#kept smiling like an idiot while sketching this ...

[choccorin]

senmi !!! senmi !!! senmi !!!!!!

[elliesgffr]

Nerd Ellie being fucking clueless Guys pls be nice this is my firs post (and it's not proofread btw)

She was so distracted, living in her own world where apparently no one else could enter. She spent her free hours drawing in an old brown leather diary that looked worn, but you assumed it held some sentimental value for her. She was strange, a loser like those who appeared in the films you used to watch, a nerd whom no one looked at, but she intrigued you, you wanted to see the true colour of her eyes, how she would look without those glasses. You were also a bit curious about the story behind the tattoo on her arm—did she think it made her look tough?

She shot her diary abruptly before looking up, you two were the only ones in the university courtyard and there was plenty of space to sit, so why near her?

“What are you drawing?” you asked. She raised an eyebrow momentarily before reopening her diary, avoiding your gaze and continuing with what she was doing—drawing and ignoring your presence. You could see she was sketching some strange looking insect, but she made it look beautiful.

"A panda ant," she murmured boredly. You sat beside her and took a closer look at the drawing, the large, black eyes of the creature you'd never heard of.

"It looks like a spider."

"It's a wasp," she emphasised, shaking her head slightly and continuing with her work. You mumbled a small "right" while nodding awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

"What else have you drawn?" you asked curiously. Ellie didn't need to be too clever to know you wouldn't let her finish her drawing; she'd seen you – you talked too much, you never shut up – so she decided to give in and handed you her diary, beginning a friendship she wasn't sure she wanted in the first place.

After that, you never left her alone, you used to drag her to parties she hated, and in return, she made you study for your exams and talked to you for hours about space stuff. It was fun, like when she tried to explain how a spaceship worked and you pretended not to understand just to keep listening to her. Her intelligence was her greatest appeal, and you wondered how she didn’t have the entire university chasing after her.

You were a little bit in love with her, but she acted as if you were a pain in her backside, so you discouraged yourself when you thought about telling her; it wouldn’t make any sense, you thought. However, the idea of not having her close to you at all times was horrible; her presence was addictive, and as a way to torture her, you would drag her out of her room tonight and take her to her least favourite place.

5:06pm. 

“Is Hallie’s tonight??” 

“No. I have to study.” 

“Please???? Just for a bit and we’ll leave, I swear.” 

“Liar.” 

You smiled as you read the message, you could almost hear her voice saying it; it was incredible how well she knew you in such a short time. You kept smiling like an idiot when your phone vibrated again in your lap. 

“Fine, but I’ll be late.” 

“Omg I love you, I knew you’d make the right decision, see you there xx.”

☆☆☆☆

The noise in the bar was deafening; there was a new band performing, and it was the only thing you could hear in the cramped space as you moved through the bustle of people searching for Ellie. You took out your phone to text her, but then you spotted her. You had to navigate through a sea of people before you could reach her, but at least she was in your line of sight. She looked bored. 

“Sorry I'm late.” 

“I was supposed to be late.” 

“I know, I'm sorry,” you murmured, moving closer to order a whisky from the bartender before turning back to her with the drink in hand. “There was a lot of traffic, and the taxi was going too slowly.” You leaned in too close for her to hear you, and her gaze instinctively dropped, her right hand nervously playing with her ring and little fingers as she nodded. 

“Fine” She replied flatly, and you rolled your eyes. You knew she hated accompanying you anywhere, but she didn’t have to make it so obvious.

“Come on, let’s dance.” You pulled her onto the dance floor amidst her protests, placing your hand on hers to guide her to your waist. She was clumsy, struggling to keep up with the rhythm, and laughed, shaking her head shyly when she realised she couldn’t.

“You always end up getting your way with me. I’ve got an exam tomorrow,” she protested in your ear, hands now gripping your waist firmly. You pulled closer, eager to take whatever she gave you, even if it wasn’t intentional.

“You need to relax. You’ve been so stressed this week, you shouldn’t even have classes on a Saturday,” you said over the music, your lips so close you could feel the warmth of her skin. You wanted to bite her earlobe, leave a mark to remind her of you, but you settled for having your arms wrapped around her neck.

“All this noise isn’t helping my stress,” she said, and you narrowed your eyes at her.

“I relieve your stress.” Her cheeks flushed crimson but she held your gaze, a burning intensity in your eyes, and it was in moments like these that she wasn’t sure what you meant, or if you meant it at all. She wanted to ask how, to say something, but instead she did the same thing as always.

“I’m going to the bathroom.” She said before hurrying away to somewhere that didn’t smell of you, staring at herself in the mirror and feeling like an idiot for letting you get to her so quickly.

You sat waiting for her, praying no drunk would bother you as you sipped your whisky, watching the band play; the bassist kept glancing at a girl in the crowd, giving her a flirtatious wink and even you blushed.

A lot of time went on, and you started wondering what on earth Ellie was doing in the bathroom, so you went to look for her. To your surprise, she was with a girl from university near the dance floor, hands clasped as they tried to communicate.  She was Ellie's only friend besides you, and the lively way she was talking to this girl made you feel both guilty and angry. You always had to force her to make plans with you, and she treated you as if talking to you was a chore she wasn't looking forward to.

You desperately wanted to confront her, but what could you say?  All desire to be with her vanished, and without much thought, you left the crowded place, walking a couple of blocks until you found a taxi. The journey back to the halls felt endless, and all you could think about was how angry she would be, but honestly, you didn't care.

☆☆☆☆

"You left me." Ellie snapped as she made her way through your room, knowing about the key hidden in the flowerpot, and right now you wished you had taken it out of there. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, I wanted to leave and I saw you with your friend, I didn't want to ruin the moment." You murmured half-heartedly, fiddling with your old tablet and not even glancing at her, which made her scoff slightly, looking at you in disbelief. 

"I was there for you and you left me." 

"And I'm telling you that you shouldn't do it anymore." 

She looked at you, confused, before rolling her eyes, snatching the tablet from your hands so that you would pay attention to her, but your gaze drifted elsewhere; you felt stupid, like a five-year-old. 

"You’re sick of me dragging you to places you don’t want to go, and I’m sick of feeling like I’m forcing you to interact with me." 

"Is this about Allison?" 

"No." 

"Oh my God, are you ten?" She spoke in frustration, raising her voice without realising, she was tired of having to explain herself to you, and for what? In the end, it was the same, being the same. Friends, less than that, she didn’t know. "I ran into her and wanted to say hello, we talked for less than ten minutes and you throw a tantrum over it, what the hell is wrong with you?"

“It’s not that, Ellie.” You said it as if it were obvious, and felt the heat rise to your cheeks, which only made you angrier, the words tumbling out rapidly, before you could think. “I always have to be chasing you, for everything – outings, even studying, which you know I hate, and-and you always act like I’m just another chore on your to-do list, but you were holding her hand and smiling at her—” You paused to take a breath, narrowing your eyes. “You know what? There’s no point telling you anything, it’s not going to get through that thick skull of yours.” And you were about to leave your room, just to escape the argument, but arms snaked around your waist, pulling you back inside, her hand finding its way up your back to tug at your hair, green eyes fixed on yours.

“What the hell do you want from me?” she murmured desperately before pressing her lips to yours, hands gripping your hips firmly, and you were in shock, kissing her back and moaning as her tongue pushed into your mouth, but still in shock.

You felt intoxicated without actually being so, everything spun each time you felt your bottom lip being tugged in a nibble; your arms wrapped around her neck and you pulled her closer, kissing her with a hunger you’d never felt for anyone. Finally…

“You always do this to me.” She continued, whispering close to your lips, gasping for air but unable to pull away.

Your heart raced, pulse thundering in your ears as you tried to make sense of her words, but she pulled you back into a kiss, not giving you time to process anything. You gladly kissed her back, but your hands grabbed her shoulders, pulling her down to her knees; she complied without protest, desperately lifting your dress and tugging at your underwear, burying her face between your thighs and moaning pathetically as she tasted you, her tongue moving languidly, lips closing around your clit, sucking gently and making you see stars. You brought your hand behind her head, tugging at her hair, pushing her deeper into the place she never wanted to leave.

You didn’t even try to stifle your moans as she worked her magic on you, pleasure sparking as the pressure in your belly tightened, but you didn’t want it to end like this.

“Come here, come.” You whimpered, pulling her once more by the collar of her shirt, devouring her lips as you both tried to reach the bed without falling. You straddled her, skilled hands unbuttoning her trousers and you slipped your hand inside, feeling the warmth of her skin, your gaze burning into hers as your fingers worked on her swollen clit, she spread her legs wider, looking at you with tired eyes, her arms wrapping around your waist.

"I need to fuck you." She whined breathlessly, as if the thought of not being able to do so pained her.

You fumbled for the bedside table, opening the drawer and pulling out a double-ended dildo that made her eyes widen, but her need overpowered her, and she snatched it from your hands, slowly inserting it inside herself, letting out a stuttered moan. You made her lie down, positioning yourself on top of her, and without thinking, you lowered your hips onto the toy. Ellie couldn't stop writhing, trying to please both you and herself, her hands urging you to ride her as if your life depended on it. You bounced on her lap with so roughly that the sound was obscene, but you loved it.

"I hate seeing you talk to other people." You spoke breathlessly, your hand tightening around her throat, but not enough to choke her.

"I'm yours." She breathed out, inhaling sharply, trying to get some air into her lungs. Her hips pushed against yours in an animalistic manner, her now darkened eyes staring intently at you, and her hoarse moans made you melt. You couldn't hold back any longer, and the pressure, the pool of heat in your belly burst, turning the bed into a mess. Ellie followed you, her climax just as intense as her need for you, her arms wrapping around your waist as she thrust her hips erratically until she calmed down, both of you gasping for air, bewildered by what had just happened.

To be honest, Ellie had imagined this scenario thousands of times, but… how would you look at each other after this?

[4rticbolt]

Talent |Master-List|

Usopp x Reader, fluff, crack, teasing, Usopp is underrated, we need more of him, brief swearing, SFW, kisses

Summary: You’re are Usopp’s muse.

A/N: This is literally the sweetest idea, thank you so much for requesting. I mixed in some of the other Straw Hats with this, so I hope you don’t mind!

•-•-•—•-•-••-•-•—•-•—•-•

Inspiration, and ideas.

The hardest things to come across.

In a world of grey, Usopp used to be lost. He’d search in pictures, cook books, even Robin’s boring historical papers to find ideas. He was beyond desperate to clear his art block.

The sniper needed something to clear his mind, he just didn’t know what.

But little did he figure, all the answers to his problems would be you.

The moment you’d joined the crew, he’d look at you from afar and things would magically fix. His ideas would run clear, and he could draw. It was like some cure, some unbelievable discovery—with clouds and magical unicorns—he could think.

Actually think.

He fell in love with you because you colored his world.

The softness in your eyes brought out the colors he’d once thought bland, some he’d thought boring. But no, he could finally draw and create with them.

It was a blessing—no, correction—you were the blessing. Your smile brought light into his world, and he couldn’t help but fawn from afar. He’d watch you, a lot. Even in the simplest of tasks, cleaning, chores—you name it. He couldn’t believe you were real.

Usopp drowned in art, better yet you.

Even now as he sits on the stairs, months into your relationship—sketching you in a journal, he makes art. His thoughts never dry, and they’re always full of life and color, though he kept it secret.

It wasn’t embarrassing—he just . . . didn’t mention it, he didn’t know how to tell you. At-least that’s what he convinced himself.

Or maybe his journal was just full of you, and he didn’t want you to know.

Regardless, he sketched you now as you fished with Luffy and Chopper, casting from the rail while he sketched a soft scene.

The boys had been long forgotten, now replaced with mangly fish while you looked ethereal. He wasn’t jealous, he was just…exploring his creativity. Yeah, that’s it.

Creativity.

“I got something!” You suddenly shouted, standing up. Usopp jumped, almost dropping his pen. “Haha—suckers! I win!” you got behind the rail, reeling in whatever you baited.

“Noo!” Luffy dramatically fell back, and Chopper sulked lowering his head. “No fair, I wanted to get it first.”

“Maybe next time,” you smirked, pulling your rod, but instead—it pulled you forward. You stumbled into the rails, letting out a yelp—and Chopper immediately grabbed you.

“AH! ____, no—Help!! The fish is gonna eat ____! USOPP!!”

Scrambling up, Usopp dropped his journal by the stairs. The pen rolled, and he hassled down like a hero—grabbing your waist.

“I gotcha! Hold on!”

You looked back, sending a smile and thanks, and Usopp about caved. His knees would’ve gone weak, if it weren’t for the fact a fish was about to drag you below.

He snapped out of it, flushing red, “Hey, focus on the fish idiot—not me! I mean I’m flattered—but—focus on the rod!”

“Ew! You guys are gross!” Luffy let out a yuck, grabbing the three of you.

Yeah, he couldn’t believe you were real.

“On three guys!!—“ Chopper turned to his human-form, dragging you both back.

“One!”

“Two!” Usopp held you tighter, leaning on his heels.

“Three!” Luffy shouted, yanking back with all his might.

SNAP

The rod broke. No—shattered.

The fish was lost.

And in slow motion, you were all sent flying back.

A chorus of yells echoed throughout the ship, and like bowling balls, you and Usopp knocked down a few barrels by the stairs.

He shielded you, completely winded by the force of the fall, dazed. Usopp slowly let you go, giving you the freedom to move as he recovered.

Weakly coughing, you leaned up.

“Ow,” you muffled, sitting on his hips. Your arms were placed at either side of his head, and the position wasn’t awkward till you locked eyes.

“I-uh, you okay?” He blurted, blinking idly. His hands balanced your waist, and you hesitated to shift forward.

“Yeah, I’m fine silly—you?” You brushed off, pulling some pieces of wood of his hair.

“Your the one who took the fall, idiot.”

“Oh—I did? Haha, I mean—of course I did, I’m the amazing Usopp, I save my girlfriend whenever she’s uh . . . Gonna get eaten by a fish.” he leaned up, letting out a nervous laugh.

SLAM

“What the hell was the crash?!” Nami snapped, bursting out from inside. She looked down to you—and like a science trick with pepper and salt, she was the dish soap that sent you both scrambling away from eachother.

“Uh—“ Usopp stuttered, bright red, unable to form a response.

“It was my fault,” you said quickly, covering him. You brushed off, standing to your feet. “Me, Luffy and Chopper were fishing, and I caught something—but my rod broke.”

“Wait as in MY rod?!” Franky boomed, appearing beside Nami. “There’s no way! I built those to withstand anything!”

“Well, clearly not.” Zoro scoffed, casually walking over the shattered pile of wood.

“OH MY BABY!!” Franky dramatically dropped to his knees, cradling the remnants of his work. “You will not be forgotten, Wendy.”

“Ugh, he named it?” Nami sighed, leaning into her palm. “Ok—I’m going back inside, you all are ridiculous.”

You sighed, looking over to Luffy and Chopper who were already back to fishing, determined to catch whatever you had.

Then, looking to the spot Usopp just was—he was gone. Surprised, you called his name only to find him prying his journal away from the skeleton.

“Yohoho, true love at its finest,” Brook laughed, and Usopp blushed red walking back to you, grumbling.

“What’s he on about?” you asked, confused as Usopp grabbed your hand, pulling you forward. He was muttering incoherent curses under his breath.

“Usopp?” you laughed, “what’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing!” He blurted, “nothing at all—I just, I just want to go inside.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so!” he was now beet red, pulling you into his workshop. He let out a long breath, letting you go as his shoulders sagged,

Relieved, he looked back to you, before quickly away.

Something was definitely up.

“So . . . What’s goin’ on?” you asked, moving to face him.

“Nothing.”

“You said that already, make a different excuse.” you teased, placing a hand on his jaw—and he about exploded.

Though he didn’t respond.

Looking down, you paused. His sketchbook was held behind him. Out of curiosity, you couldn’t help yourself. So, you reached for it.

“Hey, what are doing—wait!” he yelped, trying to get it back, but it was too late. You took off, and he chased you around the room.

“This isn’t funny, come on! Give it back!”

You let out a laugh, jumping over his chair to avoid him around the table. Back n forth’ he desperately tried to grab it, but you’d already opened to the newest page.

“____!” Usopp groaned, rolling his hands down his face.

“What I just wanna see? You haven’t showed me your art in awhile anyway—“

Usopp braced, leaning his head against the table.

“Oh.”

. . .

“I’ll just go die in a hole now.”

You snorted, closing his journal. “What why? This is so sweet.”

Appalled, his head jerked up. “Wait what?!”

“What do you mean, what? Usopp these are all amazing, better yet they’re me!”

Usopp’s mouth dropped, as in like all the way to the floor before he picked it up. “Y-you think?”

“Of course I do.” you strolled around the table, and he immediately stood.

Yes—as stiff as a board, but stood.

He’d never been so nervous in his life, even if he loved you with all his heart.

“Why’d you hide this from me?” you asked, softly, but realization washed over you. “WAIT—is this why you never showed me any of your other books?!”

“What?! NO—“ a panicked look crossed his face, and for once, he couldn’t come up with a lie.

“I—just—you, uhm—it’s personal!”

“It’s me! Of course it’s personal!”

“No! Not like that I—“

“I wanna see your other journals.” you finished, deadpanning as you turned around.

“NO! I am not mentally prepared for that!” Usopp immediately followed you, but you were faster.

“____! Don’t! I swear!”

“Or what?” you rose a brow, looking over your shoulder, and he froze.

“Or—or, I’ll—“

“You’ll, what?”

Usopp swallowed, and a bead of sweat rolled down his face. “Uhm, I’ll—I’ll . . .”

Pff—what the fuck now idiot! Think!

“I’ll kiss you!”

“You’ll . . . Kiss me?” you titled your head, placing your hands on your hips. “Really? Is that supposed to be a threat?”

Shit—plan B!

“Absolutely,” he feigned, sweating like a bullet. “You’ve uh—“

“You can’t distract me,” you huffed, turning around.

Usopp’s eyes widened and without hesitation, he lunged forward. His hands urgently grabbed your face, pulling you in for a deep—or rather breathless kiss, teeth and all.

A muffled noise escaped from him, and you couldn’t help but melt.

Your lover pulled away, panting softly. Unconsciously, Usopp licked his lips unable to look away from yours. Like a spell, he was momentarily drunk off your touch, and he couldn’t help but feel the need to do it again.

“Hey,” you whispered, questioningly, but not unkindly. You were interupted as he cut you off again, this time tenderly.

Yeah, that journal was long forgotten.

His hands desperately pulled you closer, not trying to distract you, but hold you. After discovering his secret, it was clear it meant a lot more than he led on. His heart was wide open, and he pouring every last drop of it into this.

“I’ll, I’ll show you, I just—I wasn’t ready . . . For you to see that.” he muttered, leaning back, but not far.

“See what?” you murmured, holding his hands. “Usopp you’ve seen every part of me, and I’ve seen every part of you, do you think a few drawings will make me leave?”

“No, it’s not that, I thought—ugh, I don’t know what I thought, it’s not embarrassing—you’re not embarrassing you could never be, I just,” he let out a sigh, resting his forehead against yours.

“You give me inspiration, ____. I can think clearly when I’m with you, and I . . . I was embarrassed, not that I have to rely on you, I just didn’t know how you’d react, or what you’d say.”

Nervously, he let out a breath. “It’s stupid, huh?”

“Not at all, I had no idea,” you whispered, blushing. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.“

“You don’t have to.”

“No I want to, but that’s like—the biggest, I don’t even know how to say it—compliment?”

Usopp paused, blinking.

“It’s probably not the right word, but if it makes sense—I’d draw you you too, if I could. I’d . . . There’d probably be a lot of sketchbooks. You already motivate me as is, so from an artist’s perspective, I get it.”

Usopp cleared his throat, holding back an ear to ear grin. “I—uh, thanks, that’s really sweet of you to say.” he let out a breath, trying not to crack.

“And, thanks for not—I don’t know, not calling me weird?” You held eye contact, quietly, and he let out a little laugh looking away.

“You’re such a dork,” you scoffed, smiling.

“I am not. You’re the one being sappy.”

“Oh really? Says Mr. You’re My Muse!”

Usopp choked on his breath, and a familiar blush creeped up his neck. “I never even said that—!”

“You don’t even have to, it’s drawn—literally, it’s everywhere.”

“Ok—and?? I regret nothing!”

[arlana-likes-to-write]

Celestial

Summary: Snapshots of your relationship with Kamala Khan. This story takes place in the Family AU.

Warning: fluff, small amount of angst, mention of panic attack, self harm, first kiss, shovel talks, Kamala is head over heals for the reader and the reader is trying their best, mention of past trauma

Note: Tagging @jusnough for the idea!

Word Count: 4.2K

It wasn’t the most ideal of timing. A lot was happening, especially with the trail you were preparing for. Your parents were stressed. You were stressed, which was 100% understandable, but Kamala wanted to plan something special and then maybe ask you to be her girlfriend. Baby steps. She couldn’t get ahead of herself. There was a plan. First, ask your parents permission to date you. Second, she needed to survive the shovel talk they no doubt had for her. Third, ask Tony for a favor. Finally, take you on a date and make it a great day. Easy. Simple. Kamala was going to throw up.

She found your parents in the kitchen. You had a checkup with Helen, so it was a perfect time to walk to them. Natasha saw her first while Wanda focused on the lunch she was making. “She should be done soon,” the Black Widow said to her. “She’s with Helen.”

“I know,” Kamala said. “I was wondering if I could speak with the both of you.” Natasha raised an eyebrow in question. Kamala believed she was fearless. She fought alongside the Avengers, looked danger in the eye, and did not back down. It was impressive for a high school student. Starring down your parents was a new level of fear she’d never experienced. “I want to take Y/n on a date, and I know she has a lot going on, but I want to do something nice for her,” the couple stayed quiet. “She means a lot to me,” Kamala decided to continue. “I don’t know everything she has been through, but I know I’d never hurt her like that. I mean, I may hurt her. But not intentionally,” she added on quickly. “I am sometimes an idiot,” Wanda chuckled. “I think I should shut up.”

“Probably for the best kid,” Natasha smirked. Kamala cringed and scratched the back of her head. The Black Widow leaned on the counter and narrowed her eyes at Kamala. “You are about our daughter,” Kamala nodded. “Being with her won’t be easy.”

“She’s been through a lot,” Kamala turned to look at Wanda. Some days may be good, others may be bad.” Again, she nodded her head. Kamala knew healing wasn’t linear, but she was ready to catch you when you needed her. “She may lash out, shut you out, or blame you for feelings she can’t place.”

“Are you committed to that?” Natasha asked.

“Yes,” Kamala answered without hesitation. It was not going to be easy, and she knew that. Even her friends told her to stay away, and she tried. But there was something about you that kept drawing her in: your shy smile, the soft look in your eyes when you hung out with your brothers, and your laugh. Your laugh was Kamala’s favorite. She loved hearing it.

“Okay,” Natasha said. But if you hurt her, not even Danvers will save you.” Kamala gulped and watched the couple focus back on making lunch.

“Right, got it. Aye, aye, captain,” Kamala gave them a salute, spun around, and headed towards Tony’s lab. Phase 1 and 2 was a success onto Phase 3.

Delete Created with Sketch.

Natasha sighed once Kamala was out of earshot. “What is it?” Wanda asked, nudging the Black Widow with her hip. Is it hard to believe our daughter is dating?”

“No,” she washed her hands and dried them. “Well, yes, but that means Hill won the bet.” The witch laughed and shook her head. She was not part of the bet between the older team members on how soon Kamala would ask you out. Natasha had her bets on after the trial, but the heart wants what the heart wants. Wanda knew how good Kamala was for you, but the mother bear inside her worried. You’ve gone through so much. She wanted to protect your heart as much as she could.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“Calm down,” Kate said. That was the opposite effect the archer was going for. It heightened your anxiety as you passed back and forth in her room at the Avenger tower.

“I don’t know what to do,” you said. “I’ve never been on a date before. Kamala approached you and asked if you wanted to hang out with her. You were to be ready at noon, and Happy would drive you to this secret location. She gave you no clue on where you were going. You were oblivious to this being a date until you turned around and saw the smirks on Tommy and Billy’s faces.

The twins teased you until you were a stuttering mess, which got them grounded. This caused you to panic, which led you here with Kate.

“Bug, I need you to breathe,” Kate said as if it was the simplest thing, but you couldn’t. You’ve gone on one ‘date’ since the Blip, and that was with Jason. That needed horribly. Everyone took something from you; they took and took until you were a husk of your former self. “It’s only Kamala.” It was a simple statement that was supposed to lessen your anxiety, but it made it worse. “Sit down,” you sat next to her, but your leg continued to bounce.

“Do you trust her?” You nodded. She’s done nothing to break your trust. “Does she make you smile? Laugh? Do you feel at ease when you are around her?” Again, you nodded. “Do you like her?”

“Yes,” you admitted.

“Then enjoy your day with her. You guys are just hanging out,” you nodded and stood up. Once again, you started to pace. At this point, you would pace a hole in the floor.

“Right,” you bite your thumb. “What do I wear?” You walked over to the archer’s closet. You had a limited wardrobe here, but you knew you could wear something that Kate or Yelena owned.

“Keep it casual. Maybe jeans and a cute top. Oh! Bring that sweater Wanda gifted you. You might get cold.” Your brain slowly processed what she said. She knew where Kamala was taking you. You spun around to face the archer. Kate was looking at everything in her room beside you.

“Where is she taking me?”

“I’ve sworn to secrecy and threatened by bodily harm if I told you.”

“Kate!” You whined and flopped on the bed next to her. She laughed at your dramatics and pushed you on your back.

“You are so cute when you throw a tantrum,” she pointed at your cheek. Your pout deepened. “Trust, bug. Trust that she knows you well enough to not push you out of your comfort zone.” You nodded. In reality, you wanted the date to go well. With the upcoming trial, you wanted to have a good day.

“I’m thinking about the blue jeans and the light pink top. The sweater will go nice with both.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The ride to the mysterious location was fun. You thought it would be awkward with Happy, but Kamala filled the silence with stories. When the car stopped, Kamala was quick to get out first. She opened your door, offered you her hand, and you took it. You stood at the corner of Central Park West and West 76th Street. Kamala spoke with Happy before he drove away. “Ready?” She asked you. You nodded and followed her to the American Museum of National History. You were surprised by the lack of people waiting to get in. A new exhibit opened about the advancement in modern medicine. You’ve been dying to go, but the increase in popularity caused considerable crowds to form at the museum.

Kamala gave you a reassuring smile and led you up the steps of the museum. Her hand is still holding tight onto yours. It was quiet when she opened the door, and no one was in the lobby. “Kamala Khan?” A worker walked over. It would help if you had listened to try to understand what was happening, but you were fascinated by how quiet it was. You could hear the slight hum of the air conditioning. There was no yelling of excited children or the echo of footsteps moving from one exhibit to the next. It was quiet, and you enjoyed it. A weight was lifted off your chest. The tingly feeling you sometimes felt when you were in crowds was gone.

Kamala squeezed your hand, and you looked at the girl. A teasing smile was on her face. “Were you talking to me?”

“I was but you seemed a little distracted,” you felt your body heat up and you mumbled a quiet, ‘Sorry.’ But Kamala shook her head. “Don’t be. Come on. The exhibit you want to see is over here.” You let the girl guide you.

“Kamala,” you said and forced her to stop. You could make a sign explaining the new pop-up. “What is going on? How are we the only people here?” Kamala looked down at the floor, embarrassed.

“I rented out the museum for us. We are going to walk through each exhibit for as long as you want, and then a few of the workers are going to set up food for us. Wanda made your favorite,” she explained. You were a little lost for words. They seemed stuck in the back of your throat. However, Kamala took your silence as rejection. “If you want to do something else, we can.”

“No!” You said suddenly. “Sorry,” you cringed at the sound echoing on the museum walls. “Why did you do this?” Kamala shrugged.

“You mentioned you wanted to see this exhibit but were worried about the crowds,” you mentioned it once. You made an offhand comment while you and Kamala were eating lunch at the tower. She finished training, but you weren’t sure if she was listening. She was. “I asked Tony for a favor, and he pulled some strings, so here we are.”

“I uh-,” you cleared your throat, desperately trying to keep your tears from escaping your eyes. “Thank you.” A smile formed on Kamala’s face, and you allowed yourself to feel butterflies form in your stomach.

“You’re welcome. Come on, let’s see why this exhibit is so cool and popular.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Kamala was not a fan of museums. You could tell she was trying hard to take in the information you were telling her. For the most part, she was doing well, and she wasn’t rushing you. She let you take your time - reading each plague and adding your commentary. You decided to cut her some slack when her stomach growled for food. How embarrassed she got was cute and led to where the food was. A table was set up in the Invisible Worlds display. The colors weren’t as bright and intense, but it was a unique experience to be here with no one else.

“Wanda helped me make paprikash,” Kamala said, pulling back your chair for you and taking her own when you sat down. “So if it’s horrible, blame her.” You chuckled and opened the food container. It was still warm and smelt great.

“Thank you for today,” you smiled. “I’ve been having a great time.” She took a few sips of her water and cleared her throat.

“I know you have a lot going on,” she offered you her hand, and you took it. “But I wanted to give you one good day and ask if you want to be my girlfriend,” you couldn’t stop the surprise noise that escaped your lips.

“Dating me won’t be easy,” you told her. “I come with a lot of baggage.”

“It’s a good thing I’m so strong,” she flexed her free arm. You rolled your eyes but couldn’t help the smile on her face. “Seriously though, I want to be there for you and help carry some of that baggage.”

You weren’t sure how to give your baggage to someone. You had a track record of picking ones that hurt you. But Kamala was different. Kate made you admit how easy it was to be around her. She made you smile and laugh. You felt safe. “I may fuck this up,” Kamala smiled.

“Are you saying us?” You nodded.

“I am saying yes,” you smiled. “I am saying yes to being your girlfriend.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Kamala was multitasking, which wasn’t her strongest suit. She was trying to make you and her a plate of food while keeping an eye on you. She knew you would be quiet after the trial, but she was still worried. You seemed lost in thought while you sat near the fire pit. It wasn’t lit, but you were watching it as if the flames were there. “You are holding up the line,” Yelena said. Kamala jumped.

“Sorry, I was-”

“It is fine,” Yelena said, following her gaze to you. It was Billy’s turn to try to pull you out of whatever your mind was creating. “You are worried, I understand,” Yelena said, taking the plate meant for you and helping Kamala add to it.

“I’ve been waiting for you to come up to me,” Kamala saw the smirk on Yelena’s face. “Am I going to survive this shovel talk?”

“I am not going to threaten bodily harm, or my niece would never forgive me,” Kamala was thankful that the Romanoff-Maximoff family accepted you into their home. “This has been the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time; Kamala watched the Blonde put butter on a piece of corn for you. “Her heart has been broken by people who were supposed to protect it,” she sighed and looked at you. The Bartons were now with you. “I am surprised she was strong enough to offer it to someone else. You must be special,” Yelena handed the now full plate back to her. “Don’t misplace that trust.”

“I won’t,” Kamala said before Yelena could walk away. I may mess up, but I would never be like the others.” The Blonde looked over her shoulder, scanning Kamala up and down.

“I know,” the Black Widow smirked. “Just keep it that way, or there will be consequences.”

“I thought you said no to bodily harm,” Kamala called out after her. She heard Yelena laugh.

“I am a Black Widow,” she said. “I can do more than hurt you physically.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Maybe Kamala was overthinking it. Your phone could have died, you could have been sick, or something bad happened, and no one was telling her. It was strange that you missed a scheduled date and weren’t answering your phone. So it was a quick taxi ride from the tower to your house, and she was knocking on the front door. “Kamala,” Wanda answered the door. What are you doing here?”

“Is she here?” Kamala asked. “We were supposed to meet up, and she isn’t answering me, so I just need to make sure she’s okay and safe,” Wanda gave her a sad smile and stepped to the side. Kamala walked in and followed the witch into the kitchen.

“She’s in her room,” Wanda said, pouring her a glass of water and beginning to prepare a small board of snacks. “It’s not her intention to ignore you, but today was a bad day.”

“It’s been a bad day,” Kamala said slowly back and took a piece of cheese that Wanda offered. She remembered Wanda telling her that some days were bad. Wanda crossed her arms and leaned on top of the counter.

“With everything she’s been through, some days are better than others,” the witch sighed. “She had therapy this morning, so maybe that caused it, or it could have been a nightmare or none of the above. We may never know.”

“Can I-can I go see her?” Kamala asked. Wanda smiled.

“Of course. Bring her this,” she pointed to the board. “She hadn’t eaten, but don’t be upset if she didn’t want to see you.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The world seemed to be covered in a foggy haze. Everything seemed to move slower. Your body felt heavy, and it took so much energy to go to the bathroom. You barely heard the knock on your door. “Hey, sweetheart,” it was Kamala. “Can I come in?” You rolled to your side to face the door. You hated that she was going to see you like this. You missed her and you hated yourself that you missed your date.

“Yeah,” you whispered. The door opened, and Kamala came in holding a plate of snacks and glass filled with juice.

“Hi,” she smiled and closed the door. Wanda made you a little snack platter because she said you hadn’t eaten.” Kamala placed the food on the side table. Something inside you snapped. You felt it all day, and you tried to keep it buried inside. Seeing Kamala being so nice after you ignored her all day broke it. Everything came bubbling over. A broken sob escaped your lips. “Hey, hey, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” you cried. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Can I hug you? Do you need a hug?” You sat up in bed and cried harder.

“I don’t know,” you repeated. You wanted to fall into her arms and be safe, but the idea of her touching you sent shivers down your spine. Why was everything so complicated? Why were you so broken? You began to scratch at your wrists.

“I need you to stop doing that,” you heard Kamala say, but you couldn’t stop. You needed to feel anything besides this suffocating weight. Suddenly, Kamala’s hands grabbed yours, and you fought against her. “I know, I know,” Kamala cooed, pulling you against her chest. Her arms held you tightly down. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.” Soft humming filled your ears. Your body slumped against hers, and you cried on her chest.

When your sobs quieted down, you pulled away from her. Your head was pounding, and you felt gross. “Hi, khobsurat (beautiful),” you rolled your eyes.

“I doubt I look beautiful,” Kamala shook her head.

“You will always be beautiful to me,” she could make you flustered. “Do you wanna talk about anything?” She kept her hands on her lap but was itching to hold you. Her fingers were twitching. Sighing, you held out your hand for her to take.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” you admitted.

“Like what?” she questioned. It was hard to describe this state you sometimes found yourself in. Sometimes, it felt like you were in a pile of quicksand, and no matter how hard you fought, you kept sinking. “This is a bad day for you. That’s what your mother called it.” You nodded.

“They don’t come often, but when they do, they can be depleting,” you explained. “I wanted to hang out with you today but couldn’t leave my bed. So I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” she said. “I was worried that you went radio silent, so a text would be nice,” you nodded. You could do that even though you had no idea where your phone was. “But I want to be there when it gets bad. I want to see the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“Even when I miss dates and can’t leave my room.”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “We can just sit here and watch movies as long as I’m with you. I’m happy.” She kissed the back of your hand.

“Thank you,” you smiled. It was nice having someone so patient. If you are interested, there is a new movie I want to watch.” You moved against your headboard with your arms. Immediately, Kamala moved into your arms. She sat between your legs with her back against your front. “Thank you,” you said again. It was starting to not feel like enough. Hopefully, one day, you would find more than those two words.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Something changed. You weren’t sure when it happened. You were looking at Kamala’s lips and wondering what they would feel like on yours. She has kissed you on your cheek, the back of your hand, or the top of your head. You were okay with that, but you wanted to kiss her properly. Could you do that? The last time you felt someone’s lips on yours was Dmitri. “Is that math problem that difficult?” Natasha asked. You were doing homework in her office while she was working on a few mission reports. You chuckled and closed the textbook.

