#not sicker than right where it belongs tho

[masterofmunson]

Lovesick Syndrome

Bucky x Reader

Summary: The harder it is to deny yourself your soulmate, the sicker you become. Soulmate!AU

Word Count: 2.7k+

Warnings: angst, unrequited love, kinda anti-nat (still love her tho), fluff, everybody is sick yo

N/A: HEY GUYS!! I got inspiration and i came up with this! enjoy!!

It all started when Natasha came into the Compound after Steve and ‘his’ team returned from hiding in Wakanda. She came sauntering in with a stunning man on her arm. He had thick, dark, brown hair and gorgeous sea blue eyes. He wore a thick, black leather jacket with a dark blue Henley. He was absolutely breathtaking. He took her breath away with just the small smile he gave her when she politely introduced herself.

“Hi, I’m Y/n. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, extending her arm out in front of her for the gorgeous stranger to take.

“Hi, Y/n. I’m Bucky,” he replied, shaking her hand gently.

She had to bite back the gasp threatening to spill from her lips as their hands met. It felt as if fireworks shot out from her fingertips and spread to the rest of her body at his soft touch. His touch burned her, seared her soul into only wanting him. She immediately longed for him. She immediately wanted to love and cherish and protect him. She wanted to get to know him and his smile and his laugh.

She wondered if he felt it too.

Does his hand burn under her touch? Does he want to only want her? Does he want to love and cherish and protect her too?

She wouldn’t know.

Her eyes cast downward and his flesh hand is entwined with Natasha’s perfectly manicured fingers. His other hand, the hand that touched hers, the hand that was made from metal, falls softly out of her grasp.

A gut wrenching feeling enters her body. Her eyes find his again and silently search for any desire that he might’ve felt what she did.

She doesn’t and it kills her.

Her eyes follow her line, the line only her eyes can see. It sticks out of her chest like a sore thumb. The red pulsates with each thump of her heart. It’s loud and bright and wraps around Bucky’s wrist perfectly.

She’s terrified.

She’s terrified that he can see right through her. She’s terrified that her best friend, beautiful and sexy Natasha, noticed that she’s already unexplainably head over heels in love with her boyfriend and she knows nothing about him.

She knows no one can see her soul wrap perfectly around his wrist. She knows no one knows that she can see her soul line that leads to him. She knows that no one knows of her ability to see her own fate lay in the hands of someone else’s.

“Talia’s told me so much about you!” he grinned, making her heart thump loudly against her chest. “It’s glad to finally put a name to a face. I’m glad you and Nat are so close. It’s good to meet the girl that kept my girl out of trouble for so long until we met.”

Her heart shatters.

She watches Nat gush over her beloved boyfriend silently. Her eyes stare blankly at their entwined hands as they squeeze each other’s hands every so often. Words fall on deaf ears as conversation flows without her.

It feels like she can’t breathe. It’s like her world crumbled beneath her as the man she knows she’s meant to be with is, with no doubt, in love with someone else.

She thinks it’s cruel, the idea of soulmates, that is. Everyone’s destined to be with someone but what if that someone isn’t meant to be you? It’s a cruel sick joke that she realizes too little too late because she starts to suffer the consequences not soon after their first encounter.

It begins with the small things. The getting to know yous and cute innocent questions they’d ask each other.

“What’s it like living in a world where you’re older than sliced bread?” she teased with a smirk during breakfast one morning.

His reply was, “Better now that I don’t have to get crumbs all over me.”

It made her stomach flip.

Soon after that, her stomach would start to hurt. She’d make the mistake of brushing it off, blaming it on premenstrual cramps, but it wasn’t.

Then it got worse… and worse… and worse.

The closer her and Bucky became, the sicker she got and she knew why and it was unbearable. She let it fester and rot until it became her own cancer. Being close to Bucky, with Bucky, was killing her. It was destroying her.

The pain of watching the man she loved love someone else was affecting every aspect of her life.

She couldn’t eat because she would throw it up. She couldn’t sleep because it would keep her up. She couldn’t train as often enough because she was too weak.

Then she decided that she had enough. She had enough of the hungry and sleepless nights. She had enough of Bucky and Natasha’s love affair, even though she was a bystander and that she should be Natasha. She was done, done, done.

So she started to avoid him.

