stop,” you cried, though you knew it was no use. “Stop!”

But the nightmare did not yield to you. These men were not real. Nor were the tasers in their hands. Bucky’s pain was imagined. A memory. And you could not save him from it.

“Enough games gentlemen,” Zola smirked from the edge of the room. “It is time.”

“No,” you whimpered. You knew what was coming. You knew, as they grabbed Bucky by the arms and dragged him from the room, exactly where they were going. Blood and infection oozed from the edges of metal where Bucky’s left arm met his shoulder – big angry scars swollen under the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He barely resisted as they threw him into the chair.

You’d never seen it before, never had the heart to imagine such a machine that stole away Bucky’s memories and his access to free will. Somehow, it was crueler than you’d expected. Cold. Unkind. As if a piece of machinery could have intention and feeling.

Bars strapped down over Bucky’s wrists and chest to hold him still. Zola approached slowly as if to corner a frightened animal. He held a mouthguard in his hand. Bucky tried to resist it at first but ultimately opened his mouth for his captor and bit down on the plastic. The shame coursing through the faded blue in his eyes was enough to shatter you.

You walked up to him, standing close enough that he would have felt the heat of your body beside him if it were not a dream. Setting a gentle hand along the side of his face, you moved to brush the hair from his eyes. Through your tears, you did not notice as a strand moved at the will of your thumb.

“I’m so sorry, Bucky,” you whispered, your heart cleaving down the center as Zola readied the machine. “I don’t know how to stop this. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you. I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to be okay. I promise. I’m here.”

You gasped as the clamps lowered to the sides of his face, the machine moving straight through your translucent hands. You jumped back, startled with the loud whirring of the mechanisms. Sparks lit along the wiring, rushing through the cords until – Bucky began to scream.

It only lasted a few seconds before it faded into the darkness again. But those seconds would stay with you the rest of your life. You’d carry them for an eternity.

You could barely stand when the scene began to change.

Slowly, the familiar pale blue walls of a hallway came into view; a door with a slight squeak in the hinges and a photograph hanging on the wall from a reluctant team building activity at a rundown bowling alley that turned into one of your favorite memories.

You were back in the compound.

Bucky was pacing at the end of the hall, winging his hands with every step. A sheen of sweat lined his forehead, pink coated into his cheeks. His t-shirt was damp along his spine, his chest rising quickly with each breath.

His hair was longer than it was in the last memory, hanging loose over his shoulders and despite the panic nestled to his features, he looked healthier. Stronger. His body had filled out with proper nutrition and he walked with bare feet along the hardwood floors – no trace of a weapon tucked to his body. Despite his fear, he still felt safe enough to wander the compound halls in only his pajamas, unarmed.

He paused at your door, staring at the wood frame.

You followed him, trying to place the memory as he began to pace outside your room. You stood beside him, watching the nervous shaking in his hand as he rose to knock on the door. Before you could call his name, to try to draw him away from whatever nightmare laid in store, the door swung open.

It was disorienting to see yourself like this, from someone else’s gaze. It wasn’t like staring into a mirror. It was as if she was an entirely different person. Her hair was still messy with sleep, pillow marks on her cheeks as the dream-you looked at Bucky with narrowed eyes.

Could it only be a dream? Perhaps this was how you were going to wake him up, by interspersing kinder memories amongst the nightmares. You’d seen this play out a dozen times – Bucky standing reluctantly at your door, a quiet shamed request to sleep by your side. You’d draw him into your arms without question, rubbing your hands along his back until the tension began to fade. He’d start at the furthest edge of your bed until you carefully eased him into your arms and he found sleep resting over your heartbeat.

Relief swelled in your chest as you waited for the dream-you to do the same, to offer him her hand and tell him that he was safe in this room, that he was always safe with you. But instead, her lips curved to a tight frown.

“What is it, Bucky? It’s the middle of the night,” she sighed, impatience lingering in her tone as she tapped her fingers on the doorknob. Short nails clicked against the cold metal. Your heart began to pound in your chest – the sudden uncertainty crippling.

“I know. I’m sorry to wake you,” he murmured, his voice still hoarse as if he’d woken up screaming. He shifted in his stance, his right hand was growing red as he tugged and twisted at his fingers. “I... I couldn’t sleep and... I just needed to see you.”

