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marvelettesassemblenow · 3 days ago

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It's been ages since I've read this and I don't want to make you all jealous (I do actually) but I've also read chapters after this and you have to give this a try! The time loop is driving Nika insane, but it's super good and I love and miss these characters!

time after time [7]

series summary: After what starts out as a fairly normal mission, you find yourself stuck in a time loop. Which would already be bad enough in itself if it didn’t also mean having to watch Bucky die over and over again.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

word count: 11.1k

chapter warnings: self-deprecation, negative self-talk and canon-typical violence. this one's heavy on the angst. it's also my favourite so far. please note that my blog is rated 18+. minors dni. ageless/empty blogs will be blocked without warning.

a/n: i return with a semblance of a posting schedule and a chapter that i'm well aware is absolutely insane. but that was always gonna be the case. enjoy my loves 💚

series masterlist | main masterlist | read on ao3

seven: spellbound

The slamming door made you flinch awake from where you’d fallen asleep on the couch, still wearing your extravagant jumpsuit. Bucky’s hands were clenched into fists, the frown on his face familiar and deep. He’d lost his tie somewhere on the way back.

"You alright?" you mumbled, getting up on one elbow.

He ignored you, facing Sam, who had his hands folded in his lap, back still hunched forward in thought or worry.

"You alright?" Sam repeated.

Bucky gave a short nod. "Can I talk to you?"

"Talk."

He did look at you, then, his gaze slowly and irritably dripping down your body. "I meant alone," he said pointedly.

"This is my home," you protested, sitting up properly.

"You’re a squatter."

"What do you want to talk about?" Sam interjected before you could snap back.

Bucky crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I want her out."

Your mouth dropped open. "What the fuck?"

"Tonight wasn’t ideal, I’ll give you that," Sam said tiredly. "But we got what we went in for and we didn’t cast any unwanted suspicion."

"Didn’t we?" Bucky said. "Because I feel like some of us remember tonight differently."

People murmuring in confusion as you blinked in and out of existence, knowing that something was off, even though they couldn’t put a finger on it. Agitated comm chatter throughout the corridors.

"Excuse me for saving your ass," you said hotly. Maybe it would have had the intended effect if you’d properly wiped the dried blood from your face.

"I didn’t ask you to do that," he pressed out.

"If it pissed you off so much, I’ll just let you get shot next time, then, see how that feels."

"Okay, I think we can all just calm down and continue this conversation tomorrow," Sam boomed.

Bucky gritted his teeth and turned his back on you, but you jumped up from the couch, your anger giving you enough energy to follow him to the stairs.

"No! He’s having a go at me for no reason at all and I would like to hear the rest of it. Tell me where I made a single fucking mistake. Because I can tell you when you did."

"I am sick of you pretending to fix stuff—"

"Pretending?!"

"Guys—" Sam called from the living room.

"—when we don’t even know what it is you’re changing!"

"How about you actually just trust me for once, like you said you would?"

"I said I trust Sam’s decision to take you on, and that I trusted Steve’s judgment. There’s a difference."

You threw up your hands. "You wanna know what I changed? Your fucking arm almost got both of us caught, tin man, that’s what I changed."

"Do you know what it feels like," Bucky said, voice shaking with barely restrained rage, "when people tell you things about yourself that you don’t remember choosing to do?"

"Must be nice to get to forget things."

Your fingers twitched at the same time as his, metal and flesh curling like you both wanted to clutch at something you couldn’t reach. In another universe, he might have turned on you, slammed you into the wall with his hand around your neck.

Do it, then.

But no. In this one, he just went very, very still. Like he’d simply turned to stone under your gaze.

"Stay out of my fucking head," he pressed out under his breath, so low you barely caught it at all.

"I have no interest in your fucking head," you said, rage and frustration blazing in your eyes. "You want me to be honest with you? Fine. I’m sorry about what happened to you and I get why my powers are touchy for you because of it, but you gotta stop telling yourself that I’m holding out on purpose or that I have any control over anyone but myself when I go back. I didn’t ask for this shit, so get off my damn back."

"Who did, then?"

You stumbled a half-step backwards involuntarily. "What?"

Bucky’s jaw was set so tight his teeth audibly ground. "How did you get your powers?"

You blinked several times, your nails digging into your palms again. "I don’t know."

He huffed, turning away with a shake of his head. "You gotta be shitting me."

"I don’t know, okay? I don’t remember. I have to remember every single reset I’ve ever made, but I don’t know when it started, or how, or why. It’s just always been a part of me."

"Then why don’t you try to find out?"

"Oh, because you’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you? Clearly, I have no interest in understanding the thing that’s ruined my fucking life. I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything I could think of, and none of it’s done me any good."

"And you’re just fine with that, and so we’re supposed to be fine with it as well. Not knowing what the extent of your powers is, or why you got them in the first place. Sounds like a great idea."

"It was enough for Steve." You laughed mirthlessly. "He told me once that we would’ve gotten along, can you imagine that?"

"Well, maybe he was wrong about both of us, then, but why don’t you do your thing and we can ask him ourselves."

"Because for the millionth time, it doesn’t work like that! Don’t you think I’d like that, too? To go back and undo all of this damage that happened over the past couple of years? But I can’t, I can’t do it, I can’t change anything that’s farther back than eleven fucking minutes, and that was when I still had a family."

The word fell apart on the way out of your mouth, breaking into pieces just like the actual thing. You pressed your shaking palms against your eyes.

"So. I’m sorry, Barnes, that I’m not good enough for anything like that. I know that. I know that my powers are essentially useless, and I don’t need you to remind me all the time, okay. I’m already very aware."

* * * * *

Darkness.

Darkness and pain.

The sound of dripping, ticking, tilting.

Something like a bright light.

And then—

* * *

Bucky comes to in the middle of the crossing between Lexington and East 55th, right as he’s about to turn his back on the brownstone front of the Central Synagogue. There is a strange itch on his left arm that almost feels human.

He blinks, disoriented, unsure how he got here. The last thing he remembers is—

A car honks and he staggers to the sidewalk, head still pounding, and his good hand flies to the side of it, as if checking for blood.

He doesn’t find any.

Another nightmare, then. Disturbingly vivid, though. He’s concerned that his only memory of getting up and going on his usual run has the tinge of the dream to it, like he hasn’t actually woken up yet.

And neither the memory nor the nightmare carries the usual haze.

Bucky grits his teeth and tries blocking the whole thing from his mind. His thoughts keep returning to your scream, instead, which might be worse.