“Can I ask you something?” You asked, twirling the pencil in our hand. The Black Widow nodded and moved to sit on the couch next to you.

“Ask away,” she smiled. Was it an appropriate question to ask your mom? You weren’t sure, but the relationship with your mom wasn’t normal. You continued to twirl the pencil.

“Is it weird that I want to kiss Kamala?” You asked. “Do you think it’s too soon?” You added on. You wished you had captured the look on Natasha’s face - eyes wide and shocked. But she recovered quickly. A part of you wondered if she wanted Wanda to be here for this conversation. Natasha sighed.

“I can’t tell you if it’s too soon or not. That is for you to decide,” you groaned and let your head fall back. The Black Widow laughed and pulled you back into a sitting position. “When it comes to kissing and sex, we both have a complicated relationship with it.” You frowned. Slowly, it dawned on you what she meant.

“How did you learn how to trust someone with your body like that again?” You asked. Natasha grabbed your hand and placed them on the back of the couch.

“A lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms,” the Black Widow teased. You rolled your eyes, but your frown remained on your face. “I slept around hoping it would be different, but never until I started seeing Wanda.”

“How?”

“I finally felt safe with her. She made me feel seen. So,” she cringed slightly. “If you feel those things with Kamala, then maybe it’s the right time to open yourself up to that again,” Natasha pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Don’t force it, though, Firefly. You and her have all the time in the world.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You were trying to pay attention to the story Kamala was telling. You were lying on the tower’s roof - the night sky was blanketed with stars. It was your turn to plan a date, so you decided to picnic atop the tower. It was peaceful. It felt like you and her were the only people in the city. “Why do I feel like you aren’t listening?” Kamala teased.

“Sorry,” you whispered. “I got stuck in my head.” The girl frowned. “I’m okay,” you promised and sat up to reach for your phone. Opening up Spotify, you began to play music. “Do you want to dance with me?” You asked.

“Yeah, sure, I can dance,” you giggled at her nervous rambling. You both stood up; her arms went around your waist, and you put your arms around her neck. It wasn’t really dancing; it was more like swaying side to side to the music. “I had a good time,” she broke the silence.

“Good. So did I,” you glanced at her lips but looked away. Carefully, she spun you in a circle and brought you back into her arms.

“Do you want to talk about it?” You titled her head. “Where was your head when I was telling you an amazing story?” You chuckled.

“You,” you paused. “You make me feel like my troubled heart is a million miles away. You make me feel like I’m drunk on stars and dancing out into space,” you let out a shaky breath. “When I get lost, I know your arms will be reaching out towards me.” Gently, Kamala cupped your face and forced you to look up at her. “This may go wrong,” your voice shook as your nerves got the best of you. “But can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Kamala sighed. Time seemed to slow down as you inched closer. You could feel the warmth of her breath, and you fought your mind to stay in the present. You tried to push away the darkness that threatened to overtake it.

“Khobsurat,” she whispered, her voice pushing away the darkness. Your heart pounded in your chest, and a soft flutter stirred in your stomach - a mix of nerves and wonder. Then it happened. Her lips touched yours, gentle and tentative. It was soft, warm, and sweet, sending a cascade of warmth down your spine.

For a second, you forgot to breathe. Everything else vanished - no more nerves, no more doubt. Kamala pulled away and rested her forehead against yours.

“Thank you,” you were surprised by that. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

“You’ve earned my trust,” you whispered. “You’ve been so patient with me. I-” you couldn’t say it yet. The words felt trapped in your throat. But Kamala nodded.

“Can I kiss you again?”

“Yes,” you smiled. This time, her kiss was more aggressive. She felt more confident in her movements. Her touch was soft against your skin. Natasha was right. This felt different. It felt full of warmth. It felt like love.

[nepetacataria-art]

"Rattrap would never understand how Dinobot could keep such a straight face while he was doing something so ridiculous and embarrassing, but he couldn't deny that he loved that he did these stupid things. That hand that was settled on his during the meeting made his spark flutter, he needed all of his willpower to not start smiling and laughing like an idiot, so to prevent a burst of laughter from coming out of his voice modulator he kept a firm hand over his mouth and avoided looking at the former Predacon. But he couldn't help that under the meeting table, his tail curled around Dinobot's arm, wishing he could further shorten the distance that separated them, a distance that seemed prudent from above the table, but if they could see underneath... They would notice those soft caresses of that pair of intertwined hands."

Hi! I love these dumb robots so much! 💖 I made this sketch a while ago and I wanted to turn it into a full drawing and added a little drabble of the scene!. I hope you like it!✨ ✨🐀❤️🦖✨

Also here is a cropped version:

[hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall]

The story untold no more - Bucky x Reader (NSFW) - part2

Summary: New house, new life, new feelings

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Journalist!Reader

Warnings for the whole story: English isn't my first language, so apologies for any mistakes. Reader has some descriptions. Angst, fluff, SMUT So please do not interract if you're under 18, idiots in love. Not proof-read yet, so apologies...

A/N: There's the second part :) Apologies for the mix up - we have SMUT here so, yeah ;)

Words for the chapter: 25 035 (even bigger oopsies)

Part 1

On your first morning at the house, you arrived armed with food—breakfast sandwiches, packed lunches, and a box of pastries. You remembered Bucky mentioning in passing that neither he nor Steve had much talent in the kitchen, and you figured feeding them was the least you could do.

When you walked through the door, the smell of coffee and eggs wafting in with you, both men lit up like kids on Christmas morning.

“This smells amazing,” Steve said, his eyes wide as he peeked into the bags.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Bucky said, though the grateful smile on his face said otherwise.

“Consider it fuel for the day,” you said with a laugh. “And if you’re nice, I might even teach you how to make some of this stuff yourselves.”

Steve grinned, already unwrapping a sandwich. “You’d be doing humanity a favor. Bucky burns toast.”

“I do not,” Bucky protested, though the faint blush on his cheeks betrayed him.

After breakfast, Steve clapped Bucky on the back and gave you a small wave. “Alright, I’m leaving you two to it. This is your project, Buck. Don’t mess it up.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but smiled. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

As Steve left, munching on a chocolate chip cookie you’d packed, Bucky turned to you, his expression somewhere between excitement and uncertainty.

“Alright,” he said, holding out his hand. “Let me show you around.”

You took his hand without hesitation, the gesture feeling as natural as breathing.

---

Bucky’s plans for the house were detailed and thoughtful, and as he walked you through each room, his enthusiasm was infectious.

“I want to keep the brick,” he said, running his hand along the living room wall. “It’s part of what makes this place feel like home. But the floors… those need replacing.”

“That makes sense,” you said, nodding. “What about your room?”

He smiled, the kind of smile that lit up his whole face. “I’m thinking I’ll keep it mostly the same. Just a new coat of paint, maybe some better lighting.”

As he spoke, his voice grew steadier, more confident. It was clear he’d been thinking about this for a while, and the fact that he trusted you enough to share it all made your chest ache with warmth.

“And the kitchen,” he continued, pulling you into the next room. “It needs a lot of work, but I think I can—”

“Hold on,” you interrupted, raising an eyebrow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”

Bucky shrugged, a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. “Steve offered to help, but… I want to do as much of it as I can. This place is mine. It’s my responsibility.”

You smiled, squeezing his hand. “Well, I’m here now. So if you need an extra set of hands—two left ones, mind you—I’m your girl.”

He laughed, the sound warm and rich, and it was the happiest you’d ever seen him.

---

Later that afternoon, the two of you sat on the living room floor, eating sandwiches from the bag you’d brought. The sun poured through the dusty windows, painting the room in golden light.

Bucky pulled out a small stack of old photos from a box he’d found in the corner.

“These survived the move?” you asked, surprised as you sifted through the images.

“Not all of them,” he said softly. “But a few. Steve kept some, too. He said they were part of my past, and he couldn’t let them go.”

One photo in particular caught your eye—a sketch of a young Bucky, done in soft, careful lines.

“Steve did this?” you asked, your voice filled with awe.

Bucky nodded, chuckling. “Yeah, back when he thought he was gonna be an artist. I was more of the fixer, though—wiring, mechanics, stuff like that. His drawings were always better than mine.”

“You’re kidding, right?” you said, holding up a different sketch Bucky had done of a car. “My dad would’ve loved this. He used to tinker with cars all the time.”

Bucky laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “He sounds like a good guy.”

“He is,” you said, smiling fondly.

---

By the time the day wound down, the two of you stood in the front yard, the sun dipping below the horizon and casting the house in soft, amber hues.

“Thank you for today,” Bucky said, his voice low and steady. His hand rested lightly on your elbow, grounding you in the moment.

“You don’t have to thank me,” you replied, smiling up at him. “I’m just happy to see you like this. Happy.”

For a moment, he hesitated, his gaze lingering on yours. Then, with a soft, deliberate motion, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to your cheek.

“See you tomorrow,” he murmured, his voice warm.

As you drove home, your hand brushed the spot where his lips had been, and you couldn’t stop the grin that spread across your face. You felt like the luckiest person in the world.

---

The days that followed were filled with laughter, lighthearted teasing, and steady progress. You might not have been the most skilled handyman, but you’d never felt more content.

And every time Bucky smiled at you—those soft, unguarded smiles that made your heart stutter—you felt like maybe, just maybe, you were helping rebuild more than just a house.

---

The week had been a whirlwind of rebuilding, sanding, painting, and—if you were honest with yourself—Bucky trying very hard to keep you from hurting yourself.

“You weren’t kidding about those two left hands,” he teased one morning, watching as you struggled to keep a nail steady with the hammer. “Are you trying to hit your thumb?”

You huffed, glaring at him as he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, that mischievous smirk playing on his lips. “I’m just getting the hang of it,” you grumbled.

Bucky chuckled, stepping forward and gently taking the hammer from your hand. “No offense, doll, but I think we’ll keep you away from sharp tools and anything with too much weight. I’d like to get through this project without a trip to the ER.”

You pouted for the rest of the morning, folding your arms dramatically every time he looked your way. But your resolve didn’t last long.

Later that day, as you were reorganizing paint samples on the table, he approached you, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “Hey, uh… I was wondering. Would you want to plan the kitchen?”

You blinked, turning to him in surprise. “Me? Really?”

He nodded, his gaze shy but steady. “I don’t really know what I’m doing with it, and… I trust you. You’ve got good taste, and I think you’d make it feel like home.”

The words hit you harder than you expected, and before you knew it, tears were welling up in your eyes.

“Whoa, hey,” Bucky said, his brows knitting together in concern. “What’s wrong? Did I say something—”

“No,” you interrupted, laughing softly as you wiped at your cheeks. “It’s just… you trust me. That means more to me than I can put into words.”

Bucky’s expression softened, and he stepped closer, brushing a thumb gently across your cheek. “Of course I trust you,” he murmured. Then, leaning down, he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, the gesture so tender it made your heart ache.

You’d noticed it more and more lately—how it was always him who reached for your hand, him who initiated those little touches. It was as if he was finally letting himself believe he deserved that closeness, that warmth. And you were more than happy to give it to him.

---

The week had been smooth, almost idyllic. Days of working on the house blurred into a rhythm of shared laughs, small victories, and the comforting sound of progress. It felt like you and Bucky had carved out a world of your own—a pocket of peace that existed solely within the walls of that house.

But peace is fragile, and the world outside has a way of creeping in.

The errand was supposed to be simple—a quick trip to the hardware store to pick up extra nails and browse paint colors for the kitchen. Bucky had seemed more relaxed than you’d ever seen him, even leaving his cap behind. His bare head caught the sunlight as you walked side by side, his shoulders loose and his posture easy.

“I think we should go with something light for the walls,” you said as you pulled open the door to the hardware store. “Maybe a soft blue or cream? Something bright to—”

The words froze in your throat the moment you stepped inside.

The shop owner, a man in his sixties with a stern expression and deep lines etched into his face, had been wiping down the counter. His gaze lifted as the bell above the door chimed, and his eyes locked onto Bucky.

For a long moment, there was silence.

Then the man’s face twisted into something ugly.

“You,” he said, his voice low and sharp, like the crack of a whip. “Get out.”

Bucky froze beside you, his body going rigid. The relaxed man who had walked in just moments ago was gone, replaced by someone you barely recognized. His jaw tightened, his eyes darkened, and his hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Excuse me?” Bucky’s voice was quiet, controlled, but there was an edge to it that sent a chill down your spine.

“I said, get out,” the man repeated, louder this time. His voice carried across the store, drawing the attention of a few customers browsing nearby. “I’m not selling anything to a murderer.”

The words hung in the air like a slap, cold and cutting. For a second, you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t process what had just been said.

But then you looked at Bucky—at the way his shoulders sagged ever so slightly, at the way he dropped his gaze to the floor—and something inside you snapped.

Without thinking, you stepped forward, putting yourself between Bucky and the shop owner.

“You listen to me,” you said sharply, your voice trembling with rage. “Do you even know who you’re talking to?”

The man’s scowl deepened, but you pressed on, your words gaining momentum like a freight train.

“This is Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” you said, your voice rising with each word. “He’s a national hero. A victim of war. A man who was tortured, brainwashed, and used as a weapon against his will. He has spent every day since then trying to atone for things he wasn’t even responsible for. So don’t you dare stand there and call him a murderer.”

The man blinked, but you weren’t done.

“What the hell do you know about war?” you demanded, your words trembling with fury. “About what it’s like to have your choices ripped away from you? To lose yourself and still have the strength to fight your way back?”

“Ma’am, I—”

“No,” you snapped, cutting him off. “You don’t get to justify this. You don’t know anything about him. You don’t know the first damn thing about the kind of person he is. He’s a survivor. He’s a good man. A better man than you’ll ever be.”

The shop had gone eerily quiet. Customers had stopped what they were doing to watch, their curious and wary gazes bouncing between you and the shop owner.

“You’re just a bitter, ignorant old man,” you said, your voice trembling with emotion. “And honestly? I feel sorry for you. Because you’ll never know what it’s like to stand beside someone like him—someone who’s been through hell and still finds a way to be kind. Someone who’s—”

“Hey.”

Bucky’s voice was soft, his hand light on your arm, but it was enough to stop you mid-sentence.

You turned to him, your breath coming in uneven gasps, your eyes still blazing with anger. “What?”

“Let’s go,” he said gently. His voice was calm, but his eyes—the deep blue-gray of a stormy sea—held a quiet resolve that cut through your rage.

“But he—”

“Please,” Bucky murmured. There was no anger in his voice, only a quiet weariness that made your heart ache.

The fight drained out of you in an instant. Your shoulders slumped as you let out a shaky breath, and with one last glare at the shop owner, you turned and followed Bucky out of the store

---

The walk back to the house was heavy with silence. The usual rhythm of your steps, once comfortable and in sync, felt disjointed. Bucky’s shoulders were hunched, his hands buried deep in his pockets as he stared down at the sidewalk. His jaw was set, but the tension around his eyes betrayed him.

You wanted to say something—anything—to break the quiet, to ease the weight that had fallen between you since leaving the hardware store. But every time you opened your mouth, the memory of the shop owner’s words slammed into you like a wall.

By the time you reached the house, your anger was boiling over again.

“Unbelievable,” you snapped as you stormed through the door. “The nerve of that guy. To say something like that to you! Who does he think he is?”

Bucky followed you inside, his steps deliberate but unhurried, and leaned against the wall. He watched quietly as you paced back and forth, gesturing animatedly as you vented.

“He doesn’t even know you,” you continued, your voice rising as the anger clawed its way out of your chest. “And he thinks he can just… just—ugh! What an absolute—”

Bucky called your name softly, but you were too worked up to notice.

“And another thing,” you went on, throwing your hands up in frustration. “If I ever see him again—”

Two long strides, and Bucky was in front of you. His hands came up, cupping your face with a gentleness that caught you off guard, and before you could finish your sentence, his lips were on yours.

The world tilted.

Your anger dissolved in an instant, melting into the warmth of his touch, the softness of his mouth moving against yours. Time seemed to stretch, the pounding of your heart filling the silence as his thumbs brushed lightly against your skin.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours. His lips quirked into a small, lopsided smile that made your chest ache.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice low and filled with quiet gratitude.

“For what?” you managed to ask, still breathless.

“For standing up for me,” he said. “For… being you.”

Your chest tightened, a wave of emotion crashing over you. “Always,” you whispered, reaching up to rest your hands over his.

He kissed you again, slower this time, as though savoring the moment. It wasn’t rushed or desperate—it was deliberate, grounding. It felt like an anchor, steadying both of you.

---

The kiss didn’t happen again. Not the next day, or the one after that.

You hadn’t realized how much you would miss it—the warmth of his lips, the quiet intensity of the moment—but you told yourself it was fine.

Because nothing had changed between you.

Bucky was still Bucky, still teasing you about your clumsiness one moment and thanking you softly the next. He still held your hand when you walked through the house together, still kissed your forehead like it was second nature.

And as much as you wanted more, as much as you missed the feel of his lips on yours, you decided you could survive. As long as he was happy, so were you.

---

Two days after he’d asked you to plan the kitchen, you approached him nervously with a set of technical drawings. They weren’t perfect—lines overlapped in places, smudges from an eraser dotted the corners—but you’d poured your heart into them.

“Hey,” you began, holding out the papers as you stepped into the living room where Bucky was sanding down an old chair. “I, uh, have something for you.”

He looked up, brushing sawdust from his hands before taking the drawings. “What’s this?”

“Kitchen plans,” you said, your voice a little too high-pitched. “I, um, asked my dad for help. He’s the one who actually drew them—I just told him what I had in mind. I didn’t tell him who it was for, though,” you added quickly, biting your lip. “I just wanted to make sure it looked good.”

Bucky studied the papers in silence, his brow furrowing slightly as he took in the details. You watched him anxiously, your heart pounding in your chest.

When he finally looked up, his expression softened. A small, warm smile tugged at his lips.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” he said quietly.

“I wanted to,” you replied, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal even though your cheeks burned under his gaze. “I didn’t want to mess it up. So… yeah.”

Bucky shook his head fondly, stepping closer. He set the drawings aside and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured.

Warmth flooded through you, the gesture as tender as it was unexpected. You smiled shyly, looking down at your feet to hide the blush spreading across your face.

“You’re amazing,” he added, his voice soft.

You glanced up at him, your breath catching at the sincerity in his eyes. “So are you,” you whispered.

The moment lingered, charged with an unspoken connection that neither of you seemed ready to break.

---

Later that evening, as you sat on the porch with Bucky, the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink. The day’s work had left your hands sore and your muscles aching, but you felt lighter than you had in weeks.

Bucky leaned back in his chair, a rare look of contentment on his face as he gazed out at the street.

“Hey,” you said softly, breaking the comfortable silence.

He turned to you, his expression curious.

“I just wanted to say…” You hesitated, searching for the right words. “You’ve been through so much, and I know it’s not easy. But I’m proud of you. For everything. For trying. For rebuilding. For… letting me be part of it.”

His gaze softened, and he reached out, his hand brushing lightly against yours.

“You’re part of it because you matter,” he said simply.

The words settled over you like a blanket, warm and grounding.

And as the night wrapped around you, you realized that whatever came next—whatever challenges or triumphs lay ahead—you wouldn’t trade this for anything. Because here, in this moment, with him by your side, you felt like you’d found something you hadn’t known you were searching for.

Home.

---

You spent the next hour going over the plans together, seated side by side at the dining table with the house’s blueprints spread out in front of you. The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows, casting golden light across the room and bathing Bucky’s face in warmth.

“I think this setup should have everything you need for cooking,” you said, tapping your pen against the placement of the appliances. “The oven and stovetop here, fridge there—it keeps everything within reach. And since Tony’s footing the bill, you should absolutely go for top-of-the-line equipment.”

Bucky chuckled, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “You’re really trying to turn me into a chef, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” you teased, grinning at him. “I promised, didn’t I? And trust me, once you get the hang of it, you’ll love it. Cooking can be… therapeutic.”

He raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical but amused. “Therapeutic, huh? We’ll see about that. But alright, doll, I’m holding you to it.”

You laughed, nudging his arm with your elbow. “Good. We’ll start simple—no soufflés or flambéed anything until you’ve mastered scrambled eggs.”

As the conversation went on, Bucky’s posture shifted, his body leaning closer as he grew more engaged. His eyes softened as he listened to your ideas, and every so often, he’d chime in with a small adjustment or suggestion. You could feel the weight of his attention, the quiet steadiness of him beside you, and it sent a warmth blooming in your chest.

Finally, after a moment of silence, Bucky stood, his chair scraping softly against the floor. He held out a hand toward you, his expression thoughtful.

“Come with me,” he said, his voice low and steady.

You blinked up at him, surprised. “Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer right away, his lips curving into a faint, almost shy smile. “Just trust me.”

Without hesitation, you slid your hand into his, letting him pull you to your feet. His grip was firm yet gentle, his thumb brushing lightly over your knuckles as he led you upstairs.

He stopped outside a room you hadn’t paid much attention to before—a smaller space tucked toward the back of the house. He pushed the door open, revealing a cozy room with soft light spilling in through a single window that overlooked the backyard. The walls were bare, the wooden floor scuffed in places, and a faint scent of dust lingered in the air.

Bucky stepped inside, his movements slower now, as though he were treading carefully through the weight of his thoughts. He turned to face you, his hand still holding yours, his thumb tracing idle circles against your skin.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen when you finish your articles,” he began, his voice quiet but steady, his gaze unwavering. “But for me… you’ve become someone so important. So precious.”

Your breath caught, your heart hammering against your ribs as his words settled into the quiet of the room.

“And I was thinking,” he continued, glancing around the room before meeting your gaze again, “if you’re okay with it… I’d like you to have this room. A place that’s yours. A place in my house.”

For a moment, all you could do was stare at him, your lips parting in surprise.

“It’s not much,” he added quickly, a hint of nervousness creeping into his tone. His free hand rubbed the back of his neck, a gesture you’d come to recognize as one he made when he wasn’t sure of himself. “But… I want you to feel like this is your home, too. If you want it to be.”

The tears came before you could stop them, welling up and spilling down your cheeks as you clapped a hand over your mouth.

“Hey,” Bucky said softly, his brows knitting together in concern as he stepped closer. His hand came up, his thumb brushing under your eye to catch the tears. “What’s wrong? Did I say something—”

“No,” you interrupted, laughing shakily as you lowered your hand. “No, it’s just… you have this habit of making me cry happy tears, you know that?”

A slow, relieved smile spread across his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

You nodded, blinking back more tears. Your voice trembled as you said, “It’s perfect, Bucky. I’d love to make this my room.”

He let out a breath, his shoulders relaxing as though a weight had been lifted. “Good,” he said simply, the word carrying more emotion than you thought possible.

Before you could say anything else, he pulled you into a hug, his arms wrapping around you with a quiet certainty that made you feel like nothing in the world could touch you. His chin rested lightly on the top of your head, and you let yourself melt into the warmth of him, your own arms circling his waist.

As he held you, the room seemed to shift. It wasn’t just an empty space anymore. It wasn’t just walls and floors waiting to be filled. It was a promise.

And as you closed your eyes, you realized that this wasn’t just his house or his project. It wasn’t just a place to rebuild his past.

It was home. For both of you.

---

Two weeks in, the house had begun its metamorphosis. Once a husk of memories and neglect, it now breathed new life with every passing day. Fresh paint imbued the walls with a crisp brightness, floors gleamed after hours of sanding and polishing, and furniture, though sparse, stood proud in its newfound home. The air smelled of sawdust and paint, a strange mix of effort and hope.

The to-do list was still long, but you were ahead of schedule—thanks mostly to Bucky’s tireless determination. He had a knack for wrangling stubborn beams into place, coaxing even the most unwilling pieces of wood and stone to bend to his will. You admired that about him. Of course, admiration came with its own challenges.

Working with Bucky wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. It wasn’t his teasing, though he was infuriatingly good at it. Nor was it his occasional bossiness, which, if you were being honest, was often justified. No, the real problem was simpler. It was him. Just... him.

Bucky Barnes was handsome—ridiculously so. You’d always known that. But knowing and enduring it on a daily basis were two very different things. Spending every waking moment with him, watching the way his muscles flexed under strain, the easy confidence in his movements—it was maddening. And then there was his arm.

You hadn’t been prepared for how mesmerizing that sleek vibranium arm would be, how the sunlight glinted off it like molten silver. It moved with such precision, every motion fluid and deliberate, as if it were an extension of his will. Your mind betrayed you far too often, conjuring scenarios you had no business entertaining: the feel of that arm pinning you to a wall, the chill of the metal against your skin, the impossible strength that could pull you closer with a single motion.

You scolded yourself endlessly. But no amount of internal reprimands could keep your traitorous gaze from wandering. Especially not today.

The weather had turned. The suffocating heat clung to the air, thick and relentless. Naturally, Bucky decided this was the perfect day to forego his usual work shirt in favor of a gray tank top. It clung to him in ways that felt unfair, accentuating the broadness of his shoulders, the hard planes of his chest, the way his biceps flexed with every movement. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on his skin, tracing lines down his neck and arms, and it was impossible to look away.

You tried to focus. You really did. But the more you sanded, painted, or hammered, the more your gaze drifted, stealing glances when you thought he wasn’t looking.

You were wrong.

---

It started innocently enough—or so you told yourself. You were sanding the edges of a wooden shelf, the rhythmic back-and-forth motion of your hands lulling you into a daze. Bucky was across the room, lifting a heavy plank of wood onto his shoulder. The play of muscle beneath his skin was mesmerizing, a symphony of strength and precision that left you momentarily breathless.

You didn’t realize you were staring until you caught the smirk tugging at his lips.

“See something you like?” His voice was low, rich with amusement, and it jolted you back to reality.

Your cheeks burned as you scrambled for a response. “What? No! I—I wasn’t—”

“Sure, doll,” he drawled, the smirk widening into a grin. “Whatever you say.”

You ducked your head, returning your focus to the shelf as if it held the answers to the universe. Maybe if you worked hard enough, he’d let it go.

He didn’t.

---

The teasing only escalated.

The next day, you were handing him tools while he worked on the kitchen counter. It should’ve been a simple task, but every time he flexed his biceps or leaned forward, your brain short-circuited. You could feel the heat of him, the faint scent of sawdust and sweat, and it was all too distracting.

“You okay over there?” he asked, his tone casual, though the hint of a grin betrayed him.

“Fine,” you replied, too quickly, snapping your gaze away.

“You sure?” He glanced at you over his shoulder, his grin maddeningly smug. “You’ve been awfully quiet. Not distracted by anything, are you?”

Your scowl was immediate. You shoved a wrench into his hand with a bit more force than necessary. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, chuckling softly as he turned back to his work. “If you say so.”

---

And then there was the moment that nearly broke you.

He’d been crouched near the floor, adjusting something beneath the kitchen cabinets. You weren’t even sure what he was doing; all you could focus on was the way his jeans hugged his hips, the way his muscles shifted as he moved. Your gaze lingered just a second too long.

“You know,” he said without turning, his tone casual but tinged with mischief, “if you want a better look, you could just ask.”

Your heart stopped. “What?”

Bucky stood slowly, brushing off his hands as he turned to face you. His grin was wicked, the kind that spelled trouble. “Caught you staring again, doll.”

“I wasn’t staring!” you protested, the heat rising to your face faster than you could contain it.

“Oh, you definitely were.” He took a step closer, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “First my arms, now my ass. What’s next?”

You groaned, covering your face with your hands. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” he said, his laughter warm and infuriating. Gently, he pulled your hands away from your face, his touch firm but careful. His gaze softened, a playful tilt to his head as he studied you. “Admit it—you like what you see.”

“I’m not admitting anything,” you muttered, refusing to meet his eyes.

His smirk returned, though it was lighter now, almost teasingly affectionate. “Alright, fine. I’ll leave you alone—for now. But if you keep looking at me like that, doll, I might start to think you’ve got a crush.”

You sputtered, torn between laughing and crying, as he stepped back and returned to his work, his chuckle echoing through the room.

“You’re insufferable,” you called after him, though your voice lacked the bite you intended.

“And you’re cute when you’re flustered,” he shot back, his grin audible in his voice.

You hated how much you liked it.

---

For the rest of the day, Bucky cranked up his 1940s charm to a level that was equal parts infuriating and intoxicating. He leaned into his words with a slow, deliberate drawl, his confidence radiating in a way that made your stomach flip—and your patience fray.

"Careful with that hammer, sweetheart," he teased as you struggled with a stubborn nail. The board beneath your hands refused to cooperate, and every tap of the hammer only worsened your frustration. Bucky’s voice, rich with amusement, drifted over your shoulder. "Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. Not that I’d mind takin’ care of you."

Your hands stilled, the hammer dangling precariously from your grip as you whipped your head around to glare at him. He was leaning casually against the wall, arms folded across his chest, his smile smug and infuriatingly attractive.

“You’re lucky I like you, Barnes,” you snapped, though your voice held none of the heat you intended.

His grin widened. "Like me, huh?" He straightened, taking a step closer, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Is that why you’ve been staring at me all week?"

You fumbled for a retort, your face heating under his gaze. “I hate you,” you muttered instead, but the treacherous smile tugging at the corners of your lips betrayed you.

"Sure you do," he said, his voice dripping with amusement as he returned to his work.

---

By the time the sun dipped low in the sky, painting the room in hues of amber and gold, you were a flustered mess. Every teasing comment, every smug grin, every subtle brush of his hand had worn you down. And Bucky? He looked like he was having the time of his life, his laughter ringing out every time he managed to get a rise out of you.

As you packed up your tools, your mind was racing. You shoved nails and screws into a box with unnecessary force, pointedly avoiding the tall, broad figure moving toward you. But he wasn’t one to be ignored.

“Good work today,” he said, leaning casually against the edge of the table, his tone so smug it made your teeth clench.

“Yeah, yeah,” you muttered, not bothering to look up.

Bucky chuckled, and the sound was warm, a little too soft, and far too dangerous. Before you could move away, he reached out, his fingers brushing against your temple as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

“You’re cute when you’re mad, you know that?” His voice was lower now, quieter, and the change made your pulse quicken.

You froze, your breath catching as your eyes darted up to meet his. His gaze was steady, warm, and just a little too intense. And then, before you could say or do anything, he leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your forehead.

“See you tomorrow, doll,” he murmured, his voice like velvet as he pulled away.

You stood there, your heart pounding and your cheeks burning, watching as he walked away with a confident swagger that made you want to scream.

And yet, despite the smugness and the teasing and the way he drove you absolutely insane, you couldn’t help the smile that broke across your face.

Because, damn it, you did like him.

---

James Barnes – Brooklyn’s Son and Brother

There’s something that shifts in James Buchanan Barnes when he talks about his family.

The stoicism he wears like armor—the careful wall that keeps the world at arm’s length—melts away. His sharp features soften, his eyes taking on a warmth that reminds you of a fire burning low on a winter’s night. It’s as though, for a moment, the weight of his past slips away, and he becomes someone else entirely: a boy from Brooklyn, proud and full of love.

When he talks about his mother, his tone is reverent, tender in a way that’s rare for him. “She was the heart of everything,” he says, his voice tinged with quiet nostalgia. His lips curve into a faint smile, as though recalling a memory so vivid he can almost touch it. “She ran the house like clockwork. Always knew exactly what we needed—even when we didn’t.”

His eyes light up as he talks about her cooking. “Best roast chicken in Brooklyn, no contest. And her pies? God, she made this apple pie that’d make you weep.” He chuckles, his voice thick with affection. “She’d always sneak me an extra slice when she thought no one was lookin’. Said I needed it to keep up my strength.”

When the conversation shifts to his father, there’s a quiet respect in his tone, steady and unshakable. “My dad wasn’t a man of many words,” he says, his gaze growing distant. “But when he spoke, you listened. He worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known. Always made sure we had enough, even if it meant he went without.”

His smile grows softer as he talks about his sisters, the faintest edge of brotherly exasperation coloring his words. “Winnie was the quiet one—always had her nose buried in a book. But she was sharp. Smarter than I’ll ever be.” He pauses, shaking his head fondly. “And Rebecca? She was a menace. She’d steal my hat just to see me chase her around the house. She drove me crazy, but I loved her to pieces. Still do.”

When he talks about holidays at the Barnes house, his voice takes on a wistful note. “Ma went all out for Christmas,” he says, his expression softening further. “The whole house smelled like cinnamon and pine. Winnie and Rebecca would string popcorn for the tree, and I’d help Dad chop firewood for the stove. It wasn’t much, but it was home. And it was perfect.”

In these moments, you see the man behind the soldier—the boy who once laughed and loved and dreamed in a small house in Brooklyn. You see the brother, the son, the protector.

James Barnes isn’t just the Winter Soldier. He isn’t just a man haunted by shadows and ghosts.

He’s James Buchanan Barnes, and he’s extraordinary.

---

When you handed the article to Bucky, his reaction was immediate. His lips quirked into a soft smile as he read the first few lines, his blue eyes scanning the page with quiet intensity. You watched him carefully, your heart thudding in your chest. There was something about seeing him so focused, the way his brow furrowed slightly, the way his thumb brushed absently against the edge of the paper, that made it impossible to look away.

By the time he finished, his expression had shifted into something deeper, more contemplative. He set the pages down gently, almost reverently, as if they were something precious.

“This is… really good,” he said finally, his voice low and sincere.

Relief flooded through you, and you leaned back against the table, your shoulders relaxing. “I’m glad you think so. I was a little nervous about this one.”

His brows knit together slightly as he tilted his head. “Why?”

You shrugged, feeling the weight of your own words before you spoke them. “It’s personal. I wanted to do it justice.”

He nodded slowly, his gaze meeting yours, steady and unwavering. “You did,” he said, and the quiet conviction in his voice made your chest tighten.

There was a pause, a moment that stretched between you like a taut thread. Then his expression shifted, a flicker of concern crossing his face. “But you’ve been working on these articles nonstop,” he said, his tone gentler now. “Helping me with the house all day, then staying up late to write… You’re going to burn yourself out.”

You waved him off with a small laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m fine, Bucky. Really. I write when I feel like it—it’s not as bad as you think.”

He didn’t look convinced. His jaw tightened slightly, and his eyes lingered on you for a moment longer than they should have. But he let it go. For now.

---

That evening, you lost track of time.

The house had gone quiet, the sounds of hammering and sanding replaced by the hum of cicadas outside the window. The soft golden glow of the desk lamp illuminated the pages scattered in front of you, and you worked in a steady rhythm, the scratching of your pen the only sound in the room.

When you finally glanced at the clock, the numbers seemed to blur in front of your tired eyes. You groaned, leaning back in your chair and rubbing the back of your neck. The ache in your shoulders reminded you of how long you’d been sitting there, hunched over your work.

“I guess I should head home,” you murmured, more to yourself than to anyone else, as you began to gather your things. But when your gaze flicked to the window and you saw just how dark it was outside, you hesitated. The shadows were deep, the kind that made the quiet countryside feel a little too still, a little too lonely.

“Actually…” you said, trailing off as you glanced over at Bucky. He was across the room, carefully organizing the tools you’d both been using earlier, his broad shoulders silhouetted by the faint glow of the kitchen light. “It’s kind of late. Maybe I’ll just stay here tonight.”

He froze, his movements halting for just a fraction of a second before he straightened and turned to look at you. “You, uh… you sure about that?”

“Yeah,” you said with a shrug, your tone casual even as your heart began to pick up speed. “It’s not like I haven’t crashed here before.”

“Right,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, his gaze darting to the floor. “It’s just… there’s only one bed right now. The other beds and couches don’t come until the end of the week. We threw the old ones out, remember?”