The dream-you took a less than subtle glance over her shoulder to the clock sitting by the bed. The bright red numbers indicated it was close to three in the morning. When she turned back to Bucky her jaw was clenched tight, her nails still incessantly tapping on the doorknob as if to count away the offensive seconds.

“Okay, so you see me,” she replied flatly. “Is that all?”

You didn’t miss Bucky’s sharp intake of breath, not even as your stomach plunged to the depths of the compound; covered in cobwebs and dirt, sinking to the foundation below.

“I... um...” Bucky could barely string his words together.

Once, you’d gathered his shaking hands in your own and led him inside without him having to say anything at all. He’d simply tucked his face to the crook of your neck as you ran your nails gently along his spine in slow, deliberate strokes. The memory of his tears on your skin stayed with you long after he fell asleep, even months later.

You’d have taken him into your arms in a heartbeat. You’d have let him through the door before he so much as said a word.

But she hadn’t even offered her hand.

“Ask,” you encouraged him gently, watching as he drew the inside of his cheek between his teeth and bit. Perhaps it was blind hope – a desperate need to know that Bucky trusted you, that he didn’t have an underlying fear that plagued his dreams that you would reject him like this. He couldn’t.

“Just ask, sweetheart,” you pressed. “She’ll say yes. You know she will. I always have.”

Bucky nodded to himself, almost as if he might have heard your words. Slowly, he pulled in a heavy breath, enough to quell the shaking in his hands. His lifted his gaze. “Can I... Can I stay with you tonight?”

You smiled at him, moving to rub his back in gentle circles in exchange for the strength of his vulnerability. Your fingertips slipped through the soft fabric of his t-shirt as if you hadn’t touched him at all, but he straightened his back as your hand ran although his spine like it had drawn new energy to his bones.

The dream-you sighed, her lips puckering to a frown. “Look, I'm sorry that you get bad dreams, but I have an early morning tomorrow.”

The trembling returned to Bucky’s hands. “I can sleep on the floor,” he offered quickly. “You won’t know I’m there.”

“I need to be able to sleep, Bucky. I can’t do that if you’re waking up screaming every ten minutes,” she replied as though it wasn’t cleaving a knife through his chest, through yours too as you stared at a vision of your own reflection you hardly recognized at all.

“Please,” Bucky whispered, his voice breaking. “The dream... it was about you. Something happened and I—” He swallowed though it looked near painful to do so. “I can’t convince myself you’re safe. I can’t get myself to calm down. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin.” The cold metal of his left hand rubbed along his right forearm until the skin was worn and red. “I hate asking this of you. I know I shouldn’t put this on you but I... I can’t keep myself together on my own. I need you.”

While the dream-you stood there silently, you crept out in front of him, standing between you and the false mirror behind you. The gentle blue of Bucky’s eyes did not meet yours, staring straight through you unfocused, and still, you reached for the sides of his face, soothing your fingers along his cheeks. For a moment, you swore you felt the stubble on his jaw.

“You can always ask me, Bucky,” you told him sternly. “You don't have a say a single word and I will let you in the door. I will always let you in. You know that, don’t you? You know I’d do anything to take this burden off your shoulders?”

But your voice came from the ghosted figment of Bucky’s dream instead. “Then don’t put it on me, Barnes. We all have shit we’re dealing with. I can’t take on yours, too. You’ll drown me in it.”

You had never wanted to throttle someone more in your life. If your hands were corporal in this state, you would have strangled your mirror image without a second thought. Disbelief was not enough to quell the rage boiling inside of you, steam burning through your ears.

This was not a memory, not one that you’d ever had any part in. But it was still a nightmare, still a fear of his. Your heart cleaved in the knowledge that Bucky – on some level – feared you would turn him away like this, that he believed you could be cruel and unkind to him when he so desperately needed you.

“You’re right,” Bucky muttered defeatedly, taking a step back. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

No other words were exchanged before she closed the door. You could hear her steps back to the bed and the squeak of the mattress as she curled up under the blankets again, ambivalent to Bucky's panic standing just outside her door. He kept his gaze focused intently on the door, his nose only inches from the wood.

“Bucky,” you started as his hands began to curl into fists, his breathing picking up in pace, “this isn’t real. You know this isn’t real. You’re dreaming, sweetheart. You know me. You know I’d never turn you away. Don’t you?” Tears burned your eyes as you asked again, “don’t you?”