He notices he keeps rereading the sign in the window in front of him, and when he realizes that it’s yet another fucking Starbucks, he’s about to cut his route short and just go home, like there’s something there that could fix this bad feeling curdling in his stomach.

Instead, he takes a few shallow breaths, pulls his cap more deeply into his face, and then he continues.

When he was younger, he took up running to keep him quick on his feet during a fight. These days, he probably doesn’t have to keep on it quite so regularly, but there’s something about the rhythmic, constant movement that usually does help clear his mind.

Damn, he hates when his shrink is right.

Today, his run takes Bucky eight minutes longer than average, but he can wholeheartedly blame that on his almost-incident with the car. His thoughts are still stuck on what he remembers from the dream, spinning around and around in a loop until the elevator dings and he has to shake himself because he’s already here.

Maybe a shower will help.

It does, a little, because he turns the hot water to cold several times until he thinks, of course he’s awake. It seems so obvious now.

This is real.

The water turns off with that little squeaking sound that he keeps forgetting to fix. He doubts that anyone but him can even hear it; one of the uncountable inconveniences of enhanced senses is the ability to find some of the tiniest noises insufferable.

He shrugs a new shirt on and hangs his towel up on the only free hook, grabbing a fresh cloth from the closet. There’s not many left; neither of you has gotten around to doing laundry post-mission yet.

His heart is still beating a little harder than usual when he cracks open the door to the gym, peering inside right when Sam hits the mat.

"Geez, what’s gotten into you?"

You shrug and roll your shoulders, pulling him back to his feet. "I’ll dignify that with an answer when I see you kick above your waistline, Sammy."

Bucky can’t help but smile a little at the smugness in your voice. No matter what that terrible voice at the back of his mind is still whispering, you’re fine. It was all a strange, bad dream; end of story.

He watches the two of you circle around each other for a moment longer. There’s a grace to your movements as your eyes stay focused on Sam, calm and unwavering, like you’re anticipating the right moment to pounce on him. It’s mesmerizing.

Then again, you usually have that effect on him.

Bucky quietly slips away when you’re about to call it a day. Normally, he’d probably sit in your company to dry off his prosthetic, listening to your heartbeat return to normal levels and then watch you trot off to the showers with that little indignant shake of your head. In fact, there’s a significant part of him that wants to do just that; maybe he’ll catch a glance of that annoyed glimmer in your eyes that seems to be reserved solely for him.

It’s the one thing he gets.

He tries not to read too much into the fact that Sam gets things like an affectionate little suffix to his name when you tease him, even though that fact haunts him more than he’d care to admit. You probably don’t even notice you’re doing it, but it’s because you actually like Sam. Have learned to care about him over the past few months. And why wouldn’t you?

Bucky, on the other hand, is just Barnes more often than not. Which is fine; he’s used to it by now.

He opens the door to his room and a waft of stiff air hits him, familiar and suffocating all at once. For the first couple of months, he hesitated to even call it his room, even though he always picked the same one when it was easier than traveling all the way back to Brooklyn; the one upstairs with the large corner windows facing east and south.

It still doesn’t feel much like his out of anything other than habit. Blank, off-white walls, a half empty dresser, bed always made, the only source of disorder a couple of cat toys cluttered in the far corner. The only thing that reminds him of home is stowed in the drawer next to his bed.

He doesn’t open it now, instead reaching for the journal on the bedside table, flicking through until he reaches the latest entry.

But it’s strange.

Not the content itself, but the fact that Bucky could’ve sworn that he’d written it yesterday. He stares at it for a moment, flips the page over and back again, frowns slightly.

This nightmare is truly fucking with his head if he wasn’t even in a clear enough space of mind to jot down a couple of notes before his run.

He does it now, in as few words as he’s comfortable with, because something about all of this still doesn’t sit right with him but he can’t quite put his finger on it yet.

Out of some deep, dark instinct, his hand slips underneath his pillow, and he hates that his heart beats a little more calmly when he feels the cool metal of his gun right where he left it, where he always leaves it.

This is real.

Something nudges his side softly and when he turns, Alpine is nuzzling her head into the crook of his arm, mewling discontentedly. The sound melts a little more of his trepidation away.

"What’s wrong, sweetie?" he says with a quiet smile.

The cat observes him unblinkingly as he puts his journal down again and reaches out to pet her head, but she jumps off the bed before he can make contact, looking back at him in anticipation and, he’s pretty sure, annoyance.

She’s hungry, then.

Bucky sighs and follows her out of the room only for you to almost barrel into him. You’re sweaty and breathless, and he refuses to notice the way your training gear sticks to your body. In fact, he refuses to look anywhere but your face.

There’s an odd look on it, just as odd as the tone of your voice when you gasp, "Bucky!"

"Y/N!" he says, mimicking it. Adrenaline is still coursing through you, your heart beating so erratically he can almost feel it pulsating in his own skin. "What’s wrong with you?"

"Nothing," you answer quickly enough for him to know something is definitely wrong. "You look … normal."

"Thanks," he says dryly. "You don’t."

The nervous twitch of your ear is back, the soft tapping of your fingers against your thigh. At least he’s seen you like this enough times to know how to deal with it.

"You remember what showering is, right?" A tilt of the head, a hint of a scoff in his tone; you respond best to him pretending not to give a damn, and so he’s gotten quite good at it.

Predictably, your shoulders lose a little of their tension, even though your eyes don’t. "Fuck you, Barnes."

Really; he’s used to it by now.

Alpine meows again, like a reminder not to get hung up on things he has no control over, and it finally lets him look away from you. That’s always the hardest part, somehow, even though that makes him feel ridiculous.

Downstairs, he can’t keep his mind from wandering as he scrapes the contents of a tin can into Alpine’s bowl only for her to fall asleep in a spot of sunlight on the kitchen floor.

It’s then that he realizes the odd thing about you was that it almost, unexplicably, looked like relief.

* * *

Bucky’s been on enough missions with you and Sam by now to know you both use mindless chatter to calm yourselves in tense situations, and so he doesn’t mind forming the rear. Even if he doesn’t listen in on every word, he can easily tell if something about your situation changes while he’s covering your six.

There’s at least two guards patroling the grounds, according to Sam’s funny little computer bracelet, and so it’s no surprise that he asks Bucky to keep an eye on them while the two of you head up to find the entrance to the lab. You keep your hands raised halfway up, but Bucky can tell by your empty gaze that you’re tired. His grip on his gun tightens.

He nods to Sam once he’s in position, perched up on the roof just out of sight from any unsuspecting anarchists. Then, he watches you slip through the entrance of the barn-like building and lets out a deep, slow breath.