She switched her whole routine in order to avoid both Bucky and Natasha. She had Tony put a coffee machine in her room so she wouldn’t have to go to the kitchen to get it as well as a mini fridge for snacks that she wouldn’t have to go to the kitchen for. Tony pretty much put a whole kitchenette into her room to accommodate her situation with Bucky and Nat.

After all, he understood.

He understood the terrible sicknesses that she would fight off in order to maintain her daily life. He understood the pain and heartache she was going as she watched her soulmate fall in love with someone else. He understood all too well and was more than willing to help her move past it as best as he could.

Sam and Wanda were the same way.

They hated that their best friend was suffering from unimaginable, unthinkable pain that they couldn’t help get better. Instead, they helped make it tolerable for her.

They changed her training schedule to their own session together and helped her stay clear of Bucky and Natasha. She was grateful towards her friends. They weren’t going to let her suffer alone. They were going to help her and it touched her.

She slowly started to regain her strength. She was stronger, healthier since she started to avoid Bucky. She returned to going on missions and she was able to eat and sleep regularly. Bucky was on the back burner. She no longer stared at the black ink adoring her heart in the dead of night cursing anyone and everyone for having his name imprinted on her precious skin. She ignored it like the man the name belonged to.

Avoiding Bucky and Natasha lasted weeks. She was avoiding them for so long that she can’t remember the last conversation she had with either of them. It had been that long.

Then it was short lived.

It happened when she was bar hopping with Sam and Wanda on one of their off days.  

She was having a blast dancing and singing along to whatever song was playing at a club they found themselves in. She was slightly tipsy and she was clinging to Sam as they followed the beat of the song on the dance floor.

She was happy. She was healthy.

In that moment, she didn’t want anything else. In that moment, she was fine with the life she had.

Near the bar, however, stood Bucky with his arms crossed as he watch Sam and Y/n have the time of their lives.

He was fuming with anger.

She had been avoiding him for weeks. She changed her training schedule to Sam and Wanda’s session. He no longer saw her at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. She no longer came to Tony’s parties. It was like she disappeared.

He doesn’t know why she’s avoiding him. He doesn’t know why she cut him off. He doesn’t know why it hurts so much.

Since she started to avoid him, he started to get insanely sick, which frightened Natasha and Steve. He was a Super Soldier. He’s not suppose to get sick, but he was.

He kept throwing up. He kept having the shivers. He kept coughing. He kept shaking. He wasn’t getting better and it scared Natasha and Steve. Him getting sick was suppose to be impossible, but there he was, laying in bed for the eighth day in a row.

None of the medicines or antibiotics were helping. Resting wasn’t working. Nothing seemed to be working.

“There’s only one other thing that I can think of that can be causing you all this sickness, Bucky,” Doctor Cho sighed, brushing a stray hair out of her face as she looked at Bucky nervously.

“What is it, Doc?” he asked nervously, sitting up in his chair. Natasha squeezes his hand.

“Are you aware of the Lovesick Syndrome?” she asked. He shook his head. “What it means, in a sense, is that you’re denying yourself of your soulmate. Your mind, body, and soul aren’t entwined with the mind, body, and soul of your soulmate, so it makes you unbearably sick. You can’t stomach the thought of being away from your soulmate, but they either a. don’t know or b. think that they or you are possibly in love with someone else, so you are the one that suffers and gets incredibly sick.”

His heart drops into his stomach and Natasha’s hand slips from his back into her lap. Helen leaves the room and the room is consumed with silence. The only thing he can hear is Natasha’s ragged breathing.

“Natalia,” he croaked, turning his head towards her. He knows she knows but he also knows that it doesn’t hurt any less.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, staring at the ground. A tear slips down her cheek. “I know. It’s okay.”

His chest tightens.

She knows.

“I love you, Natalia. You must know that. You have to know that,” he pleads.

It hurts him too, seeing her this way, because he does love her, but not in that way. Not anymore. He wants her to know that what they had was real. He wants her to know that he did think of her as his soulmate.

“I know, it’s just not in that way. Not anymore, at least.”

“Nat, please—”

“Bucky, just… go. Don’t make this harder than it already is,” she interrupted quietly.

He did.

That was two days ago.

Two long days of silence and more sickness, if that’s even possible.

He knows what, rather who, is causing all this sickness. It makes him angry and guilty and giddy. All he wants to do is talk to her, but it seems to be an impossible task, up until he saw her, Sam, and Wanda slip out of the Compound on an off day. He follows behind, careful not to give himself away.

Now, as he stands a mere 50 feet from her, he can’t help but feel so stupid.