“Stop it,” Bucky whispered to himself, unable to hear you. “Come on, Barnes. Don’t fucking do this right now. Pull it together. Stop. Stop.”

He only made it a few steps before he sank to the floor. Bare feet on the hardwood floors, knees curled tight to his chest. He could hardly draw in a full breath, his gasps becoming shorter and shorter. Cheeks flushed pink, reflective marks just under his eyes. His hands were trembling so violently, he gripped into the excess fabric on his sweatpants for support.

“I’m here,” you soothed, kneeling down in front of him. “You’re not alone, sweetheart. Just breathe, okay? That’s all you have to do. Just breathe for me."

You exaggerated your breaths, trying to get Bucky to follow in suit. He hadn’t been able to acknowledge you the entire time you’ve been in his dreams, but you couldn’t just sit there and watch him suffer like this. Even if the odds were stacked against you, you'd fight for him at every turn.

Slowly, Bucky’s breaths began to lift in time with yours.

“Good,” you soothed, setting your hand against his knee. “That’s it, sweetheart. Good. Keep breathing. Just like that. Deep breaths.”

Bucky paused for a moment then, his attention turning slowly to where your hand laid over his knee. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his eyes struggling to focus, but you were certain his gaze had centered where your hand rested over his leg.

“Bucky?” you called, stunned. “Can you hear me?”

He narrowed his eyes as if he’d heard something muffled through the walls – distant, like a voice calling to him from above the water. Still, his eyes never met yours, never so much as looked in your direction. You were a ghost to him.

Carefully, Bucky stood and brushed the lingering dust from his pajamas, ridding himself the evidence of the panic attack that rendered him to the unforgiving floors. He wouldn’t attempt to sleep again for the rest of the night. No – he'd keep the lights on in his room and stare at the ceiling until his eyes burned. There would be no comfort in the silence. He’d flinch at every sound. It didn’t matter that the scene began to darken around you as he retreated back to his room, that he’d only be made to endure this particular brand of panic for a few seconds longer. It still broke your heart.

When the dreamworld pieced itself back together again, you were standing in the middle of a warzone.

Well, not a warzone per se – the middle of downtown Manhattan. Bullets were raining from all directions, the violent echo of gunfire rattling in your ears. The metal passed straight through your body, gold shimmering amongst the translucence as it moved through you without impasse.

To your left were those you recognized – your team, your family. To your right, was a faceless enemy you could not name; horrific in shape, with a vague blur where their facial features should be. Bucky’s mind was growing tired of inventing new enemies. You supposed these faceless creatures served the same purpose.

“Bucky!”

You recognized your own voice as it shouted through the chaos. Whipping your head around in search of the owner, you quickly caught sight of another dream induced version of you sprinting around the barriers, wielding a gun in her right hand, a machete in the other. She was racing in search of Bucky and you were determined to follow her.

“Dammit, Bucky! Where are you?” she screamed, desperation breaking the edges in her voice.

The scene around you was not one you recognized, was not a memory that Bucky was drawing off of. No – this must be another fear of his. Maybe, if you could somehow stop the nightmare before the crux began, you could wake him up. It was the only plan you had. Nothing else had worked this far.

“Here!” Bucky finally called back. He was limping as he made his way to the dream-you. Blood trailed down his forehead from where he’d taken a nasty hit and his pant leg was ripped along the thigh as if a knife had sliced directly through the fabric and several layers of skin and muscle. He was winded with every step.

Still, he did not stop the dream-you as she raced towards him – her arms thrown around his shoulders, face burrowed into the crook of his neck. The momentum knocked him back a few unsteady paces but he didn’t seem to mind, not as his right arm curled protectively around her waist and he held her tightly. Fingertips pressing into the small of her back, curling into the tough fabric of her suit.

It was a strange thing to watch from the outside – how you could recognize pieces of yourself in her, knowing you’d held him like that once, that’d he’d held you just as desperately, and to still feel a sliver of a jealous ache in response.

Bucky breathed her in, lingering in the embrace as long as he could even amongst the violence around them. “Are you okay?” he muttered quietly to her ear.