It’s been a weird day.

That gnawing feeling of déjà-vu has settled deep into his bones, like a pesky thought he can’t quite let go of. This, though? He can manage this.

The strange truth is—and frankly, this is something he’s looking forward to never disclosing to his therapist—that being on a mission like this one, having a specific set of tasks he can concentrate on, being keenly aware of all his surroundings … it has a calming effect on his brain. He’s not sure what to make of that fact, but it’s true.

He’s sick of the fighting, but he can’t let go of it, either.

Instead, he squints at the two white dots in the distance meeting on the other side of the block, gesturing for a while, and then slowly creeping closer.

Without taking his eyes off his targets, he tunes into your conversation again.

"—only scream when there’s good reason."

"I don’t wanna interrupt," Bucky murmurs, fiercely ignoring the untimely lurch his heart makes, "but they’re heading your way now, so get a move on."

"You’re no fun, Bucky."

He would love to roll his eyes, but he’s a professional. That’s also why he swallows his remark when you make a comment about your resets; it not like it’s surprising, anyway. You haven’t been sleeping well these past couple of weeks. Breakfasts have been particularly grumpy affairs since Marylebone.

The guards creep closer, and even though their faces are covered by the white masks, Bucky can tell they’re bored. Shoulders slumping, grip on their weapons loose, boots shuffling on the gravel. One of them has a pack of cards in her breast pocket.

If either of them were smart enough to look up, they’d spot him within a second. But since nothing unusual has ever happened during their shifts, it doesn’t even occur to them to do so.

Look at them, a voice inside him says. They don’t notice anything, do they?

Bucky’s jaw clenches, his finger tightening on the trigger. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"Reminds me of old times," Sam says.

"Can’t say that, bud," Bucky murmurs. The guards are only a couple of yards away now. "Twenty seconds."

Take them out now.

"—makes Barnes cranky."

"You forget he’s always cranky."

This is what he’s good at, what he’s always been good at. Being the lookout. The Howlies’ best sharpshooter. His aim is perfect. His mind is clear.

They might be dangerous.

He swallows.

One of the guards trips over his own feet, almost losing the rifle he’s holding. They’re both amateurs; it’s clear from their posture, the way their jackets aren’t quite crisply ironed, even the way they walk. Neither of them pose any real threat.

Still, the voice says. Why not make sure?

It’s easy, so easy, to aim at the center of their white jackets. To imagine them soaking red on the ground while he barely moves more than a single finger. Just a flash of a second.

So easy.

"Any time, Buck."

Breathe out.

The taller one gets a bullet in her right shoulder, just underneath the joint, missing her subclavian artery; the shorter one gets hit in the kneepit as he turns, his rifle skittering away as he falls, safety still engaged. Clean and quick.

With one last glance around, Bucky jumps to the ground right as the explosion sounds inside. No one is coming. Yet.

He knocks the guards out with two quick blows to their temples. Their wounds aren’t bad, of course; just enough to keep them out of the way and hurt a bunch later.

Сбой.

No, but it’s all too simple. Too obvious. This, he remembers from his nightmare as well; the lab with the hidden staircase, the metallic stench coming from the leaking containers, the data stick and then …

Another fight.

The voice leaves him alone when there’s no time to think, and so Bucky trusts his instincts for this one. It’s despicable, really, how much the rush of adrenaline makes his blood boil in the best possible way, blocking out all other thought, leaving nothing but the cacophony of noises and the flurry of movement surrounding him.

This is what he was made for.

His breath hitches when a memory catches him, and he steps out of the way of a shot aimed for his head like it was in the dream, just in case.

It fires into thin air, instead.

The fact that it does fire, exactly like he remembers, takes him a fraction of a second to process.

Talk of a lucky coincidence, he thinks, knocking another agent out cold. Breathe in. Breathe out.

"We better get moving," Sam shouts, and Bucky nods.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see you throwing another punch; you barely seem to have broken a sweat.

There’s something off about the way you move. It seems controlled, almost rehearsed in a way; as if your body knows exactly where to land your next attack without even thinking about it.

A little too perfect.

There’s a beat before you turn around to face him, and your eyes widen at the same time as Sam’s voice explodes in his ear, "Bucky!"

There’s a flash of pain and a burst of green light, and then he comes to in the middle of the crossing between Lexington and East 55th, and it’s like you’re still shouting his name, the sound echoing through his mind so clear and sharp it’s like you’re standing right behind him.

There’s something wrong with him.

Something wrong with his brain, something terribly wrong, because this—

He stumbles to the sidewalk when the same car as yesterday honks at him, comes to a halt next to the same street lamp, sweat beading on his temples in the exact same way while his bad arm itches and his head aches.

Bucky’s hand flies to his chest, pressing, feeling his heart beat erratically. There aren’t any holes. No broken ribs, no scars he doesn’t already know, every new trace of violence vanished like it had never brushed his skin.

Even though he just got shot.

Again.

He’s drawing attention now; he can feel the stares in his neck. It’s not going to take long for someone to recognize his face as well.

So he forces his breaths to slow, straightening his shoulders and tilting his head in the most unassuming way he’s taught himself. After a while, his thoughts start to clear.

There’s something wrong with his timeline. You told him once that going back felt a little like the moment before freefalling, and the bile in his mouth might just be proof for that hypothesis.

But how on earth would he have gone back, and why?

Maybe it’s his perception of time that’s warped.

He remembers the stories about people seeing their whole lives flash before their eyes before they die; and he remembers almost dying.

This feels like much more than a flash, though, and he’s not quite dead yet. This is real.

Right?

"This is impossible," he whispers.

His reflection in the Starbucks window does the same.

* * *

One more, he thinks as the shower washes away the cold sweat sticking to his skin. He’ll give this one more try before accepting that he’s either finally losing his marbles or that there’s something else going on.

His life’s been an assembly of unexplainable things. Twice might still be a coincidence.

Third time’s a pattern.

The shower squeaks off and he steps out in a cloud of steam, the cold tiles underneath his feet grounding, in a way. He wipes a streak of condensation off the mirror, staring at his own face for a moment, trying to find any signs of his mind starting to crack. His hair is long enough to stick to his forehead again, eyes tired as always.

Everything feels the same.

No one’s done laundry.

It’s like his feet automatically follow the same path they’d gone yesterday, turning left, waiting for him to push the door open, hesitating.

"What’s gotten into you?" Sam asks you again, and you shrug, again, neither of you noticing that you’re all retracing steps you’ve taken before.