You blinked, the realization hitting you like a freight train. “Oh.”

“I can sleep on the floor,” he offered quickly, his words tumbling out like they’d been waiting on the tip of his tongue.

“No way,” you said, shaking your head firmly. “This is your house. If anyone’s sleeping on the floor, it’s me.”

“You’re not sleeping on the floor,” he said, his voice taking on that low, commanding tone that always made your breath catch.

“Well, neither are you,” you shot back, crossing your arms and glaring at him.

The two of you stood there, locked in a silent standoff. His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing slightly as if he were weighing his next move. Finally, you sighed, rolling your eyes. “We’re both adults, right? We can share the bed. It’s not a big deal.”

Bucky looked like he was about to argue, his mouth opening slightly before he shut it again. He hesitated, his gaze flickering between you and the door to the bedroom. Then, to your utter disbelief, the corner of his mouth quirked up into a crooked grin.

“You sure you’ll be able to keep your hands off me, doll?” he teased, though there was a faint edge of uncertainty in his voice that made your stomach flutter.

You rolled your eyes, determined not to let him see the heat rising to your cheeks. “Get over yourself, Barnes. Let’s go.”

---

The bedroom was dimly lit, the soft glow of the moon filtering through the thin curtains and casting silver shadows across the walls. The bed—just a simple mattress on a sturdy frame—sat in the center of the room, looking both impossibly large and far too small at the same time.

Bucky lingered by the doorway, his hands shoved into his pockets, his shoulders tense. He glanced at you, his expression unreadable in the faint light.

“You take the left side,” you said, breaking the silence as you dropped your bag onto the floor. “I’m a right-side sleeper anyway.”

“Alright,” he said, his voice quieter now, almost hesitant.

The mattress dipped slightly under his weight as he settled on his side, his movements careful, as if he were afraid of breaking something. You slid in on the other side, keeping a respectful distance between you, though the proximity still felt electric.

The room fell silent, the kind of quiet that makes you hyper-aware of every sound: the rustle of the sheets, the soft inhale and exhale of breath, the faint creak of the floorboards as the house settled around you.

“You comfortable?” he asked after a moment, his voice low and rough, the sound of it cutting through the stillness like a blade.

“Yeah,” you murmured, though your heart was racing in your chest.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You stared up at the ceiling, the faint outline of the beams above blending into the shadows, your mind racing with thoughts you couldn’t quite pin down.

And then, just as your eyes began to grow heavy, his voice broke the silence again, softer this time. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for… y’know. Everything. The article, the house… putting up with me.”

You turned your head slightly, just enough to catch the outline of his profile in the moonlight. There was something vulnerable about the way he lay there, his face turned toward the ceiling, his expression open in a way you rarely saw.

“You don’t have to thank me, Bucky,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

He didn’t respond right away, and you thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. But then he turned his head, his gaze meeting yours, and the weight of it made your breath catch.

“Goodnight, doll,” he said softly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Goodnight, Bucky,” you replied, your voice steady despite the storm of emotions swirling inside you.

And as you lay there, the warmth of him just a few inches away, you couldn’t help but think that maybe—just maybe—you wouldn’t mind losing a little sleep tonight.

---

You fell asleep quickly, the exhaustion of the long day pulling you under like a heavy tide. The bed was warm, and Bucky’s steady breathing beside you was oddly comforting, a quiet rhythm that soothed the tension in your muscles. But sometime in the night, a faint sound stirred you from sleep.

It started as a murmur, low and unintelligible, growing into fragmented whispers and uneven breaths. You blinked into the darkness, the moonlight casting faint silver shadows across the room. Turning your head, you saw him.

Bucky was restless, his brow furrowed, his lips moving soundlessly. His fists clenched the sheets, the vibranium arm flexing with a metallic whir as his body jerked suddenly, a soft, strangled sound escaping his throat.

“Bucky,” you whispered, reaching out instinctively to shake his shoulder. “Bucky, wake up.”

Before you could process what was happening, his body moved on instinct. His hand shot out, pinning you to the bed with a grip that was firm but not painful. The weight of him hovered over you, his metal hand curling around your throat—not tight, but enough to send a shiver of fear and adrenaline rushing through your veins.

“Bucky,” you said again, louder this time, your voice steady despite the hammering of your heart.

His eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused, his chest heaving as if he’d just surfaced from drowning. For a moment, he didn’t seem to see you, his grip faltering as panic overtook him. Then recognition dawned, and he scrambled away from you, his breathing ragged and uneven.

“Oh God,” he whispered, his voice cracking as he pressed himself against the far wall. His hands trembled, one flesh, one metal, both visibly shaking as he looked at you in horror. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—I would never—”

“Bucky,” you interrupted softly, sitting up and rubbing your neck where his hand had rested. There was no pain, only the lingering ghost of his touch. You moved toward him cautiously, like approaching a frightened animal. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“It’s not okay,” he said, his voice sharp and raw. His shoulders hunched as though he were bracing for a blow, and his eyes were glassy with shame. “I could’ve hurt you. I—”

“You didn’t,” you said firmly, cutting him off before he could spiral further. Crawling across the bed, you reached for him, placing a gentle hand on his arm. His muscles tensed under your touch, but he didn’t pull away. “Look at me, Bucky. I’m fine. You didn’t hurt me.”

His head shook, his jaw clenched so tight you thought it might crack. “You don’t understand,” he said hoarsely, his voice barely audible. “I could’ve killed you. In my sleep. Like it was nothing. I—”

“Stop,” you said, your voice soft but commanding. Carefully, you slid your arms around him, pulling him into a hug. He stiffened at first, but you didn’t let go, pressing your cheek against his shoulder and squeezing just a little tighter. “You didn’t. You won’t. Do you know why?”

He didn’t respond, his body still rigid beneath your touch.

“Because you’re a good man, Bucky Barnes,” you murmured, your lips brushing against his shoulder. “Even in your worst nightmares, you didn’t hurt me. That’s who you are.”

For a moment, he was silent, his breathing slowing just enough to let you know he was listening. Then, without thinking, you pressed a kiss to the cool vibranium of his arm, tracing the etched lines with your fingers. The metal was cold against your skin, but somehow, it felt warm beneath your touch.

“Honestly,” you said suddenly, the words slipping out before you could stop them, “it was kind of hot.”

His head jerked up, his eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”

You slapped a hand over your mouth, mortified. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

For a moment, there was nothing but silence. And then, to your utter shock, he laughed—a soft, breathless sound that was almost foreign coming from him. It was rough, unpracticed, like he hadn’t done it in years, but it was real.

“You’re something else,” he said finally, shaking his head as a faint smile tugged at his lips.

Before you could respond, he reached out, his fingers brushing against your cheek as he tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His touch lingered, and then, in one smooth motion, he leaned in and kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed or desperate. It was soft, tender, full of unspoken apologies and quiet gratitude. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours, and for the first time that night, you saw something like peace in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

You didn’t respond. You didn’t need to. Instead, you pulled him back to bed, wrapping your arms around him as he rested his head on your shoulder. His body was still tense, but as the minutes passed, he began to relax, his breathing evening out until it matched yours.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Bucky slept through the night.

---

When morning came, something was different.

Bucky wasn’t distant, exactly, but the teasing remarks, the soft smiles, the casual touches—all of it was gone. He worked in silence, his shoulders hunched as though carrying an invisible weight. His eyes, usually so sharp and alert, were distant, staring past you to something only he could see.

You tried everything to bring him back. You cracked jokes, deliberately messed up measurements just to hear him scold you in that exasperated tone, and even ordered pizza from that questionable hole-in-the-wall place he loved. The grease-stained box sat untouched on the table, and the half-hearted smile he gave you didn’t reach his eyes.

By evening, your patience had worn thin.

When Steve stopped by to check on the house, you pulled him aside, your voice low and urgent. “Steve, what do you do when Bucky gets like this?”

Steve’s expression softened, a familiar sadness flashing across his face. “I leave him alone,” he said quietly. “Sometimes he just needs space to work through it.”

You frowned, crossing your arms. “That’s it? You just let him sit there and brood until he feels better?”

“It’s not about letting him brood,” Steve said gently. “It’s about giving him time. He’s been through more than anyone should ever have to endure. Sometimes space is the best thing you can give him.”

You nodded reluctantly, though the answer didn’t sit right with you. Giving him space might work for Steve, but it wasn’t going to work for you. You cared too much to sit idly by.

---

That evening, an idea struck you. It was impulsive, maybe even a little absurd, but you didn’t care. Pulling out your phone, you made a quick call, cashing in a favor with a contact from your journalism days.

A private cinema room. Short notice. But it was perfect.

By the time you had everything set—junk food packed into a bag, drinks shoved into a cooler—you found Bucky sitting on the porch, his arms resting on his knees as he stared at the horizon. The fading light painted his face in soft oranges and golds, but the shadows under his eyes told a different story.

“Come with me,” you said, holding out your hand.

He looked up at you, his brow furrowing. “Where?”

You smiled, refusing to let him shut himself off again. “You’ll see. Just trust me.”

For a moment, he hesitated, his eyes searching yours. Then, with a soft sigh, he stood, slipping his hands into his pockets as he followed you to the car.

---

Bucky didn’t say much during the drive. He sat quietly, his gaze fixed out the window as the twilight deepened into night, the city lights painting faint streaks of gold and white across his face. Every so often, his brow furrowed slightly, as if he were trying to piece together where you were taking him, but he didn’t ask.

Still, you could feel his curiosity growing the closer you got to your destination. When you finally pulled up outside the private cinema, his head tilted slightly, his lips parting in faint confusion.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice low and cautious.

“Come on,” you said, grabbing the bag of snacks from the backseat and gesturing for him to follow.

The small building was unassuming from the outside, but as you led him through the door, the cozy warmth of the space unfolded. Soft, ambient lighting illuminated the intimate room, which held just a handful of plush seats and a screen that stretched across the far wall. The faint smell of popcorn lingered in the air, a comforting reminder of countless movie nights past.

A staff member greeted you quietly, handing over a sleek remote for the projector before slipping away, leaving the two of you alone in the private space.

Bucky lingered by the doorway, his eyes sweeping over the room. His confusion melted into something softer, something almost vulnerable.

“You did this?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course,” you said, setting the bag of snacks on the small table near the seats. “You’ve been a little… off today, and I thought this might cheer you up.”

He blinked, his expression unreadable at first. But then, slowly, the faintest smile tugged at the corners of his lips—the first real one you’d seen all day. “What movie?”

“One from your list,” you replied, grinning as you sank into one of the seats and patted the spot beside you. “It wasn’t easy to track down, but thankfully, they had it.”

Bucky hesitated for a moment, his fingers brushing against the back of the nearest chair as he stared at you. Finally, he sat down beside you, his posture stiff at first but gradually relaxing as the lights dimmed and the screen flickered to life.

When the opening credits began to roll, something shifted. He leaned back into his seat, his shoulders losing some of their tension as his gaze fixed on the screen.

---

Halfway through the movie, the quiet settled comfortably around you, broken only by the occasional sound of a chip crunching or a faint laugh from the film. It was nice, easy in a way you hadn’t felt all day.

But then Bucky’s voice cut through the silence, low and raw.

“Last night scared me.”

The words were soft, almost hesitant, but they struck like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through the calm. You turned to him, your chest tightening at the vulnerability etched into his face.

“I was so close to hurting you,” he continued, his eyes fixed on the screen but unfocused, as if he were looking straight through it. “So close to losing you. And I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop… going over it in my head.”

“Bucky,” you said gently, reaching out to touch his arm. His vibranium fingers twitched slightly, but he didn’t pull away.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position,” he said, his voice cracking. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this. You shouldn’t have to wake up wondering if I’m going to—”

“Hey,” you interrupted firmly, squeezing his arm to draw his attention. His head turned toward you, and the anguish in his eyes made your heart ache. “You didn’t hurt me. Even in the middle of a nightmare, you didn’t hurt me. Do you know what that says about you?”

He shook his head, his jaw tight as if he were trying to hold something back. His fists clenched on his lap, the metal hand gleaming faintly in the light from the screen.

“It says you’re an incredible man,” you continued, your voice steady and sure. “A man who’s been through hell and still manages to be kind and thoughtful and good. You’re allowed to have nightmares, Bucky. Everyone does. It doesn’t make you a bad person.”

For a long moment, he didn’t respond. The silence stretched between you, heavy and full of unspoken words. Then, slowly, his hands relaxed, his fingers uncurling as his breathing evened out.

“I don’t know what I’d do if you left,” he said finally, his voice quiet, almost fragile. “You make everything feel… normal. Easy. And I don’t deserve that.”

The pain in his voice made your throat tighten, but you refused to let it show. Instead, you reached up, cupping his face in your hands and forcing him to look at you.

“You deserve all of it, Bucky,” you said firmly. “And more.”

For a moment, he just stared at you, his eyes searching yours for something you weren’t sure he even knew he was looking for. Then, as if a dam had broken, he leaned in, his hand lifting to cradle the back of your head.

When his lips met yours, it wasn’t soft or tentative like before. It was fierce, desperate, full of all the emotions he couldn’t put into words. His fingers tangled in your hair, his other hand settling on your waist as he pulled you closer, as if afraid you might slip away.

You kissed him back just as fervently, your hands sliding into his hair, your heart pounding as the rest of the world faded into nothing.

When you finally broke apart, both of you were breathing heavily, your foreheads resting against each other. His lips curved into a small, genuine smile—the kind that made your chest ache in the best way.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his thumb brushing gently against your cheek.

You smiled back, threading your fingers through his. “Come on. Let’s finish the movie.”

He chuckled softly, the sound low and warm, as he leaned back in his seat. His hand stayed in yours, his fingers laced with yours as the movie continued to play.

And as you glanced at him out of the corner of your eye, you couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride at the faint, contented smile on his face. The weight that had pressed on him all day seemed lighter now, the shadows in his eyes not quite as dark.

In that moment, you made a silent promise to yourself. Whatever it took—whatever he needed—you would do it.

Because seeing him like this, peaceful and at ease, was worth everything.

---

The Heart of a Soldier

James Buchanan Barnes is a man of contrasts.

He is strength and vulnerability woven together into something impossibly complex. A ghost of the past, trying to carve a future out of the rubble. A man who carries more pain than most of us could imagine, yet still somehow puts others before himself, time and time again.

When you first meet him, you see the strength. It’s impossible not to. The broad shoulders, the quiet intensity of his gaze, the vibranium arm that gleams like a badge of survival and sacrifice. He moves with a deliberate grace, each step purposeful, every motion controlled. Even when he says nothing, his presence commands the room.

But if you spend enough time with him, you’ll start to notice the cracks. The subtle moments that betray the weight he carries. The slight tremor in his hands as he reaches for his morning coffee. The way his jaw tightens at the mention of the Winter Soldier, like the very name wraps around his throat and squeezes. The distant look in his eyes when the room gets too quiet, too still—when the ghosts of his past come creeping in to haunt him.

James Barnes is a man haunted. By memories that feel stolen. By faces he can never forget. By a ledger he believes can never be wiped clean, no matter how many lives he saves or how much good he does.

And yet, despite everything, he cares.

He cares with a fierceness that is both breathtaking and heartbreaking.

I’ve seen it in the way his blue-gray eyes scan a room, always vigilant, always watching for potential dangers that no one else has even considered. I’ve seen it in the way he talks about his past—not with bitterness, but with guilt so heavy it weighs down his every word, as if the things done to him were somehow his fault. And I’ve seen it in the way he puts everyone else before himself, even when he’s quietly falling apart.

There’s a fragility to James Barnes, but it’s not the kind born of weakness. It’s the fragility of a man who has been shattered and pieced back together more times than he can count. It’s the fragility of someone who knows exactly how easily those cracks can form again.

But there’s also a resilience in him that takes your breath away.

Because no matter how many times he’s been broken, no matter how often he’s been knocked down, he gets back up. He keeps fighting—not just for himself, but for everyone who needs him. For his friends. For the world. For people who will never know his name or what he’s sacrificed for them.

James Barnes doesn’t see himself the way others do. He doesn’t see the incredible strength it takes to wake up every morning and choose to keep going. He doesn’t see the courage it takes to face a world that has judged him unfairly and still stand tall.

But I see it.

I see it in the way he carries his pain like a shield, always trying to protect the people he loves from the weight of it. I see it in the way he clings to his humanity, even when the world tried to rip it away from him. I see it in the way he cares—so deeply, so unconditionally—even when he believes he doesn’t deserve to.

James Barnes is not perfect. He’s messy, flawed, and so deeply, painfully human. But that’s what makes him extraordinary.

He is proof that even in the face of unimaginable pain, there is still room for love. For kindness. For hope.

And that is the heart of James Barnes—the soldier, the survivor, the man who refuses to give up.

---

The next morning, you handed the article to Bucky, your heart pounding as he took the carefully printed pages from your hands.

He didn’t say anything at first. His blue-gray eyes moved steadily over the words, his expression unreadable but intensely focused. You watched him carefully, noting the way his brow furrowed, then smoothed, then furrowed again. The faint twitch of his lips hinted at something—whether a smile or a grimace, you couldn’t tell.

When he finally set the paper down, his hand lingered on it for a moment, his thumb brushing against the edge as though he wasn’t quite ready to let it go.

“This is…” he began, his voice low and a little unsteady. “It’s beautiful. But…”

“But you’re not ready for it to be out there,” you finished for him, your voice calm and understanding.

Bucky nodded, his gaze dropping to the table. “I don’t think I ever will be. Not with this one.”

You smiled softly, reaching out to place your hand over his. The warmth of his touch felt steady, grounding. “What I said the first day still stands, Bucky. You’re in control of this. If you want me to burn it, I’ll burn it. If you want to keep it for yourself, I’ll hand it over, and the world will never know.”

For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. The silence stretched between you, heavy but not uncomfortable. Then he reached for the pages again, folding them carefully with the precision of someone handling something precious. Without a word, he tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket, patting the fabric lightly as if to reassure himself they were safe.

“I think I’ll keep it,” he said quietly. “At least for now.”

“Take all the time you need,” you said gently, your smile never faltering.

His eyes lifted to meet yours then, and the weight of his gaze made your breath catch. There was something in his expression you couldn’t quite name—gratitude, certainly, but something deeper too. Affection? Trust? Whatever it was, it made your chest ache in the best way.

“Thank you,” he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Always,” you replied.

And as the morning sunlight streamed through the windows, casting a soft golden glow across the room, you felt the weight of his trust settle over you like a promise. It was fragile and precious, something you would protect with everything you had.

Because James Buchanan Barnes deserved that. And so much more.

---

Bucky Barnes was a tease.

Not the innocent kind, either. No, this man had decades of charm sharpened by a 1940s sense of confidence and an uncanny ability to get under your skin. And the more comfortable he got around you, the more his teasing side seemed to flourish.

It started subtly—offhand comments, little smirks whenever he caught you staring too long. But lately, it had escalated to a level you could only describe as weaponized flirtation.

And you were not okay.

The sweltering summer heat wasn’t helping. On the hottest days, Bucky had taken to ditching his shirts altogether while he worked on the house renovations. He’d claim it was a practical choice, muttering something about how it was “too damn hot for anything else,” but the smug look he wore every time he caught you sneaking a glance told a very different story.

“Enjoying the view, doll?” he’d ask, his voice dripping with amusement, lips curling into that maddeningly perfect smirk.

You’d roll your eyes, muttering something about how he needed to get over himself. But the truth was, you were enjoying the view. How could you not? The man looked like he belonged in a sculpture gallery, every muscle flexing with purpose as he lifted beams, sanded down furniture, or hammered nails into place.

And Bucky knew it.

It wasn’t just the shirtlessness, either. Oh no, he liked to test your patience in other, more creative ways.

One afternoon, you were in the makeshift kitchen—a chaotic but functional space you’d thrown together while waiting for the new appliances to arrive—stirring a pot of sauce. Bucky sauntered in, his presence so effortless it sent a ripple of awareness through you.

“Excuse me, doll,” he murmured, leaning over you to grab something from the shelf above your head.

His chest brushed against your back, the cool vibranium of his arm resting lightly on the counter for balance.

Your breath hitched. You froze, spoon suspended mid-stir, as his warmth pressed against you. “You, uh… you need something?”

“Just the pepper,” he said, his voice casual as he reached for the container and stepped back.

When you turned, his grin was positively wicked.

“You’re insufferable,” you grumbled, glaring at him as the heat rose to your cheeks.

“And you’re adorable when you blush,” he shot back, winking before strolling out of the kitchen like he hadn’t just stolen the air from your lungs.

You groaned, burying your face in your hands. The man was going to be the death of you.

---

One evening, after a particularly grueling day of work, you decided you both deserved a break. The house renovations had consumed your lives for weeks, and the weariness clung to your body like an old coat you couldn’t shake off. On your way over to the house, you grabbed a bottle of wine, figuring it would be the perfect way to unwind and steal back a moment of normalcy.

“I brought reinforcements,” you announced as you stepped through the door, holding up the bottle with a triumphant grin.

Bucky looked up from where he was crouched on the living room floor, fiddling with the legs of a coffee table he’d been assembling. His hair was tousled, a few stubborn strands sticking to his forehead, and his hands were smudged with wood stain. When his eyes landed on the bottle, one brow arched in curiosity.

“Wine, huh?” he said, rising to his full height and wiping his hands on a rag. “What’s the occasion?”

“Surviving another week,” you quipped, kicking off your shoes. “And I don’t feel like writing tonight, so I figured we could celebrate.”

His lips curved into that warm, easy smile that never failed to make your stomach flip. He tossed the rag onto a nearby chair and walked toward you, his movements unhurried but deliberate.

“You know what?” he said, his voice softening. “I like the way you think.”

---

A few minutes later, you were both settled on the worn but comfortable couch, two glasses of wine in hand, a classic movie flickering on the new TV in the background. The first glass went down smoothly, the wine melting the tension from your shoulders and loosening the knots in your mind. Conversation flowed easily between you, punctuated by bursts of laughter and playful jabs as you recounted the day’s mishaps.

It was the second glass, however, that emboldened you.

You weren’t sure exactly when it started—maybe it was the way his arm brushed against yours as he reached for his glass, the heat of his skin lingering longer than it should have. Or maybe it was the way his smile lingered too, his gaze dipping to your lips before flicking back up to your eyes. Whatever it was, the subtle shift in the air between you was impossible to ignore.

Your hand drifted to his thigh, resting there lightly as you turned to ask him a question about the movie. The warmth of his leg seeped into your palm, grounding you, and though he didn’t say a word, you caught the flicker of amusement in his eyes as he glanced down at your hand. A ghost of a smirk tugged at his lips, but he didn’t move to stop you.

A few minutes later, you found yourself leaning into him, your head resting against his shoulder. The scent of him—wood shavings, a hint of sweat, and something that was purely Bucky—filled your senses, wrapping around you like a warm blanket.

“You comfortable there, doll?” he teased, though his voice had softened, the usual edge replaced with something gentler, more affectionate.

“Very,” you replied, your fingers absently tracing small, lazy circles on his thigh.

His breath hitched almost imperceptibly, but the tension in his body shifted, a subtle crackling like static electricity sparking in the air between you.

When he turned his head to look at you, his blue-gray eyes were darker than usual, the light from the TV casting soft shadows across his face. His gaze dropped to your lips for the briefest of moments before flicking back up to meet yours.

You leaned in, your lips brushing against his in a kiss that started soft, tentative, testing the fragile line between friendship and something far deeper. But the moment he responded—his hand sliding to your waist, his lips pressing more firmly against yours—the kiss deepened, unraveling every ounce of restraint you’d been holding onto.

His vibranium hand found the back of your neck, the coolness of the metal a sharp contrast to the heat of the moment. You shifted, straddling his hips without even realizing you’d done it, your hands moving to his chest, trailing slowly downward as your mind blurred with the feel of him beneath you.

But just as your fingers began to wander lower, he caught your wrist, his grip gentle but firm.

“Not so fast, doll,” he murmured, his voice low and a little breathless.

You blinked at him, your cheeks flushing as you realized what you’d been doing. “Sorry, I—”

He shook his head, a soft smile spreading across his face as he cupped your cheek. “Don’t apologize. Trust me, it’s not that I don’t want to…”

“Then why—”

“Because I’m still a gentleman,” he said, leaning in to kiss you again, this time slower, sweeter, his lips lingering against yours. “And if we’re going to do this, I’d like to take you out first. A proper date.”

His words sent your heart tumbling into a freefall, and you couldn’t help the smile that spread across your face. “You’re serious?”

“Dead serious,” he said, his thumb brushing softly against your cheek. His gaze was steady, unwavering, and you felt the sincerity in his words settle warmly in your chest. “What do you say?”

You didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

His chuckle was soft, almost disbelieving, as though he hadn’t entirely expected you to agree so quickly. He pulled you into another kiss, this one unhurried and tender, the kind that made your toes curl and your pulse race.

When you finally pulled back, you rested against him, your head on his chest as the sound of his heartbeat thrummed steadily beneath your ear. His arm wrapped around your waist, holding you close as the movie played on, its faint dialogue a distant murmur neither of you paid attention to.

His fingers found yours, lacing them together with a quiet intimacy that made your chest ache in the best way.

And as you lay there, wrapped in his warmth, you couldn’t help but think that this was the start of something wonderful. Something neither of you had planned for but both of you had been waiting for.

Because with Bucky, everything felt right.

---

Bucky couldn’t believe he was actually doing this.

He’d faced Hydra assassins, alien armies, and the demons of his own past. He’d stared death in the face more times than he cared to count. But somehow, planning a date—one simple evening—felt like the most terrifying thing he’d ever done.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. He did. More than he wanted to admit, even to himself. It was just that he had no clue where to start. The world had changed so much since the last time he’d done anything remotely romantic. What did people even do on dates these days?

Dinner and a movie? Too cliché. A trendy rooftop bar? That didn’t feel like him at all. A fancy restaurant? Too formal, too stiff, and way too far outside his comfort zone.

He spent an entire morning agonizing over it, pacing back and forth across the freshly polished floor of the house like a man on trial. By the time lunch rolled around, he admitted defeat: he needed help.

Unfortunately, his options were… limited.

Tony? Absolutely not. The man would never let him live it down. Steve? He considered it for half a second before dismissing the idea. Steve’s idea of romance was still stuck somewhere in 1943, and while the simplicity of “dancing to some old tunes” was charming, it wasn’t the vibe Bucky was going for. Clint? Off the grid with his family, and his only response to Bucky’s text had been: "Figure it out, Barnes. I’m on vacation." Natasha? The thought of asking her for advice was enough to make him shudder. She’d never let him hear the end of it.

That left… Sam.

Bucky grimaced as he picked up his phone. He wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Sam answered on the second ring, and the teasing began almost immediately.

“You’re asking me for dating advice?” Sam’s grin was audible through the phone. “Man, this is too good. Hold on, let me get my phone. Gotta record this for posterity.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Bucky growled, his tone low and threatening.

“Alright, alright,” Sam said, still laughing. “Look, here’s my advice: don’t overthink it. She likes you, Barnes. You don’t need to impress her with some big, elaborate plan. Just keep it simple, keep it natural.”

“Simple,” Bucky repeated, nodding slowly.

“And don’t forget the flowers,” Sam added, clearly still enjoying himself. “Ladies love flowers. You’re welcome.”

Before Bucky could respond, Sam hung up, leaving him standing there with the distinct feeling that he’d just walked into a trap.

---

Armed with Sam’s advice and a determination to make the evening perfect, Bucky got to work.

The newly finished living room became the centerpiece of his plan. He strung up soft, twinkling lights around the ceiling beams, their golden glow casting a warm, inviting ambiance over the room. He wasn’t exactly an expert decorator, but he knew enough to keep it simple. A small vase of fresh flowers sat in the center of the coffee table—elegant and understated, just like you. Around the vase, he placed a few flickering candles, their soft light dancing across the surface of the polished wood.

He ordered food from a place he knew you loved, something comforting and familiar but still special enough for the occasion. The kind of meal that didn’t scream “fancy” but felt meaningful, thoughtful. There was wine, of course, and though Bucky wasn’t much of a drinker, he figured it would help set the mood.

When he stepped back to survey the room, he felt a strange mix of pride and apprehension. It wasn’t perfect—he’d never been one for frills or extravagance—but it felt like him. Honest. Simple. And, more importantly, it felt like you.

---

By the time you arrived, Bucky was a bundle of nerves, though he did his best to hide it.

The knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts, and he crossed the room in a few long strides, pausing for half a second to take a steadying breath before opening it.

You stood there, smiling, holding a small box of pastries in your hands. “I brought dessert,” you said cheerfully, your eyes lighting up as you looked at him.

Bucky couldn’t help but smile back, his nerves easing just a little. “Good,” he said, stepping aside to let you in. “I’ve got the rest covered.”

When you stepped into the living room, your eyes widened slightly as you took in the scene. The twinkling lights, the candles, the flowers—it wasn’t over-the-top, but it was thoughtful, intimate. Perfect.

“Bucky…” you said softly, turning to look at him. “You did all this?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a faint blush creeping up his cheeks. “Yeah. I, uh… wanted to do something nice. For us.”

Your smile widened, and he felt the last of his nerves melt away.

“It’s perfect,” you said, setting the pastries down on the table and stepping closer to him. “You’re perfect.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I would,” you said, your voice warm and sincere.

The evening unfolded like a dream. You shared the meal on the couch, the plates balanced on your laps as you laughed and talked, the conversation flowing as easily as the wine. The soft glow of the candles bathed the room in warmth, and the tension of the day melted away with every stolen glance, every shared smile.

At some point, the food was forgotten, and the two of you were curled up together on the couch, your head resting on his shoulder as his arm draped loosely around your waist. The warmth of his body against yours felt grounding, steadying, like coming home after a long journey.

“Thank you for this,” you murmured, your voice soft.

He turned his head slightly, his lips brushing against your temple. “Thank you for saying yes,” he replied, his voice low and rough with emotion.

You looked up at him, your eyes meeting his, and for a moment, the rest of the world faded away. Slowly, you leaned in, your lips brushing against his in a kiss that was soft and unhurried, a promise wrapped in tenderness.

When you pulled back, your smile was radiant, and Bucky couldn’t help but grin in return.

“You know,” he said, his voice teasing, “Sam was right about the flowers.”

You laughed, the sound light and musical, and pressed another kiss to his lips.

And as the evening stretched on, the two of you tangled together on the couch, the twinkling lights casting shadows that danced across the walls, Bucky felt something he hadn’t in a long, long time.

---

You felt nervous. It wasn’t the kind of nervousness born from inexperience—you weren’t a virgin, and this wasn’t your first time exploring intimacy. But something about this—about being with Bucky—felt so different, so intense, that it left you momentarily paralyzed.

Your heart raced as you sat curled up against him on the couch, the movie on the screen now nothing more than a blur of colors and sound. It had been forgotten long ago. All of your focus had shifted to him—to the steady rise and fall of his chest, the faint scent of him—woodsy, clean, and entirely Bucky. The way his arm rested lightly around your shoulders, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your arm, sent sparks down your spine.

You wanted more.

You wanted to hear his voice, soft and low, saying your name. You wanted to see him lose that careful restraint he always carried. You wanted to feel him—his warmth, his strength, the raw intensity you knew he was holding back.

So lost in your thoughts, you didn’t realize your hands had a life of their own.

Your eyes remained blankly fixed on the screen, but your hand drifted downward, almost instinctively. It started small, innocent, just a gentle graze against his stomach through the fabric of his shirt. But the sensation sent a thrill through you, and you didn’t stop there. Slowly, tenderly, your fingers slipped beneath the hem of his shirt, brushing against the bare skin of his abdomen.

His skin was warm, firm, the muscles beneath taut and solid. You let your fingertips trace the faint ridges of his abs, moving lower to the trail of hair that disappeared beneath the waistband of his pants. Your touch grew bolder, more deliberate, your movements both curious and deliberate.

You felt his breathing shift before you heard it—a quickened inhale, soft but unmistakable.

Bucky froze for half a second, his chest rising and falling just a bit faster now. At first, it seemed like he was surprised by your touch, caught off guard. But when realization dawned on him, he didn’t pull away. Instead, he stayed still, letting you explore, letting your hands roam freely.

He bit the inside of his cheek, willing himself to stay calm, to not ruin the moment. He wanted this—God, he wanted this—but he was terrified of moving too fast, of scaring you off. So he stayed quiet, curious and eager to see what you would do next.

But you didn’t know that.

When he didn’t react right away, you hesitated, your confidence faltering slightly. Was he not enjoying this? Did he not want you like you wanted him? The thought made a flicker of doubt creep into your mind, and without thinking, you let your nails rake softly across the skin of his stomach, testing his reaction.

The quiet hiss that escaped his lips was all the answer you needed.

A rush of boldness surged through you. You raised your head and kissed the side of his neck, your lips brushing against his skin in soft, feather-light touches. His scent overwhelmed your senses, and you felt a shiver run through him as you trailed your kisses downward.

When you reached his collarbone, you nipped at the sensitive skin there, your teeth grazing just hard enough to leave a faint mark.

“Doll,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble that sent a jolt of heat through your body. “You’ll leave a mark.”

You smirked against his skin, your lips curving into a mischievous smile. “Good,” you whispered, your voice low and sultry. “They’ll know you’re mine.”

Your words sent a chill down his spine, a spark of something primal and unrestrained roaring to life within him. His entire demeanor shifted in an instant, the careful control he always held snapping like a rubber band.

Before you could react, he turned, his movements swift and fluid as he pushed you down against the couch. The air left your lungs in a soft gasp as you found yourself beneath him, his body hovering over yours, his hands braced on either side of your head.

Your eyes widened, your pulse racing as you stared up at him. His breathing was heavy now, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he looked down at you. But it was his eyes that made your breath catch.

They were darker than you’d ever seen them, a storm of want and need swirling within their depths. He looked at you like you were his entire world, like nothing else existed except for you in this moment. And there was something else there too, something primal and possessive that sent a thrill through you.

You swallowed hard, feeling the heat pooling low in your belly, the unmistakable ache building between your thighs. You felt exposed, vulnerable, but not afraid. No, fear was the furthest thing from your mind.

What you felt was something entirely different.

“Bucky…” you whispered, your voice barely audible.

His gaze flicked to your lips, and for a moment, he hesitated, his breath hitching as if he were holding himself back. But then his resolve broke, and he leaned down, his lips capturing yours in a kiss that was anything but soft.

It was hungry, desperate, and full of a passion he could no longer contain. His hand cupped your cheek, his fingers tangling in your hair as he deepened the kiss, his body pressing closer to yours.

You arched into him, your hands sliding up his back, feeling the taut muscles flex beneath your touch. His weight pinned you to the couch, grounding you, anchoring you to him as your kisses grew more heated, more frantic.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breathing ragged as he struggled to regain control. His thumb brushed against your cheek, his touch soft and reverent in stark contrast to the intensity of the kiss.

“You drive me crazy,” he murmured, his voice low and gravelly.

You smiled, your fingers trailing up his arm to rest against the cool vibranium of his shoulder. “Good,” you whispered, your lips brushing against his in a teasing kiss.

He chuckled softly, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. “You don’t know what you’ve started, doll.”

“Then show me,” you replied, your voice steady despite the racing of your heart.

And with that, Bucky’s control shattered completely.

With a strong yet tender motion, he pulled you into his arms, holding you as if you were the most precious thing in the world. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, fitting perfectly against him as though you belonged nowhere else.

“Don’t you dare let me go,” you whispered, your voice soft with laughter, though your words carried a quiet plea.

He kissed your neck, the brush of his lips sending a shiver down your spine. His chuckle was warm, rich, and laced with something deeper. “I’m never letting you go,” he murmured, his voice low and intimate, meant only for your ears, like a sacred promise.