She nodded, pulling back only enough to hold the sides of his face, to brush her thumb against his eyebrow and steer the blood dripping from his hairline away from his eyes. She touched him so lovingly, with such unbridled affection. You longed to give that to him beyond the walls of your room, beyond the frantic relief in the middle of missions – to grant him this kindness, this love in the light of day where everyone could see how cherished he was. You wondered if perhaps that was what he wanted, too.

For a moment, you hesitated to try and wake him. Only a moment, because a smile gently lifted the edges of Bucky’s lips. Even amongst the crusted blood on his skin and the slash of an open wound against his cheekbone, Bucky Barnes was smiling.

He didn’t take his eyes off the dream version of you, not even as he lifted his rifle and shot down one of the faceless creatures jumping over the barricade.

“How much longer is she going to be in there?” a disembodied voice echoed softly behind you. Sam’s voice, you realized, back in the compound. “We’re running out of time.”

“Five minutes, Sam,” Steve pressed. You could hear his quiet steps as he paced the tile floors, could picture how tight his arms folded over his chest. “Give her five more minutes.”

“Then what?” Sam shot back, the concern in his voice pushing you another step forward. “We have no other options, Steve. Bucky’s heart is going to give out. He’s going to die if she can’t--”

“Stop it,” you warned, the vibration in your throat aching. “I can do this. Five minutes.”

Whether they heard you or not, you didn’t know. But you did not hear another word as you moved to close the distance between you and Bucky.

Before you could reach him, the nightmare reared its ugly head in the shape of a faceless man sprinting beyond SHIELD’s foreground, a rallying cry of “Hail Hydra!” shrieked from a horrific void where his mouth should have been. It pierced through the chaos – shattering the gunfire to muted silence.

The dream-you reacted before Bucky ever had a chance, shoving him hard enough in his injured thigh to push him from the line of fire. Even as Bucky lost his balance and collapsed to the pavement, disbelief wrung through his features – shock, betrayal, agony worse than you’d ever seen twisted to the beautiful lines of his face.

It happened in slow motion, as if the dream itself had warped time and space to dig its knife deeper into Bucky’s chest and twist the serrated blade until the muscle was little more than shredded tissue.

“No!”

His scream was worse than you could have imagined – raw and broken. Shattered. As if the entirety of his soul escape through his lips as the bullet tore through the chest of your mirror image, blood spewing from her back where the bullet passed clean through her lung. She collapsed – hard – onto the ground and you could hear the nauseating snap of bone as her wrist caught the wrong angle.

You gasped, halting firm in your place.

Bucky crawled toward her the moment she hit the pavement, his whole body shaking so violently he could hardly move himself at all. His leg dragged behind him, leaving a trail of blood in his path.

When you turned to look at the monster responsible, it had vanished. As had the rest of the warzone around you. All that remained was a stretch of pavement a few yards in every direction. The chaos dulled to a white noise until it was nothing at all. Bucky’s labored breathing was all that remained as the dream world began to close in around him.

“I’m here. I’ve got you, doll,” Bucky soothed, his voice breaking on every word as he gathered the mirror image of you into his arms. Blood soaked through her suit, spilling onto his skin as he sat in the pool slowly expanding along the ground. Thick and crimson against the grey stone. Her eyes were already unfocused, lids barely able to stay open.

“You’re okay,” Bucky cried, a sob fracturing through his spine. Tears slid along his cheeks, cleaning uneven lines from the blood on his face. As gently as he could, he slid his left hand over her forehead, brushing the sweat-damp hair from her eyes. She hardly reacted at all. He pulled her tight to his chest, holding her though she could not return his embrace.

“You’re okay,” he said again, this time against her neck, against her hair. Breath hot to her chilling skin. He said it until his voice gave out completely and her hand had fallen still – limp as it laid against the pavement. Bucky’s breath hitched as he felt the small movement cease – so impossibly still as he held her, as he realized she’d already taken her last breath in his arms.

Horror drew to his features, panic unlike anything you’d ever seen.

“No...” he murmured so quietly you could hardly hear it at all. “No. No, please. Please, don’t... don’t leave me. I can’t... I can’t...”

Darkness began to sink in from the sky, replacing the cool morning blue with the unsettling weight of the void. Behind you, you could no longer see the barricade or the swarm of faceless men beyond it. The dreamworld was falling to the emptiness again and you weren’t sure whether Bucky’s heart would make it through another nightmare.

