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witchesballad · 21 days ago

Text

hero and villain

THUNDERBOLTS* SPOILER

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Widow!Reader

Warnings: Forced pregnancy (backstory) and discussion of sexual assault

Summary:

From what Yelena and John spoke of, Bucky expected to see some montage of Winter Soldier highlights. Not the bright and cozy family room, not you standing opposite of him watching the scene unfold with tears streaming down your face. A duplicate of you, younger, your hair a different colour, was handing a package over to a woman he didn't know.

A/N: im weak, i wont survive the winter.... baby fic. We were all talking about the Found Family of it all, what about the Found "Baby I Abandoned and Didn't Tell You About" in the Void?

part one, part two

From what Yelena and John spoke of, Bucky expected to see some of the Winter Soldier highlights - an innocent's warm blood coating his face, the scream of one of his victims echoing in the inky black, a hit on an uncooperative politician. Not the bright and cozy family room, not you standing opposite of him watching the scene unfold with tears streaming down your face.

A duplicate of you, younger, your hair a different colour, was handing a package over to a woman he didn't know. They're speaking to each other. He opens his mouth to interrupt them, when he's shoved back.

"What-" Another shove. "Are-" Another. "You-" The hands pushing him become fists. "Doing-!?"

He snatches you by the wrists to stop you, and all of the fight seeps out of you. You're still sneering at him as though you hate him for stopping you and not fighting. The two of you were excellent at fighting.

"I thought you died, coming in here." he states, calm enough to set you off again.

You roll your eyes at him, scoffing. It doesn’t convince him that you are as untouchable and unphased as you want it to come across. The tear tracks that had cut through the dust and grime on your face from that last fight, had him thinking otherwise.

A mask for what he can see is a deep sadness. This room...what was so traumatic about a room? He moves to pass you, to get a closer look at the woman he didn't know.

Your instinct is to grapple him to the ground. It didn’t matter that you were one of the best fighters this world had known, he wasn’t going to use his strength. The two of you had fought each other in the past, but he never hurt you. This has not been the first time you have pinned him, and knowing you, it will not be the last. Your knee is in his back, his hands twisted into your grip.

The door slams shut as your younger self nearly runs away. A second later, you come back in with the unfamiliar woman.

“Is she one of the younger ones?” she asks as they step through the door, around the two of you on the floor.

There is a whimper of a response, but Bucky can’t see from his position who it comes from.

“I-I-I-I’m next-”

His chest feels like it collapses in on itself. That’s your voice, he’s never heard you cry before. When he speaks, he directs it up to you, “Your next what? What is she saying?”

You take a deep breath above him, in through the nose out through the mouth, before ordering, “Stay down.”

His hands are released and you get off his back. You don’t move too far, simply sitting with him on the ground. Not risking another grapple, Bucky places his hands palm down, lifts his head to tilt his ear toward the conversation taking place.

“So he’s going to come then?”

Younger you sniffs and hums an acknowledgement. “I lost him in DC, I think he was assigned another mission.”

The other woman gasps, “Project Insight. SHIELD’s entire archive was released. Three helicarriers crashed into the Potomac.”

“Knowing my luck, he survived.”

Older you snorts in amusement.

Bucky twists his head to give you a bemused look. He had gathered that they were talking about him - or, the Winter Soldier. But the look fades as the realization sets in. Bob was showing them their fears. Yelena had described this as a shame room.

You were afraid of him.

The you of the memory continues talking, “I can lead them away. No one will know about this, and when I tell you, you will be the only person to know. It has to stay that way. You will be in danger from HYDRA, the Red Room, and who knows who else. I am telling you because you got me out. You are the only person I trust, Oksana.”

“сестра, you are one of the nests. They will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

“I’ll do it for her. Just take her far away.”

“She’s yours! You can hide now, with her.”

“I can lead them away. She’s his. They will come for her. They’ll send him. Maybe he’ll kill her outright, he won’t know she’s his daughter.”

The revelation takes its time sinking in. He doesn’t get up, doesn’t move. He just turns onto his back, now trapped between you and a couch on the floor of a memory that isn’t even his. He was wrong. This wasn’t your shame room. It was built for him. The Winter Soldier had committed many atrocities but this was the worst.

This was a shame room built for him. He had done— that to you.

You take his closest hand - the metal one - in your two, and pull the pair of you to your feet.

“Your next.” he says, his voice thin. He had misheard your younger self, “You’re a nest.”

He had heard about a subsect of the Widow program, the Nest, dedicated to the repopulation of the small army. The few of the Widows who were left in tact for Dreykov’s nefarious purposes. A program for training swallows. Teenage baby factories.

You squeeze his hand. “Yes, and you-”

“How can you even look at me?” he was shaking his head, “It’s not right. What I did-”

“Was as much assault on you as it was for me. You aren’t the only one in therapy. Bucky, this room is not for you. I’m the one that left her. Didn’t tell you.”

“I hunted you, of course you didn’t tell me.”

As if he could dismiss your self-hatred with his own. The easy forgiveness brought the tears back to your eyes. You close your eyes to block them, gritting your teeth. He brushes your tears away for you, and rests his hand on your cheek. The hesitance in the air makes you open your eyes and make eye contact.

He takes in a breath, as if steeling himself.

“Can I look at her?”

You take his hand and lead him over to the back of the couch so the pair of you might lean over the memory. He had seen the baby as a package of some sort earlier, because younger you had used a shipping box as a makeshift carrier. The cardboard box was stuffed with a soft hoodie as a blanket. The baby had not made a sound the entire time, even as a younger you shoved the box into the other woman, Oksana’s, hands. Ignoring her protests, you tell her, “Don’t tell me where you’re going. Protect her.”