The door to his bedroom creaked open, revealing the sanctuary within—a simple space, bare but comforting. The bed, the only real bed in the house now, beckoned like a haven. He lowered you both onto the soft mattress, his movements careful, as if afraid to break the moment. His metal arm supported him as he leaned over you, the faint gleam catching the dim light. His long hair fell in a cascade around you, strands tickling your face like a silken veil.

Then he kissed you.

It wasn’t hurried or ravenous. It was soft, achingly tender, and filled with so much love that your chest tightened, the emotions welling up in your throat. You’d never been kissed like this before, as if every touch of his lips were a vow. His hands began to explore your body, slow and reverent, as if learning every curve by heart.

“Can I?” His voice was hushed, his fingers grazing the edges of your dress, a question lingering in the air. Between his gentle hands and the feather-light kisses he pressed against your throat and lips, you felt utterly unraveled.

Words escaped you, but you managed a nod, giving him the silent permission he craved. Yet that wasn’t enough for him. “I need to hear you say it, sweetheart,” he whispered, his teeth grazing your neck in a way that stole your breath and sent sparks dancing along your skin.

“And who’s leaving marks now?” you teased, your voice breathy as you tugged lightly at his hair.

His lips curved into a smirk against your skin. “I only return what’s given,” he replied, his fingers tracing the hem of your dress, teasing and testing.

“You can, Bucky,” you said, your voice steady despite the rush of heat coursing through you. “You can do anything to me.”

For a moment, he stilled, the weight of your words sinking in. He swallowed hard, his dark eyes softening as if the trust you’d given him meant more than he could express. Then, a slow, confident smirk tugged at his lips.

He kissed you again—brief, a teasing peck that left you wanting. Sitting up slightly, you reached for the hem of your dress, pulling it over your head in one swift motion. It fell to the floor, forgotten. You were left in nothing but your underwear—a dark blue set you’d picked on a whim, something prettier than your usual, though you’d never guessed it would matter so much tonight.

His gaze swept over you, lingering, darkening with desire. His nearly black eyes burned as if memorizing every inch of you. The slight hitch in his breath was all the confirmation you needed.

“You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid my eyes on,” he whispered, his voice thick with awe, his eyes tracing the contours of your body as though committing you to memory. The way he looked at you made you feel like more than beautiful—it made you feel like art, something to be cherished and admired.

His lips traveled down your neck, their warmth leaving a trail of fire that seeped into your skin. Gentle, reverent, and yet charged with an intensity that set your nerves alight, his kisses carried a heat that no blanket could rival. Despite the sweltering summer air pressing against the room, you craved this heat, welcomed it, especially when it came from him.

His hands roamed your body, slow and deliberate, as if savoring every touch. One hand cupped your breast, the other tracing lazy circles along your ribs before his lips replaced his fingers. His thumb grazed your nipple, and you gasped, your body arching instinctively into his touch. Pleasure bloomed under his care, sharp and exquisite, like the first taste of forbidden fruit.

With a deft motion, he pushed the fabric of your bra aside, baring your breast to his hungry gaze. His lips descended, soft yet searing, as his tongue flicked over your nipple, exploring and tasting like a man starved. The sensation sent a shiver through you, your body responding with a quiet moan when his teeth grazed the sensitive peak.

His free hand slid to the small of your back, pulling you closer as if proximity alone could express what words could not. In a swift, practiced motion, he unhooked your bra and tossed it aside, his movements fluid and precise. On any other night, you might have teased him for his efficiency, but now, all you could do was revel in the warmth of his breath against your skin.

“Oh my God, Bucky, that feels so good,” you breathed, the words tumbling from your lips unbidden. His skilled tongue danced across your nipple, teasing and biting, while his hand lavished attention on your other breast, kneading it with gentle care. The contrast between the sharpness of his teeth and the softness of his touch created a perfect harmony, leaving you gasping.

“I’m not planning to stop,” he murmured against your skin, his voice low and rough with promise. His hand began its descent, trailing down your body with an almost worshipful attention. He didn’t rush, savoring every curve, every hollow, as if memorizing the map of you. His fingers lingered on your waist, your hips, your stomach, their touch igniting sparks that made you squirm beneath him.

As his lips followed the path his hand had taken, his tongue left a scorching trail across your skin. Every kiss, every caress, unraveled you further, leaving you whimpering and gasping for breath. The sounds that escaped you were raw and unfamiliar, born of a pleasure so intense it was almost terrifying—and yet, you craved more.

Your hands found his arms, the corded strength beneath your fingers grounding you even as you floated in a haze of sensation. When you opened your eyes, a pout formed on your lips as you realized he was still fully clothed.

“This feels unfair,” you murmured, pushing him gently away with a playful shove. With a burst of determination, you straddled him, reversing your positions. His brow arched at the shift, an amused smirk tugging at his lips as he allowed you to take control.

“It feels unfair to see you still dressed,” you continued, your voice sultry as you tugged at the hem of his shirt.

He chuckled, the sound deep and rich, as his hands moved to help. But you swatted them away, shaking your head. “That’s my job,” you said, your words teasing but firm.

Slowly, you began unbuttoning his shirt, taking your time with each one. The deliberate pace wasn’t for efficiency—it was for the sheer joy of revealing him inch by inch, watching the way his muscles tensed and relaxed beneath your touch. His skin was warm, taut, and irresistible.

As you worked your way down, you leaned in, pressing soft kisses along his neck, down his collarbone, and across his chest. He let you guide him, his head tilting back, his lips parting in a quiet exhale of pleasure. When the last button was undone, you pushed the fabric aside, baring him completely to you.

For a moment, you just looked at him, marveling at the way he seemed both strong and vulnerable beneath you. And then you leaned down, letting your lips explore his skin, savoring the salt and warmth of him as your fingers traced the hard lines of his body.

Quickly, he shrugged off his shirt, tossing it carelessly in the same direction as your discarded dress and bra. The fabric landed somewhere forgotten, but the man before you was anything but. Though you’d seen him shirtless before, this time it was different. This time, you didn’t have to avert your eyes, pretending you weren’t staring when you were. Now, you could let your gaze roam freely, drinking him in the same way he devoured the sight of you, his eyes lingering on your bare chest.

And there was so much to take in.

He was shaped like a god—broad shoulders that seemed built to bear the weight of the world, a tapered waist most would envy, and muscles that moved beneath his skin like poetry in motion. But it was the scars that captured you. They told a story, a painful testament to everything he had endured. They marked him, not as broken, but as someone who had survived battles most could never comprehend.

Your expression softened as your eyes traveled over him, and you leaned in, pressing your lips gently to the first scar you saw—a smaller one near his collarbone. He sucked in a sharp breath, the sound raw and unguarded, as if no one had ever dared to touch him there, let alone kiss him. He didn’t even remember how he’d gotten that particular scar.

You moved slowly, reverently, your lips tracing each jagged mark, each uneven line etched into his skin. With every soft kiss, you felt the tension in his body begin to melt away. At first, he seemed unsure, his muscles taut beneath your touch, but as you continued, he relaxed bit by bit, surrendering to the tenderness you offered so freely.

To him, those scars had always been grotesque reminders of his past—of pain, loss, and things he’d rather forget. But here, now, with you lavishing them with love, they felt different. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel ugly or ashamed. He felt... cherished.

A single tear slipped down his cheek, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. He didn’t care if you saw it, because he knew—he knew—you wouldn’t judge him. You’d only love him. You’d love him the same way you always had, patiently, quietly, steadfastly.

And you did.

You hadn’t said the words yet; they felt too monumental for this fragile, burgeoning moment. You understood that Bucky needed to take things one step at a time, and you were okay with that. Because even without the words, he showed you how he felt. In the way he always thought of you, the little things he did. How he ordered from restaurants he didn’t particularly like just because you loved them. How he listened to you ramble about your day or sing off-key to your favorite songs without complaint. How he sat through the “essential” 21st-century movies you made him watch, even the ones he found ridiculous.

Bucky wasn’t a man of words. He was a man of actions.

When your lips found that scar where flesh gave way to metal, his breath hitched again. This scar was different. It was rawer, harsher—a jagged edge where his humanity ended, and the cold, unyielding metal began. It was a scar he hated, one that still ached on bad days, a reminder of what he had lost.

But you kissed it as if it was no different from the rest of him, as if it was just another part of his story, of him. Your lips lingered, pressing warmth into the unfeeling metal, and he closed his eyes. More tears slipped free, unbidden, but they weren’t just tears of sadness. They were something more profound.

It wasn’t just love he felt from you; it was acceptance. Complete, unconditional acceptance. Of who he had been. Of who he was now. And most importantly, of who he was becoming.

“Let me take care of you, James.”

The sound of his given name on your lips made his eyes snap open. The way you said it—softly, reverently, as though it was the only name that mattered—set something off inside him. When he looked at you, he saw the universe in your eyes. No one had ever looked at him like this before, like he was everything. Like he was your everything.

And he couldn’t hold back any longer.

He pulled you to him, his hands firm but trembling with restraint, and kissed you as though the world were ending. As though you were the only thing worth saving in the wreckage. His lips claimed yours with an intensity that spoke of hunger, of longing, of love so raw it scared him. He kissed you like you were the best damn thing to ever happen to him—because you were.

When he finally pulled back, his chest rising and falling heavily, he gave you a smile that nearly undid you. It was soft and full of a vulnerability he rarely let anyone see. His eyes, deep pools of love and trust, held you captive, saying more than words ever could.

That look was all you needed before leaning down, starting your slow, deliberate journey down his body.

Your hands trailed over his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles and scars with a tenderness that made his breath hitch. You scratched lightly around his ribs, your nails dragging in a way that sent shivers through him. Your tongue flicked playfully at his nipple, teasing him with a warm, wet touch before nipping it lightly with your teeth.

He groaned, his body shifting on the bed, a mix of surprise and pleasure flashing across his face. He looked down at you, a half-hearted glare in his darkened eyes, but he didn’t say a word. Deep down, he didn’t want you to stop. The sharp sting of your bite was a pleasure he hadn’t known he could enjoy, because he knew it came from you. And with you, he trusted completely.

His eyes fluttered closed as your hands drifted lower, deftly undoing his belt. Slowly, deliberately, you opened it, savoring the moment while your tongue continued its exploration of his chest, down his stomach, tracing every ridge and hollow. You took your time, drinking him in like a work of art, tasting him as though he were your favorite flavor.

When his hips lifted to help you slide his pants down, your breath caught in your throat. The sight of him, bare and ready for you, made your mouth water. You didn’t bother hiding your hunger. You’d thought about savoring the moment, teasing him, but tonight your patience was nowhere to be found.

“Can I taste you, Sergeant?”

Your voice was sultry, and the smirk that curled your lips was wicked. You watched his cock twitch at the sound of his rank on your tongue, and it thrilled you. His eyes snapped to yours, darker than you’d ever seen them, devoid of the usual gentle blue hues. There was no innocence left in his gaze—just unbridled desire.

“Can I suck this beautiful cock?” you purred, your voice dripping with want.

His breath hitched, and just when he thought you couldn’t surprise him more, you reached for his left arm—the metal one. The arm that had brought so much fear to others and yet made you look at him with awe. Gently, you guided it over your head, locking his gaze.

“Will you show me how you like it?”

For the first time in what felt like forever, Bucky Barnes was speechless. You, with your teasing smirk and bold confidence, had rendered him completely at a loss for words. He stared at you, his lips parting as if to say something, but nothing came out.

Finally, he nodded.

But you weren’t going to let him off that easy. Smirking, you mimicked his earlier words, tilting your head. “I want to hear you say it, sweetheart.”

He groaned, a low, guttural sound that sent heat pooling in your belly. His fingers tightened in your hair, tugging just hard enough to remind you that while you were in control for the moment, he could take it back whenever he wanted. The hold was firm but careful, his touch a perfect blend of dominance and care, leaving you breathless.

When a moan slipped from your lips at the pressure, he nearly lost it. The sound of your pleasure, the sight of you beneath him, drove him to the edge. He swallowed hard, his voice rasping when he finally spoke.

“You can do whatever the fuck you want with me, doll,” he breathed, his words like a prayer offered to a goddess.

Then he pulled you into a kiss—rough, passionate, claiming. His teeth caught your lower lip, biting down just enough to draw a groan from you, the sound vibrating against his mouth. 

You pulled away from him, your hands firm but teasing as you pushed him back onto the bed. His body yielded to you easily, his left hand still tangled in your hair, the grip soft and almost reverent now. His eyes, dark and heavy-lidded with desire, stayed locked on yours, watching your every move as if he couldn’t bear to look away.

Settling yourself on the bed between his legs, you leaned in, your lips brushing against the taut muscles of his stomach. Slowly, deliberately, your tongue traced a path downward, tasting the salt of his skin. When you reached his navel, you circled it lazily, savoring the way his body tensed beneath you.

Your hand came to rest on his thigh, steadying yourself as you lowered your head further, your lips skimming along the base of his hardening length. Without breaking eye contact, you nipped at the sensitive skin just beneath his base, drawing a sharp intake of breath from him. His hand twitched in your hair, his grip tightening ever so slightly, but he didn’t stop you. He didn’t pull you away.

He wouldn’t stop you.

He wouldn’t dare.

When you pressed a kiss to the tip of his cock, he twitched again, a low groan rumbling in his chest. It had been a very long time since he’d thought about the ways he might die, but now he was certain of one thing: it would be your tongue that would end him. Definitely your tongue.

That very tongue was now dragging along his length, from tip to base and back again, slow and deliberate, savoring every inch. He was growing harder under your touch, and you relished the way his breath grew ragged with each lick, each kiss. When you lapped up the bead of pre-cum at his tip, you hummed softly, letting the taste linger on your tongue.

“I can’t wait to taste you for real,” you murmured, your voice thick with promise.

He opened his mouth to respond, but whatever words he’d planned to say vanished the moment you lowered your head and took him fully into your mouth. The guttural moan that escaped him sent heat pooling between your thighs, your body responding to the raw, sinful sound of his pleasure. You could have come undone just from his voice alone.

At first, your movements were slow, your head bobbing gently as you adjusted to the weight and feel of him. Your tongue flattened against the underside of his cock, teasing the sensitive ridge as you hollowed your cheeks. His hands tightened in your hair, guiding you without forcing, but when you spoke again, your words set something alight in him.

“I want you to show me, Sergeant,” you said, your voice sultry and daring. “Use me however you want.”

His eyes widened, the dark blue of his irises nearly swallowed by black. The sultry tone of your command, paired with the sheer want in your gaze, made something snap in him. He didn’t need to be told twice.

“Good girl,” he breathed, his voice rough as his hands guided your movements, his fingers tightening their hold in your hair. You moaned around him at the praise, and the vibration sent a shudder through his entire body.

“You’re doing so good,” he murmured, his words spilling out between breaths. His head fell back against the pillows, his chest heaving. “Such a good girl for me.”

You whined softly at his praise, the sound muffled but unmistakable. His lips curved into a grin, even as his body betrayed how tightly he was holding onto his control. “Look at that,” he said, his tone both teasing and affectionate. “Someone’s kinky.”

Your hum of affirmation sent another jolt of sensation through him, pulling a ragged moan from his throat. His hips bucked slightly, but he restrained himself, letting you keep the pace. For now.

But as your movements quickened, your enthusiasm matched only by the need burning in your eyes, he realized he wasn’t going to last much longer. 

&&&&&&&

“Sweetheart, I’m not gonna last much longer,” he murmured, voice husky and strained. His head fell back against the pillow, lips parting to say more, but the words died on his tongue when your pace quickened, your determination unwavering. The heat of your mouth, the soft press of your lips, and the way your hand cupped and squeezed him—it was all too much.

A deep, guttural moan tore from his throat. His fingers tightened in your hair, holding you as though letting go would shatter him entirely. His hips lifted instinctively, his body surrendering to the overwhelming pleasure as he spilled into your mouth. "Oh, god, right there, baby," he groaned, the sound rough and unfiltered, pure bliss etched into every syllable.

When the waves of release finally ebbed, his grip lingered in your hair, unaware until your gentle touch coaxed his hand free. "Sorry," he whispered, voice hoarse and apologetic as his fingers brushed over your scalp soothingly.

You leaned up to kiss him, your lips warm and soft against his. But his response surprised you—hungry, fervent, as if tasting you wasn’t enough, as if he needed you closer, deeper. He pulled you into his arms, his hold reverent yet possessive, and the kiss left you breathless.

“You are the most amazing woman ever,” he murmured against your lips, his voice thick with emotion.

You couldn’t help but laugh, settling yourself over his stomach, your fingers tracing lazy circles on his chest. “You’d tell that to any woman who’d suck you off,” you teased, your smile playful.

His hand cupped your cheek gently, halting your laughter. The tenderness in his eyes was staggering, like he could see through every wall you’d ever built.

“No,” he said, voice low and steady, each word sinking deep into your soul. “I care for you more than I thought I had it in me to care about someone. You’ve become so important to me, so fast, it scares the hell out of me sometimes. Because I can’t imagine my world without you.” His thumb stroked your cheek, his touch grounding. “So, no, doll,” he added, the nickname a soft caress on his lips. “I wouldn’t say that to anyone else. There’s no one but you.”

His kiss was sweet this time, unhurried, filled with a quiet kind of passion that made your heart ache in the best way. But as your hips shifted against him, you felt him stir beneath you, his body reacting with a swiftness that sent heat pooling in your belly.

A moan escaped you when you felt his growing arousal press against your core, his readiness unmistakable. His hands moved to your hips, grounding you as his fingers curled into the waistband of your underwear. You lifted just enough for him to slip the delicate fabric down, tossing it aside without a second thought.

“Today’s about you, Bucky,” you whispered, brushing your lips over his in a feather-light kiss. “I want to show you how amazing you are, how you make me feel, and how much I…” You faltered for a moment, your vulnerability catching up to you. Swallowing, you smiled softly. “How much I care for you.”

Before he could respond, you guided him to your entrance, the heat of him against you making your breath hitch. Slowly, you sank down onto him, a shared moan escaping as he stretched and filled you completely.

“God, you’re so tight,” he groaned, his hands gripping your hips firmly, though not harshly. His gaze was locked on you, watching the way you moved, the way your body welcomed him. “So perfect. Such a good girl.”

The praise sent a shiver through you, your walls fluttering around him in response. “Bucky,” you gasped, your hands bracing against his chest. “You’re so big… feels so good!”

He grinned, a wicked edge to his smile, and thrust up into you with a controlled strength that stole the air from your lungs. “I’m not stopping, doll,” he rasped, his voice laced with promise.

Before you could fully comprehend, he shifted you effortlessly, rolling you onto your back. Now he towered over you, his body a protective shield, his movements precise and powerful. His lips brushed your ear as his hand trailed down your stomach, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves.

“There she is,” he murmured with a chuckle, his fingers teasing your clit just enough to make your toes curl.

The combination of his cock hitting the perfect spot inside you and the delicious friction of his fingers had you seeing stars. Your cries filled the room, his name tumbling from your lips like a prayer.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, his movements unrelenting, yet careful in a way that spoke of his care for you. “So perfect for me. God, I could do this forever.”

You couldn’t respond, too lost in the intensity of it all—the connection, the pleasure, the raw intimacy. It wasn’t just sex; it was something deeper, something that felt like home.

As his pace quickened, you felt the tension building within you, every nerve ending alight. “Bucky,” you cried out, clutching at his shoulders.

“I’ve got you, doll,” he murmured, his lips brushing yours in a kiss that felt like a vow. His voice was low, rough with emotion, as he whispered, “I need you to cum for me.”

You opened your mouth to protest, a soft, breathy "Bucky—" on your lips, but then his fingers found your clit again, moving in that maddeningly skilled way that turned your thoughts into static. The tension inside you unraveled with explosive force, your orgasm crashing over you like a tidal wave. Your body trembled, your head falling back, and you felt like you were floating, like he’d untethered you from reality itself.

“God,” you managed to breathe, your eyes fluttering open as you tried to thank him. But before you could form the words, his hips surged forward, and he was moving inside you again, drawing a startled cry from your lips.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he groaned, his forehead pressed to yours, his breath mingling with your own. “So perfect for me.” His mouth descended on yours, capturing your gasp in a kiss so deep it felt like he was stealing the air from your lungs.

“Such a good girl,” he rasped, the praise falling from his lips like a benediction. The way your body responded to his words made him chuckle, a low, wicked sound that sent a thrill down your spine. “You like that, huh? You like being my good girl.”

Before you could reply, his pace quickened, his fingers expertly teasing your clit once more. His mouth traveled down, capturing your nipple between his lips, his tongue and teeth working in tandem to draw soft, helpless moans from you. The warmth of his mouth, the steady thrust of his hips, and the relentless circling of his fingers sent another wave of pleasure building within you.

“I’m close, baby,” he groaned, his voice thick with need. “But I need you to cum for me again. One more time, doll. Just one more.”

No man had ever made you feel the way Bucky did. No one had ever cared to learn your body like this, to make you feel so utterly cherished, so thoroughly undone. You shook your head weakly, overwhelmed. “I can’t, Bucky,” you gasped. “I’m still—”

“Yes, you can, babygirl,” he growled, cutting you off. His hands tightened on your hips, grounding you as he drove into you with a force that left you breathless. “I know you can. You’re my good girl, and you’re gonna cum for me.”

The commanding edge to his voice sent a thrill racing through you, and the coil of pleasure tightened in your belly once more. He shifted slightly, angling his hips to hit that spot inside you that made you see stars.

“Come for me. Now,” he ordered, his voice a low, gravelly demand that sent you spiraling over the edge.

You cried out his name, your body shuddering beneath him as your orgasm tore through you. Your nails dragged down his back, leaving faint, reddened trails, but if he felt the sting, he didn’t care. The moment your walls clenched around him, he let go, his movements turning erratic as he spilled into you with a deep, guttural groan.

For a while, the only sounds in the room were your labored breaths, the quiet hum of the world beyond forgotten in the aftermath of your shared release. Bucky’s body was warm against yours, his weight a comforting presence, though he somehow managed to hold himself up just enough not to crush you.

After a moment, he rolled to the side, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath. He turned to you, his eyes wide, his expression suddenly serious.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, propping yourself up on your elbow. His reaction made your stomach twist, but before you could say more, he sat up abruptly, his gaze darting around the room nervously.

“I…” He hesitated, running a hand through his hair. “I came inside you.” His voice was laced with guilt, and he looked at you as though he’d committed some unforgivable sin. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—”

Realizing what he meant, you reached for him, your hand cupping his cheek gently. “Bucky, it’s okay,” you said, your voice soft and reassuring. You tilted your head toward the small scar on your hip, showing him the faint outline of your IUD. “I’m covered. You don’t need to worry.”

His shoulders sagged with relief, but his brow furrowed again. “Still, I should have asked. I didn’t mean to—”

You cut him off with a kiss, tender and full of affection. “You’re the sweetest man ever,” you murmured, your fingers brushing against his cheek. Your smile was the one you always gave him when you wanted to chase away his doubts. “But you don’t need to worry. I wanted you to.”

His eyes softened, the tension in his jaw easing as he let out a shaky breath. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours. “In that case,” he said, a hint of his usual playfulness returning, “you were amazing, doll. Absolutely amazing.”

“So were you,” you replied with a grin.

He kissed you again, slow and lingering, before pulling back just enough to meet your gaze. “Thank you,” he said, his voice low but sincere. “For going on that date with me.”

Your heart melted at the way he looked at you, like you were the only thing in his world. Was it those old-fashioned 1940s charms, or was it just Bucky? Either way, it made your chest ache with something too big to name.

“The best date of my life,” you told him, meaning every word.

He smiled at that, his hand finding yours. “C’mon, doll,” he said, his tone soft but warm. “Let’s get cleaned up.”

And as he led you to the bathroom, his touch gentle and his eyes full of adoration, you couldn’t help but think that this—this connection, this feeling—was worth everything.

---

After the night you spent together, something shifted between you and Bucky.

It wasn’t dramatic or earth-shattering, but it was there—this quiet, unspoken understanding. It hung in the air between you like the faint scent of rain, subtle but impossible to ignore. You were together now, bound by something deeper, something that needed no words to define. Every teasing glance, every soft touch, every shared smile—they carried a gravity that hadn’t been there before, a kind of sacred weight that made your chest ache with warmth.

The house, too, seemed to reflect this change. In just three weeks, you and Bucky had breathed life into what had once been little more than a forgotten relic. Dusty floorboards now gleamed, rooms once choked with cobwebs now felt open and full of promise. Of course, most of that transformation was thanks to Bucky—his strong hands, his quiet determination, his uncanny ability to make even the most daunting task seem simple. But you liked to think you’d helped in your own way, even if it was just by being there—keeping him company, making sure he didn’t forget to eat, or distracting him with your clumsy attempts at “helping.”

One evening, as you stood in the doorway of the now-finished kitchen, you couldn’t help but marvel at what the two of you had accomplished. The counters sparkled in the golden light of sunset, the new appliances gleamed, and the faint, clean scent of fresh paint lingered in the air.

“This place looks incredible,” you said, your voice soft with awe.

“Not bad for three weeks,” Bucky replied, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. His voice carried a note of pride, though his expression was as relaxed and easy as always.

“Not bad at all,” you agreed, smiling at him. But then you couldn’t resist adding, “Though I think I deserve at least half the credit.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow, his lips curving into that irresistible smirk that always made your knees feel just a little weaker. “Half? Doll, you almost took out the drywall with a hammer on day two.”

“Details,” you said with a wave of your hand. “I was the emotional support. That counts for something.”

His laugh was low and rich, the sound wrapping around you like a warm blanket. He crossed the room, his presence filling the space as he stopped in front of you. “Yeah, it does,” he said, his voice softer now, more serious. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

The sincerity in his tone made your heart stutter, and you barely had time to catch your breath before he leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead.

---

As amazing as things felt between you, there was still a secretive edge to it all.

The decision to keep your relationship quiet had been mutual, though it wasn’t without its complications. It wasn’t shame or uncertainty that kept you silent—it was the weight of Bucky’s world. His life had always been lived under a microscope, every move dissected and analyzed by those who cared for him. His friends meant well, but they had a way of meddling, of poking and teasing and offering unsolicited advice. And so, for now, you both chose to hold this fragile, perfect thing close, safe from prying eyes.

One evening, as you sat together on the porch, the horizon blazed with the deep oranges and purples of a dying sun. The air was cool and carried the faint scent of pine, and the world felt perfectly still. You were leaning against him, your head resting on his shoulder, when he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, his voice low and tinged with something heavy.

You tilted your head to look up at him, surprised. “For what?”

“For not telling anyone,” he said, his gaze fixed on the horizon. His jaw tightened, the muscles flexing as if he were bracing himself. “For asking you to keep this between us.”

“Bucky…” you began, your heart twisting at the guilt in his voice.

He shook his head, his blue eyes finally meeting yours, filled with a vulnerability that stole your breath. “You deserve better,” he said, the words raw and quiet. “You deserve someone who doesn’t have to hide how they feel about you.”

Your fingers found his, threading together as you held his gaze. “I’m not hiding,” you said softly. “I’m just waiting. And I’m okay with waiting—for you.”

His breath caught, and for a long moment, he just looked at you. The air between you felt charged, every unsaid word passing through that space, heavy with meaning.

“Are you sure?” he asked finally, his voice barely above a whisper.

You nodded, your grip on his hand tightening just slightly. “Whenever you’re ready, we’ll tell them. Until then, I’m not going anywhere.”

The tension in his frame melted away, his shoulders sagging with relief. He pulled you close, his lips brushing against your temple in a kiss that felt like a promise.

“Thank you,” he murmured against your hair, his voice thick with emotion.

“Always,” you replied, letting your eyes slip closed as you leaned into him. Together, you sat in silence, watching as the last rays of sunlight faded into twilight, the stars beginning to blink awake one by one.

In that quiet, sacred moment, you knew without a doubt that whatever challenges lay ahead, you would face them together. And that, more than anything, was enough.

---

Keeping your relationship with Bucky a secret had seemed like the right decision.

It wasn’t about hiding. It was about holding onto something precious, something new and fragile, just a little while longer. Bucky needed time to adjust—to let himself believe that happiness wasn’t fleeting, that this bond between you was real and wouldn’t be taken away. You understood that, so waiting felt like a small price to pay.

But there was one thing neither of you had accounted for: Sam Wilson.

Sam had an uncanny ability to read people. He wasn’t nosy, but once he noticed that Bucky had returned from your date with a rare, unguarded smile, the wheels in his head started turning. It was only a matter of time before he connected the dots—and naturally, he spilled the news to Steve Rogers. And the thing about Steve was that while he was the embodiment of loyalty and good intentions, he wasn’t exactly subtle.

---

The celebration started off perfectly.

The small party you and Bucky hosted to mark the near-completion of the house had everything: good food, warm laughter, and a sense of accomplishment that filled the air like the smell of fresh paint. The living room buzzed with chatter as your friends admired the transformation.

“It’s amazing,” Natasha said, her sharp eyes taking in every detail. “Didn’t think Barnes had it in him to pick out curtains.”

“Those were my contributions,” you replied with a grin, earning a small chuckle from her.

In the kitchen, you and Bucky worked together to set up the drinks. He was pouring whiskey into glasses with practiced ease while you arranged a platter of snacks, sneaking a glance at him every so often. The way the soft, golden light from the kitchen window played on his features made your chest tighten. This felt right—building something with him, being part of his life.

And then Sam walked in.

“Well, well, well,” he announced loudly, a grin splitting his face as he leaned against the doorframe. “Look at the happy couple!”

The room fell into a stunned silence, like a record scratching to a halt. For a beat, no one moved. Then, as if a dam had burst, the chatter shifted into excited whispers and laughter.

Steve clapped Bucky on the back with enough force to make him stagger slightly. “Knew you had it in you, pal,” he said, grinning like a proud older brother.

Tony, never one to miss an opportunity to stir the pot, raised his glass in a mock toast. “About damn time, Barnes. I thought you were going to let this one slip through your fingers.”

Natasha smirked from her spot in the corner, her knowing gaze flicking between you and Bucky like she’d figured it out long ago.

Bucky’s reaction was immediate.

You felt it before you saw it—the way his body went rigid beside you. His jaw tightened, and his hand, which had been resting on the counter, curled into a fist. His expression hardened, a storm brewing behind his blue eyes as he turned to face Steve and Sam.

“You told them?” His voice was low, laced with simmering anger.

Steve raised his hands in defense, his wide-eyed expression betraying his guilt. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” Bucky snapped, cutting him off. His words were sharp enough to draw blood. “Don’t even try to deny it.”

Sam, ever the unapologetic instigator, shrugged with an infuriating grin. “Come on, man. It’s not like it was a big secret. We all saw it coming. We’re happy for you.”

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, his voice turning cold and cutting. “It wasn’t your story to tell. It’s my life. My choice.”

The hum of conversation that had begun to pick back up quickly died again, leaving an uncomfortable, heavy silence in its wake. All eyes turned toward Bucky, the tension in the room palpable.

“Bucky,” you said softly, your hand brushing against his arm, hoping to anchor him.

He glanced at you, and for a fleeting moment, his expression softened. But the hurt and frustration in his eyes didn’t fade. “I need some air,” he muttered, his voice tight and clipped.

Without another word, he turned and walked out of the kitchen, the sound of the back door closing behind him echoing like a final note in an unfinished song.

You stood frozen for a moment, torn between following him and facing the room.

Your gaze landed on Sam and Steve, and a sharp wave of frustration surged through you. They looked guilty enough—Steve with his sheepish frown, Sam with his slightly deflated bravado—but that didn’t stop the words from spilling out.

“What the hell were you thinking?” you demanded, your voice low but firm enough to cut through the awkward silence.

Steve shifted uncomfortably, his hands resting on his hips. “We didn’t mean to upset him,” he said, his tone apologetic. “We’re just… happy for him. For both of you.”

“That’s not the point,” you snapped, your frustration bubbling over. “This isn’t about you. Do you have any idea how hard it was for him to let me in? To trust that this could be something real?”

Sam raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “Look, we get it. He’s been through hell. But we’re his friends. We’re on his side.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to decide when he’s ready to share this with the world,” you shot back, your tone sharp. “You might think you were doing him a favor, but all you did was take away his choice.”

Steve’s shoulders sagged, guilt written all over his face. “We were out of line,” he admitted quietly. “We didn’t think about how much this would mean to him.”

“No, you didn’t,” you agreed, your voice softening just slightly. “He’s angry, and he has every right to be.”

Sam sighed, dragging a hand over his face. “Alright, fine. We messed up. I’ll talk to him.”

“No,” you said firmly. “I’ll handle it. Just… give him some space.”

---

You found Bucky on the back porch.

He was leaning against the railing, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the sun was dipping low, painting the sky in soft shades of lavender and gold. His shoulders were tense, his hands gripping the wood so tightly his knuckles were white.

You stepped outside, the cool evening air brushing against your skin as you closed the door behind you. “Hey,” you said softly, not wanting to startle him.

He glanced at you, the tension in his face easing slightly. “You don’t have to be out here,” he muttered. “Go back inside.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said gently, stepping closer. “Bucky, I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have—”

“It’s not your fault,” he interrupted, his voice rough. He turned to face you fully, his blue eyes filled with frustration and hurt. “I just… I wanted this to be ours for a little while longer.”

“It still is,” you said, reaching out to take his hand. “What we have doesn’t change just because they know.”

He looked down at your joined hands, his grip tightening slightly. “It feels like it does,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “Like it’s not just ours anymore.”

You stepped closer, resting a hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your palm. “Then let’s make them understand. This is your life, Bucky. No one else gets to decide how you live it.”

For a long moment, he just stared at you, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he exhaled, his shoulders relaxing as he pulled you into his arms. “I’m lucky to have you,” he murmured into your hair.

“You always will,” you replied, your voice steady and sure.

And in that moment, as the sky darkened and the first stars appeared, you knew you’d face whatever came next—together.

---

Title: Just James

James Buchanan Barnes is not an easy man to define.

For decades, the world has known him by his titles: The Winter Soldier. Hydra’s Ghost. The Soldier with a Shattered Mind. For a long time, those labels seemed to stick, as if they were the only things he’d ever been or could be.

But spend a little time with him, and you’ll find that James Barnes is so much more than his past.

When you meet him, the first thing you notice is his presence. It’s not the commanding kind—it’s quieter, steadier, like the deep roots of an old oak tree. He doesn’t need to say much to make an impression. It’s in the way he moves, the way he listens, the way he watches everything and everyone with a quiet intensity that speaks of someone who has seen too much but still manages to care.

Caring is, in fact, at the heart of who James Barnes is.

He is the kind of friend who will notice when you’re having a bad day and quietly make it better without ever drawing attention to himself. Maybe it’s a warm cup of coffee placed in front of you without a word, or a small fix to something broken that you didn’t even know he’d noticed. He doesn’t make grand gestures; he makes small, thoughtful ones that linger long after they’re done.

James Barnes is also a man who, despite everything, has a surprisingly sharp sense of humor. It sneaks up on you when you least expect it—a dry comment here, a teasing smirk there. He doesn’t laugh often, but when he does, it’s the kind of laugh that makes the room feel warmer.

And then there’s the charm.

He’ll deny it if you ask, but there’s no mistaking the trace of 1940s Brooklyn ladies’ man still lingering in his DNA. It’s in the way he leans against a doorframe, arms crossed, with that faint, lopsided grin that makes your heart skip a beat. It’s in the way he says “doll” like it’s second nature, with a teasing edge that somehow feels both old-fashioned and timeless.

But beneath the charm, beneath the humor, lies a vulnerability that few people get to see. It’s in the way he sometimes hesitates before opening up, the way he gets quiet when the conversation drifts too close to old wounds. James Barnes is a man carrying more weight than most of us could imagine, but what makes him extraordinary is the way he still manages to move forward.