“Bucky,” you called gently, kneeling down at his side. You tried not to look at the body in his arms, tried not to recognize your own face staring blankly through unseeing eyes. Bucky held her so tightly, you wondered if his strength might fracture one of her ribs.

“I’m sorry,” he cried, rocking back and forth. He buried his face into her neck. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

“Sweetheart, look at me,” you begged, tears blurring your eyes as Bucky kept repeating the same apology over and over again. It was an endless tape, a broken record stuck on the most heart wrenching notes. Guilt laced with shame and he could not rid himself from the words.

You set a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and he froze. “You’re dreaming, Bucky. Everything’s okay. You’re only dreaming.”

Slowly, Bucky began to pull back. The void had consumed the entirety of the world around you – leaving only you, Bucky, and the unmoving body in his arms behind. Darkness inched closer until there was little more than a few feet of pavement around you. He didn’t seem to notice, not as his gaze carefully lifted to yours. Confusion pressed onto his features, his brows knitting together.

Then, quicker than Bucky could prepare himself, the dream-you vanished from his arms. Weight lifted from his lap, a ghosted mist remaining until there was nothing at all. Bucky scrambled along the ground, panicked.

“It’s okay,” you rushed to assure him. “Bucky, it’s okay. I’m right here. It’s only a dream.”

He stilled, though his chest was rapidly rising with every breath. He looked down at his hands to find them coated in blood – oozing between the plates of metal and staining to his flesh. Dripping onto the floor.

“I don’t-- I don’t understand.” His voice was small, frightened – like a child’s. “What’s happening? What—What is this?”

You moved to step forward, but Bucky retreated a step back. A rock lodged in your chest, but you held still for him, watching the panic morph into fear.

“You were on a mission when you were captured,” you explained slowly, hands raising defensively in the air to show you did not mean him harm. “Steve and Sam found you like this – trapped inside your head. You’d been injected with something to induce an endless stream of nightmares. Your heart can’t take it, Bucky. But you’re safe, I promise. You’re back in the compound. You’re not alone.”

Blue eyes shifted to the darkness below as he began to put the pieces together. He moved to brush his hands through his hair but stopped abruptly as he remembered the fresh blood on his palms – your blood. He let out a shaky breath.

“You’re in my head.” It was not a question. He still had not looked at you.

You swallowed, cheeks burning hot with shame. “Yes. I— I didn’t have a choice. It was the only way. I’m... I’m sorry.”

Bucky drew the inside of his cheek between his teeth and bit. You were certain he could taste the blood of it as a muscle twitched on his lip.

“How do I—” He let out a pained sign, as though the words were too exhausting to speak. “How do I wake up?”

There was nothing he needed to do now. The rest would happen on its own; the simple acknowledgement enough to draw him consciousness back to the surface. His image had already begun to fade from the dreamscape, even as he waited on your answer.

“Just breathe, Bucky,” you told him gently, giving him something to focus on. He nodded, content with your answer. Neither of you said another word as he watched his own hands begin to fade.

You waited until he had disappeared from the dreamscape before you let go of his mind, unwilling to leave him on his own for even a moment longer than necessary. There was no relief as you allowed yourself to come back to your body.

***

You woke with sharp breath.

Steve rushed across the room to you, a steadying hand on your spine as you pulled back from your position draped against the bed. Your temple ached from where you had laid your head against Bucky’s shoulder. Your spine throbbed. A quick glance up at the heart monitor told you enough as the frantic line as soothed out to long, even peaks. Bucky was going to survive.

“He should wake up any second now,” you told Steve quietly, unable to say much more under the weight of your exhaustion. You could feel Sam’s eyes watching you as you stumbled out of Steve’s concerned hold.

Your legs were weak under your weight as you dragged yourself to the door. It was too far away – like the tiles has somehow stretched to an endless hallway and dumbbells had been strapped to your ankles. Tears threatened behind your eyes as you leaned against the wall for support, demanding your body to move.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked, though there was a slight bite in his tone. It was only made of concern; you knew that. He’d seen the way you looked at his friend, how much you cared for him. And though Sam prided himself on how easily he could push Bucky’s buttons, he did not enjoy seeing him hurt. He believed Bucky would look for you when he woke up, would search for you as a means to ease his own fears. He was wrong.