And you leave. Bucky turns his head to watch you go, and when he turns back - Oksana and the baby are nowhere to be found.

The door opens again. The two Widows walk in, and Bucky trails them back to the couch that they sit down on.

“She’s so little,” he comments. He does not look at you, lest he acknowledge the fact that seeing a reflection of you holding his baby was plucking a heart string.

The pair of you lean in, and you huff out a laugh, as you nudge him, “Looks like you from tip to tail, doesn’t she?”

He looks up at you, sees the tiny features that made the baby beautiful to him. His jaw is left hanging. “Looks like you.”

You grimace and apologize to the baby, “Sorry, junior.” You reach down to poke the baby’s nose.

Bucky’s heart clenches, imagining it all turn to smoke and shadow. He had not touched anything to do with this room, contributing to the dreamlike quality that this all held. But you touch the baby, scrunching your nose when the baby adorably wrinkles her face against your finger.

A voice, not yours, and yours at the same time speaks from the younger you.

“You knew then. Don’t be stupid. You don’t deserve her. ”

There is something behind you - and on the wall. Bucky puts his hand on your shoulder to move you and the baby behind him, put himself in between. Instinctively, you scoop up the baby.

But there is no standing between you and your shadow. As if you had a second arm attached at the elbow, a darkness - a void - clamps down on your wrist and twists.

When you yelp, Bucky reaches into the split in space and yanks the shadow from you. You recoil, hunching over the baby. Your good arm still cradling her to your body, turned away from the chaos. The darkness manifests itself as the younger you. She sneers at Bucky.

“Look at me, Soldat.” she says, enraged, “You forgot a name on the list. Where is the effort to make amends, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?”

She goes for a strike. Pale and frozen, he takes the hits. You can see the pattern, the memory is taking the same moves you would use now, not the Red Room clone that you used to be. Or have you always been that obvious, telegraphing your punches? You watch Bucky and understand him. You understand why you could pin a super soldier like the Winter Soldier.

He has never hurt you, but you know that’s because he would never fight you.

You draw your gun to help, but your aim shakes with the weight of it on your broken wrist. In that instance, the woman who had rescued you from Dreykov restrains you. With her arm around your throat, and your injured arm twisted behind.

With her holding your arms and dragging you back, you can only call out.

“She’s not me, Barnes!” you shout at him, “Kick her ass!”

You watch him sink into a place he hasn’t in a long time. Bucky would never hurt you, but the Winter Soldier has no mercy. Following your command, the metal hand reaches back and grabs the ankle of the twenty year old assassin on his back. In a maneuver too quick to track, he has her pinned and her throat caught in his hands. She gasps for air, tilting her head up- to look at you. Her mouth moves - and you hear her (not yours and yours at the same time) voice from Oksana behind you.

“See how he hates you? See how the hero will never love the villain? He will always hurt us.”

That’s not true. He never fought back.

With that flimsy plate of armor around your heart, you bend your head to bite Oksana. Her recoil gives you enough room to drop and spin, knocking her feet from under her. You use the momentum to slide yourself away and point your gun up at her. She drops and you turn the muzzle on yourself - your younger self. Two bullets for your ledger. Daddy Alexei would be so proud of his little murderer, dripping red.

Bucky staggers to his feet, eyes wide and fearful before he looks at you. Child murderer. There’s no shadow to remind you of what you are, but you know. This memory is a decade old. You have just shot a twenty year old who has just escaped the prison that held her for her entire life. He must see the same child you do.

His face twists into something else, and it’s worse than you could have dreaded. He looks at you with pity.

You feel it then.

That same rush of adrenaline that comes with firing a shot - that same rush of adrenaline that comes with quarrel for the sake of quarrel - that same rush of adrenaline when he looks at you with any other expression, when he shines that spotlight attention on even a fraction of you.

You want to be mad, to tell him off for pitying you, but the relief that all of you are okay hits you before the urge to fight comes up like nausea.

He steps forward, and you think he’s just going to leave you. But he comes behind you to help you to your feet.

You take the opportunity to put the gun away and cradle the baby. You trace her fragile skull with your finger. The pain radiates from your wrist to the tips of your fingers. You deserve this pain. You don’t deserve to touch her. This is why you left her behind.

Bucky still hasn’t stopped supporting you, leaning into your back as he wraps his metal arm around your waist. You feel his other hand move to support your wrist, careful to not touch the inflamed bruising.

“Do you want me to take her?” he asks. You take a breath to steady yourself. He’s standing so close that swaying on your feet leans you into his chest. You shake your head, but hand her over all the same. “We have to find Sentry.”

“Bob.” you correct. You still had the image of that sweet civilian who grabbed a gun and ran into a field of soldiers to distract them. It didn’t matter that Valentina dyed his hair and poisoned him against you and the team. “His name is Bob. He needs our help.”

There’s no Winter Soldier in the soft look you receive. “You came in here not knowing if we can save him.”

“We haven’t moved on. Can you carry her?”

“Yes, of course,” He adjusted the baby as if to show off how capable he was. You grit your teeth at the back of your mouth to not see a father holding his baby. You have a mission. Save Bob.

You nod and lead the way to the door out of the room.

---

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fic #thunderbolts #thunderbolts fic #fic*#*#i dont write this kind of fic #i dont know what the protocol is #kick me out of the tags if this doesn't belong there #hav*

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