Bucky thinks about the journal on his bedside table, and his fingers curl more tightly around the rag in his hand because he already knows, he knows it’s going to be incomplete again. The heavy feeling in his stomach settles as he sits down on the wooden bench, the sun hitting his arm at the exact same angle again. For a moment, golden spots dance around the room before he twists his torso just enough to make them disappear again.

He thinks about the journal, and he doesn’t want to have to look at it quite yet.

You flop down on the mat when Sam calls it a day, and Bucky nods back at him as he heads outside, rubbing a spot between his shoulderblades. Your face is still tense, even with your eyes closed, your heartbeat fast enough to make him tilt his head.

You’re so pretty. It’s not making the confusion boiling inside of him any easier to deal with.

The words are at the tip of his tongue without him having to think about them.

"You look like shit."

You blink at him in a peculiar way, like you’re just waking up from a dream yourself, and you let out a long, shaking breath.

"Oh, fuck you, Barnes."

It’s so normal for you to say it like that it almost puts him at ease. Almost.

"I think you nearly broke his nose, there." He presses the rag into another one of the crevices in his arm.

You hum noncommitantly. "Didn’t, though."

You haven’t put your rings back on, but your knuckles look fine, so you’ve probably managed to not do it in one try as well. Bucky’s gaze wanders up your arms again, slowly; your heart hasn’t calmed yet, and you continue to stare at the ceiling like you’re waiting for something.

Probably his leave, he realizes, standing up. He’s had his indulgence. "Take the towel on the right," he tells you again. "I already used the other one."

He doesn’t miss the shaky little exhale you let out as he turns his back on you, and his left fist clenches involuntarily.

One more.

He’s probably just going to have to take his mind off it all.

The air outside is sticky with heat; like the skies are supposed to break open but refuse to. Even when he squints, he can’t make out a single cloud in all that endless blue.

He keeps his head down even as his eyes scan his surroundings. It’s a little like being part of a movie he’s seen before.

There’s the woman with the two dogs, one of them barking at a garbage truck across the street. The banker on a phone call with his pregnant fiancée. The tired violin player busking near the subway station, playing the same song he did yesterday, something Bucky recognizes but still can’t name.

Everything is exactly the same.

He shoves his hands deeper into his pockets to fish for his ticket, joining the other people lining up to board the subway, their faces too familiar to distract him. He keeps expecting one of them to break, to call him out on doubling back every day, but none of them do. They don’t seem to notice.

He almost hesitates before he knocks on Sam’s door that afternoon, but the knot in his stomach hasn’t loosened. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

I thought you’d be there, he texts the number that never responds. He waits for a minute, two minutes, but of course there’s no answer.

There never is.

Just another thing to take his mind off of. Let his mind settle on something concrete that’s right in front of him. That he has complete control over.

Besides, maybe there’s something he’s supposed to get right here.

But when Sam calls, "We need to get moving," Bucky already knows, deep down, how this is going to end. His heart is beating frantically as the situation stays out of control, even though this should be easy. He’s seen this before. What is he missing?

The voice at the back of his mind hums dangerously, and he ignores it, punching out the agent in front of him and then whipping his head around to find you already staring at him with your eyes wide and for a moment, the world freezes because you look at him like … well, fuck.

Like he’s usually looking at you.

Desperate.

It’s his last thought before something right next to him explodes and there is nothing but pain.

And then he comes to in the middle of the crossing between Lexington and East 55th, and this time, this third time, he feels like he’s earned the right to be considerably less calm about the whole thing.

The car honks and the people stare and Bucky throws up on the sidewalk next to Starbucks because the world is still hung up on Friday and he’s died three days in a row. When he rummages through the pockets of his slacks for a tissue, his hand grazes something cool.

It’s a small, coal black ring that he’s seen many times before, and his stomach churns again as his hand closes around it so tightly it must leave an imprint. Of course, there are no coincidences in his life.

He really should’ve known better from the start.

* * *

He needs to talk to you.

He thinks it when he puts the ring back into his pocket and he’s still thinking it when he bursts into the Tower, doors slamming loud enough to startle Alpine awake from her spot on the couch. He needs to talk to you, and you’re going to figure this out together, because that’s what you do. It’s what you always do.

But she’s got time powers.

He presses his lips together tightly as he jogs up the stairs two at a time, ignoring the thought. Then again, there’s the piece of soap on the tiles next to the sink that he’s picked up three days in a row now, and his hand reaches for the same towel automatically, and how the hell does one get stuck in a time loop in the first place?

Месть.

Bucky turns the shower off so resolutely part of it dents. No, he thinks. If you knew, you’d get him out of this. He knows that you wouldn’t wish him harm.

Then how?

"You’re dead," he says out loud, staring at his own steamed up reflection. "You’re not real."

Neither of us is.

His heart beating out of his chest would disagree.

When he sits down next to you today, he watches you apprehensively. You still ignore him, but it seems to come so natural to you. As if all of this is normal, as if you don’t even notice something is wrong, even though you have to, right, you have to.

"You look like shit," he says out loud, but he feels like he’s still talking to himself.

Fuck you, Barnes.

And then it happens again.

Clearly, he’s losing his mind.

It’s the only explanation that’s left. He’s already been to hell and back and now he’s going mad, he’s finally going mad, he’s going insane—

No, you’re not.

His own heartbeat sounds so loud in his ears as the shower screeches off and something settles in his stomach like a stone, something as sure and familiar and uncomfortable as that voice that’s been getting louder each day.

You’re as clear-headed as you’ve ever been.

Which means that once again, someone or something else is trying to mess with his head, only this time, it’s already been screwed with enough for him to tell.

Here’s the thing about all this that keeps rubbing him the wrong way, keeps scratching at the very back of his mind just like the parts of him he’d rather keep buried for the rest of his days: If you truly don’t know this is happening, then why are you the only one doing something different every time?

Bucky’s spent the better part of his life honing in his perception skills, and he’s seen everyone else behave in the precise same manner four, five, six days in a row, but you … you’ll leave a room a few minutes earlier than the day before, or order a different lunch, or wear a different shirt.

It’s not easy to miss in the slightest and it makes him doubt you’re as clueless to this as you pretend to be.

Which leaves him with the version of events he hates the most, and which is therefore the most likely: If you do know this is happening, then why do you keep up this charade? Is it because you’re responsible for all this somehow? And if you are, is it on purpose?

That’s too many ifs for his liking. It all makes him think back to the Westview Anomaly, so he reads up on it.

And then he decides that he’d rather know whether the sinking feeling in his gut is right.