“I told you, Sam. He won’t forgive me for invading his mind like that,” you said quietly, gaze fixated on the floor near his feet. “I shouldn’t... I shouldn’t be here when he wakes up. He won’t want to see me.”

Sam looked as though he was about to argue when Bucky began to shift on the bed, a low moan slipping through his lips. Steve eased a hand on Bucky’s shoulder in an attempt to ground him as his eyes fluttered open. Sam held his arms by his sides, fists curled, as if he was ready for Bucky to react defensively. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken from his nightmares and swung a right hook at his friends without realizing where he was.

Within their moment of distraction, you slipped from the room unnoticed.

***

Bucky was almost certain an anvil was sitting on his chest. He hadn’t seen Thor in quite some time, but perhaps the god of thunder had decided to pull a prank on him and leave that blasted hammer sitting over his heart. It was an effort to draw in a full breath.

When he finally managed to open his eyes, Steve and Sam were hanging over his bedside, staring at him as if he might snap at any second. Sam’s defensive stance did not go unnoticed, nor did Steve’s cautious glance at Bucky’s left arm as he began to stretch his sore shoulder.

“Shit,” he groaned, wincing under the pounding thumping in his head. “What happened?”

Sam’s hands relaxed, a tense laugh escaping. “You were a few feet away from the shiny light at end of the tunnel, buddy.”

Steve shot a glare in Sam’s direction, though Sam only offered a shrug in return. He was right, after all. Bucky could feel the truth of it in his chest, in the lingering ache left behind from the strained muscle. The cold touch of his left hand massaged at his chest, pressing deep into the throbbing though it did little to alleviate it.

“What do you remember?” Steve prompted carefully.

Bucky let his hand fall back to his side, his head sinking to the pillow. Fractured images flashed through his memory – the sharp pain at the back of his head that rendered him unconscious, the straps securing him to a table in that Hydra warehouse, the mask worn by the disgruntled Hydra doctor who injected something into his veins.

Then – the nightmares.

Bucky always remembered his dreams. It was part of his curse. The universe couldn’t allow him a moment of peace, couldn’t grant him the kindness of forgetting the horrific images the moment he opened his eyes. Of course, it couldn’t. There had been so little good in Bucky’s life since the day he was drafted. Why would he expect anything different?

But that wasn’t true completely true, was it? No – he found a family again after decades of torture and a resignation to the darkness. He’d escaped Hydra and started to make amends for all he’d done under the hand of vile men. He’d met you.

“Fuck.” Bucky jolted up on the bed, sheets falling to his waist. It was only then that he noticed the folding chair pulled up to the side of his bed, noticed the faint scent of a floral conditioner he’d grown to find comfort in through every breath.

“Where is she?” Bucky asked. There was no need to clarify who he spoke of, not when he could still feel the lingering trace of you in his mind – the gentle, comforting hold of your powers that had eased his nightmares for as long as he’d known you.

Sam and Steve exchanged a look, though neither said a word.

“I know she was here,” Bucky pressed. The image of you following him around in his dreams – his nightmares – left an awful feeling behind in his stomach, a stone threatening to pull him below the tiles of the floor.

It was a promise you’d sworn to uphold. A promise you'd made the first night Bucky had found himself in your arms, tears wet on his cheeks, his body shaking in your arms. He’d begged you to never look inside his mind, to not bear witness to the horrors he’d dreamt of.

You’d soothed his fears, taken his panic more times than he could count. He’d burdened you enough. He did not wish for you know of the trauma he’d endured under Hydra, of the fears he carried for his future, of his desperation to be loved by a woman he could never deserve.

You’d broken that promise. He could still feel your presence in his mind – soothing him. Lingering aftermath of your psychic abilities. He could still picture the shock in your eyes, the pain, as you watched all of his fears come to life. Bucky swallowed back the shame burning hot into his throat.

“She did it to save your life,” Sam said slowly as if to defend you, as if Bucky could be angry at you for even one second. As if he were capable of it.

Bucky nodded. He knew it would be the only reason you went back on your word to him. He knew you would not enter his mind for anything less, and still – the ache of it hurt worse than he thought.

How could you possibly look at him now? How could you ever want a man so irrevocably ruined by his past? A man, whose greatest fear is losing the woman he would give his life for?

It was too much; he was certain of it. Too much weight on your shoulders. Too much baggage for you to carry. It was the sole reason he begged to keep you from his mind – to shield you from realizing how truly broken he was.