He doesn’t see himself as a hero, but in many ways, that’s exactly what he is.

James Barnes is the friend who will drop everything to help you. He’s the man who will put others’ needs above his own, even when he’s struggling. He’s the kind of person who makes you believe in second chances, not just for him, but for yourself, too.

He’s funny, and thoughtful, and maddeningly stubborn. He’ll tease you relentlessly, but if anyone else dares to so much as look at you wrong, they’ll regret it. He’ll hold your hand when you’re scared, fix things you didn’t know were broken, and somehow make you feel like you’re the only person in the world who truly matters.

James Barnes is not defined by his past. He is not the Winter Soldier. He is not a title or a label or a ghost of what once was.

He is a man. A man who deserves love, happiness, and everything good this world has to offer.

And for those lucky enough to know him, he’s so much more than that.

He’s James.

And that’s enough.

---

Title: A chance to live

James Barnes doesn’t ask for forgiveness.

It’s not because he doesn’t want it or wouldn’t welcome it—it’s because he doesn’t believe he deserves it. For so long, the weight of his past has felt like a life sentence, something permanent and unchangeable. Every scar on his body, every memory forced into his mind, every name he can’t forget—they’ve all told him the same thing: that he is broken, irredeemable, and unworthy of anything good.

But James Barnes doesn’t ask for forgiveness.

What he asks for is something simpler, something quieter, something more human: a chance to live.

When you spend time with Bucky, you see the effort it takes for him to move through the world. The way he still flinches when someone approaches him from behind. The way his hands tremble just slightly when he’s surrounded by too many people. The way he avoids mirrors, as if afraid of who—or what—he might see staring back at him.

But you also see the will.

The will to keep going, even on the days when the past feels too heavy to bear. The will to change, to be better, to be someone he can look in the eye and not hate. The will to laugh, to connect, to open up—even when it scares him.

James Barnes doesn’t want to be a hero. He doesn’t want to be remembered for his deeds or honored for his sacrifices. He doesn’t want a statue or a medal or a parade.

He just wants what so many of us take for granted: a life of his own.

He wants to wake up in the morning and not dread the day ahead. He wants to walk down the street without feeling like a ghost. He wants to sit on the porch of his house—the house he’s worked so hard to rebuild—and feel the warmth of the sun on his face without worrying about what might be lurking in the shadows.

He wants to love and be loved in return.

Bucky Barnes doesn’t expect the world to forgive him. He doesn’t expect to erase the past or undo the harm that was done. But he hopes—quietly, desperately—that the world might let him try. That it might give him the space to rebuild himself, to find something worth holding onto, to create a future that isn’t defined by the horrors of his past.

And maybe, just maybe, if the world can give him that chance, he can begin to forgive himself.

Because beneath the layers of guilt and grief, beneath the scars and the shadows, is a man who wants nothing more than to live.

And James Barnes, for all that he’s been through, for all that he’s endured, deserves that chance.

He deserves to live.

---

The evening was cloaked in a quiet stillness, the kind that wrapped around you like a comforting blanket.

The soft golden glow of a single lamp illuminated the room as you handed Bucky the articles. Your hands trembled slightly, though you tried to mask it, and your heart raced with a nervous anticipation that made your chest ache. He took the papers from you with a small, curious smile, his calloused fingers brushing yours for the briefest moment. Then, he sat down, the weight of the moment settling heavily in the air.

The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the faint rustling of the paper as he turned the pages. Each sound was magnified, echoing in your ears like the ticking of a clock. You watched him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. His brow furrowed slightly as his eyes moved across the words, his expression flickering between concentration and something softer—something almost fragile.

These articles weren’t just words on a page. They were pieces of your heart laid bare, fragments of everything you saw in him: his strength, his resilience, his capacity for love, even after all the pain he had endured. They were a mirror, reflecting the man he had become, not the man he feared he was.

When he finally finished, he placed the papers down on the table with deliberate care. He didn’t look up immediately, and your stomach twisted with doubt. Had you said too much? Was it too personal? Too raw?

But then he looked at you, and the breath caught in your throat. His blue-gray eyes glistened with unshed tears, the kind he rarely let anyone see. The vulnerability in his gaze made your chest tighten, and you suddenly understood that this wasn’t just about the articles. This was about him confronting a version of himself he wasn’t sure he deserved to be.

For a long moment, he didn’t speak. The silence felt like a taut string, ready to snap, and your heart pounded with every passing second.

Then, finally, he broke it.

“This… this is incredible,” he said, his voice low and steady, though it trembled slightly at the edges.

Your cheeks flushed, and you gave him a small, shy smile. “I’m glad you think so. I just… I wanted people to see you the way I see you.”

He stared at you as if he couldn’t quite believe the words you’d spoken. His expression was raw and unguarded, the kind of openness he rarely allowed himself.

“I don’t know how you do it,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “How you make me feel like this—like I’m more than what I’ve done. Like I’m worth something.”

“Because you are,” you said simply, your voice soft but firm. You reached out, taking his hand in yours.

The warmth of his touch, the way his fingers instinctively tightened around yours, felt like an unspoken promise. He held your gaze, and for a moment, the world around you seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you in the quiet glow of the room.

Then, he spoke again, his voice so quiet it was almost a whisper.

“I love you.”

The words hung in the air between you, fragile and beautiful. He said them as if he was testing their weight, as if he wasn’t entirely sure they would hold. But the way his hand tightened around yours, the way his eyes searched yours, told you he meant them.

“I love you,” he said again, more certain this time, his voice steady. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to say that again. But I do. I love you.”

Tears welled in your eyes, blurring your vision as you leaned forward. You cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs brushing lightly over the faint stubble on his jaw. “I love you, too,” you whispered, your voice trembling with emotion.

He pulled you into his arms then, his hold firm but gentle, as if he was afraid you might disappear if he let go. His lips found yours, and the kiss was slow, tender, and filled with all the things he couldn’t put into words. It wasn’t just an expression of love—it was an affirmation, a quiet acknowledgment of everything you had built together.

When you finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, his breath warm against your skin. His hands stayed on your waist, anchoring you to him, as if he needed the physical connection to keep himself grounded.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice soft and sincere.

“For what?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

“For giving me this,” he said simply. “For giving me a chance.”

You smiled, brushing a strand of hair from his face. “You gave yourself that chance, Bucky. I just helped you see it.”

He held your gaze for a long moment, his expression shifting to something resolute, something stronger.

“I wasn’t sure before,” he said quietly. “But… I think I’m ready. If you want to publish this—if you think the world should see it—then let’s do it. Let’s tell them.”

Your heart swelled with pride and love, and you leaned forward to kiss him again, your hands still cradling his face. The kiss was softer this time, but no less meaningful.

When you pulled back, you searched his eyes for any hint of doubt, but all you saw was determination. “Are you sure?” you asked, your voice trembling with emotion.

He nodded, his expression steady and sure. “Yeah. I’m sure. I want them to know the truth—not just about what I was, but about who I am now. About the people who’ve helped me get here.”

A lump formed in your throat as you cupped his cheek, your thumb brushing gently over his skin. “Okay,” you said softly, your voice thick with emotion. “We’ll do this together.”

He smiled then, a small but genuine smile that lit up his face in a way that made your heart ache. “Together,” he echoed, his voice carrying the weight of a promise.

And as you sat there, holding each other in the quiet glow of the room, you felt a sense of peace settle over you. Whatever challenges lay ahead, whatever storms you had to weather, you knew you’d face them side by side. Together, you were unstoppable.

---

Over the next week, your series of articles began to roll out, one by one, like chapters in a story that needed to be told.

Each piece was a love letter to James Buchanan Barnes—not just the man you loved, but the many versions of him that had existed before. Each article revealed a different facet of his life, weaving together a tapestry of pain, perseverance, and quiet triumph.

The first article painted a picture of a boy from Brooklyn, a boy who loved fiercely and laughed loudly. You wrote about the way Bucky had adored his mother’s homemade meals, the nights spent teasing his sisters, and the way his father’s old stories had sparked his sense of adventure.

The next article delved into his role as a best friend. You described the steadfast loyalty he’d shown Steve Rogers, the skinny kid from Brooklyn who had a fire too big for his frame. Bucky had been his anchor, his protector, and his brother in every way that mattered.

Then came the soldier. You recounted his bravery in the field, the unwavering courage with which he faced danger, not for glory but for the men standing beside him. But you didn’t shy away from the darkness. You wrote about his fall, the horrors inflicted upon him, and the years he spent as a ghost—a weapon, stripped of identity and choice.

Yet, you balanced the shadows with light.

You wrote about the man you knew now: the way his lips curved in a rare, genuine smile when he found a stray cat or fixed a squeaky hinge; the way he cared for his friends with an understated tenderness, always putting others first even when it cost him. You wrote about his quiet resilience, his determination to rebuild his life, and his courage in confronting his demons.

And above all, you wrote about his humanity—the small, everyday moments that revealed his heart. How he’d pick up your favorite snacks without being asked. How he could spend hours tinkering with a broken toaster just because it mattered to someone. How he was learning, slowly but surely, to let himself be loved in return.

---

The response was immediate and overwhelming.

Emails, comments, and messages poured in from readers around the world.

People who had felt unseen, misunderstood, or broken wrote to say they saw themselves in his story. Veterans shared their own struggles with identity and purpose, thanking him for his honesty. Survivors of trauma found hope in his resilience. And countless others simply marveled at the raw courage it took to lay his soul bare for the world to see.

One letter, in particular, stood out. It was from a young woman in Kansas who wrote:

"I’ve never known how to tell my family about my struggles, about the things that haunt me. But reading about Bucky—about how he faces his past with so much strength—it’s inspired me to try. Thank you for showing me that it’s okay to ask for help, that it’s okay to keep trying even when it feels impossible."

You read her words aloud to Bucky one night as the two of you sat together in the quiet comfort of your living room. He listened in silence, his hand resting over yours, his thumb brushing against your knuckles.

“Do you see now?” you asked softly, your voice thick with emotion. “Do you see what you mean to people?”

He didn’t reply right away. His gaze was fixed on the letter in your hands, his expression a mix of wonder and disbelief.

---

For Bucky, the most profound response came from within.

Each evening, he would sit quietly and read your articles. At first, it was difficult. The words felt too raw, too vulnerable, like staring at an unflinching mirror. But as the week went on, something began to shift.

The boy who loved fiercely, the best friend who stood unwavering, the soldier who fought bravely, the man who was shattered and rebuilt piece by piece—they were all him. Not ghosts. Not shadows.

Him.

And for the first time in a long time, he began to believe it.

He no longer felt like a relic of the past, a man defined only by his mistakes and the damage done to him. He began to feel whole, as if the fragments of his life were finally coming together to form something stronger, something true.

One evening, as he finished the last article, he closed his laptop and turned to you. His blue-gray eyes were clear, steady, but there was a softness there too—a quiet peace you hadn’t seen before.

“Thank you,” he said simply, his voice filled with a sincerity that made your chest ache.

You smiled, leaning into him, resting your head against his shoulder. “For what?”

“For showing me the parts of myself I couldn’t see,” he murmured, his arm wrapping around you. “For believing in me when I couldn’t. For reminding me that I’m more than what I’ve done.”

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, but you held them back, your voice steady. “You’ve always been more, Bucky. You just needed to see it for yourself.”

He pressed a kiss to your temple, lingering there as if drawing strength from your presence. “I see it now,” he said quietly. “For the first time, I really see it.”

And in that moment, as the soft hum of the world outside faded into the background, you knew that he wasn’t just healing—he was becoming. Not the Winter Soldier. Not a hero or a villain. Just Bucky.

James Buchanan Barnes.

A man who was no longer defined by his past but by the love and resilience that would carry him into the future.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt like he deserved it.

[marrowfrog00]

You Stir My Natural Emotions

A/N: Hi, this is a post I made a while back on my Ao3 and since I'm dragging ass on writing anything new...I thought I'd rest on my barely-there, crusty, dusty ass laurels until inspiration strikes or I put my back into actualizing my idea-rs.

CW: MDNI, Smut (characters are 18+), Mentions of Trauma, Broken Bones, Misunderstandings, Idiots in Love, Quarreling, Canon Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Descriptions of female anatomy, Oral (f receiving), P in V, Protected Sex, Adaptive Sex, Mentions of deceased grandmother, Not formatted b/c fuck that r.n., lmk if I missed anything

wc: 13.9k

Steve’s polo was pasted to his back with the sweat of high Midwestern summer. He glanced back at his Bimmer, parked behind Nancy’s station wagon, more than a little uneasy at the prospect of leaving it on the narrow shoulder of the county road. 

His destination, an unauthorized swimming hole with a somewhat rickety, decommissioned dock, didn’t have a proper parking space. Not like the well kept county-owned lakeside park on the other side of the water. That spot had designated parking but would no doubt be littered with desperate, unadventurous families trying to beat the heat. 

People unlike his friends, who frequented the busted but perfectly functional East shore of the lake. 

He bushwhacked through noxious weeds and nettles, feet seeking out the half-worn path that would take him to the meeting spot. He reached the little bluff, where he had to cut little switchbacks to make it down the hill without breaking his ankle. When he reached the last tree stand he heard the rowdy voices of his friends carry across the shallows of the lake. 

And just in time, too - the polyester and mesh of his swim trunks were chafing him under his Jordache jeans. 

He could see the backs of Robin’s and Eddie’s heads in low seat beach chairs. They were clandestinely passing a flask between them while Nancy and Jon sat on a blanket beside them, Nancy rubbing sunblock on her boyfriend’s shoulders, pausing to push her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. 

She noticed Steve’s approach, head shooting up with a bright smile. “Hey! You made it!”

Eddie, Robin and Jon’s heads shot up in reaction, each of them shooting him a half-enthused greeting.

“What took you so long, dingus?” Robin crowed, clearly half-tipsy.

Steve scoffed, pulling his polo over his head and tossing it by the cooler. 

“Well, someone called out today and I had to stay on an extra hour and a half at the store waiting for coverage,” he sniped back with no heat. Robin blew a raspberry at him.

“Strip down, Big Boy, you’re wasting daylight,” Eddie shot lazily. He stretched out on his beach chair, limbs quaking at full extension like those of a freshly-awakened cat. His chest was on full display, the white cast of badly-applied sunblock streaked across his tummy.

Steve rolled his eyes - there was nothing if not daylight to waste, the sun smiling at them all meanly from high in the sky.

 He shuffled his jeans down his legs before kicking them in Eddie’s face, who expertly dodged the attack with a guffaw.

Over on the dock, Max and El lay shoulder-to-shoulder on their stomachs, giggling over a glossy magazine while Mike and Lucas hollered off the edge, filling their super soakers from the dock’s edge. Will was buried in a sketch pad, toes dipped in the water.

Steve’s hands were planted on his hips as he did a quick headcount. A force of habit these days. He narrowed his eyes in search of the missing two. 

“Where are Dustin and Teenie?” he asked, noting suspicion in his own voice. The very two people he always had eyes on (if he could help it) were missing from this idyllic tableau. Nancy craned her neck to look toward the lake. 

“They’re in the water,” she said as if it were obvious. “They’ve been in there forever.” 

Steve felt his stomach clench uneasily but tried to school his expression into something nonplussed as he started toward the dock. 

“Why is she in the water?” he muttered to no one in particular, noting the worried pitch in his own voice. 

He saw the four heads of his nearly-adult friends turn toward him in unison as he walked past them. 

Robin chimed in then, through a hiccup “Psh, she’s fine Steven. We reinforced her.”

 Steve ignored her.

Max and El glanced up at him, muttering uninterested twin-greetings to him as he stepped gingerly between them. Will let him scooch past.

“Hey!” came your voice. “Do not shoot water in each other's mouths, this water is stagnant,” you barked. “That’s guaranteed dysentery.” 

“Sorry,” Lucas and Mike responded in unison.

Finally, yours and Dustin’s forms bobbing in the water came into view. Dustin was sputtering and rubbing his face with the hand not holding his own super soaker, clearly having been on the receiving end of Lucas and Mike’s attack. 

You were a few feet away from him, straddling a neon orange pool noodle. 

You were wearing that infernal bikini…the spring green one with ditsy white flowers and an underwire that smooshed your bust into a juicy-looking sculpture shaped by the hands of an unfair, horny god.

 Your hair was damp around your face. Even behind your red cat eye sunglasses, you appeared unimpressed until you caught sight of Steve and beamed at him. 

“Stevie!” you squealed. 

He didn’t waste another moment taking in the sight of you before he shoved off the dock and waded the short distance over to you and Dustin. 

“Hey, Steve!” he heard Dustin greet sweetly. Steve ignored it, leveling his gaze at you. 

“Teenie, what the hell are you doing in the lake?”

Your pretty smile fell at his words. You hesitated a moment before you fixed your face into a sardonic expression. 

“You’re looking at it, Stevie.”

“Your arm, Teenie! Your cast!” 

Steve didn’t notice how every head had turned toward the two of you at his little outburst. At that, you pulled your left arm out of the water, where it had been obscured. It looked like Swamp Thing, dark and soggy, water running off of it in rivulets. Steve saw that it was covered in a black rubbish bag, secured with silver duct tape (plus a derelict shoe lace) at your elbow. 

“It’s sorted, Stevie.” Steve heard conciliation in your voice. “The plaster’s bone dry underneath, ya happy?” 

No, he wasn’t happy.

Frankly, Steve didn’t care who had rigged the dry bag around the cast securing your fractured ulna. If he had, his money would have been on the braintrust that was Eddie and Robin, but who knew with this ragtag group? It wasn't as though the lot of them hadn’t crafted a bevy of improvised weapons and structures and clothing in the past.

Steve’s blood was boiling. He shouldn’t have had to tell you to stay out of the water, you should have just known.

 Yeah, lake day had been your idea, but he’d had a very different design for this day in his head when you’d proposed it.

 He thought the kids would splash around in the shallows while you and him (plus the other four sort-of grown ups) lounged at the water’s edge. 

The two of you would lather each other in sunblock (you with your good arm) and share a beer or two, and he would stare discreetly and shamelessly at your half-naked, prone body behind the safety of his Ray-Bans while some sappy love song played over the boombox and he pretended you were his and he wasn’t tap dancing around his feelings that he'd only sort of started realizing were feelings and-

“Steve,” you uttered sharply, snapping him out of his daydream.

Right. He had been busy giving you the business about reckless swimming. 

“You’re a terrible swimmer on a good day,” he scolded. “You really think you can hold your own with one arm?” he reasoned, gesturing at your form.

You pushed your sunglasses to the top of your head and glared at him, unimpressed. 

Dustin chose then to speak up, mildly. Steve almost forgot he was there. 

“We’re touching the bottom, Steve. We’re being safe, we’re touching the bottom,” he tried with a chord of desperation.

Steve looked between the two of you. A nasty little smirk on your face threatened to emerge. 

“Yeah, we’re touching the bottom.” You demonstrated your point by bouncing up and down on your toes a few times. Steve had to ignore how your boobs bounced with the motion. “And I have this, for buoyancy,” you added, smacking the end of your pool noodle into the water and sending a spray of water into Steve’s face.

Dustin cackled suddenly at Steve’s sputtering. Lucas, Mike, El and Max joined the hysterics shortly thereafter. Will hid a snicker behind his sketch pad.

 It should have broken the tension. It should have been the hard reset on the fun that Steve had almost ruined with his poop-pantsery.

“What about Dustin?” Steve tried then. He was feeling outnumbered here. And a little stupid, frankly. But righteous. Like, how the hell was he supposed to feel when he leaves the lot of you alone for one afternoon and the two (arguably) most vulnerable people are just hanging out with no one to stop you drowning?

Dustin’s blue eyes grew big and confused at the mention of his name. You looked at the young curly-haired boy reflexively.

“What about ‘im?” you shot back.

“He doesn’t have collar bones!” Steve barked, gesturing at the boy. 

Dustin looked a little hurt by the observation, true though it may be. Steve winced a little at his own insensitivity and immediately wished he could walk it back. “Sorry, bud,” he offered. 

Dustin seemed immediately appeased at his correction and shrugged as if to say “no problem.”

You weren’t ready to let it go, however. A mean guffaw escaped from the back of your throat before you replied “Dustin is fine. He’s a very capable swimmer,” you spat. Unlike me, Steve heard you mutter snarkily under your breath.

 You flicked Dustin’s nose lightly and winked at him, and he preened under your attention. All the kids did. You had that way about you, is all. 

Sensing the tension on the water, Eddie, Rob, Nance and Jon were stood up on the shore, looking on with mild concern. 

Steve noticed you noticing them and then you shook your head and declared “Know what? I packed sandwiches and nobody has touched them, so…andiamo.” 

With that, you abandoned your pool noodle and lifted yourself out of the water and onto the dock by your good arm. 

I would have helped her, Steve thought to himself bitterly, watching you drop hard on your knees before getting to your feet. 

He sated his need to help by pushing Dustin onto the dock by his butt, much to Dustin’s annoyance.

A bit later, everyone was seated on the shore, the last of the sandwiches having been polished off. 

The tension had waned for everyone else and the ambient murmur of jovial conversation had returned. 

Eddie was seated at Steve’s side, yammering in his ear about a road trip he wanted to take with you all sometime next Spring.

 But Steve’s gaze was trained on you, across the circle, engaged in quiet conversation with Nancy and Robin. 

You had pulled your shorts on, leaving them unbuttoned over your bikini bottoms. Your oxford shirt with the sleeves cut off was unbuttoned, billowing open down to your navel. The trash bag had been removed from your arm carefully with the help of the tiny scissors on Dustin’s swiss army knife. 

You smiled wryly at some joke that Robin had made. Your face was free of makeup, eyes a little tired, but sanguine. 

“Ya listening to me, Stevie boy?” Eddie asked, cutting through Steve’s haze. 

“Sorry dude,” Steve shot back mindlessly, willing himself to pry his gaze away.

Eddie merely sniggered at his friend’s lack of manners. “That was quite a spectacle the two of you put on earlier.”

Steve scowled at him, knowing damn well what he was talking about, but choosing to feign ignorance.

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

Eddie was unbothered by Steve’s pretend-game, continuing, “Like, you two guys pitch each other a lot of shit and it's usually good natured, but lately it's been…” Eddie sucked on his teeth as he pondered the right adjective. “Sticky.”

“Ed, man, shut up.”

“Nah,” Eddie said on a deep inhale. “Figure your shit out, Harrington. It’s embarrassing.” Eddie sunk back down into his chair. 

“Teenie Ween’s always been a sweetheart as long as I've known her but lately, you've been bringing out the worst in each other and it's exhausting.”

Steve’s face scrunched up in confusion, pondering Eddie’s cryptic words.

 “I’m sorry,” Steve said absently, though he didn’t know what he was sorry for.

 Eddie just smiled back at him from behind a pair of aviators.

Soon, the sun started to dip and everyone was a little sun drunk and over the day. Belongings were packed and the troupe of you made it up the bluff and through the thicket of overgrown weeds, back to the road. 

(⁠๑⁠♡⁠⌓⁠♡⁠๑⁠)

It was the transportation arrangement that really clinched the awkwardness of the outing. 

Nancy had hauled everyone to the beach earlier that day, sans you. You had been dropped off by a boy called Allen Miles and the mention of his name grated on Steve’s very spine.

Before you and Steve could devolve into another bitching match, Nancy pursed her lips and made a sound declaration that Steve would drive you, Dustin and Robin home.

 Nevermind that her station wagon would still be stuffed to the gills clown-style. And you wouldn’t even have the buffer of El at the ready since she was staying at Max’s house. You fought her on it, too.

“Does dad know you’re staying over with Max?” you asked her, almost pleading with her to give you a reason to pull elder sibling rank on you.

“Yes,” she hissed back at you haughtily. You deflated, knowing that you would be dropped off last. 

Maybe you could pretend to fall asleep during the ride so you didn’t have to deal with Steve alone. 

Looks were exchanged and car doors were slammed before you all set off into the twilight. Robin, who typically called shotty, practically shoved you into the front seat of Steve’s car. You didn’t want to make a scene in light of the day’s events, so you went without quarrel. 

Dustin and Robin droned on in the backseat about…something. You couldn’t have recounted even a smidgen of their conversation with a gun to your head. 

You were focused on Steve next to you, seething. You could feel it coming off of him. 

Your jaw clenched as Robin fixed you and Steve with an exasperated look that you could see in the side view mirror before leaving you with a cheeky adios! 

Dustin took up the mantle of filling the silence but soon enough, you were parked in front of the Henderson residence. 

The boy parried a moment before seemingly deciding he couldn't say or do anything to pop yours and Steve's acidic little bubble. The pair of you watched his mom greet him at the door before pulling away.

The thing was, today hadn’t happened in a vacuum. You and Steve had always gotten along pretty famously as far as your friends and built family were concerned. Certainly enough to make it through a world of unconscionable shit alongside the rest of them. 

But when reality as you all knew it was falling to pieces, nobody had the presence of mind to tune into the frequency that the two of you were on. They didn’t notice the intricacies of the geological formation of your relationship. 

You had materialized - yes! materialized - out of nowhere back in the fall of ‘83. You’d been sucked into the Upside Down from another time and place entirely. The unwitting and unlikely victim of a quantum hiccup twenty years in the future near your home on Nellis Airforce Base in North Las Vegas. 

Your slime-covered, barely animate fifteen-year-old body was discovered and carried out of the Upside Down by Hop. He, in a hazmat suit, you in your ripped, bloodied Catholic school uniform while Joyce stumbled alongside him with Will in her clutches. 

For weeks, you’d been near-catatonic, held in the custody of Dr. Owens while a cadre of shady G-men (plus Hop and Joyce) had tried to piece together your journey.

 You barely registered that you had leapt back in time and ended up somewhere you didn’t know a soul, half a decade before you were even born. 

For you were traumatized and plagued with guilt over the death of another teenage girl. A girl that had desperately wanted to get back to where you found yourself by accident. 

You'd tried pulling Barb off that sticky wall, even though part of you knew she was already dead. Soon, you surrendered to your exhaustion and found yourself glued to the same wall, a grotty vine prodding at your lips, trying to make a home in your esophagus right as Hop and Joyce happened upon you.

Eventually, your body healed and you came out of your stupor. You went to live with Hop. You didn’t have anywhere else to go, and besides which way, the best conclusion that the scientists from the DoE could come up with was that if you were going to go back “home”, it would be the way you came. So you had to stay close by.

 They paid a stipend to keep you fed and kept - you were an investment, afterall. Moreover, you were a liability and a paradox, and this was the best arrangement Owens could come up with. 

Hop got used to having you around, never trying to force the matter of you returning home. In the weeks when you’d lost track of El, you would sometimes stand timidly in front of the towering man until he promised you that you would find her. 

Neither of you could stand the guilt of her being out there on her own. Eventually El showed up and he decided that you would all carry on as though you had both been there the whole time. 

Nobody wanted you to go back home. How would you get there? How would you survive a second time?

You started school in January of ‘84, sticking close to the walls. 

Nancy and Jon felt responsible for you and kept you close. By default, that meant Steve, too. But Steve was suspicious of you. 

You were freaky to him and despite what he’d seen in the Byers house, he couldn’t really comprehend your being there. 

Sometimes, when you were all hanging out, a brand new song would come on the radio - like the DJ would make a big production of stressing the just released single - and then you’d absentmindedly mouth all the words perfectly. 

Other times, you’d say non-sequitur things that would turn out to be quotes from movies that hadn’t been released when you’d uttered them. 

The most unnerving was when Nancy’s father was hemming and hawing at the breakfast table one morning you were all over at the Wheeler house. 

He was pouring over a newspaper article about some sick murderer on the loose, reciting the most sordid details while Karen Wheeler stood at the stove flipping pancakes, scolding her husband for discussing it in front of the kids. 

Suddenly, you paused with your glass of orange juice poised at your lips and muttered the name Alton Coleman with a vacant look in your eyes. Days later, Alton Coleman was apprehended. 

Karen and Ted Wheeler had missed it, luckily. But when Nancy had pressed you on the issue, wondering if you were tapped into some latent psychic ability that you and her could use to fight crime, you'd disappointed the girl by informing her that one of the last things you'd seen on TV before you “leapt” was a documentary about Alton Coleman. And it had only stuck with you because you'd gone over your actions in your last days at Nellis with Owens until you were blue in the face.

Then there was the style stuff. You seemed totally confused about what you referred to as “big, crispy hair,” not to mention your general aversion to spandex and high-waisted jeans. 

You wore your hair with minimal volume, kept your clothes and makeup neutral, toned down, boring. 

Nancy thought it was because you’d been to Catholic school and you were “demure” as she put it.

But Steve had quickly clocked that you thought everything around you was cheesy and dated but you didn’t want to stand out or accidentally make a statement by dressing from your own time. So you dressed like a bland schoolmistress and let Jonathan make you mixtapes because a constant rotation of Top 40 artists eventually set your teeth on edge. 

You stopped telling Steve who the one-hit-wonders were because he was really rooting for Dexy’s Midnight Runners and he got all salty when you told him. 

Nobody tried to meet you where you were at culturally, because all of you were a little worried that if you divulged secrets from the future, it would create some kind of extra rip in the universe. So you kept your trap shut except to say that you didn’t really like your time either and that, really, the ‘80s weren’t so bad in some ways. 

Plus, you practically drooled at the sight of Eddie Van Halen and Mickey Rourke whenever you got the opportunity. They were so hot, you'd lament in a pained wail at the TV, as if you weren't living in the very time in which they were dropping your panties. 

Steve rolled his eyes every time you did this. Little Miss Catholic School swooning over rock stars and greasers. How original. Your crush on Spock from Star Trek…Well that broke up the cliché a little.

Steve slowly started to feel more at ease around you, distracting himself with his romance with Nancy. 

And you started to branch out, making friends outside of the people that knew too much for their own good.

You started wearing acid-washed denim over bolder colors, teasing your hair a bit, adopting high-waisted jeans (which made your ass look delectable, Steve grudgingly noticed - as did Allen Miles, apparently). 

You were still on the shy, mild side, but you weren't such a wallflower. People knew you by face and name now. 

Steve thought being from the future made you naturally more magnetic or something. Like you were always two moves ahead of everyone. That made him kind of nervous, though, so he still watched you in his periphery.

He told himself it was to make sure you didn’t slip up and involve anyone else in your freakish situation. He’d watch you in the cafeteria, the courtyard, laughing with your small circle of casual pals, looking for any indication that you were spilling your guts and making yourself look like a headcase in the process. 

Best case scenario, you’d wind up in an asylum or something. Worst case, you’d end up in a gulag with electrodes inserted in every square inch of visible flesh. Months of his low-key recon suddenly became moot the night of the Halloween party in ‘84. 

Steve had just had his heart crushed by Nancy in a spectacular fashion, when he pulled over on his way home.

He was trying to stave off waves of fresh pain in his chest, sat at the wheel of his car, gulping air, willing the sting of rejection to sink to the depths of his loafers. Toto’s Africa provided the soundtrack to his misery.

He startled at a gentle rapping at his window. He looked up to see you, haloed in the streetlight, wearing a copper lamé dress with a high split in the leg and a dip at the shoulder. Your eyes were smoked out, making your confused glare even more intense. 

Possessed Dana Barrett, you’d explained, offering him a bite of your candy apple. He refused it, so you chucked it out the window into a storm drain, licking your sticky fingers. 

You'd taken Nancy's little brother and his friends trick-or-treating and they'd cajoled you into being Possessed Dana Barrett to round out the Ghostbusters cast. You wanted to be Slimer but you didn't know how to pull it off on such short notice, and Joyce Byers had loaned you this gown from the days of disco, and why was he so long in the face, anyway?

Steve was just desperate enough to ask you to hang out at his, which turned into a request for you to stay over at his. He'd never had his heart broken by someone he’d chosen, and part of him wanted to hide. 

But he knew going home to his empty house and the silence would taunt him. You went along with it easily. You almost didn't even seem confused as to why he was asking you. 

You washed your face and used a spare toothbrush he had. The sleeves of the pajama top he'd long since outgrown still reached past your fingertips. He'd stared at you as you rolled them up your forearms, one leg crossed over the other, hanging off the edge of his bed.

It felt strange but comforting and he allowed himself to wonder if he'd ever get to see a lover or even his wife do those same dainty motions in a bigger bed. In a shared bed, one day. He wondered if he'd remember the sight of you, right now.

You and him were laying in his bed, top and tail - platonic 69’ing, you'd joked, immediately clearing your throat when Steve didn't laugh -, when you broke the silence telling him, “Talk to her. In a couple days. She was drunk, Steve, she didn't know what she was saying.” 

He had to remind himself that you were talking about him and Nance.

“She was hurtfully clear about it,” he retorted. A beat passed before you offered an anecdote about your first time getting drunk at a Christmas party on base. 

You'd snuck a bunch of drinks with some other Air Force brats throughout the night before loudly declaring to a room full of military families that you were going to invent the hoverboard from Back to the Future. 

Steve didn't know what Back to the Future was and you quickly corrected course, telling him to get some sleep. 

That was the night the two of you became something like friends. 

The next day he woke up with the red painted toe nails of one of your feet lodged in the crook of his arm. He didn’t hate it. 

Mere days later, after you'd blocked Lucas Sinclair’s body with your own and gotten Billy Hargrove’s backhand for your trouble, after he'd watched you clutch the Mother Mary medallion around your neck and recite whispered, rushed prayers to a god you scarcely believed in in the back of an abandoned school bus before fighting otherworldly monsters alongside him, and going back into that hell mouth because you'd been down there before and couldn't let the rest go in without knowing what they were up against…

Steve felt ready to let Nancy go. 

He still cared for her, he still didn't like how it ended, but his world felt bigger and less stifling now. And he didn't need to hold onto the last dregs of something that would stay just that…dregs. There were possibilities all around him. He didn't want to cling to someone that didn't want him back.

Yours and Steve's friendship was quietly strengthened over two more reality-rocking apocalypses. One of those included his initiation to the Back to the Future franchise. “Ooooh,” he'd loudly declared in the theater, finally understanding your reference while off his face on Russian truth serum. You’d looked over at him with bleary eyes, shooting him finger guns, grateful for the vindication.

In between, and after the mall fire, there were lots of jokes, cookouts, Midwest adventures and plenty of heretofore platonic 69ing in his bed. Top and tail sleepovers followed by rote, cozy breakfasts at the county’s diners. 

You would mewl a miserable sleep song on those mornings until he reminded you of the very existence of French toast.

 Sometimes it was just the two of you, sometimes your friends joined. But it was almost agonizing in its closeness and familiarity. And it grew out of the impossible.

A shrink could have told Steve that the bitching between the two of you that occasionally oozed to the surface like liquid rock was a trauma response. The shrink would have gone on to explain that Steve was projecting his fears onto you because you were an easy target. You'd experienced it together and he had access to you. And Steve would need to find another shrink because he'd know they were only half-right. 

Yes, you'd become fixtures in each other's lives and had shared experiences out of the ordinary. But the same could be said of Robin or Dustin or Eddie, etc. and yes, he mother-henned them all, but when it came to you, he couldn't be talked out of it. Because as important as Robin or Dustin or Eddie, etc. were to him, it was your ass that he couldn't seem to crawl out of, and it annoyed you as much as anyone else.

You'd been very sweet and mellow about it up to this point, but things were getting confusing between you two. Hence the pool noodle incident and passive aggressive defiance.

You started buttoning your shirt up just for something to do with your good hand and after a prolonged and uncomfortable silence, Steve spoke. “Allen Miles,” he said simply.

You stopped at the top button of your blouse. “Allen Miles,” you parroted back.

You saw the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Allen…Miles,” he tried again, testing the name on his tongue.