You’re staring up at the ceiling like you want to pretend he’s not even there, and his good hand is shaking too much to be of much use in drying the arm.

"Take the towel on the left," he makes himself say. "I already used the other one."

There’s a shuffling as you sit up, but he can’t bear to turn around. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I said use the one on the left, because I took the other towel," he repeats.

"Right," you say, and then he can hear your rings clink against each other as you collect them from their dish.

Maybe he should return the one he found in his pocket. Maybe you just haven’t realized it’s missing yet, because this is your first time living through this day and you don’t know to ask for inconsistencies yet.

You shuffle towards the showers, and he’s startled to realize how relieved he feels. Strange, really, to put that much weight on a towel; but at least it means you don’t—

"Hey, Bucky," you say, hesitating at the door, and his stomach drops a little. "What day’s today?"

"Friday," he answers, his voice surprisingly level. "Why." It’s not really a question.

"No reason," you say, and the door clicks shut behind you. The sound seems to echo in the empty gym.

"Something weird is happening," he tells Sam as soon as he can hear him approach the kitchen.

He hates that he’s doing this, but it’s not like there’s a roster of people he could talk to. His shrink would probably just prescribe him some pills that won’t work again—that is, if Bucky could get a hold of him on a national holiday in the first place—, and even though Sam is going to laugh in his face about this whole thing, he at least has to try. Right?

"You sound like Y/N," Sam says, pouring himself a bowl of cornflakes.

Bucky grimaces, which earns him a concerned head tilt. Sometimes, Sam reminds him of all the best parts of Steve, and he doesn’t know whether that makes him calmer or furious.

"Talk to me, Buck."

He stares at the milk carton like it’s holding the solution to his problem. "I think she’s doing something to me."

Sam snorts. "Thank you, Captain Obvious."

He says it so lightly, almost jovially, and Bucky’s nails dig so hard into his palms one hand draws blood. "You know?" he says tonelessly.

"Are you kidding me?" Like he’s tickled. Like he’s been in on the joke for a while. "You two have been doing this dance for months."

Despite it all, his heart cracks a little more. "What?"

Sam hesitates for a moment before squinting at him. "We’re not talking about the same thing, are we?"

And Bucky supposes they’re not, they’re really not, so he says, "Today should be Tuesday."

A frown. "What do you mean?"

"What day is it?"

"Friday," Sam says.

"Wrong," Bucky tells him. "Yesterday was Friday. And so was the day before, and the one before."

He finally puts his bowl down on the counter. "Are you having a stroke?"

"Sam, listen to me. Today keeps repeating."

He frowns. "You mean like a time loop? Like you’re in Groundhog Day?"

"I don’t know what that is." A fun little name for his personal Gehinnom.

Just deserts, don’t you think?

"Have you talked to Y/N about this?" Sam asks. "I mean, that’s kind of her thing. I’m sure whatever this is, she can help you out." He still sounds a little incredulous, but he knows Bucky well enough to recognize when he’s not joking.

He’s never felt less like joking.

"There’s also this." He pulls out the ring. "I found this in my pocket. Why would it be in my pocket?"

Sam leans against the counter. "You tell me, man."

"I think she knows something."

"But that’s a good thing, right?"

Theoretically. Not when he’s died for a week straight, though.

"Then why didn’t she tell us?" He hates the despair in his words, the paranoia seeping through. He hates that Sam catches it, and that his features morph into something that’s supposed to look understanding, even though he doesn’t get what this is about.

"Maybe you’re wrong," Sam says gently. "Are you sure she’s not just as oblivious to this as everyone else?"

Bucky drags a hand through his hair. His left shoulder aches. "I don’t know."

Yes. You do.

"I’m telling you, there’s something going on."

Sam stares at him for a long, hard moment, and then he nods. "Okay. What do you want to do?"

He wants to sleep in on Saturday. He wants to stop feeling so confused. He wants the words in his throat to stop choking him.

But what he wants hasn’t mattered in eighty years.

And so he doesn’t say, I’m scared.

He doesn’t say, I feel so alone.

He doesn’t say, I don’t want to die.

And the only one who hears those things swallows them up whole until there’s nothing left.

"I’ll tell you when I find out," he says, because that’s the only thing that will leave his mouth. And if Sam looks at him doubtfully, well, maybe he knows him a little too well.

* * *

"I’m gonna go get some coffee. Do you want something?"

Bucky can hear your keys clattering as you pull on your shoes in the hallway, but he doesn’t move from his spot on the couch. He has to think.

"I’m good," he says blankly.

Are you?

Even Alpine looks at him doubtfully. He leans back a little until a spot of sunlight reflects from his watch, making her pounce at it playfully. Normally, it’d make him smile.

She jumps up on the coffee table and sniffs at the shreds of cardboard someone’s left behind. They weren’t there yesterday.

On the muted television, Sam enters the stage with his signature cap grin. Presumably, there’s thunderous applause, because it takes him a while to actually step up to the podium and begin his speech.

In the background, dozens of important-looking people gaze at him expectantly, with the exception of a woman with short blonde hair who’s turned away from the stage, holding both hands to her ears like she’s trying to understand a person on the phone. Bucky squints.

"You sure?"

Reflexively, he looks up at the sound of your voice, only to see you leaning in the doorway with a cautious expression that doesn’t help his muddled thoughts in the slightest.

Talk to me.

"Why are you wearing a jacket?" he asks.

You tug at the sleeves, not meeting his eye. It’s become a habit he doesn’t care for. "To be more like you," you deadpan.

It would feel so normal if only he could shake the feeling that something is wrong. Something is off.

He catches a glimpse of your hands just before they vanish into the pockets of your jacket. Not long enough to clearly see what color your rings are, but enough to notice one’s missing.

It’s flitting through his own fingers instead, and you would notice, too, if you would just look at him.

"You sure you alright?" he asks, and for a split second there’s something like a flicker on your face, but it washes away immediately, replaced by the usual unbothered exterior you’ve been wearing.

"Just fine," you say, voice even, face neutral.

And the problem is that he’s not sure if you’re lying. Normally, it’s so easy to tell, but right now …

Alpine rubs her head against his palm, your ring pressing into it like a reminder, and it sends a chill down his spine.

Bucky waits for the door to click shut behind you before slipping into his shoes and quietly following after you. He takes three steps at a time to keep up with the elevator, and in his rush he ends up having to wait for it to arrive in the lobby, glancing surreptitiously through the small window in the fire door.

A change has gone through you while you were out of his sight. The mask you’ve been wearing whenever you know he’s around has vanished, dropped like your shoulders. When you cross the entrace hall, the usual bounce in your step is gone and you just look tired.