“I have to go,” Bucky muttered to himself, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. Before he could stand, Steve jolted out in front of him, pressing a cautious hand on his shoulder.

“Easy, Buck,” Steve warned, the stern drop in his captain’s voice rising to the surface. “You’ve been out for hours. Your body has got to be exhausted. You need to rest.”

“What I need is to find Y/n.” To do what, he wasn’t sure. Apologize, maybe? Get on his knees and beg her to forget what she’d seen?

Bucky’s hands gripped into the edge of the mattress, sheets gathering in his grip. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to meet Steve’s, who only shared a sad look of understanding upon his face. Then, he stepped out of Bucky’s way.

The entire walk to your room was nothing short of a marathon. Bucky could hardly remember the last time he struggled to catch his breath on the stairs, if he ever had at all. His body was screaming at him to rest; he’d practically been tachycardic for the last twelve hours. But there wasn’t a chance in hell Bucky was going to find sleep again. Not until he made things right with you.

A dim crack of light was visible through the small opening of your bedroom door. It slipped out into the dark of the living room, touching yellow light to the hallway. Bucky paused before he walked into the light, settling himself in the darkness. He could make out your figure pacing inside your bedroom, the constant gentle thump of footsteps his confirmation. You mumbled to yourself words he could not discern.

Bucky forced a breath to his lungs. The sooner he got this over with, the better. Maybe he could convince you his baggage wasn’t all that heavy, that Steve and Sam had started picking up some of the load. Maybe he could promise you he’d never put that weight on you again. Maybe, if he could just reverse time to before you saw all the ugly parts of him, you’d stay.

When he reached the edge of your door, your pacing stopped. You exhaled a heavy sigh and slumped onto your bed. Hands pressed over your eyes, your body sinking into the mattress.

Bucky tried not to notice the slight hitch in your breath as he knocked on the door. Surprise, perhaps. Dread? He couldn’t tell and it made his knees weak. Still, you sat up slowly and removed the heels of your palms from your eyes.

“Bucky?”

He shivered at the sound of your voice, of his name called so gently from your lips. It wrapped around him in such warmth, he might have mistaken it for an embrace. How your voice alone managed to soothe him like this, he wasn’t sure. But it was still a comfort.

He steadied himself on his breath and pushed open the door. There hadn’t been such weight there before – this resistance, as if he were willing a mountain to move. Bucky could not get himself to step past the frame, holding himself on the very edge of your room.

“How are you feeling?” you asked slowly. There was a nervousness in your voice Bucky didn’t recognize and he wondered whether you might be trying to find a kind way to cut him out of your life. His stomach sank – made of lead and metal heavier than his own arm.

“Better, I think,” he replied. A hand raked through his scalp, scratching painfully down into his neck. “I thought you’d be there when I woke up.”

Your gaze swiftly dropped to the floor. Hands wringing in your lap, breaths drawing in heavier within your chest. “I thought I was best if I wasn’t.”

“Right,” Bucky nodded, the bitter taste of copper on his tongue.

Of course, you wouldn’t want to be around him after witnessing what you did – the horrific memories of what he’d endured under Hydra, his pathetic desperation to hold you, how easily he crumbled at the thought of losing you. You were distancing yourself from him. This was the start of it. He could already feel you slipping from him, his fingertips barely clinging to yours as your hand pulled further from his reach.

“I know what I did was unforgivable,” you muttered quietly and Bucky’s heart nearly stopped beating entirely. His stunned eyes shot to yours, though you still had not managed the strength to look at him again. “I’m sure you must hate me for what I did, but... Bucky, you have to know I would never betray your trust like that willingly. You were going die. I—I was watching your heart give out. I couldn’t just stand there and wait for—for your heart to stop when I knew I could do something. I had to, Bucky. Please, believe that. Please believe I’d never intentionally cross that line with you unless I absolutely had to.”

Tears were in your eyes as you looked up at him – sliding down your cheeks and trailing down your neck. Your lower lip was trembling and you dug your teeth into it to keep yourself steady. He recognized the guilt as it sank into each line upon your face, burrowed into every crevice, because he’d seen it enough times in the mirror to know the demon by its name.

You thought he’d be angry at you for invading his mind, for violating a promise he’d begged you to swear years earlier. The thought alone that he could feel anything but relief around you burrowed hollowed shells into his stomach.