You picked at your cast, tracing the well-wishes in Robin's loopy chicken scratch with your thumb. “Is a person that exists,” you said flaty, as if to staunch whatever shit was about to come out of his mouth next.

“Allen Miles is a douche-dick,” he sing-songed quietly enough that you could have pretended not to hear.

Unbelievable. You sniffed at the insult. “What'd Allen Miles ever do to you?”

“Why'd he give you a ride today?” he asked, dodging the question. “You could have piled in with everyone else.” Ugh. He sounded like Hop.

The simplicity and faux-calmness of the statement took you aback. Was he for real right now? “He works at the rec center on Saturday mornings and I had physio-therapy there today. He offered,” you countered, trying not to sound as defensive as you felt - though the words came out in a rapid stream almost as if they’d been rehearsed (they weren’t). You bit the inside of your cheek. An argument was a-brewin.’

Steve turned off the narrow highway onto the skinny, heavily-wooded trail to the cabin. He was seething and neither of you knew why. “So he waited for you to get done with PT?” 

“No,” you shot back, not fully understanding the anger under his line of questioning. “His shift ended a half hour after I was done. I waited for him.”

A scoff. “He made you wait for him?” He posed the question as if it was the most distasteful thing he could imagine.

“He didn’t make me do anything! He didn't have to drive me in the first place!”

“Well then why didn’t you come to the store! If you were waiting for a ride, you could have waited for me!”

“That would have taken hours! What is your problem?”

“Just-” Steve took a deep breath, flicking his gaze to you briefly as the Bimmer trundled down the beaten path to the cabin. “I just wonder about Miles, ya know? He’s a little sleazy around you, what if he just wants to get in your pants? What if he’d-”

Steve was the Larry Bird of cutting himself off, apparently.

“What if he’d made a move?” you offered.

“Exactly,” Steve said, pointing at you.

“What if he had?” you questioned honestly.

The cabin came into view, mercifully, only a moment later. Your head was swimming. Steve had been acting so short with you the last few weeks. It had ramped up when you’d broken the arm.

It was a stupid accident, really. Max had begged you to take a run on the skateboard, something you’d never done. She’d egged you on and you’d done it and you’d gone flying over a stop skid in the church parking lot. 

She had to run into the church and have the secretary call you an ambulance. In hindsight, you were lucky you hadn’t broken your face open. You knew when to take a W, so you didn’t dwell on the possibilities too much.

Steve had heard you were in the hospital and had a conniption. Granted, he hadn’t stayed on the phone with Max long enough to hear It’s just her arm, she’s fine. 

You’d been hopped up on morphine and called him a fruit loop for getting his panties in such a twist. 

And ever since then, you two had been walking a razor’s edge. Where it had once been easy to diffuse your little tiffs, you seemed to be perpetually living under one another’s skin. 

Steve threw the car in park and whipped over to face you. “What do you mean what if he had?” You did not appreciate the falsetto that his voice had taken on to impersonate you. 

“I mean what I said, Steve! What is your deal?”

“He could be a total dirt bag, Teenie!”

You sighed to yourself and pinched the bridge of your nose. You were suddenly so tired. “He didn’t make a pass at me, Steve. He was very sweet and cordial and I got there in one piece and I really need you to back off right now, please.”

This was it. This was your limit. You wanted to crawl out of your skin. You huffed quietly to yourself before telling Steve “I need you to not talk to me for a while, okay?” And at that, you grabbed your bag from between your feet and got out of the car.

You heard Steve government-name you before you closed the door and skulked toward the cabin. The tears came fast and you were grateful that Steve didn’t follow you. Instead he gripped his steering wheel and internally scolded himself for everything that had just transpired. 

Steve knew he wasn’t always the brightest, but how? How did he always end up shooting himself in the foot? He chanced a look at the cabin and lingered for a moment after he saw the light in the mudroom off the side that served as your sleeping quarters had turned on. 

He gave more than a passing thought to going in after you, but he wasn’t going to fuck it further by pushing you when you’d explicitly asked for space. Plus, he was chastised, but he was still fussy, and he didn’t fully trust himself to not keep digging this hole deeper. 

After a moment, he gathered himself and left the property, turning up the radio and letting Talk to Me by Stevie Nicks rub the salt in as he made his way back to his empty house. 

Inside the cabin, you watched Steve’s headlights disappear as you wrestled your Detroit Red Wings jersey over your cast. It was the only sleep shirt that you could get over your cast at the moment. 

Your tears had subsided, slurped back up into your tear ducts for the sheer fact that you didn’t want to waste anymore tears on Steve Harrington. 

He probably didn’t know it, the beautiful dolt, but over the years that you’d known him, he’d kept pushing on the same bruise, and it had gotten even more difficult for you to cope. 

He'd gone for the throat harping on Allen Miles, whom you were not interested in like that. Steve's over-the-top paternalistic revulsion at the thought of you getting some hurt your feelings and made you feel like he'd only ever see you as a fragile little sister figure that he needed to coddle. Like your having sex was some kind of aberration. 

Having him treat you that way with the way you felt about him twisted your heart.

You were tired of having a big and important part of you ignored. A part that you’d never talked with anyone, especially Steve, in great detail. The sexual part. The (gag) sensual part. You were eighteen going on forty-eight, already whinging internally about how you were a woman™ dammit and you had needs™. 

You weren’t seasoned, by any means. You’d had a handful of secret fumbles with secret partners and you’d made discoveries about yourself. 

A of all- and this one you’d suspected since puberty hit - you got turned on easily. Like sloppy, soppy, pushing down on your vulva like you were hiding a boner turned on. And for no reason.

Sometimes it happened when you saw Eddie Van Halen on MTV or Mickey Rourke in Rumble Fish or LeVar Burton on the cover of TV Guide. 

Sometimes it happened when you had to go to a stupid school spirit assembly and had to look at boys in their stupid, short basketball shorts and/or girls in their cheerleading regalia. 

Sometimes it happened when you watched Eddie’s band practice in Gareth’s garage and saw the young Munson trash around all sweaty, handling his guitar expertly.

Once, it had happened when you saw Robin throw a balled up Dixie Cup into a bin at a considerable distance and she’d celebrated excessively and it was cute. 

You knew you didn't want to fuck Eddie or Robin -it would be weird beyond weird. It's just that you could appreciate them.

The same way you appreciated the nasty smacking noises Nancy and Jon made when they were making out in what they thought was a private moment and you knew they were gonna bang later. 

Your friends did sexy things, and sometimes it turned you on.

Mostly, though, it happened with Steve. At least once a day (usually more), he did something that accidentally got you going. A hand on his hip, and hand through his hair, a smirk, a wink, a smile, a whisper in your ear, a casual touch on the small of your back. 

This was to say nothing of how he made you feel emotionally. How unguarded and at peace you felt when he was around. How physical closeness felt as natural as breathing, and you were not hugged enough as a child, so that was saying something. 

Sometimes you'd give each other long lingering hugs and it made you wish you could fuse your flesh to his. You wanted to be his Kuato, always melded to his tummy. And you knew it was weird but so what? Nobody needed to know.

B of all - you liked being touched. And snogged. And railed. And held tight. Which you discovered on your own and in secret, no thanks to Steve. Because Steve usually had a squeeze waiting in the wings somewhere. 

And even when he didn’t, he was preoccupied either with healing from his first great heartbreak or pondering how to rebound from said great heartbreak. Despite your raging hormones, you knew you wanted nothing to do with either of those. So you outsourced your sexual energy.

As soon as you'd gotten over your hangups about the cheesy, neon, teased to high-hell vomit pile that was the 1980s in America, and you'd leaned into it just a little bit, you started getting noticed. And you discovered, thanks to Francis and David and Chelsea (separately), that you did not just enjoy sex in theory, but also in practice. 

The kicker, though, was that while you physically enjoyed the sex that you’d had, you realized when you were coming down from the high that something might be missing. You could have an orgasm that you felt in your very boots, but you wouldn’t ever ask the person that had just rocked your world to drive you to the airport or buy you French toast, much less trust them with your heart. 

Your stupid, stupid heart. It beat for a boy that seemed to think you had the sex life of a castrato.

You flopped down on your bed and stared at your ceiling. You felt kind of bad brushing Steve off like that, even demanding that he not talk to you. 

You hadn't chanced a look back at his face when you'd left his car, but you knew you would have seen that hardened, confused look that he got when he was hurt. That look that always crushed you and made you want to kiss his face and whisper sweet words until he broke out into that cocky grin of his.

You rolled over and closed your eyes, wishing he was next to you, that you could feel his weight and body heat, that you were holding him by the crook of his elbow and pressing your face into his bicep. That you could somehow transmit your thoughts without speaking them out loud and that he would at least be gentler with you and not infer that you were sexless anymore. Even if he didn’t want you like that.

You settled into that lukewarm fantasy, of the memory of him, and let yourself drift to sleep.

(⁠๑⁠♡⁠⌓⁠♡⁠๑⁠)

Steve was sitting on his floor leaned against his bed, holding one of his most prized worldly possessions. It was a candid Polaroid of the two of you.

It was taken at the fair last year. It was a little overexposed with the lights from the rides surrounding you, but the figures of you two were clear as day.

In the photo, Steve was holding your wrist to his chest with a crooked grin, mouth poised near your ear. It looked like he'd just whispered something to you. Your head was crooked to the side and down, like you were trying to worm away from his grasp, your eyes closed with the intensity of your laugh. Your face was glowing with the fair lights and there was a streak of white on your cheek. You both looked sublimely happy.

Steve smiled at the memory. You'd made a game of forcing bits of funnel cake into his mouth when he wasn't paying attention when finally, he'd caught you before your next “attack” and smeared powdered sugar from the pastry onto your cheek as revenge.

His first thought when Jonathan had presented him with the memento at the end of that night was that he was looking at you like a boy in love and he wondered how many times he'd been caught looking at you like that, without photographic evidence.

The bitter memory of you telling him I need you to not talk to me for a while roared back into his consciousness and slapped him in the face. You'd sounded hurt, on top of being pissed. 

Did you really want to date Allen Miles? You said he hadn't made a pass at you. Did it hurt your feelings because he didn't make a pass at you and Steve had just dug the knife in more? He'd throttle Miles if he'd hurt your feelings. Fuck that guy.

Or were you worried about Steve's opinion of your choice in boyfriends? Was Allen your type? What was your type? He knew Eddie Van Halen and Mickey Rourke and LeVar Burton were your type but that weird trinity did not clarify things for him.

Steve tried to recall what, besides his shortness with you, could have triggered you to react the way that you did. By now, he knew that whatever it was, it was his fault. He would love to pawn the blame off on you but you were usually blameless, especially to him. You were sweet and gentle and always seemed to anticipate and prioritize other people’s needs at your own peril. 

He'd given you space like you asked but it had been a couple days now. He was starting to feel like he was jonesing. 

He was hoping you would have come to visit him at the video store by now, jumping on his back and hugging him like a koala, whispering in his ear that all was forgiven and things could go back to normal, like how they were before you'd broken your arm.

But when Steve thought about things going back the way they were, it made his brain itch. He felt like something was totally different and the two of you couldn't go back if you wanted to. Moreover, he didn't know if he did want to. He wanted…

Steve's thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. He slid the Polaroid of you two back into his bedside drawer and hastily picked up the receiver. Please be her, please be her, please be her. 

“Hello?”

“Steve?” 

Nance. “Nance?” Fuck it all. Steve bit back his disappointment. “What's up?”

“Is Teenie over at yours? I tried to call her but El said she's not home but she's not working today, either. I know Robin was scheduled at the store today. I thought she might be with you.”

Steve's jaw clenched involuntarily. Were you with Allen Miles? 

“Um,” Steve said with a little choke. “No, no. She's not here. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything's good. It's just that I was emptying the cooler and I found that Mother Mary medallion she always wears? It must have slipped off her neck. It was her grandmother's and I thought she might be bugging out thinking it was lost forever and-”

“I'll come get it,” Steve interrupted. He was already pulling his sneakers on. “You gonna be home for a minute?”

“Oh.” A pause. “It's no big deal, Steve, I'm running Mike to the cabin tomorrow, I can just drop it off then.”

Steve was pacing now, thinking he might be losing his line back to you. You did love that necklace even though you'd abandoned the Church forever ago. Your grandmother was the only person from back “home” that you were sentimental about - and she'd died not long before you'd ended up here. 

That necklace was the only tangible piece of your former life that you really cared about. Maybe you'd be more inclined to listen or even share oxygen with him if he brought it back to you.

“Uh, it's cool. She actually left her uh,” Steve began, looking around the room then down at his feet, “uh, her shoes, yeah. She left them in my car when I dropped her off the other night.” Lie.

He heard Nancy laugh, a little disbelievingly. “She left her shoes in your car.” It came out as a statement.

“Psh, yeah. They were all sandy from the beach and she hates the feeling of leftover sand in between her toes.” Half lie. You had told him that, once. “Anyway, I'll be by in like ten.” 

“Ste-”

Steve dropped the receiver back in the cradle and made a mad dash for Nancy’s. Nancy was waiting for him on the front step when he arrived. When she dropped the necklace in his waiting palm, he held it gingerly and stared at it like a holy relic.

Nancy cleared her throat. Steve met her eyes and he could see something like suspicion dancing behind them, along with a little smirk. “You better go find Teenie. Poor girl’s walking around without shoes, afterall.”

Nancy was always too smart for her own good - or anyone else’s for that matter. He thanked her as if she’d given him the world and went on his merry way. 

(⁠๑⁠♡⁠⌓⁠♡⁠๑⁠)

Steve decided to make a pitstop back at his house instead of going right over to yours. He’d been planning on going to the cabin and waiting for you if you hadn’t gotten home yet. 

But after he left Nancy’s, he thought that this might not be the move. You were really mad at him and he wanted to show you that he could listen and respect your wishes.

He spent a good twenty minutes pacing around his living room trying to come up with a gameplan on how to return your necklace without ruffling your feathers further. 

Maybe he should buy you an obnoxiously large teddy bear? 

No, if you hated it, he would be stuck with an over-large, cutesy reminder of his failure. 

Or maybe he could hire one of those dorky barbershop quartets to show up at work and sing you a song about how he knew he was a dipshit, but you meant so much to him, please take him back?

 No, no. You would die of embarrassment and probably haunt him for the rest of his days. 

He was still holding your necklace, gripping his hair by the roots when he heard the doorbell. 

Maybe it was Dustin or Eddie. Maybe he could bounce some ideas off them, he thought as he jogged toward the door. 

He opened it and felt the air leave his lungs when he saw you standing there. You were staring up at him, eyes wide, swaying your shoulders a little bit the way you did when you were nervous. 

You were wearing his favorite dress of yours. This beige thing with tie straps and red flowers on it. The first time he’d seen you wear it, you’d been all dolled up in a way that was almost salacious. Now you wore your hair down with barely a stitch of makeup on and Steve thought you looked…

“Hi,” you said shyly. 

“Hi,” he said back, his voice sounding small in his ears. He cleared his throat, hoping that if he found his voice again, he wouldn’t sound so broken. “Come in?”

You didn’t hesitate, thankfully. You walked past him, minding your cast and stopped in the foyer before you turned to him. You shrugged one shoulder bashfully. 

“Nancy said you had my necklace.” Your face scrunched up in confusion. “Also, something about shoes?”

Steve pushed the door shut and walked over to you. 

“Uh, yeah, I might have lied to her and said you left your shoes in my car so I’d have an excuse to take custody of your necklace.” 

The confusion on your face deepened. 

Steve held your necklace out to you and you let him drop it into your good hand.

You both stood there for an awkward moment. “I missed you,” you said.

Steve felt his heart soar and opened his mouth to respond but you cut him off. 

“Will you help me?” you asked, holding up the necklace and then your cast to make your point. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, rushing to your back. You handed him the necklace and bunched your hair up in a fist, holding it out of the way. 

Steve took a moment to appreciate the back of your neck, the downy hairs at your hairline, the little birthmark at the junction of your shoulder. He looped the necklace around you and clasped it, checking that the spring in the clasp was still sound.

“All set,” he said. 

You spun around to meet him and he saw you touch the pendant at your decolletage with a little smile. “Thank you.”

“I missed you too,” Steve rushed out, hands shoved in his back pockets.

The look you gave him back was soft and dazed and he felt his heart kick in his chest. You cocked your head at him. “Why were you so upset about Allen, Stevie?”

Steve didn’t detect even a hint of anger in your question. You just kept staring at him softly. Steve walked over to the couch and perched himself against the backrest. His thumbs rubbed dual patterns on the suede upholstery while he thought up a response. The best he could come up with was “Do you like him? Allen, I mean? Like…romantic-wise?”

He glanced up at you bashfully, dreading the answer he was sure would come.

Your eyes narrowed, but not meanly. You walked over to him and planted your hip against the couch next to him. 

“No,” you said, simply.

Steve released a relieved exhale from deep in his chest. You weren’t done, though. “But Stevie, why…I mean why did you get so mad at the thought of Allen and I together?”

Steve felt his eyes bug out but tried to school his expression into something less obvious. He shrugged when he finally met your eyes again. “Teenie, I just.” He wet his bottom lip. You wore the same soft, contemplative expression but he thought he could see your breathing kick up as you waited for him to finish. 

Steve was right. You were trying to stop yourself from hyperventilating. You hadn’t come over here to confront Steve, not really. You really just wanted to see him again and figure out what he was playing at, purloining your necklace from Nancy in an obvious attempt to get back in your good graces. It would have been a cute gesture if you weren’t so worried about what was coming next. 

But two days of feeling like your brain was leaking for its singular fixation on your Stevie and how much you missed him had finally gotten the best of you. You came round the moment you could. You knew it was time to face the music, come what may. 

“I just want…whoever you hang out with or end up being with…I just want them to treat you with respect. And I want you to have fun and feel safe and…”

God, he was beautiful. Didn’t he know? How could he not know?

Steve seemed to be at a loss for words now, so you offered some.

 “I could have those things with you,” you breathed out almost dreamily.

Steve's eyes went wide again and you felt like your heart was going to break because that look could have meant…so many things. Not all of them good.

You backed away from his side slowly, ready to make a break for it, but Steve caught you gently by the upper arms and stood at his full height. He stared at you like you were a brand new lifeform.

“Teenie?” he said in a too-tiny voice.

You were looking right into the void, free-falling into the hinterworld of your own heart.

“Stevie, do you think of me like a little sister?”

Steve's eyebrows shot up with something like horror before he cleared his throat and shook away some thought known only to him. 

“Ew, no, Teen.”

You bit your lip and stamped your foot just a little bit, feeling a little unmoored. You worried suddenly that you wouldn't get the answers you wanted. 

Steve had loosened his grip on you just a smidge. He was absently stroking your arms with his thumbs.

“One of the kids then. Dustin or Max or-”

“No,” he answered immediately, shaking his head decisively. “No.” 

And you knew. You knew he meant it.

You backed away, feeling singed by his sincerity. You paced the length of the runner behind the couch and slid a nail along your cast making little zipzipzip noises to fill the quiet. You turned to him after a moment.

“So what's happening with us. Why are we being so weird with each other?” 

Steve put his hands on his hips. “You broke your ass, Teenie,” he said sternly. “It could have been your head!”

“It wasn't though, it wasn't my head!” Your voice had a desperate edge. “Way crazier stuff has happened to me, to both of us! All our friends…”

He looked at you like you were speaking a different language. He shut his eyes tight like he was willing the memories away. He gathered himself quickly.

“Right, and if things had gone differently, we don't know what could have happened!”

Both of you were breathing hard, tears stinging your eyeballs. It's like you had awoken a sleeping beast by merely mentioning its existence.

Steve gestured into the air and stared into the distance as he continued. He was so fuckin’ pretty, you thought then. Even when he had big fuckin’ feelings that his pretty fuckin’ self couldn't contain in his pretty fuckin' meat prison.

“Every time something happens to you, it's like I can't stop thinking about it.” Steve's tented his fingers at his temples to demonstrate his point, eyes wide and unblinking like there was a movie playing behind his eyes that he couldn't look away from.

You started taking slow, tiny steps toward him, like he was a wounded rabbit and you didn't want to frighten him off. You wanted to hold him. 

“I spin out and I can't stop thinking about you dying.” 

Two more tiny, furtive steps toward him.

“Or being born.”

“Oh, Stevie-” Wait. “Wait, being born? What?”

Steve had pulled at his hair and it was messy in that perfect way. 

“Your birthday, Teenie.” He said it both frantically and like you were dumb for not following. “It's 1986, your birthday is less than two years away and we don't know.” He practically whimpered your name, willing you to understand.

It hit you then. You'd forgotten yourself for a minute, how absurd your life was. The very thing that was whispered among your friends and found family - spoken in a hushed manner for fear of speaking it into reality (or causing you an existential crisis.) You always heard them, though. 

You had almost…almost found it funny how nobody seemed to think that the thought didn't cross your mind at three in the morning most nights.

The question of what would happen when the day of your birth - the one on your original, undoctored birth certificate that you'd left in a banker box back on Nellis AFB - finally rolled around. The day you would find out to what extent you were an actual paradox. If having been evicted from your mother's womb on that day would cause you to be slurped back into the Upside Down…Or if you would blink out of existence.

But the question hadn't woken you up since Spring Break. Because the positive to having a psionic demon vampire picking apart your psyche is that sometimes you got good intel.

You felt so warm all of a sudden, watching Steve watch you with his eyes wide and desperate and his scrumptious lips pushed into a sad pout, looking so young. You'd never been so touched in all your life.

You strode over to him and pulled his collar to encourage him down, closer to your height.

His arms looped around your middle. It was automatic. The half-crazed look on his face dropped away, replaced by an expression that told you he was taken aback but that he didn't hate this.

“I love you,” you declared, firm and resolute, yet quaky with emotion. You hoped he knew that this wasn't like the other times you said it. And that you could table the birthday discussion until after…

You squeezed his face and pushed your mouth into his as you looped your broken arm around his neck.

Steve gathered your hair away from your face and returned the kiss without a moment’s hesitation.

His mouth was warm and soft and a little tacky from how he'd been licking his lips nervously moments before. Your lip balm provided just the right amount of slide for your lips to tangle together perfectly.

Steve stumbled with you in his arms against the nearest wall. You took great care not to accidentally dicknail him in the side of the head with your cast as he hoisted you up, cradling your thighs in his hands.

Through his panting, he managed, “Do you mean it?”

Both of you knew what he meant. Did you mean I love you? Did you mean the kiss? The answer to both was a resounding fucking yes.

“Yes, Stevie. I want this. I want you so bad-”

Steve dive-bombed your mouth with his own, caressing your tongue with his. You opened your mouth wider to let him riff on it. 

You shuddered when you felt his crotch press into yours. The feeling of his hardening cock pressed into the space that was rapidly becoming drenched with your horniness and love for this boy combined with the slipperiness of your tongues moving together was beyond your wildest dreams.

Steve couldn't believe this was happening. He couldn't believe that the only thing standing between you two and your mutual desire to jam yourselves together like you were trying to fuse into a superbeing was that you thought he didn't think you were sexy or mature or whatever the fuck. 

If his blood supply wasn't rushing to his crotchal region right now, he might have done some psychological forensics to figure out how you'd arrived at that conclusion.

And fuck him if you didn't know what you were doing. This clearly wasn't your first heavy make out. Normally, that thought would make him jealous as all hell. But he could feel it. The rightness of this and he knew it didn't matter.

He pulled back from your mouth and let himself stare at you shamelessly. Your mouth was kiss-bitten and -oh - you already had this sexy, flushed glow painted from your cleavage to your cheeks. 

You wore a beautifully profane expression, half-helpless and half-threatening as in I'm going to eat you if you don't eat me first. Your irises looked almost feline.

He stole one more kiss from you before he hoisted you over his shoulder like a sack of flour. He expected you to protest but you just grunted slightly at the impact and braced yourself as much as you could for what turned out to be a short commute to Steve's room. You were too turned on to question his method.

Steve deposited you on the bed and you scrambled up to your knees to pull him forcefully into another kiss where he stood. You started nipping and biting sucking at his earlobes, his jaw, his neck, his chest.

Steve felt almost overwhelmed. This the hottest thing that had ever happened to him. You two were feral for each other and probably would have looked completely insane if you’d had an audience. Unlike his previous encounters, nothing about this felt stilted or transactional or lopsided.

In spite of how erotic it was, though, it also felt tender. Like this thread between you had been pulling taut for god knew how long before it had almost snapped. And as soon as you'd stopped resisting it, it pulled you into one another. He needed to be sure that you felt the same, though. He wouldn't risk another communication breakdown.

He pulled your face away from his neck by your hair and you looked startled but not displeased. Your lips curled into a dozy smile at the show of force. Steve was all business, though.

“How far do you want this to go?” You both chose to ignore the way his voice gave a little.

You swallowed as you stroked his chest. “Um, well, I really want you to make love to me but, like…I'll take whatever you give me.”

Steve closed his eyes in quiet supplication to whatever force was allowing this.

He smiled at you with his tongue poking at the back of his teeth. You returned it with a goofy giggle. God, you two were idiots.

“Game on then, baby,” Steve said.

Steve insisted on going down on you. You didn't strictly need it. You were so turned on that you could already feel that ache inside where you'd opened up to receive him.

You were almost worried that you might end up accidentally waterboarding him with your cunt for how wet you were already, but you needn’t have worried.

After he'd fluffed the pillows behind your shoulders and pulled your soaked panties off of you, he didn't waste a minute exploring down there with little kisses and bites to your thighs before he finally dove in and got to work. 

Within minutes he had you shivering and moaning, letting nonsense fuck language spill from your lips as you scratched his scalp in little circles. 

Steve was painfully hard in his shorts but he would have stayed down here for millenia if you'd let him.

Soon, you were gripping his wrist and writhing. Your legs were bent and rigid like a Barbie doll's but quaking with the intensity of your orgasm.

You let a sharp cry escape from your chest. It was high-pitched and wild and unguarded and it was the most beautiful sound Steve had ever heard.

He looked up at you. Your head was resting at an angle like it was too heavy for you to hold up. He let himself enjoy the sight. 

With your eyes still closed, as though you were in a deep trance, you started groping with your good hand, uncoordinated at your shoulders until you found the tie straps on your dress and undid them.

Without communicating it out loud, Steve pinched the fabric of your dress's bodice while you lifted up on your elbows so he could pull it down.

God, you were beautiful. Not just your tits. Yes, your tits were insane, but it was just you. Every inch of you, every plane on your body and, outside of your physical form, your gravity and orbit. He would never escape them and he didn't want to.

Steve crawled up your body, leaving smooches up your tummy and along your breasts and neck until he got to your mouth. You pulled him into you, kissing him stupid.

“Off,” you said bossily, breaking the kiss. Tugging at his collar. “These, too,” you insisted, pinching the cuff of his jeans between your toes.

Steve chuckled and pulled the shirt over his head. He got to work on his belt, kissing the tip of your nose.

“You want it like this?” he asked, indicating the missionary position you were in.

He got his belt free and shimmied his jeans away and down the bed, not wanting to leave you.

You bit your lip, eyes cast down lustfully, and Steve noticed you were checking out the tent in his boxers. 

He snickered. “My eyes are up here.”

You giggled at him, flicking his nose.

You two settled into a cozy silence and just stared at each other. You cleared your throat. “My favorite is being on top, usually,” you began. “But it might be hard with this.” You lifted your casted arm.

Steve deliberated for a moment. You could have told him you liked it upside down on a hammock and he would have found a way to make it so. But the thought of you riding him was making his dick weep. He would make that so, no problem.

“Teenie-on-top it is.” He gave your naked thigh a couple of light slaps. “Up,” he instructed.

You pushed up onto your knees as he leaned over to his nightstand, extracting a loose condom packet. He stood up and pulled his boxers down. 

When he looked at you, you were sitting on your haunches, knees splayed wide. Your arms were limp at your sides, hair a fucked out mess. You stared at his cock with what looked to him like reverence, mouth agape. 

“Oh, Marone,” you whispered to yourself with a gulp, fisting your hair at the scalp.

Steve snorted. You were so cute it made his chest hurt. He explained his plan as he ripped the condom foil open and rolled it over his cock.

“I'm going to hold you up so you don't put weight on the arm. I've got you, just trust me, ‘kay?”

He didn't know if you'd been paying attention to what he said. You sprung up on your knees and collapsed into him and gave him a searing kiss on the mouth. “‘Kay.”

Steve slid into bed and guided you by your hips to straddle him. You held your casted arm off to the side, balancing like you were getting into a rowboat as you braced your good hand on his forearm.

“Good?” he asked.

You hummed as you began moving yourself over his cock. Steve's breath hitched, but he kept his grip on your hips firm as you acquainted your bits with his. 

Your slickness and his spit had cooled a little but soon he could feel a pool of warmth. He was at your entrance. Your skirt was ruched around your waist, the straps of it hanging limply. His favorite dress.

You locked eyes with him as you reached between you and guided him inside. You sheathed him in inside you completely, pretty much immediately. No adjustment period needed. Your body had waited long enough. 

Both of you had done so much waiting.

You rocked your pelvis against him, getting used to the sensations. It felt like coming home, it felt so right.

Steve’s cock was like a pleasure-seeking missile. It found enclaves in your body that you'd never have discovered on your own. 

Your cunt hugged him, letting you and him both know how rich the landscape of your body was. You could feel everything and everything felt so good. 

Steve was still holding onto your hips but he was squeezing his eyes shut and writhing and moaning. You really fucking knew what you were doing. Or maybe this was just a long time coming. Maybe it was destined.

The sounds of his moans were like a cool drink of water on the hottest day of the year. You wanted the sound bottled. You wanted to bathe in it.

You braced your good hand on his chest and gripped his elbow with the other as you changed up the angle and pace. He was caressing your g-spot now and when you moaned loudly at the sensation, he gripped you tighter, encouraging you to devour that feeling. Your clit found his mons and pretty soon, playtime was over.

You were both panting and moaning and before you knew it, you were right there. Your pussy was fluttering. Steve's stomach was taut, his upper body having gone rigid. His face was red and the veins in his forehead were prominent with his exertion. He was trying to delay his own orgasm until you were ready.

You folded over then, collapsing forward and cradling his head between your upper arms. Electric bubbles of happiness fizzed in every part of your cunt, sending effervescent kisses up your spine and down to your toes. You thought your broken arm might have healed, even.

“FuckStevieBaby,” you whined, pressing your forehead into the dip of his shoulder.

Steve was a goner. He moaned your name pathetically as he pistoned his hips up into you, helped by the wetness of your cum. Heat lightning overtook his body as he felt himself spill inside the condom and he saw sparkles.

Your skin was pasted to his with sweat.

You shakily made yourself up to a seated position and looked down at him like you were getting to see the Northern Lights for the first time. 

He returned the gaze. Except to him, you were the Northern Lights and the Milky Way and a lofty angel with wings of purple fire. Jesus, when did he get so poetic?

He sat up and wrapped you in his arms, kissing you and pulling you into a hug. It wasn't unlike the ones you'd shared before, nudity notwithstanding. 

It was a hug that said hi, I'm here, I've got you, always. 

You let your heart rates ramp down before he lifted you off his softening member, but keeping you in his lap. He drew circles on your sweaty back.

“I love you,” he said into your collarbone.

Your heart did a little dance in your naked chest.

“I love you, too. More than anything.”

Steve pulled you both down and situated it so you were both laying on your sides, facing the other. He clasped your hand in his.

“No, I mean I love you.” It was emphatic despite the sleepiness in his voice. “I'm in love with you and I want to keep you. I want us to do this. I want people to know we belong to each other.” 

If anyone else on planet earth had said those words to you after you'd just fucked, it would have sounded like cro magnon-freshly-emptied-balls possessiveness.

But not with him. It's like you could see tomorrow in his beautiful brown eyes. You two were finally, blessedly on the same page.

“I've belonged to you since…” you rolled your eyes upward like you were thinking, when really you actually knew… “Halloween ‘84.”

Steve smiled at your confirmation. But also in bemusement.

“The night me and Nancy-”

“It was when I was on your bed,” you interrupted. “Right here in this spot. I was rolling up the sleeves of that stripey old man PJ shirt you loaned me.”

“I remember,” he whispered, swallowing the emotions bubbling up.

“I saw you looking at me and for just a second, I let myself think…”

You had let yourself think, this feels so easy. I'm about to spend the night in a boy's bed for the first time and it feels so easy. What if he wasn't heartbroken? What if he didn't think you were a freak? What if you'd done this a before in a thousand and one lifetimes? That's how easy it felt.

“I never stopped being yours, Stevie.”

He scooched closer, ran his index finger down the bridge of your nose, kissing you one more time.

“I hope you never do.”

“I never will.”

Steve got a faraway look in his eye as he looked past your shoulder. 

He didn't want to burst this bubble, but if he felt this way now, what would it be like less than two years from now. Less than two years away.

You clocked it immediately, you little mind-reader. 

You couldn't let him stew in his fear anymore. You hadn't meant to drop the subject before, but you had the pressing matter of showing him how much you loved him to attend to.

“I'm not going back, you know.” 

His eyes shot to you, suddenly way more alert.

“How-”

“Creel.”

Steve propped himself up on his elbow and studied you. You never brought this up. In fact, if any of your family's little misadventures ever came up in conversation, even briefly, you would excuse yourself from the room. Everyone learned to keep that talk to a minimum around you.

Besides that, Steve didn't like talking about when you'd been Vecna’d. It had been in the same manner as Nancy had been. Not meant to destroy you but to show you things. When the group had asked you what you saw, you simply told them “me.”

At the time, you had made the executive decision that what you had been shown wasn't valuable to any fact-finding that would help you defeat your foe. And when you were pressed for more, when Dustin had accused you of a party infraction by withholding, you'd leveled him with a deadly glare and stated “Not this, Dustin. Not now.” You had been so uncharacteristically severe that everyone silently agreed to leave it.

You turned over on your back and stared at the ceiling. 

“Before Spring Break, I was having a really hard time.”

Steve remembered. The recesses of his memory held images of you looking off into the distance, refrains of sorry, what? whenever you got caught out. 

You'd buried yourself in schoolwork, picking up extra shifts at the bowling alley, packing your calendar with babysitting gigs. Like you were trying to erase every moment of idle time, pulling away from everyone.

Steve had worried but when he talked about it with Robin, she'd dismissed it as paranoia. Think about it, Steve, what's she's been through. It catches up. 

He figured Robin might know something he didn't, hurtful though it was. He'd dropped it.

“You were dating around and Nancy was missing Jon. El was gone, Hop was gone. Max was totally checked out. And I started wondering, like..”

Your eyes were wet, now, voice a little choked. Steve brushed your cheek and that seemed to give you the resolve to keep going.

“I started to worry that I would never find someone that could really know me. That I couldn't ever really move on and grow up because the people that did know me were all…” 

You gestured vaguely into the air.

“I felt so out of place all of a sudden. And for the first time since I got here I just wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to where I made sense. Even though I didn't like my life before…”

Steve's heart broke at the thought that you'd felt so abandoned. He could kick himself for being so flip about it back then.

Your story took you over then. It was so cemented in your mind, it might have been inscribed on tablets.

You'd blinked. One minute you were at the mouth of the gate. The next minute you were in some sort of cathedral. But it was in ruins. The exposed sky was red. The air was stale..lightning flashed a deeper crimson across the sky.

There were pews made of shaley stone. What would have once served as a wall was crumbled around the arrangement.

He stood at the pulpit, a stone monument, cracked with angry looking clefts glowing with smoldering fire. He clutched each side of it, staring you down.  

He breathed your name in a dulcet huff. 

“You don't belong. You belong nowhere. You're a reprobate. Abominable. An orphan in time.”