The frown on his face deepens. He makes himself count to ten before following you.

Stepping outside at this time of the day always feels like getting slapped across the face by the noise and the heat. The sun is relentless today, and he can feel sweat beading on his neck, but you don’t so much as readjust your jacket as you make your way across the street, slowly, like you’re letting yourself be carried by the crowds.

Bucky keeps enough of a distance so even you won’t get a second chance to become aware of him. Just before you enter the Starbucks, your chin raises up again, your spine straightening.

It’s uncanny to witness your defenses going up as clearly as this, and it makes him stop in his tracks so abruptly someone almost bumps into him.

"Hey, I was just—oh, sorry, Sergeant Barnes."

"It was my fault," he mutters. The guy strolls towards a delivery bike, stealing a cautious look over his shoulder. Something about the way he moves feels oddly familiar.

There’s no time for Bucky to entertain the thought much longer, because a couple of minutes later you step out onto the sidewalk again, drink in hand, and he retreats a bit further into the alley, expecting you to pass him on your way back. You don’t, though. Instead, you look up at the sky and let out a sigh before turning and strolling down Lex.

You didn’t do that yesterday, either.

Bucky hesitates for a moment. He doesn’t want to outright follow you around for the rest of the day; he only wanted to see … what, exactly?

He groans quietly and then walks into the Starbucks himself. Maybe coffee isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Besides … it’s not like she’s that fast.

How strange to know that if he really wanted to, he could probably track your steps without much of a problem, even on a day as busy as today. It unsettles him more than he would like to admit.

The AC blasts a little bit of common sense back into him, even though the volume inside the store immediately makes him want to tear his ears out. It’s not that busy at the moment, but the amount of noise of the chattering people and the coffee grinders and the milk steamers is close to unbearable as usual.

The barista who has a crush on Sam is working the register again, fanning herself with a playbill. There are red, white and blue stripes running down her forehead, and Bucky briefly wonders how she keeps it from getting into her eyes.

"Hi there," she says with a knowing grin as soon as she recognizes him. "You just missed Y/N."

"I saw." Bucky shifts his weight. "Did she seem weird to you?"

She chuckles. "Apart from the fact that she ordered decaf?"

He frowns. "Something like that."

She shrugs and redjusts her cap. "Just the usual amount," she says in a way that would make him smile on any other day. The tag on her apron has the name Nora on it, but he feels like that’s not right. "Do you want to order something? I can put it on her card."

Normally, he’d refuse out of principle, but it’s not like anything he does today matters.

"Thanks," he says. "I’ll have a coffee, then."

He doesn’t even particularly like coffee, but it does help when he hasn’t slept a lot. And, truth be told, he’s not sure when the last time he slept was. He’s been awake for a week, but without feeling any of the usual side effects of insomnia.

Or the numerous head wounds.

"Mhm," Not-Nora says. "Little more specific?"

Well, shit. "Not decaf?" he tries.

"You’re useless," she smiles and then taps her screen a bunch of times. "Alright, move along. Tell cap good luck from me."

He almost smirks. "Why not tell him yourself?"

She huffs, blushing ever so slightly. "I’m not getting out of here ’til one and I’m already a sweaty mess."

And maybe it’s because his day has been nothing but a shitshow over the past week. Maybe it’s because Sam hasn’t talked about Leila in over three weeks even before Friday started, and Bucky doesn’t like his friends being quietly miserable. Maybe he just wants to see something work out for a change.

It’s been a while since he’s played matchmaker. His sisters would’ve laughed about this for weeks; maybe he does it for that thought.

"How about you put down your number and I’ll pass it on?"

Not-Nora perks up even as her flush deepens. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly."

When he leaves five minutes later, her phone number is scrawled along one side of his paper cup, and even though the coffee tastes just as disgusting as usual, he can’t help but feel like maybe he can do one tiny thing right. At least for a moment.

His feet carry him down Lexington Avenue without him even consciously thinking about it, and he gets as far as three blocks before he remembers that Sam’s speech started at 14:00. He jerks up his watch so quickly the coffee spills on his shirt, but he barely hisses at the burn.

14:47.

What’s the point? he thinks as he throws the empty cup into the closest trash. Or maybe he does.

* * *

He throws his punches a little harder each day.

It takes all of his might not to lose himself completely in the fight to come, not to unleash his full serum-powered strength on a couple of faceless fanatics who would be fine again in a couple of minutes, anyway, depending on how long he’ll make it today. Still, there’s a certain mindlessness to it as he repeats his own steps, ribs cracking and wrists twisting as he strikes again and again and again.

"I think I’m losing it," he tells Sam about a week in.

"Like a bad day or you’re about to go Shining on me?"

So far, there hasn’t been any shining, but it wouldn’t make a difference.

"Two o’clock."

He’s already half-turning when you say it, already pulling the trigger as the words leave your mouth, moving on muscle memory alone at this point. And you still don’t notice.

A single bead of sweat runs down the side of your neck as you kick another one of your assailants in the groin, and even though your eyes are focused, you’re not in it.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say you were just concentrating; but he knows you can be in the moment and quip freely at the same time. He’s seen you do it countless times before today.

But it’s Friday, endless, sweltering, blood-stained Friday, and it’s like you’ve turned into a robot version of yourself, every move premeditated and precise, every look and word and nod planned and practiced just enough not to arouse suspicion in anyone who doesn’t look as closely as he’s had time to. It’s a game of pretend, and you’re almost winning. You’re almost perfect.

No. You’re too perfect.

Perfect in your display of almost-shock, of almost-pain as the knife cuts through Bucky’s kevlar vest like butter and lodges right above his heart. At first, he barely feels it; he only tastes the blood bubbling up his throat when his mouth drops open.

His eyes stay on you as he thuds to his knees, bones crunching, eyes watering. You catch him, barely, supporting his shoulders to keep him steady.

Your silence is deafening.

"What’s wrong with you?" he murmurs as the ringing in his ears gets louder, barely audible enough for you to hear, but clearly you do, because something shifts in your eyes, and oh.

There’s that glimmer in your eye he loves looking at so much, the one he only gets to see when he teases it out of you. That spark of mischief he’s missed during all this, like your fire has burned out.

He’s never hated it more.

And then he comes to in the middle of the crossing between Lexington and East 55th, and once again, he feels like a decision’s been made for him already.

He makes it to the side of the road and sits down on the boardwalk, ignoring the bustle of curious people around him. Instead, he stares directly at the synagogue on the other side of the street, and he doesn’t ask why.