“Do you know why I asked you to never look inside my head?” Bucky started gently as he sat on the mattress beside you. “It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you, Y/n. It wasn’t because I was afraid of your power or because I was clinging to some desperate sense of control that had once been taken from me.”

He drew in a shallow breath – uneasy in the inhale, barely enough to fill his lungs. “I— I was trying to shield you from all the awful shit in my head. The things I’ve done, things I’ve been through... no one should have to see that. Especially you.”

Bucky didn’t dare to steal a glance at you, not as his cheeks started to warm under the shame of his confession. “You’ve done so much for me. More than I deserve. And it’s more than just easing my emotions when it feels like I’m drowning under the weight of them all. It’s you, Y/n. Just being near you is enough. Powers or not. I thought that if I could keep you from seeing just how incredibly fucked up I am, if you never saw the horrors inside my head, then maybe you... you wouldn’t leave.”

Bucky tried not to notice how incredibly still you’d become, how you’d hardly taken in another breath since he started speaking. He could feel your gaze on him – warm and comforting despite the adrenaline pumping through the veins.

Then, before he could prepare himself, your hands closed around his, drawing them gently into your lap. So impossibly gentle as you stroked his skin, as you grazed against metal and flesh– gingered touch on such violent history.

“I see you, Bucky,” you whispered, so soft it nestled deep into his chest. Slow enough he could have stopped them if he wanted, your hands slid up along his arms and nestled against his cheeks. Holding the Hydra-made assassin so tenderly in your arms, you stroked his cheekbone with your thumb until he found the courage to meet your eye.

“I see you and I’m not afraid. I see every piece of you, all the darkest corners and the light you carry. I see all of it and I’m still here with you. I’m still here.” You held him even as his jaw began to quicker, even as his body grew weak in your arms. You held him and told him sweetly, “I’m not going to leave you, sweetheart.”

Something cracked in Bucky’s chest; not his heart, but a wall he’d constructed decades earlier of all the broken pieces left behind over his many years. Born of necessity, to protect what Hydra sought to destroy, and it crumbled under your vow, shattered as your hands cupped the sides of his face, tears catching against your thumbs. His fragile, beating heart remained exposed beyond the rubble and for the first time in his life, he did not fear the hands that carried it.

---

Thank you so much for reading! ❤️ If you enjoyed this fic, please consider supporting me at my ko-fi account ✨

[suniix]

TY FOR THE TAG!!

tagging: no one specific, feel free to participate!

mutual tagged me in this little game, you just search up each word on pinterest and it’s how pinterest sees you !!

here’s mine :

tagged by : @roryheartz

tagging : @whoislynnie @sweetestfaiszts @faiztheap and whoever else is up for doing it!!

[suniix]

Lavender

summary: Not every nightmare is the same and Bucky doesn’t always wake up as the man you know. 

pairing: bucky x reader

word count: 5.9k

warnings: mentions of torture, nightmares

author’s note: So I’ve seen a lot of fics of Bucky waking up as the winter soldier after a nightmare, but I was curious… what happens if he wakes up as a different version of himself?

Sometimes, what ripped you from your sleep in the early hours of the morning, while the sun hung below the tree, wasn’t the kind of paralyzing, heart-wrenching scream that could tear through you like a knife. It wasn’t always sprinting down the hall at two in the morning or violent shaking, evading swinging fists and broken table lamps.

Sometimes, it was restless movements while he slept; tossing and turning, mumbling under his breath, words that would shatter your heart with every broken ache in his voice. Sometimes, it was clinging to you in his sleep, tears wet on his cheeks, sweat dampening the sheets under him. It was the kind of fear that left a lingering, unsettled feeling long beyond he opened his eyes.

Keep reading

[suniix]

Had to make a meme to describe me currently

[suniix]

I WISH IT HAD ALL BEEN DIFFERENT!!!!!

[suniix]

ik i just run a tumblr smut page BUT!!!

FUCK ICE, free palestine, free congo, FUCK trump, FUCK musk, no one is illegal on stolen land, and if u disagree, FUCK YOU TOO!!!

i’ve said this before but if u support that fuckass orange in office, idc if ur a silent follower or ur like is ur only form of interacting with me, just know, i don’t want it!!! and u are a terrible person!!! 😛