He was hideous. And massive. You hadn't seen him until now. You'd only heard conjecture on what his visage might look like.

He was slimy and twisted and hairless. The sinews of his skin were a swampy gray, eyes ringed with red. For his florid yet cruel indictment of you, he was foul. You could taste him just by looking at him.

You were paralyzed with revulsion and fear. You were worried that you might actually pee your pants.

“You have nowhere to return to. You absconded from your problems, as you've always done. But I have nothing but good news for you.” 

You glanced around, not daring to move your head. You only saw more waste, more nothingness, more anger and despair scratched into the landscape that surrounded you. You wanted to go home.

Suddenly you knew where home was. It had never been so clear. It was with the people that had held and kept you since you'd been sucked through a leak in space-time.

“You can make a home here. You can join my menagerie. You'll never suf-”

“Don't listen to him, Ladybug,” came a sharp, familiar voice behind you, coated in the accent of her mother country.

You spun to meet her eyes...Your grandmother was sitting on one of the rock pews. She looked as elegant and warm as ever. She was wearing the satin wrap dress she wore to Easter mass the last year she was alive.

You stumbled over to her. She stood and opened her arms as you fell into her.

Suddenly you forgot that you were in a red-tinged hell scape with a slimy vampire at your back. Wherever this was, wherever she was, was a sort of paradise.

You held her tight. You could smell her familiar shalimar perfume over the fetid ozone stink of this place. The wings of her upper arms were soft in the crooks of your elbows. She shushed your crying and stroked your hair.

It was her. You knew, beyond what it was to know, that it was her.

You heard Creel growl behind you, startling you out of your grandmother's arms. She held fast to you and tilted your chin to look at her. You heard the air around you twist like warped steel, Creel’s voice laced through it, muddled and distorted to something imperceptible.

“He is a liar. He will lie to deceive you.” Her accent made it sound like “day-seef.” 

You missed her. You missed the way she talked. You missed how severe she was when she wanted to make a point.

She'd found you. Outside of time and space and a living vessel, she'd found you in this hopeless place.

Her eyes burned into yours. “Your father is fine. He knows you are fine. He doesn't know how he knows, but I've seen to it.”

You could hear that desperate argumentative groaning trying to pierce through. Your head was hurting. You had pressure in your ears.

“Your place is with your friends. Never stop thinking of them and you will never lose.”

The world around you started to crumble and fall away. You saw those big spires of rock around you crash into the ground.

You gripped her hands that held your face. “I love you,” you sobbed.

She smiled at you as everything caved in. You closed your eyes and felt her kiss your forehead. 

When you opened them again, you saw Steve. He was cradling you and hyperventilating. He seemed to register that you were back. Relief washed over his face and his breathing returned to normal.

“Did I pee my pants?” 

Steve had the courtesy to glance down to your upper-thigh region.

“If you did, it must not have been a lot.”

You broke into a sob and let him hug you while your friends rallied to get you away from the gate.

From then on out, you heeded your grandmother’s advice. You never stopped thinking of your friends and you didn't fail…You got Hop and El back. 

You had your friends.

You had Steve.

You had shut your eyes while telling Steve the story but you opened them now. You turned your head to face him.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” you told him through tears. “I didn't know how.”

Steve didn't know what to say. He stared at you with gentle eyes. He didn't want you to cry anymore. 

He kissed you lightly and stroked your side. “It's okay. I get it.”

He did get it. He understood all at once why you couldn't tell them back then. You didn't want to make it about you. 

Max was still in danger. The world was still in danger. You'd been gifted a secret weapon that you had to wield and you didn't want anyone to hear what you'd seen and tell you that you'd been bamboozled by Creel and blunt your weapon with doubt. 

You'd known in your heart that it was real. Steve knew now because you knew. 

You were tired then. Well and truly sleepy. Steve accepted you into his arms.

You two fell into silence, breathing in tandem, stroking each other.

You felt Steve's chin wag on the top of your head when he asked “What do you think will happen on your 20th birthday?”

You smiled into his chest. You loved that Steve-flavored curiosity whenever it showed itself.

“I dunno, Stevie. Maybe nothing. But if anything does, you'll be there to find out with me, right?”

He scratched lines up your back as he answered.

“Can’t wait.”

(⁠/⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠(⁠^⁠ ⁠^⁠*⁠)⁠/

[muspellssynir]

Flowers bloom in strange places

I didn't like it enough for AO3 so here you go

AisxOC

He was mesmerizing.

Laughing around who seem to be his friends and the weird charismatic boss man of the bar, taking drinks no one else would dare, picking up challenges just for the sake of it.

He looked like so much fun.

Alain was staring so hard he felt his own drink dribble off his lips and onto his shirt, making him slam his glass against the counter as he wiped his mouth furiously.

He was making a fool of himself. He was way too good at that but in time he learned how to be unapologetic about it. He was clumsy and daydreamed way too much, often out of conversations he was having.

Still, he didn't wanna look like an idiot right now. Maybe after they exchanged names at least.

Ah, but that would take coming closer and he might not be sorry for who he was but he was, in fact, not the kind of man that would interrupt a conversation to steal someone's company.

He felt the piercing sensation of eyes staring through the back of his head and turned to see the handsome stranger gazing at him, scarlet red eyes in softer red eyeliner and a curious quirk in his scarred brow. Shit, he must have noticed him staring.

Alain couldn't think, only pulled his long almost white blind hair behind his ears and smiled shyly at him.

He might or might not have included a little kiss at the end. He couldn't even tell. It would be so embarrassing if he did.

The stranger's eyes widened before he got called back into the conversation, and Alain could swear his cheeks just reddened slightly.

Cute. He chuckled to himself and went back to his drink and his notebook, designing flower arrangements in impressively accurate sketches.

He asked for an ashtray after his drink and got told it was a non-smoking establishment: sighing, he got up to leave for the alley at the side door for a second. The habit was horrible and expensive and still came to him too intently for him not to listen.

He shrugged off the sensation of the piercing gaze against him.

He shouldn't have, as it cost him his last smoke.

“Have you lost something, little mouse?” Alain heard and effectively eeked as his body flinched in fear and flicked his just lit cigarette into a puddle of mystery liquid in the sidewalk he was not willing to get anything from.

Well. Fuck.

“Holy f-” he started but soon let his voice mellow down as a nervous grin took place. “Ah, well, that was my last cigarette, so… yeah, I'd say so.”

the stranger chuckled with a smug half smile that made him so enchanting he couldn't stop himself from staring again.

More so when he felt the stranger's calloused warm hand on his, taking the matches so softly it felt intentional to light up a cigarette of his own before handing it to him.

The smoke around his eyes made him look so eerily beautiful Alain took a moment before noticing the gesture; the tip was softly pressed down and smelled of spiced whiskey.

He lost himself in thought imagining the taste of those lips in his, maybe tender, maybe hungry, all so desired.

“My bad, I guess, but doesn't explain the way you kept staring at me.” The man retorted and Alain only grinned, the smoke circling around his smile making his hazel eyes look oddly light.

“Ah that. Well…” he started, giggling as he felt his cheeks start to turn into embers. Was it hot out there or was it just him? “You're attractive. Very much so. Very nice to look at, so…” he clicked his tongue and forced himself not to look away. “So I kept looking.”

Ais was taken aback for a second, maybe because of his fabricated boldness, maybe because he might not get those kinds of words directed at him much, seeing how they take his words away.

“You're- bold, little mouse. And not very smart.” He smiled to himself, licking his lips slowly before turning to him. “That kind of taste in men is gonna bring you to not so nice places.”

“Can it take you first so I can walk behind you?” Alain hinted and it took A while until Ais's face picked up that cute red shade on his cheeks and up the tip of his ears.

Red did look good on him.

He huffed and looked away, his lips pursed in a pout, not knowing what to say for the longest minute.

“You're a curious little thing, aren't you?” He started and his tone sounded more defensive than inviting, as if Alain's interest had startled him so much he didn't know how to react.

“I am. You can feed my curiosity whenever.” Alain added and made him stutter. Oh that was precious! He needed so much more of that! He giggled and waved him off. “I'm playing with you, it's okay: you're incredibly adorable when you're embarrassed like that.” He grinned at him so fully and it only made Ais go redder for some reason.

He wasn't really used to niceties, was he?

“You're standing in front of someone who could destroy you and calling him adorable-”

“Well you are!” He interrupted. Fuck his power and his strength and whatever he can do that Alain didn't bother finding out. He was a thing out of his dreams. Wet or otherwise. “And You're so intelligent too, you shifted in between languages - mind you, I didn't understand shit but still impressive- after like ten thousand drinks and did I hear you work at a clinic??? I'm-”

“Ok, you need to stop-” Ais tried, trying to catch a breath as he ranted as if he's been crushing for ages and didn't just find him at a random bar.

Unfortunately he didn't miss the end of the rant.

“You're absolutely the kind of man baby traps happen for.”

Ais started chuckling, before blowing into a full laugh, flushed red and leaning on the brick wall and having trouble keeping his gaze on Alain without making it worse on himself. “You're…. Fuck you're embarrassing. You're absolutely embarrassing, do you not have a fucking filter?”

“Oh I did, not the right size, fell off at some point and I never got it back.” He grinned at the man who still struggled in between wanting to look at him and blushing just by meetting his eyes.

“I uh…” Ais tried to compose himself, running his hand through his hair nervously and lighting another cigarette. “I… I can't deal with you” he shook his head before grinning to himself.

“You're fucking something else.”

“I'm not but I'd like to.” Alain taunted and got a scoff in response, the smile too obvious to be hidden, fangs flashing under the moonlight.

“you know what? Here” Ais chucked the pack of cigarettes at him and by the time Alain finished fidgeting with them in the air, his clumsiness be damned, he was already nothing but a shadow stretching under the streetlights.

He scoffed and pulled the cigarettes onto his nose, feeling the soft spiced scent of musk and sea salt, maybe on the box, maybe just ingrained into his brain.

There was nothing there in that bar for him anymore that night.

Alain chuckled realizing Ais kept the matches he brought from his shop and walked back home.

The next day he found a bouquet of red spider lillies at the doorstep of his shop, a flower that grew only in the outer lands where he wouldn't even dare to step. He whistled back into his shop and braided one of them into his long hair, putting the whole bouquet on a beautiful red stained glass vase as a centerpiece.

They got so many compliments.

For some reason Alain felt watched all that day. He didn't quite mind.

A handsome man's attention always made him feel worthy of the looks, even from the eyes above he couldn't see.

[naoknowswhat]

I made a Clover sketch tonight, look at him I love him (and i also really like how it turned out wth)

and IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE THIS ITTY BITTY TINY MAN. i would NOT hesitate to die for him in a situation where such methods are needed.

Now before you continue I warn you the following is basically me rambling about how much I fucking love undertale yellow heheheh (Also a lot of spoilers ahead).

I have spent the whole day playing this stupid (fantastic, amazing, marvelous) game, I kid you not that I went from the end of the ruins to the fucking steamworks, which said out loud doesn't sound like a lot of time but uhhh for me it was if you consider that I've investigated EVERY FUCKING INCH OF THE MAP.

I'm not complaining, oh ho ho (merry Xmas) I'm not complaining because its been the most fun I've had playing a game in a WHILE, its made my life better and now im gonna spend the rest of the year (and probably more) obsessed over all the characters and their stories (mostly Clover and Martlet ngl).

But I gotta admit that even if I find the Ut yellow's characters a lot different than the ones from the original game, I can't help but love them the same. Look, I'm no expert on character design but I smile every time I see Martlet comment something or simply being on screen, I start laughing whenever I see a hint of Mo on any frame, heck you mention any of the characters and I immediately start smiling like an idiot, and the whole scene with North Star? The Feisty Five?? CEROBA?? I died, the moment I stepped on the town I fucking died.

I remember being really, REALLY into undertale when I was like 10-11 years old, and suddenly opening yt one day and watching my favourite YouTuber play the demo of this fan game, and i remember thinking "oh wow that game looks really cool!" Simply because of the concept of watching how it was like for any of the other souls to go through the underground, instead of Frisk. AND NOW, YEARS LATER I GET TO PLAY IT BY MYSELF, you don't know how special this game is for me.

For me it isn't only a fan game, or the story of another fallen human, for me it's getting an opportunity to enjoy the main thing that inspired me back the from zero, getting to learn about new characters, about new stories, and new perspectives. For me it's also getting an opportunity to meet them all, to be their "friend" and to live an adventure all by myself because back then i could only sit and watch everyone else do all the things i wanted to do, because back then i could only look at them all having fun, laughing with the good things and crying with the bad memories while separated through a screen.

Today I got to meet them all and to laugh with the unexpected dialogue, while learning that even in a fictional story not everything is painted in bright pink, I saw them get into trouble and also helped them overcome it, and it was amazing.

I also got to die and die and die again and again because I realised at the beginning of the game that I'm really bad at it (i cant blame the controller, I know it :( ), but it also made me promise myself that i would keep going no matter what, because i really wanted to see what's next. Heck you could say I kept going because of my determination ;).

I haven't finished the game yet, but I already know I'm gonna replay it over and over, I wanna catch every detail, investigate and discover every mystery, and i wanna make so many theories already, I CAN'T WAIT TO LOVE THIS GAME.

So for now have a not-so-quick sketch of Clover, the bearer of the yellow soul, the one who has quickly made way into my heart, and it seems the little shit is now living there rent free.

If you've read all the way to the end wth is wrong with you, and also thanks a lot for the attention, I was really excited to talk about this game to someone but didn't know how to do it, so I figured tumblr was the place pla to write for an hour, so the short-drawing post is now my review of the game hehehehe.

Anyway thanks for reading to the very end, I hope you have an amazing rest of the year, and most importantly a great begining of the new one <3.

[slitheringss]

24 Days of Gift Giving

Prompt by: @creativepromptsforwriting

Prompt List

Featuring my black!OC for a Levi X OC (author insert) future fic called And Yet, In Spite Of It All or AYISOIA. Thought it'd be fun to do a few drabbles for them while I outline and finish plotlines.

SOME lore for future reference: Mori is my OC's name, and she is a 'Guardian' that has been trapped on Earth. Guardians are 'biblically accurate angles', but they do not serve God but are protectors of the afterlife; extensions of Death itself. Their main purpose, though there is a 'hierarchy', is to guard the passage in between life and death, guiding the souls to death and fighting 'demons'. After a series of events, Mori is trapped in the mortal realm with a demon who she takes prisoner. She eventually befriends Levi and ends up joining the Scout Regiment. Meanwhile she learns what it means to be human and falls in love.

Okay, so now that that's out the way, I hope you enjoy these!

Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Blackfem!OC

Content Warnings: Fluff, idiots in love, Alternative Universe- Angels & Demons (?) + Supernatural/Vampires

Prompt: Taking pictures when the other’s not watching

WC: 632

Charcoal lines danced across the page as long, calloused fingers looped and twisted in sharp yet precise marks.

She needed to be quick, as this was spur of the moment- a moment too sublime to dismiss.

The subject of her current piece, though this was far from their first rendition upon her pages, would eventually move. Not at all ruining-never ruining-the chance for an opportune sketch, but because they were important and so duty called upon them, taking them from her watchful eyes.

Her muse, a few feet away from where she rested against the dark, cool stone of the main building of the Scout Regiment, was tending to his mare. A lovely and frankly sweetheart of a horse who stood only a few heads higher than them. Levi Ackerman stood tentatively as he fed her a slice of an apple, palms flat as the mare dipped her head happily towards the offering.

Mori tried -and failed- to suppress the small smile pulling at her lips seeing the way his usually darkened eyes softened; almost childlike innocence sparkling as the mare ate from his hand. He looked younger in this moment, and Mori felt the beginnings of the eternal burn the soft lining of her throat.

Eyes that often reflected the soot and ash that she was oh so familiar with. The remnants of fires she's caused and fires set by the ones who only wished for everything and one to burn. Only to stand, alone, against the aftermath clinging to their skin, the smoke in their throat choking their airways. Loss, so deep, and continually draining, like that of water from a spigot. Taking and taking till one thinks there's nothing else left to take, only to be proven wrong time and time again. For one would take one look and think of tragedy.

But no tragedy was here. Only the visage of a man, at current, peace. Long-lived ghosts would find their way back, taking residence locked away behind cold eyes. But just as they would find their way, she would once again find herself at his side as well.

So yes, in a moment of his vulnerability, she guided her hands across the page. Firm dark lines detailing his sharp jawline yet lightening around softened features, such as his cheeks and hair. Pressing just a tad harder on the line strokes of his eyes to help emphasize what had prompted this drawing in the first place. To allow another memory of the man to be kept safely. A memento. For the times when she was not at his side to soak in the presence of the proprietor of her heart.

--------------

While his attention had stayed glued to his horse, hands running down her strong neck, he did his best not to glance at the women sketching afar. Whatever had caught her attention had her scribbling swiftly. Her supple lips pinched between her teeth, brows dipping together in concentration. She didn't stop, even as loose curly dark strands fell framing her battle seasoned face. Sunbeams, streaming through the leaves of a nearby tree, dappled her and highlighted her in a halo of pure light. Levi was not a religious man, but in that moment, holiness was her name. And in all her grandeur, Levi could not help but take a mental picture of her. To keep for those moments when she was not in his reach. She was at peace and tucked away, safe, for now. This world was cruel and yet, in spite of it all, he'd found something else to treasure.

--------------

Mercy could only watch her two idiots (affectionate) in amusement. While the apple was delicious, she was far more interested in sharing this particular treat with Pleiades. He was sure to get a kick out of this.

If you liked this, leave a like, reblog, or comment!

I have no planned release date for the actual story, so I hope you enjoy these samples until it's ready :)

See you again soon! o/

[bella-goths-wife]

Crush

Yandere cullens x reader

Tw- gore, death, reader being abused, sick family dynamics, animal death

You trailed behind Jasper as he grasped your cold hand. He had always felt the need to hold your hand in busy hallways, it made him feel better. You were about to yank your hand away but your mood flipped like a switch and an idiotic smile forced its way on your lips

He always did this, whenever you felt uncomfortable he would make your mood more convenient for him.

You snapped out of it when you were bumped into by a distracted walker, she smiles apologetically and walks away while Jasper glares daggers at her. You yank your hand away and he looks confused

“I have chemistry now” you remind him “you have p.e your going the opposite direction”

“Can’t you just skip?” Jasper asks annoyed as emmet joins him and puts an arm around you

“Yeah little sis, come join us” emmet tries to convince you but you just shake your head

“Last time I did that, neither one of you defended me when Carlisle scolded me” you sighed out as you separated yourself from them

“(Y/n)” emmet calls your name and you turn your head “behave yourself, little sis”

You nodded and made your way to your class. As you stepped through the doors you noticed someone sitting in the seat next to yours.

He was a short boy with brown curly hair, he saw you and pulled a small, polite smile.

“Hey there” he greets you as you sit down “you must be my new lab partner, I’m Brad”

“(Y/n)” you greet politely and shake his hand before turning away and looking at the board

“You always sit with the cullens kids, your their sister right?” He asks and you just nod “you don’t talk much, huh?”

You shake your head. You don’t want this boy to die all because you engaged in polite small talk. You feel him moving and hear him scribbling. You don’t pay attention to him until half an hour into the lesson he tugs in your sleeve.

You turn to see a small sketch of a baby deer on the inside of brads work book. You look at him curious and find the paper to be dedicated to you. You turn your head and he just gives you a cheeky smile.

“Because of your eyes” he explains playfully “you remind me of a deer”

You blush red and hide your face from his peering gaze. He rips the page and grabs your hand before placing the paper in your palm. Your heart would have beat at the contact

“Thank you” you say flustered while he just chuckles

You try and listen to the teacher but all you can listen to is brads heartbeat increasing every time you looked at him, he was nervous too.

As the bell rang you rose from your seat but Brad takes your bag in his hands. You look at him but he just takes your hand and leads you out the classroom. As you exit the classroom your hand remains in his.

“I’ll walk you to lunch” he says as he nudges you with his shoulder “you can keep chatting my ear off”

You let out a small giggle and he gives an exaggerated shocked gasp

“She laughs” he says shocked “it’s a miracle”

“Shut up” you replied back playfully as you kept walking “so what’s the plan, woo me over a lukewarm lunch meal?”

“Who says I’m wooing you” he questions playfully “maybe your the one seducing me? With your big eyes and complete silence? Who could resist”

You let out a loud laugh but you catch yourself as you see the entrance to the lunch hall. You let go of brads hand and walk away but to your dismay he follows you, thinking it’s a game.

You approach your siblings at your usual table and they smile at you, all except Edward. He was too focused on someone behind you.

“Hey, you” he shouts to Brad who was looking like a lost puppy “come sit with us”

“What are you doing?!” Rosalie hissed out as she pulled you down to your chair before you could wave Brad away “why are you inviting a human over”

“Seems like our baby sister has a crush” Edward answers darkly “we should at least get to know the guy”

Brad sits down next to you and Rosalie pulls your chair closer to her passive aggressively. You shoot brad a pleading look to walk away but he didn’t understand, everyone at the table glares at him

“What’s your name kid?” Jasper asks with a cruel smirk

“Brad” he answers while looking at you with a smile “I’m surprised this one hasn’t told you, she’s a real chatterbox”

“He’s joking” you defend yourself fearfully at the thought of them telling Carlisle that you talked to humans

“So Brad” Edward leans closer with a menacing look “your gonna switch chemistry classes”

“Why would I do that?” Brad says confused

“Because we all don’t trust you with our little sister” emmet answers while cracking his knuckles

“It’s not like you’d ever be good enough for her anyway” Rosalie says disgusted “she’s too precious for you to even talk too”

“Fuck you” Brad seethed out as he rose from his chair and stormed off

“Why would you do that?!” You question angrily “he was a nice guy and you all sat here and mocked him”

“Behave sis, you wouldn’t want to get punished” emmet threatened

You look to the exit and make your thoughts known before turning to them

“You can’t do anything here” is all you said before you stormed off to find Brad, your siblings wanted to punish you but it was way to public

They would get you later.

———————————————————————

“Brad!” You called after him when you saw Brad emerge from the library

“Go away (y/n)” was all he said as he kept walking

“I’m so sorry Brad” you apologised and he turned to you with an angry expression “I tried to stop them”

“Fucking incest freaks” he spits out as he continues to walk away “they’re brother fuckers and they judge me?”

“I’m so so sorry” you apologised again with your head down

“Its not your fault” he sighs out “why are they so weird with you?”

“I don’t know” you admitted and he put his hand on your shoulder, you blush slightly

“I’ve gotta get to gym” he says with a smile “I’ll see you around chatterbox”

You nod and smile sadly while watching him leave. Your first ever crush and your family couldn’t even let you enjoy it for more than an hour.

———————————————————————

There’s a knock on your locked bedroom door. You look confused before Carlisle emerges from the other side.

You back away and go into the corner of the room out of fear. Your arms instinctively put your arms over your face defensively. Carlisle sighs and goes to your corner before crouching

“Sweet girl, don’t be afraid” you flinch when he caress your cheek “I’ve brought you a gift”

You look at him with fearful curiosity as he grabs your hand and pulls you up. He forces his arm over you shoulder and drags you to the kitchen

You see Brad sat at the counter with his arms tied behind his back with thick rope and a gag in his mouth.

“We’ve brought your friend home for dinner” Alice says gleefully as she puts her hand on his shoulders with her nails sticking in

“You’ve been a bad girl (y/n)” esme says as she emerges from the living room with a disappointed frown “talking to humans is against the rules”

“I won’t do it again I promise” you cry out as you go to Brad and watch him struggle against his restraints “let him go, it’s not his fault”

“He’s corrupted you” Edward slams his fist on the counter and breaks it “all he thought about when he was with you was your body, why would he be interested in you beyond that”

“It’s not like you give enough conversations to the humans to like you for your charming personality” emmet snickers out cruelly as they all tainted you

Brad furiously shook his head in disagreement as you put your head down in shame and embarrassment.

“Shall we get the entertainment” Alice squeals out while she claps her hand excitedly

They all pull you and Brad through to the living room. They forcefully pull you to the couch and sit around you but Brad is forced onto a seat in the centre of the room.

“First up” Edward announces “your punishment”

Emmet comes through with a beautiful little Robin. You knew this bird, you had connected with this bird through your power to ask it to sing for you. They knew that and you knew what came next.

You felt your connection with the bird force it’s way to the surface as it felt like your soul intertwined with its.

“You know what happens now” Carlisle sighs out as he takes the small bird in the palm of his hands, you feel the birds fear and anxiousness as tears well up in your eyes

Carlisle slowly uses his strength to crush the bird and you yell in agony. Your neck feels as though it’s the one being crushed as your head feels pulses of pain expand from your brain. As the bird lets out it’s last breath your neck forces a sigh and you feel devoid of breath even if you didn’t need to breath.

Rosalie pulls you face to lean on her shoulder while you grip your throat in pain. The pain eventually leaves but the birds dead body is left on the coffee table

“It’s okay baby” Rosalie shush’s “it’s gone now”

You cry harder and Brad looks at you terrified and confused. They pull him to face you before emmet goes behind him

“Baby sis’s first crush” Emmett laughs out as he puts his hands on brads shoulders “get a picture Alice”

The flash on Alice’s camera shocks you and Brad as you rub your eyes. The photo comes out and Alice sighs affectionately while putting it in your ‘scrap book’

Before you realise what’s happening, you see Emmett’s hands go on the side of brads face and he begins to press. Brad screams in agony as his head is slowly compressed, blood spurts out onto your face when his face is flattened. Small pieces of brain matter landed on your face as Rosalie pulls out a napkin and wipes your face gently.

“Smile sis” Alice says as the camera flashes on your shocked, terrified face.

Alice sticks the photo in the scrap book with “baby sis first ‘crush’” with crush in air quotations. You look at your face on the photo and then hear your families cruel, mocking laughter

They treat the situation as a party and dance around while laughing. You look at brads body and clutch the drawing he gave you in your pocket.

You make eye contact with Carlisle who just smirks and then Edward steps in front of you and smiles cruelly. One thought springs to mind

I need to get the fuck out of here

Hope you enjoyed :)

Love ya ❤️

[sunny6677]

Romantic Tropes With The Eddsworld Boys! Part 1.

Mutual Pining.

TW: Slight profanity, h3nt@1 mentions.

Edd:

- Edd had found himself growing an adoration for you over the past few months. He didn't know why, but ever since you came along, he had been smiling a lot more. Something about you just brought him so much joy.. to the point where he found himself sketching you in his sketchbook a lot more than he should.

- Your eyes, your smile, your laughter. All the little details about you that no one, not even you had noticed except for him. Anytime he thought about you, his cheeks felt warm. Anytime he had seen you, they felt warm. You just.. made him feel so good, but he couldn't understand why.

- And then, like a wrecking ball, it had hit him when he was ranting to Tom about his confusion over why he felt the way he did about you.

- "You can't be that stupid." The no eyed man's face seemed disappointed as he stared. "No, you can't be that stupi- wait, what do you mean by that?" He cut off his immediate defense in curiosity. "Your in love, you idiot." Tom said, drinking his drink afterwards.

- ...

- "Oh."

- Yeah, let's just say he had a lot of thinking to do that night.

- Ever since then, he had felt a little more.. awkward around you. Constant scratching of the hair, fidgeting with his hands, his face flushed anytime he would talk to you. Yeah, it was Hella obvious to everyone except you.

- He would get nervous anytime you had asked to see his sketchbook, afraid of the little doodles he would always do of you being seen by your eyes.

- Oddly enough, you had been asking to hang with him a lot more.. it made him a bit nervous, but it made him happy too, so he had always said yes to your invites.

- You, on the other hand, were nervous as shit too. How you had managed to hide it so well? No fucking idea.

- You loved everything about him just as much as he loved everything about you. The little smile he did anytime he saw Cola, his big grin anytime he saw Cola, his gaze anytime he was focused on drawing something..

- Both of you were absolutely smitten for eachother, and the others knew it all too well. For some reason, the both of you seemed to always excuse the others obvious behavior around eachother as literally anything else except being into eachother. And boy oh boy, that made them very annoyed.

- You had excused a literal drawing of you Edd had given as a gift with little hearts surrounding you as him just being nice. He had also excused you being oddly touchy around him as you just being nice. The others were literally tempted to tell you guys, just so the two of you would date already.

- But it would appear one night their prayers were finally answered.

- It had been a night where the two of you had been hanging out again. The lights were off in the living room, the TV was on, and the others were passed out in different areas. Tom, on the chair. While Tord was laying his head on Matt's shoulder. The two of you were still awake as the movie you had all been watching still played.

- A rather stupid line had came up during one of the scenes, and you quietly cracked a joke about it while giggling as softly as you could as not to disturb the others. As you looked to Edds face, something about the way his face looked then had made you burn up..

- The half lidded stare he gave you, the relaxed smile and adoring eyes. That blush dusted across his face... you didn't know why he was blushing, but it made you a bit.. flustered on the inside.

- Looking away, red-faced, you began to try and move foward with watching the movie. He awkwardly agreed, and it left you two in silence for a while. Love. The word was so simple, yet the feeling was so powerful. The repeated image of his expression kept going in your head, making you have to refrain yourself from making any squealing noises.

- After a few silent minutes into the movie, a confession scene between the two characters had come up. After a full hour of them pining for eachother, they had finally confessed to one another. While Edd was smiling in the spot he sat in, you had fidgeted with your hands.

- Something told you to.. go for it in that moment. As cheesy as it was, somehow that scene had given you motivation. Before you could think any further, you then spoke; "Edd." The brown haired male turned to you, "Yes?" There was no going back now.

- You inhaled, and began to speak; "Uhh.. i- I don't know how your going to react to this. You.. probably don't even feel the same way, but I wanted to get it off my chest. The tru- the truth is.. i.. I'm in love with you. A lot.. you.. you have the right to say no if you want, but.."

- A gentle touch on your shoulder had interrupted what you were about to say, a touch so soft it made you tense up almost. "Hey, n-no worries.. i.." His soft English voice had said, "I like you too."

- In that moment, it felt as if the entire world faded away from the two of you. "You.. you do? I mean- i- o-of course you do! N-Not that is thought you were going to anyway, I just.. argh, sorry, I sound so stupid right now.." You stuttered, looking down at your hands.

- He laughed softly, "N-No, no you dont.. i.. I think you sound adorable." He smiled, immediately feeling the embarrassment wash over him afterwards. The two of you were now facing eachother, falling silent every few seconds.

- Edd then placed his hand on yours, your hand tensed, but awkwardly you held his as well. His thumb had rubbed the top of your hand, as the two of you exchanged awkward glances. Sure, this was a bit weird.. but.. it felt a little relieving. The two of you now had it off your chest, and now you knew that for sure, the feeling was mutual.

Matt:

- I don't think a mutual pining trope would be possible with him, considering he comes off as a very confident guy. I don't think he'd even consider that they may not like him back, and just go in blindly confident that they'll like him. So yeah, he won't be getting one unfortunately.

Tord:

- The two of you became the closest of friends after meeting in a comic store, he had made a comment about hentai and you had replied to it not expecting to receive a reply. But that had sparked a conversation, and a few minutes later, the two of you were conversing like there was no tomorrow. Exchanging numbers, Tord went home with the satisfaction of making a new friend.

- It had gotten to the point where the two of you texted ad called almost everyday. Calling almost every night, texting every hour. It was like the two of you never ran out of things to say to eachother.

- Tom had teased Tord about it, and of course Tord had gotten defensive over it. But he didn't really seem to care either way, as he just kept texting you with an eager smile on his face. You two had cracked so much jokes, to the point where he couldn't really keep himself from laughing. He had laughed so much at a joke you made on time that he nearly dropped his phone.

- One night, the two of you had been on call again. It was 3 in the damn morning, and you couldn't go to bed cuz you just.. for some reason neither of you wanted to. It was kinda like you two were stuck together. He had been joking around and one point, and you just listened with sparkles in your eyes.

- You loved hearing him talk. His sleepy, raspy voice with a norweigan accent had made you feel so.. safe. His chaotic, yet funny personality had made you smile a lot more than you should have. His appearance was so.. appealing to you.

- Wait.. surely you couldn't be-

- "Y/N? Y/N~?" His norweigan voice had called out your name, making you snap out of your thoughts. "Ah, sorry dude- i- I kinda lost myself in my own thoughts for a few seconds." You immediately responded, as your eyes widened with your newfound discovery.

- You were crushing on some hentai addicted guy, who you had only known for about like 2 months. Oh boy..

- Ever since then, you had found yourself a little more awkward and emotionally responsive anytime you received a text or call from him. It had also reached far enough in your friendship that the two of you could visit eachothers house now. So occasionally he would invite you to his house to hang out, or he'd ask to come to yours.

- One night, while he had decided to stay over at your house for a few days or so, you had been talking and he had been listening intently. You started giggling while the two of you had been joking around again, and he grinned; "Why the hell do you laugh like that?" He had said in a rather endearing tone.

- "Pfff- what- what do you mean?" You asked, curious as to what he meant by that. "Your laugh sounds like a bird-" He chuckled while saying that. You wheezed, "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Am i Twitter now?" Quickly, you then proceeded to laugh more.

- Joking about you secretly being Twitter, you leaned towards him as you chuckled. Wrapping an arm around him, unable to control yourself with your laughter, you wiped an amused tear away from your eye.

- It was in that moment he had realized, the soft smile on his face had faded into a flustered expression. He had realized something.

- Did he.. like you?

- Nervously laughing as you kept talking, trying to seem as if he was listening, the memories of both you and him had played inside his head. It all made sense now. But.. what did this mean for your friendship now? You didn't seem like you liked him, yet he couldn't be so sure.

- As you slept in a seperate bed that night, and he played Minecraft trying to keep himself awake so he could think more, he thought about it. What should he do now that he knew that he liked you? By the time you woke up, he still hadn't figured it out. Well.. because he kinda passed out next to your bed with Minecraft still on, but whatever.

- He decided to look up what to do. Trying to flirt usually just made you think it was in a joking sense, seemingly considering you just flirted back with an amused smile. Sending subtle hints went over your head. Him holding your hand well.. didnt really do much to you seemingly, but it did do a lot to him.

- The red hoodied man knew he was hopelessly in love, but he just didn't know what to do about it to make you actually get the hint or make you like him. Meanwhile, you did like him back, but any hint or flirt that went your way made you just think he was joking around. And hurt you even more.

- Edd tried giving the guy advice, Matt too, while Tom just watched with an entertained smile. He never thought his rival would be in love, and he didn't know why he enjoyed watching his despair about you possibly not liking him so much.

- On a night in December, you hadn't been having a particularly great day. Tord had been flirting a lot more than usual which just made you feel hurt, you had heard him denying any possibility that he might have liked you to a complete stranger who had mistaken the two of you as a couple, you had been treated rudely by many people today, etc.

- Tord tried to comfort you, even if he didn't know why you were even upset. But then, as if a total ton of your heart had spilled out, you had blurted; "I don't know, I don't know man! Maybe if you actually realized I liked you, it would make me a feel a teensy bit better!"

- A few seconds passed by as you breathed heavily, you realized what you had said. Warmth had flooded your face, but more tears had flooded your eyes than the blood rushing to your face. "Wha- what? You.. you like me?" He muttered.

- "I- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made you spend the night with me today.. I should just go-" A force on your hand had stopped you from turning and running off, making you turn back in surprise. "W-Wait! Don't go! I.." He trailed off, and gently pulled himself closer.

- "I like you too.." He averted his gaze, whilst blushing in the midst of your eyes on him. You widened your eyes, "Wha.. you don't have to try and make me feel better, dude.. you denied it earlier this-" His voice cut you off again, "I know I did.. I didn't want to admit it to a total stranger. I didn't think you actually liked me back.."