He asks, Like this?

And just like he expected, there’s no answer. Not even from within.

He presses both of his hands to his heart to feel it beat against his palm, more steady than his thoughts and still there. He’s still there.

It’s Friday again.

Bucky thought, not too long ago, that with everything he’s come to know and … like about you, you were someone he could let in. That someday, he could let you see him, with everything he’s used to hiding away underneath all of the protective layers he’s built around his heart.

Maybe he was wrong.

He should confront you. No, he should just ask. Why can’t he bring himself to ask?

Сбой, the voice in his head reminds him again and he presses it down, down between his torn open ribs, shoves it underneath the wounds that keep reopening anyway because he’s sick of having to listen to it all the time, sick of never being alone in his own damn head anymore, of not being able to leave a single day behind, let alone anything else.

Something tugs at him from deep within, and it’s enough to make him get up, rub his palms against his pants, and then take out his phone as he starts walking again. He knows the number by heart, but he’s never been able to actually hit the call button before, even though he’s tried. He’s tried countless times.

His speed picks up with every ring of the phone because something about this makes him feel like running away. Like maybe he gets it now. Like—

There’s a click, and then the sound of the voicemail recording. Of course.

Bucky groans. "Damnit, I know you’re never gonna listen to this, but there’s something really fucked up going on and I don’t—I don’t know what to do, man."

He keeps walking, keeps his head up even when he bumps into people, because what does it matter, right now? He ignores the red light at the next crossing, mostly because he needs to move.

"It’d be real fuckin’ decent of you to just pick up the goddamn phone every once in a while, you know, because that’s what—"

"Buck?"

For a second, everything screeches to a halt.

He’s not sure what comes first, him dropping his phone or the car hitting him from out of nowhere, but the next thing he knows is he comes to in the middle of the crossing between Lexington and East 55th, right as he’s about to turn his back on the brownstone front of the Central Synagogue, and it feels like someone just ripped his heart open all over again.

He flips the car off when it honks, not even caring about the ache in his limbs. His phone is safely tucked away in his pocket, and when he pulls it out again, there’s not so much as a scratch on the screen, but right now, it’s not like he would have cared.

The next five times he tries, the call doesn’t even go through.

He knows that voice. He knows it just as well as his own, just as well as the one hiding inside some dark corner of his mind, and it shouldn’t sound like that anymore.

The thing inside stirs again, that other, softer voice, that part of him he hates just as much.

Keep trying, it says.

It’s the part of him that told him to jump from the helicarrier. The part of him that still refuses to believe he was past redemption despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary; the part of him that’s too damn hopeful for its own good, and somehow still persists.

Talk to her, it says.

He can’t go on listening to ghosts for the rest of his days.

Or day, rather.

His thumb hovers over the call button one last time, and then he shuts his phone off.

* * *

"You look like shit."

"Oh, fuck you, Barnes."

He scoffs, but his mind is still hurling with anger and pain and confusion, and it comes out like a growl. He’s vigorously scrubbing at the crevices in his arm. Maybe the inside is still stained with his blood; maybe that’s why it feels so heavy.

"Are you alright?" you ask and his head snaps up.

You look so innocent, almost concerned. Normally, he would enjoy it for the second it would last, but today, it sticks. Everything sticks today.

"What do you think?"

Your eyes widen just a little bit, but you don’t say anything. You still don’t fucking say anything, and that’s more telling than anything else in this endless nightmare so far.

You’re not asking what’s wrong with him, because you know. You know.

"How many times are we gonna go through this before we’re done?"

You bite your cheek, your fingers twitch. "I don’t know," you say, and your voice sounds so far removed it barely sounds like yours anymore.

Fine, he thinks. If you’re not telling him, then it really is some elaborate scheme to punish him. To make him think he’s lost his mind again, make him see that free will is nothing but an illusion, that things will always, always stay the same no matter what he does. He gets the point.

Then why does it hurt so much to know? Why does it hurt to know you?

Maybe because none of this, as terribly, horribly real as it’s been, has felt like it was true at all. He’s still missing a piece of the puzzle, and you’re refusing to give it to him. If he only knew what went wrong between the two of you—no.

You’re clearly done with him, and he’s not going to beg for answers he’s not going to get. People he cares for usually made a point of leaving him; why should it have been any different with you?

By the time Sam enters the kitchen, Bucky’s been glaring at the fridge for a while already. There’s a magnet in the shape of a blue alien with six arms holding up your shopping list; a couple of sticky notes with passive-agressive messages on them, most of them about the cat litter; a postcard from the exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum. Trivial bits and pieces.

He wants to set all of it on fire, starting with the postcard.

"She knows," he says without turning when he hears Sam’s steps behind him. They halt on the other side of the kitchen island.

"Knows what?" He doesn’t even ask who, and it fuels the anger.

"That I’m stuck in a time loop."

A choking sound, too short to be worrisome. "Come again?"

Bucky glowers at him over his shoulder, even though none of this is Sam’s fault. He gets a concerned stare in return, which cools his temper somewhat; he lets out a sigh. "What day do you think it is?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

No. "Humor me."

He grabs a mug from the drying rack, just to have something to do with his hands. It’s the one with cat ears that showed up outside his room on his birthday, wrapped in cheap brown packing paper.

How long ago was March?

"Friday," Sam says, and he sounds so sure about it. Bucky desperately wants to believe it’s that easy.

"It’s been Friday for a while," he says instead, his voice cracking.

To go through everything like this is both easier and worse than he expected.

"I don’t get it." Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. "I’ve seen you fight before. Hell, I’ve fought you before. You’re near impossible to hurt, let alone kill."

Bucky huffs. "I heal fast, I’m not invincible."

"Then how does it keep happening when you know it’s coming?"

Unbidden, the glimmer in your eye comes to mind again. The line of your back turned towards him, the complete abandon of self-preservation in your fighting style, however streamlined it may be. Even through all this, you expect him to watch your six.

And why wouldn’t you? His eyes are continually drawn to you, anyway.

He knows that just as well as you do, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He can just go and be slaughtered instead.

Bucky swallows. His throat feels very dry.

"I told you we shouldn’t have brought her on," he finally says, even though it’s not really an answer. Or maybe it is. You were always going to be the knife that cut the deepest, and maybe he’s known from the start. "Reckless idiot."

"Yeah, you said that. Almost a year ago. Hasn’t that changed?"

"Everything’s changed," he snaps, and the mug slips from his fingers. It shatters on the tiles, small shards flying off in all directions, and it hurts.