From the moment they met, he was hers, but in every sense of the word, he was Natasha’s. He still showered her with love and affection as his heart slowly started to belong to Y/n but he didn’t do anything because he was with Natasha. He can’t help but feel guilty. He caused Y/n so much pain… so much sickness. It breaks his heart that he broke hers.

He weaves through the endless drunken bodies of the club towards her. He stands behind her and takes a deep breath before brushing his flesh hand against her arm.

Her arm burns and she spins around, face to face with Bucky. Her smile faulted and she harshly pulls her arm out of his grasp, cradling the spot her touched.

Sam and Wanda steps in front of her and it makes him angry even though he knows they’re just trying to protect her.

“I need to talk to you. Please let me talk to you,” he begged over the loud music as their eyes meet.

“It’s okay Sam, Wanda. I can handle this,” she said, resting a hand on each of their shoulders.

“Let us know if you need anything, alright?” Sam demanded softly, pulling her in for a brief hug. She nods into his chest before walking out of the club with Bucky hot on her tail.

They walk in silence for awhile before coming across a park bench. They both sit down with plenty of distance between each other.

“I think I know why you’ve been avoiding me,” he whispered into the dark night.

“I don’t think you do,” she spat back defensively, turning her head to him.

“If you don’t think I do, why are you getting so defensive?” he countered.

“Because it’s the only way I know how to protect myself without getting hurt.”

Silence consumes the pair again and her hands rub up and down her arms, attempting to rid the burning sensation Bucky gave her on her arm. Her eyes followed the cars driving past them and she suddenly wishes that she was anywhere else but on the park bench next to Bucky because he knows.

He knows that he’s her soulmate. He knows that she’s in love with him and he won’t say it.

He won’t say it because he doesn’t love her the way she loves him. He won’t say it because she’s not his soulmate even though he’s hers.

She was a glitch, a mistake.

“I know you have Lovesick Syndrome,” he states in the dark, stealing a glance at her.

Her breathing gets caught in her throat and she stares at him. She certainly wasn’t expecting that. “What?”

“Lovesick Syndrome. It’s what you get when you deny yourself your soulmate That’s why you’ve been sick, isn’t it?”

She scoffs bitterly, rolling her eyes, “I can’t deny myself of anything–of my soul mate–if he wasn’t mine to begin with,” she snapped.

He winces. He hadn’t thought of what she might be feeling.

She still doesn’t know that he’s no longer with Natasha. She doesn’t know that he too, suffered from Lovesick Syndrome. She doesn’t know and he needs to tell her.

“I know this because I’ve been denying myself of my soulmate too,” he confessed quietly.

Her breathing stutters and her eyes widen in shock. That made no sense to her. How could he be denying himself of his soulmate? Natasha was his soulmate. She had to be. He looked so in love with her.

“What?”

He nods with a soft smile. “I’ve been suffering from Lovesick Syndrome too.”

A lump forms in her throat as the gears in her head start to turn. He knows she’s putting two and two together as her eyes search his for any shred of hesitation or trick or doubt in his eyes. She finds none.

“So does that mean I’m your–you’re my…” she doesn’t finish her sentence because she’s too scared to. Soulmate… could that be her reality? Could she finally be happy?

“Soulmate?” he asks. She nods wordlessly. “Yeah, pumpkin, it does.”

“What about… what about you and Nat?” she whispers quietly, tearing her eyes away from his beautiful blues.

“After I found out why I kept being sick, we ended things. It’s not fair to her. I couldn’t be with her while my heart belonged to someone else.”

She nods again. She doesn’t know what to say.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, inching his fingers closer to hers. “I didn’t mean to put you in so much pain… get you so sick. If I realized earlier that I was in love with you, I would’ve ended things with Nat sooner. I’m so incredibly sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” she said quietly, meeting his gaze. “Avoiding you seemed like the best idea. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just… I had to protect myself.”

“I understand. Can we forgive each other?”

She nods with a beautiful smile. “Of course. I forgive you.”

“There’s that beautiful smile I love,” he grins, moving closer to her. “I forgive you too.”

Her smile widens and she moves so their hands entwine. Her fingers squeeze his gently and he moves down so their foreheads touch. She slowly presses her mouth against his and he eagerly responds.

He pushes against her and kisses her with every ounce of passion and love he has for her inside him. His fingers card through her hair and she smiles against his mouth.

His touch no longer burned her; it excited her.

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