- "You.. didn't think I liked you back?" Awkwardly, you smiled and nervously laughed. "Dude, what do you think I was so affectionate for?" He began to laugh a bit too, but the awkwardness stayed stiff in the air. "I- I don't know, I just assumed you were being you.." He smiled softly, looking away still.

- "Heh..eheh.. are you.. are you sure you like me back? You can tell me if you don't, I promise-" "Y/N, baby.. look, I like you, alright? I know that somehow you didn't think I liked you back, but i can tell you that I really do love you." He cut of you off, eyes full of genuineness. "And I mean that. We could even start a relationship.. if you want." He stumbled on his words, seeming unsure whether you wanted that or not.

- You nodded, and chuckled with a smile; "Y-Yeah.. of course! I'd love to be your girlfriend/boyfriend/partner, Tord!" He smiled again, the two you of you kept exchanging awkward conversation. But.. it felt as if the tension had been lifted off your shoulders. You liked eachother.. a lot. And you could tell this was the beginning of.. well, maybe not something beautiful when others looked at it. But it was the beginning of something beautiful to you both.

Tom:

- It was December when the both of you had met, Tom felt himself suffer as he watched all the Christmas decorations being put up. He looked up blankly as Edd put up the decorations. He felt like destroying it all with his harpoon gun, but he still somewhat cared about how they felt, so he didn't say much.

- You had been a stranger walking back to your not so far away house, and you stopped to look at the decorations. They were beautiful, so you decided to admire them. Tom noticed you immediately as he drank the hot coco that was alcohol, but Edd replaced it with hot coco because he didn't exactly like when he was drunk. He also didn't want him to almost destroy an entire town again so..

- You noticed him looking back, and gave him a thumbs up with a smile. He wasn't sure of how to respond, this hadn't ever happened before. So he awkwardly smiled back.

- The first time you two actually began to talk was the next month when you had seen eachother in a guitar shop. He was there because for some reason Matt needed a guitar for most likely one of his stupid antics again, and you were there because you wanted to practice guitar but didn't have one.

- When he had said "Lame." like always, you responded with "Cool." This was due to the fact that somehow Matt has already learnt a song on guitar. How? Do.. don't question it.

- The two of you somehow began talking from there, and surprisingly, he found himself kind of enjoying your company. You too didn't really have much of a fondness for Christmas, but not like a hatred or anything, you just didn't like it. You named your Guitar immediately upon buying it. And you also were a person who got drunk often. The only thing not alike in you two was your personalities.

- You exchanged numbers, and talked pretty often. But it was more of you just going over to his house or him going over to your house than the two of you talking to eachother on the phone.

- Tord immediately took notice of this, and began to tease him as much as he could, which would often earn him a punch or two. Edd did in fact point out how much he was going over to your house a lot though, and you were coming to their house a lot as well. Edd seemed happy that Tom had actually found someone he enjoyed the company of though.

- But unlike the others who took a bit of time to realize how they felt, it immediately clicked to him after a few weeks of knowing you. There was only reason someone could make him that happy.. and that was the rare occasion of him being in love.

- Nothing really changed about his behavior towards you unsurprisingly, only being a bit more closed off to you. In secret, he kind of planned to make you a song, but quickly crossed off the idea because he thought it sounded dumb. He figured that you probably didn't like him back anyway.

- As for you, it clicked one day when you had come over to his house again. Edd and Matt had surprisingly got into an argument over something, and Tord joined in solely for the sake of causing more trouble. The two of you watched from the sidelines, with a slightly entertained look on your face and a blank look on his. In that moment, you had asked if he wanted to just go to his room and hang out there.

- He agreed, just because he didn't really wanna get involved in the fight on accident anyway. So the two of you left off to his room, and began to just converse there. You pointed out his guitar, and asked if he could play a little something for you. He declined at first, but agreed to after some pleading.

- His voice was oddly calm and soothing, but it could get rough and loud when it needed to. He sang the lyrics, and you watched in awe as his fingers strummed along the guitar strings. As a sense of joy overflowed you, you had realized something.. oh shit, you were in love. With an emo British boy.

- Unlike the others, your mutual pining was actually pretty chill? Yeah, you didn't think he liked you back considering he just didn't seem like that type of person, but ya didn't freak out just in his presence or anything. And nor did he.

- I mean yeah, you did kinda tense up or blush a little if he slightly touched you considering he didn't exactly do that often, but you were fine. You on the other hand did touch people often(or at least more than he did if you aren't a very affectionate person), so there would only be a slight blush when you did that to Tom.

- The confession had only happened upon you having a casual conversation with the man. Calm as ever, you smoothly went; "Oh yeah, by the way I love you man." With a chuckle. He responded, "Yeah, I know. You tell me that all the time." But then you went, "Well yeah, but I mean it in a lovey-dovey type of way this time man."

- That was enough to make him spit out his drink, and make you burst into laughter. "Hahaha! Oh, oh.. sorry. Had to bring it up at some point." You wheezed as his now white eyes looked at you in shock. "Dont worry, don't worry, it's fine if ya don't like me back. I'd understand if you'd rather be with Susan." You joked, well- you yourself really didn't care if he liked you or not, but was figuring he probably didn't.

- To your surprise, he said: "Well, you'll be relieved to know I like you too.. I guess." He looked away, red dusted on his cheeks. Now that wasn't a response you were expecting, but you smiled lightly and blushed softly. "Oh.. well, guess I get a boyfriend after all." You commented with a laugh.

- Overall, you two are probably the chillest couple ever.

[meowriddler]

A/N: HEYYYY YA'LL ITS BEEN A MIN LMAOOO BUT IM BACK NOW YAY FR THO THANK U TO EVERYONE WHO LIKED THIS FIC IT MEANS A LOT ANYWAYS THIS IS PART TWO OF WHO IS SHE

Who is she? Part 2

warning: Edward is lowkey a stalker here but ik u freaks like it, Edward has an episode 🥹, reader has questionable taste in men…

After that incident Edward kept seeing her if only he had enough courage to go up to her and actually talk instead of stealing glances from each other it was never enough for him, he wanted to know her wanted to crawl his way into her heart and mind hoping to stay nested there for all of eternity, even at work Edward couldn’t stop thinking about her, she always invaded  his thoughts it seems as if she bewitched him like a spell that was caused upon him that he never wishes to wear off oh what he would give to see her again to have her attention on him and only him he lets out a dreamy sigh smiling to while sketching what looks like to be a silhouette

Of his mysterious Angel he was too busy lost in thought and didn’t notice the figure coming up behind him Edward flinched when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was his dipshit coworker Zach. He doesn’t hear what he has to say. probably something stupid like that stupid nickname he came up with.

Edward just nods, hoping he would finally leave him alone so he can go back to fantasizing about her, but soon feels empty knowing he most likely would never see her again.

His day has finally came to an end He sits and people watch as always, sometimes wondering what could be behind those lifeless faces. He looks down at his phone, trying to keep himself busy, but when he looks up, there you were in all your glory. Edward couldn’t believe it himself he thinks the stars just aligned for him he then again stares and when u look back he can’t help but get breathless like the wind just got knocked out of his lungs this time though he smiled back instead of looking away that’s some progress, Edward! He thinks to himself, feeling a bit proud. The train stops, and what looked to be her stop, wait she’s leaving?!?wait Edward? She’s walking away?! I just found her I cannot lose her again . I haven’t even realized that I started walking after her. He tried to match his footsteps with hers, not wanting to be seen or heard by her. He felt torn between the fact that what he was doing was wrong and the fact that he was basically stalking someone But also, you're just making sure she arrives home safe! Edward is choosing to believe the latter.

They Finale arrive to her apartment complex he watches her get in and waits, as he sees her lights turn on what looks like to be the sixth floor he will keep that in mind as he stares for a while deciding now would be a good time to head home.

As he enters his home suddenly a wave of dread hits him like a pile of rocks he literally just stalked someone? And tried justifying it, you idiot, you could have just gone up to her and talked to her like a normal human being. God, why can't he be normal? Why isn’t he normal? Because ur incapable of being normal that unknown voice speaks I just want to make a connection he feels tears well up to his eyes why cant he make a connection?! Because you're a fuckup, I’m not a fuckup! covering his ears, hoping that horrible screeching voice would just vanish. You deserve to di, he couldn’t let that thought finish.

Readers pov

It all started when you saw that cute guy from the subway. Something about him seemed so out of place from Gotham’s usual jarring looking people with his innocent cherubic face. You simply thought he was cute, nothing more. But you could feel eye on you now. You could tell he was staring. He isn’t exactly being very discreet. You decided to give him a glance just to let him know you were aware of his antics. He looks like a deer caught in headlights and immediately looking away as if he was caught doing a crime . I find myself smirking amused by his behavior . When He actually decides to make eye contact with me again I couldn’t help but smile that was the first time I’ve seen him and that was how we interacted from now on like unspoken language that only the two of us knew just exchanging glances from one another however the last time I saw him it was a bit different he grew more bold and what I meant by bold is him smiling back like I said bold by his standards but god call me crazy but I found his small smile so what’s the word? dorky? After I left I felt like I was being followed maybe I was being paranoid? I mean, this is Gotham after all; it’s normal to feel like this, right?

A/N thank u for reading!! I hope u guys are enjoying the fic so faralso sorry for any mistakes English isn’t my first language

[loungemermaid]

No.1 Everlark Shipper

for @jhsgf82, based off this post by @goldrushenthusiast and some of the tags/replies I left on there. crossposted to my ao3!!

We’re standing in the disgustingly hot July heat, the sun beating down on us, already burning the tops of our noses. Really, for the sake of all us Townies, the town square should be covered. I’m pale enough, but some of these kids, like little Lottie Sayers over there, are too white to be outside now. She looks like she’s going to burst into flames at any second. I look around at the sea of sweaty necks and brows, looking for a dark braid instead a blonde one. Not for me. For my idiot brother. Everdeen has her hair up in a crown of braids today, and she’s in a pretty little dress, shows off her little waist. The hair and dress make her look sweet, maybe flirty, but she’s (as always) scowling. Can’t imagine why Peeta likes her. She looks fuckin’ mean. Stuck up. Also, the fact she can kill things and drag ‘em through town? Something tells me you’d have to make sure you toed the line with her, or else. Kinda like how Mama is to him. Well maybe that’s it then.

I have heard about Everdeen for comin’ on Eleven Goddamn Years now. I know everything there is to know about this chick that can be known without actually saying a word to her, because he’s never said a word to her. I’ve seen the sketches, the letters, the truly awful attempts at poetry, the (admittedly, pretty good) pencil drawings that took weeks for him to finish scattered across our room for Eleven Years. I’ve heard the soliloquies(see, Mrs. Marks? I’m payin’ attention) practiced in the mirror, the grand planned gestures, the paper flowers and ribbons gathered and then abandoned after Sweetheart’s Day, every instance of young tender love and I could not be more sick of it. It ain’t-isn’t. Isn’t real. Not a lick of it. If it was, he’d talk to her. If she’s too scary, which again, she sure as shit looks that scary, maybe move on? Maybe pick someone different? Hell, it can even be another Seam girl, if that’s what he’s into. Leevy’s got that same little tits and long legs thing. And she actually smiles. But whatever. One day something will break it, and then I won’t have to fuckin’ hear it ever again. 

That weird Trinket woman is just about to pick the girl’s name, and I’m still wondering what it takes to get someone’s hair that big, that pink, that shiny when she reads out the slip. Primrose Everdeen. Well. Shit. I don’t know what this is gonna mean, when her little sister dies. When her dad died, Peeta talked for months about how we needed to help her. I kept telling him it wasn’t the time or place, that the last thing she needed was some over-enthusiastic Townie meddling in her shit. She already had it rough enough. We could tell she was taking care of everyone now. That her mama wasn’t doin shit, and she was the breadwinner now. I remember thinking it was weird, and how I couldn’t imagine it, then I thought about how that’s just what older siblings do. That that’s what Rye does for Peeta and me. A buffer for when Mama’s on the war path. Even when she ain’t-isn’t. Isn’t coming after me, he protects me all the same. She usually doesn’t come after me, and that somehow feels worse. I owe ‘em both a lot of beatings. Rye used to take the blame sometimes, but we all kinda quickly realized I could get away with significantly more than he could, and especially more than Peeta could, poor fucking kid. Never understood why she hates him so much.

There’s some screaming and shuffling, and I look over and there she is, her face showing real emotion for once, screaming that she’s volunteering. I can’t imagine that. How would you ever do that? And then it sinks in. Shit. Everdeen is gonna die. I look over at Peeta, who looks like he’s gonna spew. Shit. What am I even gonna say to him, when this is over? While we walk home?  Happy fucking birthday! That girl you’ve been obsessed with your whole life is gonna get gutted by some teen-freak Career. It’s too awful. I just sigh and brace for the boy’s name. Almost over. One more year of it for me, two for him. 

And then that pink and green bitch calls his name. I’m shocked. I can’t move, or see, or hear anything, and then it’s too late. He’s up on the stage and it’s too late. I can’t volunteer, can’t save him, can’t fix it. Once again he’s getting more punishment than his fair share. This kid that cries when he sees a hurt wild dog. That cried when he learned we ate our baby pigs. That’s been in love with the same girl for eleven years. The girl that’s going in with him. Shit!!! She’s going in with him!! They’re gonna die in there together. Well, I think darkly, they’re gonna have to talk now. 

I go and look for Rye, and we both just stare at each other. He’s not saying it, but he’s thinking it. “Yeah, I know. I should’ve. I… I couldn’t make the words come.” I hate myself.

I’m expecting him to scold me, to yell. Being the parent’s favorite makes me the least favorite brother. They neither one like me much. Well, that ain’t-isn’t true. They like me just fine. They’re just very jealous. I would be too, if I was-were gettin’ beat for minor shit that don’t even matter, and someone else wasn’t. I don’t expect him to hug me. He does, pulling me in close, even kissing my forehead like he did when I was little. I don’t even wipe it off this time.

“Hush. It isn’t your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t do anything right neither.”

He smiles a little. “Either, you mean. But it doesn’t matter. It’s going to be okay. Besides, I think she’d kill him, if you went in instead. It wouldn’t be a good sacrifice. She’d hate him even more, especially if you didn’t come back.” He shook his head. “God help me for what I’m gonna say, but it’s better this way. If he comes back, JoAnn won’t think he’s worthless anymore. If he doesn’t”, his breath shudders, “if he doesn’t, well. Then she never touches him again.”

I swallow around the lump in my throat. The one thing she only did to him. Rye got beat, sure. But he didn’t get touched like she touches Peeta. It… it’s not that she straight up sleeps with him. But it’s…uncomfortable, to even watch. Humiliating. Can’t imagine what it feels like. “Right. Well, ready to say” Oh I can’t say goodbye. I blink some rogue tears. “To send him off?”

“Yeah.” He says gruffly. “Yeah.” I can tell he’s thinking what I am. This is gonna be a shitshow.

It’s worse than I thought it’d be. We’re all standing there and not saying anything. Rye at least held him while he cried. JoAnn is world class, says something truly evil. Says she’s rooting for Everdeen, and if there was any fondness I ever had for that woman, it’s done. She runs out, even though all the rest of us are begging her to not. I scoff, but Peeta is laughing, no, cackling. Like nothing has ever been so goddamn funny. 

“Love you too, Mama! Hope I get to see you again!” He yells out, voice hard and bitter. “God. What the fuck?” He scrubs at his face, leans back, screaming and laughing and sobbing into his hands. 

Rye runs after our useless fucking parents, trying to talk sense into them. It’s pointless. Anyway, we’re almost out of time. Almost out of time. I can’t fuck it up again. 

“I know it ain’t great timing to be asking you a favor, but do one for me anyway?”

“God, Soren. What?” He sighs, clearly not in the mood for whatever he thinks I might say. I sit down on the saggy sofa, clapping his shoulder.

“I need you to tell her. Please. She deserves to know.”

He huffs, rolls his eyes. “It’s all a bit pointless, ain’t it? Nothing either one of us could ever do now.”

“Yeah, but I know you. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you never told her. So you’ve gotta. Find some way. Do one of those grand gestures you’re always planning. Or, fuck, I dunno, do it private. Over coffee or whatever. But tell her, little bun.” I’ve never called him that. Not sincerely, anyway. That’s what Dad and Rye(mostly Rye these days) call him. But, it felt right. “I’m really sorry I didn’t”

“Don’t be.” He cuts me off. “I get it. Don’t be sorry. In fact, promise me. You don’t get to feel guilty about it.”

I swallow hard again. The Peacekeepers are coming to take me away. I clap him on the shoulder one more time. “Alright. I love you. Uh, good luck and all that. And happy birthday”

It gets him to laugh, even if it’s just a dark laugh. “Thanks. Uh…see…mm. See you later.”

“Yeah. See you later.” I don’t know if I believe he will, but I know he can win this. I hope he does.

I try to keep my promise, of not feeling guilty, for not stepping up and going in for him. It’s not easy. Suddenly our room feels too big, too empty.  Rye and I haven’t moved a damn thing. There’s still a half finished drawing on the desk, a pair of silver eyes. I wanna puke everytime I see them. I do my homework downstairs in the bakery now. 

We’re closed on the day of the interviews. We close a little more now, though not as much as I thought we would. Dad hides, crying in long showers or disappearing on errands, and JoAnn, Rye and I are stuck in the bakery together, avoiding curses and rolling pins being hurled at us. Now that Peeta isn’t here, I’m getting on her nerves more. I’m sporting black eyes now too, though I don’t let them show. I can’t cover them like Peeta does, and I’m a little paler than him anyway, but the little tube of concealer he left behind does fine enough. 

We all sit on the couch, pretend to be a family over some tea and cookies. We’re eating more fresh, a result of the sympathy money. People have been spending a lot on baked goods here lately. The mayer orders a cake a week. Madge must know we’re feeding Prim and Mrs. Everdeen(Mama does too, and she hates it. Dad catches an ashtray to the nose for it). She likes Katniss too. 

Anyway, my baby brother is talking to Ceasar Flickerman, and they’re playing off each other like they’ve been co-hosts for decades. He’s charming. Affable. He could make this a career if…when he wins. And then Ceaser asks about a girl, his whole body shifts. He gets a little nervous, a little small, tries to shift the conversation but Ceaser ain’t having it. He pushes Peeta again. Say it say it say it, you little dork, or I swear to god. I’m staring at his face in the tv. Maybe if I think it hard enough he can somehow get it. You promised.

He clears his throat. “Well, there is this one girl…”

I sink back into the couch with a sigh of relief. There you go, bro. Took you long enough.

She even goes for it. When they change the rules(which I still can’t get over, but maybe young love is more exciting than child murder for those people.((if that’s the case, can we make it a matchmaking game? I’ll volunteer. I’ll host.)) I just don’t know if I trust it) and she’s up in that tree, screaming his name, I know it’s over. She likes him too. She tears through the Arena just to find him, looking very camouflaged and very dead by the river. He flirts, and she giggles and blushes. What? Maybe she’s just soft for him. Good. It’s what he deserves. Hard for everyone else but soft for him.

For a few days I’m worried I’m gonna have to watch my baby brother lose his virginity on national television, but as cuddly and kissy as Katniss is, she’s clearly not very experienced. She won’t change around him, she blushes every time they kiss. She’s actually sweet. A giggly, nervous, even precious little thing. She looks even tinier next to Peeta, so short and thin and fine boned. They fit each other. They’re striking together.

It’s all anyone can talk about, but for the first time I don’t mind hearing about it all. I join in at school, spilling all the secrets I know. It’s a little shitty, but I can’t help it. It’s so…excuse the dopey ass phrasing, but as one teacher said, life affirming to see. My homelife is worse, but if they really can win and win together, it’ll be like a real life miracle. Hard proof that not everything always has to completely fucking suck, all the time. That sometimes, good things happen to people. Sometimes good things happen to the people who deserve it the most. 

The berries give me a heart attack. I’m on the edge of my seat and I don’t think I breathe the whole time. I don’t know what to expect. Are they gonna let them live? Are they gonna blow them up? Send in mutts again? Let them live and torture them on the air? I almost shut my eyes, bracing for the canons, but instead Templesmith is shouting, telling them to stop, that they both won, and he did it. He actually did it. I’m jumping and screaming and laughing and we’re all hugging even, because he fucking did it. He won, and he got the girl of his dreams. This one time, it actually works out for him. This time, Peeta gets what he wants.

[papimolina]

With the Stroke of a Brush

Maxim Horvath X F!Reader

Chapter 2, Complimentary colours

Continuation from Chapter 1

Rating: Explicit (18+)

WC: 2000

Soulmates, soul bonding, idiots in love, kissing, body painting, foreplay, smut, (a world where magic is normal)

Your heart was beating wildly in your chest as you sketched his features. You could feel his eyes boring into you, watching your every move. Glancing at him now and then, so you could compare with your painting, kept bringing you out in a hot blush.

"Are you always so easily flustered?" He asked, breaking the silence.

You hide your face behind your canvas.

"No. It's just the way you're staring at me"

"Admiring"

"Mm"

You peek out from the side of your canvas to meet his eyes again.

"I'm admiring. Not staring"

A big smile split your face as you look down at the floor, once again feeling the heat return to your face.

"You know, I find your blushing rather cute. I don't want you to hide it from me"

God! Does he want me to completely melt?!

He smiles warmly at you when you force yourself to fully move back, to allow him a full view of you.

"I-I think I'm almost finished" you whisper.

Switching paint brushes, you dip into the dark blue again. You flick the brush forward a few times, forming random blobs over your work.

"Do you have a favourite colour, Y/N?"

"Yes, orange. Why?"

"Do you think you could add some orange?"

You stop painting to look at him, willing him to explain.

"I'd like your orange to dance with my blue"

You felt your heart swell at his words. The heat that started on your face now spread over your whole body. Pulling your eyes off him, you move to pick up a clean brush. Once you'd mixed enough to form your favourite shade of orange, you hold your hand out beckoning him to you. Leaving his cane on the chair, he slowly makes his way towards you. Suddenly you felt nervous about letting him see your painting.

What if he doesn't like it?

Now standing beside you. You watched his eyes look over your painting but his expression was unreadable.

"Y/N...this is stunning" you let out the breath you'd been involuntarily holding.

"I'm glad that you see me in such a handsome light" he smiles down at you.

At a loss for words, you take his large hand in yours and place a kiss in the middle of his palm.

Now it was his turn to blush. You were glad that he was affected by you just as much as you were by him.

Putting the brush now coated with orange in his hand, you begin to lead his hand to the canvas but he doesn't let you.

"I don't want to ruin your work"

"You won't. I'll guide you"

You smile up at him as he let's you move his hand forward. With your hand still on top of his, you begin to move around letting the brush curve in a wavy pattern. Once you'd created almost flame-like strokes with the orange, you reach for the blue coated brush with your other hand and add some similar strokes around the orange. You take the brush from him and tap it forward lightly, creating some small orange dots to mingle with the large blue ones that were scattered over the suit.

"Is this close to what you wanted?"

When you're met with silence, you turn to see that he is no longer looking at the painting but at you. You smile, tilting your head slightly to get his attention. He smiles back and nods.

"Beautiful" he whispers, brushing a piece of hair out of your face.

"You aren't even looking at it"

The mischief in his eyes stops you from giggling. He places his hands on your hips and fists your oversized painting shirt, pulling you slowly to him.

Only at that moment did you realise what you'd been wearing this whole time. While he was in a amazingly expensive looking suit, you were in your massive painting shirt which completely hid your shape and a pair of old leggings. You didn't feel attractive at all beside him and yet he still seemed to find you desirable.

Catching on to your thoughts, he brings a hand under your chin to lift your gaze away from his clothes and back to his eyes. He looks deep into your eyes for a few seconds, before leaning in to kiss you softly. His lips quickly find their way to your jaw and then down your neck, each kiss leaving a burning tingle on your skin from his beard. Your eyes fluttered closed as you felt his hands rub up your sides slowly, to eventually stop at the first button of your shirt. Placing one more kiss to your neck he lifts his head enough to look at you, asking for permission. You instantly nod.

"Please"

Your eagerness brings a dimpled smile to his face, making your heart skip for the millionth time. He starts undoing your shirt leaving a trail of kisses on every bit of new flesh he uncovers. Once he has your shirt and bra on the floor, you rub your hands up from his chest to his shoulders making his suit jacket slide down his arms. He drifts down from your neck to latch on to your breast, his hand coming up to fondle the other. Your hands glide through his hair, keeping him close to you. His wet mouth around you makes you moan which encourages him to start nipping around your chest. Forgetting your surroundings, you move back a little and knock your palette off the table causing paint to splat around your feet. The clatter makes him leave your breasts which you refrain from whining at. Your eyebrows knit together in confusion when he gets down on one knee and dips his index and middle finger in the blue paint now splattered on the floor. He looks at the paint on his fingers for a second before coming back up to you. Placing the tips of his painted fingers just under your chin, he leans in, your noses almost touching.

"It would be a shame to leave such a beautiful canvas untouched, don't you think?"

You gulp with anticipation as you nod in agreement. Your stunned silence makes him smirk.

"I want to hear you, sweetheart"

"Y-yes" you manage. "It would be a shame"

"I knew you would agree"

Without breaking eye contact with you, he let's his fingers glide down between your breasts and down over your stomach. You shiver as the paint cools your heated skin. Wanting to do the same for him, you hurriedly get him out of his shirt as he helps you out of what little clothes you have left on. Seconds later you're both finally bare to each other. He kisses you almost bruisingly as he tries to move you down to the floor with him but he stops when you part from him. Kneeling down, you pick up the fallen palette and lift it to him. He smiles at your commitment to his idea and places his whole hand in the paint this time. You reach for the orange, dipping both of your palms in. Your hands immediately fly to his chest, eager to finally squeeze the firm flesh. You hum in approval as you paint your way further down his stomach.

Having now coated his front in paint, you let him lay you down until your back hits the carpet. His clean hand goes down between your legs and rubs up your folds causing you to arch against him.

"Maxim" you moan, his eyes jump to yours.

"I can't be patient much longer"

He snickers as he continues to tease your clit, moving his painted hand up to rub your breast, worrying your nipple.

"P-please, Maxim! ... I'm on fire"

"I know, sweetheart" he kisses up your body and stops a breath away from your lips.

"So am I"

He crashes his parted lips to yours, allowing your tongues to play with each other. You feel his girthy shaft rub between your folds a few times until he aligns himself. Even though you were more than wet enough to accommodate him, you still felt a twang of discomfort as he starts to push his way in. When he eventually bottoms out, he lets you get used to the feeling before moving. His mouth kisses, licks and nips all around your chest and neck to distract you as he begins to pull out of you. The discomfort quickly gives way to pleasure when he thursts back in with a bit more force that makes you moan out. With your moans spurring him on, his thursts speed up, hitting you deeper, almost knocking the breath out of you. Your hands fist in his hair to bring him as close as possible to you.

"Agh, M-maxim...I..."

He bites down on your neck, his hips never stopping. That's all you need to go over the edge, your orgasm crashing over you. He slows his pace to savour the feeling of you contracting around him while smoothing his hands up your quivering thighs. Floating down from your high, you whisper.

"Use me"

He thursts hard once at your words, hitting your cervix making you moan his name. You watch as he runs a hand down your front, for his thumb to press down firmly on your clit. His shallow thrusts turns to forceful pumps, pushing against your cervix with every snap of his hips. With his thumb starting to roll on your clit you could already feel the heat pooling through you again. He pushes his face into the crook of your neck, wanting to hear your moans right next to his ear. His thursts become more erratic as he nears his end, his groans now directly in your ear was helping you reach your second. He could feel your nails beginning to dig into his back, hard enough to create crescent moon indents.

"Cum with me, Y/N"

You tugged at his hair as you came again, which pushed him to his own release. Most of his weight slumped on top of you while he spilled in inside of you; he tried to lift himself so he wouldn't crush you but you welcomed it. Taking him longer to come down than you, you embraced him until his breathing returned to normal. A minute or two later you felt his body lift from yours but his head didn't leave your neck.

"I love you, Y/N"

Your heart practically burst; turning your face into his, you place a lingering kiss on his temple.

"I love you, Maxim"

You felt him exhale deeply before he smiled against your skin, almost like he was worried that you didn't feel the same. Realising he was still inside of you, he removed himself and sat up to look into your eyes.

You smile at his redded face, moving some strands of hair off his sweaty forehead.

"I think I suit you" he smirks.

Eyeing down your body, you follow his gaze. You see he means his colour. Aswell as the trail of paint down your front, you notice large blue hand prints on your thigh and hip. You look up his body that was in a similar state. A smear of orange paint was dragged up his back and much smaller hand prints were dotted all over his chest. You giggle at the mess you're both in.

"You know, blue and orange do compliment each other"

His face lights up. "I know now"

Bringing you up with him, he sits back so you could sit in his lap. You thumb his dimpled cheeks as he smooths his hands up and down your bare back.

"That is what I wanted" he says, looking over your shoulder at the forgotten painting.

You stifle a laugh at the fact that this all started from him not answering your question. You rest your forehead against his, both of you closing your eyes in contentment.

"I'm glad you like it, Maxim"

[muyuuoffline]

Can you do 2 of Relationship & Courting antics Asks for Tsukasa, Rui, Akito, and Toya? Thanks!

[2] for Rui is already answered!

[2] with Tenma Tsukasa

Shinonome Akito

Aoyagi Touya

Tenma Tsukasa

2. ♥ When they have a crush on someone, how do they let them know?

Tsukasa deems himself to be charismatic and glorious, which gives him the image of a narcissist. notably showing off from left to right, he happens to have stumbled upon you during break time, talking with your friends. he didn't knew who you were, an under or upperclassmen, but it was the first time his mouth fell so deeply he was scared it would fall off. you looked absolutely astonishingーlike, an angel tossed to the earth, so inattentively. the way you smiled and beamed at your surroundings were so striking and distinctive, he knew he had to talk to you, right this instant.

That wasn't going to happen, unfortunately. the people around you kept on increasing; from girls to boys, even teachers and janitors came and spoke with you. it looked like a riot, everyone wanting even a hinch of your attention. it was like the world was ending, and all of them, including him, wanted to go to a safe place, which was you.

This continued for months. every single day, he longed to talk with you. he tried to follow you to classes, ask a few of his classmates for information about you. (which he realized he might've became a stalker, yikes.) the same thing repeated, as you were always encircled by all of them. he eventually gave up, and focused himself to other things. it was normal, right? like, love at first sight. it wasn't just because you were a breathing, gorgeous light, you just.. seemed different. it was as if time stopped at that moment, and it was only you and him, your complexions content and marvellous. and your smile, it looked like it was only for him. not for anyone else.. but that was an idiotic thought. he was just imagining things. was he going crazy? maybe he needed an appointment with the doctor. he simply didn't fall for you because of your looks, no. he somewhat felt.. alluring. you seemed so close, yet so far for his hands to reach.

"Onii-chan, there's a centipede crawling on your lap."

Saki's way to catch his attention literally killed him. he almost flipped and screamed. luckily, her expression eased up to a short chuckle, calming him down. he scolded her, of course. she's becoming very cheeky these days. and as her big brother, he had to stop her and take things into manners. but before he had the chance, she immediantly cut him off, and straightforwardly asked him about his huge crush on you. he simply didn't understand?? was he that obvious? more importantly, his little sister knew you? but you guys go to different schools??

he ended up sighing in defeat, and admited everything to Saki. it was true. he felt too deep for you. there was no going back.

His little sister ended up pushing him to go ask you out. his answer? was absolutely no of course! there was no way he could ask you out of the blue, he's never even talked to you! what if he messes up? what if he faints and dies due to heart attack??

"That's too dramatic, Tsukasa-kun."

Even Rui came along. this was the worst.

Apparently, you and Saki became good friends a while back. you both met at a musical, and she happens to have recognized you as the person in her big brother's sketches. literally, the worst, most embarassing thing, ever.

Eventually, he shrugged his worries and boldly came over to you to ask you out on a date; being immediate would be awkward and plain out rude, so he included his sister's name along, and you happily agreed. he felt like crying an ocean from joy.

So I'd imagine Tsukasa: confident, upcoming star, would be shy to approach his (s/o), whom becomes his crush to the point where he sometimes watches them from afar, and daydreaming about them. let's not forget, the sketches and drawings.

Shinonome Akito

Akito and crushes? what a crazy mix of words.

The male has never really thought of things such as romance. sure, he's had a few people he found quite attractive, like: "Their hair looks nice, i guess", "Their outfit kind of suits them", pretty much just uncommenting thoughts. Akito naturally isn't the type of person who openly shares his thoughts to people. he says what comes to his mind while thinking about the risks and circumstances that might happen. he also considers himself a bit awkward, and isn't able to blabber out optimistic and good things to people randomly. when he feels they're someone amazing and are worthy of praises, he'd give a small smile and tribute. he's a guy with a protected wall, and doesn't let his emotions get the better of him.

but things just elaborated too quickly. you came waltzing in as a transfer student, eyes bore and worn out. the room's atmosphere quickly lit up from 0 to 1000, and the next moment you were getting buddy-buddy with everyone. the dark bags sitting at the corner of your eyes simply didn't match your expression, your loud voice echoing throughout the halls. everyone in class pretty much adored you. and Akito? hated your guts.

"Akito, Is there something wrong?"

Touya asked carefully, crossing his arms. was his face ticking too much? maybe. but he couldn't just tell him that another annoying weirdo came in and transffered to his class, sitting next to him.

you frequently asked him mysterious, odd questions like, "would you rather burp confetti or fart glitter", "I am going to make a tim that is so tiny." and stuff,,

You always end up laughing at his perplexed expression. and he'd be like? what the hell? what's with this person? can someone please help me??

He'd always run away whenever you try to call for him. It was the worst case scenario, pretty much. he didn't know why you continued to trail behind him like a flaming ball of fire. just what did he do to get such unwanted attention? he would honestly do anything to have you away from him, at the time.

But thinking back, if you weren't such a goof ball, always bright and active, he wondered how his every day would be without you constantly sneaking in and hugging him from behind. it was ironic, honestly. he was the one who wanted to escape from your eyesight, but he was the one who confessed his feelings for you, first. he remembered how surprised you look. your agile, happy-go-lucky look faded, and was replaced by new found joy.

The happenings were plain odd. you were odd.

but that was the key to him falling for you.

Aoyagi Touya

Touya is someone who thinks logically rather than emotionally. If he would ever have someone whom he admires through the heart, he would consider a few things before taking measures to the next level. before claiming to himself that he truly feels something for you, he would try to get to know you more, and become friends first. being able to create trust and bond is something very important to him.

He would ask you a few questions about yourself to see if you share a few common things with him, such as reading books or music in general. and if you don't, he would try to get into things you are interested in, as he also wants to experience the hobbies you enjoy.

You're an understanding individual, it was as if the two of you shared the same concept.

"Let's take our time."

and he was glad you were willing to cooperate with him. his feelings towards you started off as the silent discrete who always helped the people around them, always making sure everyone is efficient and checked upon. Touya truly loves this part of you, always sparing a smile whenever you talk about this topic. the way you enjoy helping others was very heartwarming, something not everyone can do.

If things start to slowly change, Touya would be much more forward with his feelings, such as accompanying you to certain places you've been seeking to go to, or you're participating in a community service, and he happily comes and along and helps you. he was glad everything was going nicely, and your overjoyed eyes staring at him with ecstasy always made his chest warm, and he vowed for your relationship to grow even more.

If Touya would have a crush on someone, he would express this factor to them from the beginning, and ask them if it was alright if he could court them. he would like to take things slowly and enjoy moments with you peacefully. once the two of you get comfortable with each other, I would Imagine him asking you out first, and if you still wanted time, he would always be there, waiting for you.