It’s just a mug. It shouldn’t twist his stomach, not like this. He keeps staring at the pieces.

"And why do you think that is?" Such a soft question.

Bucky’s hands clench into fists.

That other voice inside knows the answer, is desperate to scream it out, to share the burden and the weightlessness of it, but he can’t let it. He squashes it down, forces it back into its dark, hopeless corner. It has no place here. It can’t.

Somehow, Sam seems to hear it anyway.

"Have you talked to her?" He chooses his words carefully.

Bucky’s heart is racing like he’s dying, but he knows what that feels like now and it’s not this. This is worse.

Сбой, he thinks again, and this time, it echoes in his mind loud enough to drown out anything else. The shards on the floor are blurring. He has a sudden urge to spit or vomit, but he half-expects words to come out if he should. Of all things.

Can we leave before I do something he’ll regret?

His left hand makes a grating sound as his right palm opens underneath his fingernails, blood slowly dripping from one wrist. It brings him back into the kitchen, Sam’s gaze still heavy on him. He doesn’t want to meet his eyes.

"She’s not coming."

There’s something cold in Bucky’s voice he’s too fed up to care he recognizes.

It’s his own fault. He’s let his guard down around you, let you in, and it’s been a mistake. Of course it was. You’re the one who led him here, and he doesn’t want to follow your orders any longer.

"Let’s go on the mission without her. If she isn’t there, maybe I won’t …" He doesn’t have to say it out loud. He’s still bleeding, after all.

"Are you sure?" Sam says.

No. "I’m asking as a friend."

As expected, that’s enough.

He doesn’t feel bad leaving you behind without a single word, without looking back over his shoulder as he quietly drags the door shut behind him. He doesn’t feel bad sitting on the quinjet in silence, staring daggers at the wall. He doesn’t feel bad as he climbs out and soaks up the last few rays of sunshine, his focus unbroken for once.

He’s not haunted by you here; only by his own ghost.

Bucky’s been through this enough times to recall more than the broad strokes of it; he slips this mission on like a second skin, breathing through the absence of you with more calm than he’s thought possible. Then again: this is what he’s good at.

There’s a goal, and there’s a catch; but no more distractions. This will be a breeze.

…

That night, he dreams of you. If you could call it a dream, the few strange, hazy moments after he dies and before he gets put together again.

You look at him, almost reaching out but never quite touching, your eyes gleaming green.

His name still echoes in your voice when he comes to.

* * * * *

From his perspective, it made sense, of course, so really there was no point in going over it again.

And yet you did. Over and over.

I want her out.

It was quite simple, really. Bucky hated your guts because of something you couldn’t control, you were still seething because of it, and you were both perfectly fine with avoiding each other for the rest of your days.

You took an extra shift at the store the next day, just so you wouldn’t have to run into the two of them any more than necessary. You couldn’t wait until Sam jumped back on his flight to D.C. and Bucky fucked off to do whatever he did all day; the most important part was that they’d both be far, far away from you.

"Fucking Steve," you mumbled as you violently scrubbed the counters. Come to think of it, all of this was entirely his fault. No one would even know you existed without him blabbering on about you. And what you wouldn’t give to live in a world without being judged for your very existence by a bionic ex-assassin.

On top of everything else, some moron decided to steal the tip jar while you were distracted getting some ice, and by the time you made it home, it was nearing midnight, you’d had way too many espresso shots for a single human being, and you just wanted to cry in the silence of your own four walls. It was probably the single most terrible day you’d had since the first couple of weeks in the Tower.

Unfortunately, when you unlocked the front door, you immediately realized that your terrible day wasn’t over yet. There were too many pairs of shoes sitting in the hallway, and voices coming from the kitchen area.

You quietly pulled off your sneakers in the semi-darkness of the hallway. You were way too exhausted to attempt to use your powers, but maybe you could tiptoe past them to take a quick shower and then fall into bed without having to talk to anyone.

Slowly, you crept closer to the stairwell, keeping one eye on the shadows dancing across the wall to your left. Snippets of conversation got clearer.

"—not saying that, but whether you want to admit it or not, she’s good." Sam sounded annoyed.

"It’s not about that and you know it."

"Yeah, I do. You know what else I know? You need to go back to therapy."

You froze, shrinking back into the darkness of the hallway. You could hear Bucky huff an incredulous laugh.

"I made—"

"Amends, I’m aware. And was that your idea, or was that the assigned homework from your court mandated army doctor?" Silence. "You can’t just work through a list and at the end of it decide you’re done and everything’s magically alright again."

"'Course not. I don’t get to do that."

There was something about his tone that made your anger sink down slowly, heavily, until you swallowed it down entirely and you just felt wretched.

You weren’t supposed to listen to any of this. This was way out of your depth, and you had no idea how to get out of it. Their voices blurred into each other as your pulse was rushing through your head loud enough to make you dizzy, and you reached for your necklace in an attempt to ground yourself, to calm your breaths and reach out to something that could get you away from this moment in time.

It was useless.

"Like I said," Sam continued calmly. "You don’t have to work together ever again. But the two of you should talk it out first."

"Or how about this," you whispered, not loud enough for any but superhuman ears to pick up on, "should we ever get to the point again where I reset something around you and it’s important, I will let you know."

You barely knew why you offered, with your back pressed against the wall, not even standing in the same room as Bucky. But you didn’t want to fight.

There was a beat of hesitation, and then he said, "Promise?"

"Sure," Sam said.

You held up your pinkie finger in front of your heart, even though no one could see. "On the nine lives of the cat I will own one day."

You counted your breaths up to twenty before you heard one of them shift their weight, bare feet shuffling over your tiles.

"Fine," Bucky said finally. "She can stay for now. But I’m keeping an eye on her."

A familiar hitch went through you all on its own and you opened your eyes to find the world standing still. You took a couple of hesitant steps towards the stairs again, your head turning when you passed the kitchen area.

Sam had his back turned to you, stretching to reach something on the shelf next to the fridge, but Bucky’s frozen gaze was fixed on the wall you’d been leaning against, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Determination was a good look on him, you decided. It left a certain shine in his eyes that was hard to look away from.

That night, you dreamt of drowning at sea, and somehow you didn’t want to call it a nightmare.

chapter eight

thank you for reading!! you can follow my library blog @intrepidacious-fics for update notifications 💚

this chapter was my best kept secret and i'm forever grateful to @marvelettesassemblenow for reading ages ago 🫶🏼 also no one talk to me about thunderbolts bc i still haven't watched it but it seemed like a good time for a comeback

#nika 🌻#tat #bucky x reader

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