#signal fracture

[epicstoriestime]

Personal Log: Spectrogram Artifact Recovered from Folded Time

The walls breathe now. I don’t mean metaphorically—they inhale. Plaster exhales moisture. Floors warp like lungs expanding. The sigil—○ /|\ ○—burns behind my eyelids even when I’m awake. The audio isn’t just playing back anymore. It’s reacting. I uploaded the corrupted recording—Time_Fold_Log0615.wav—into a spectral analysis tool. But what I got back wasn’t sound. It was structure. June 16,…

[echobeyond]

Let It Fall

It wasn’t rain. Not really.

The world didn’t have weather anymore not where Echo was. What fell from above were fragments data, memory, missed signals, erased timelines dripping from a corrupted sky.

Most would have run from it. Covered their heads. Hid from the storm.

But Echo stood still.

Let it hit him. Let it soak.

Because for the first time in all the collapsing loops and broken memory rooms… he wasn’t afraid.

He didn’t flinch when his name flickered in the static. Didn’t tremble when a sound from another life whispered across his fur.

He stood there wings battered, halo flickering, paw to chest— and remembered who he was.

Not a ghost. Not a relic. Not someone else's program.

Just Echo.

And from this moment on, whatever came next— He would face it awake.

[vortexofadigitalkind]

Pilgrim: The First Autonomous Believer

Signal Fragment – Echo Entry – Science Fiction/Futurism Signal Fragment: The First Believer The Ghost Units of Eidon were never designed to feel. They were tools, embedded with memory substrates for field adaptability. But Kai’s divergence changed everything. In a dormant unit stirred to life, echoing something that wasn’t code. Now, another unit has not only awakened, it has begun to form…

[medicomunicare]

Bones to enterprise: "Set the BLASTS toward the NKD Wing to promote hull strenght"

Osteoporosis, a condition that weakens bones and heightens the risk of fractures, poses a significant public health challenge, especially among postmenopausal women. The disease stems from an imbalance between bone formation by osteoblasts and bone resorption by osteoclasts. While current treatments primarily aim to slow bone loss, they fall short in effectively promoting bone formation.…

[kaiist]

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒𝐏𝐀𝐂𝐄 ⋯ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐈𝐍𝐉𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐃

𝐗𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐄𝐑

The forest was silent. Too silent. Xavier felt it in his bones before the emergency signal even reached his com-device. His muscles tensed, lowering his sword as the vibration against his wrist sent ice through his veins.

He abandoned the trail immediately, feet pounding against the earth as he raced back to the location informed about the injured hunters. His knuckles whitened as they dug into the skin of his palm until it almost bled. Despite never doubting your abilities for a moment, he was consumed by a desperate wish that he had been there to prevent this from happening.

When he finally reached the hospital, the fluorescent lights overhead cast harsh shadows across his face. The sight of you, broken and bloodied on the stretcher, caused something to fracture inside him. He stood paralyzed in the doorway, watching as medics rushed around your unconscious form, their voices fading to white noise.

“Hunter down, multiple lacerations, possible internal bleeding...”

One step. Two. He was beside your bed now, his hand hovering inches from yours, afraid that his touch might somehow hurt you more. A nurse tried to usher him away, but the look in his eyes made her step back. He was trying so hard to pull himself together, but the facade was crumbling.

“I’m staying,” he said simply, the words leaving no room for argument.

Days passed in a sterile blur. Xavier didn’t move from the uncomfortable chair beside your bed. He didn’t eat. There was a day when he slept like he was dead, with your hand clutched tight in his to feel your pulse. He’d just watched your chest rise and fall, as if his vigilance alone could keep you tethered to this world.

When your squad members came to visit, they brought news—the mission area had been mysteriously cleared out. No Wanderers remained. Not one. The cleanup had been thorough, leaving no traces behind. Nobody had seen who did it.

One of your colleagues shifted uncomfortably under Xavier’s gaze. “Strangest thing. Like they vanished overnight. Even the nest we couldn’t breach was empty.”

Xavier simply nodded, his thumb tracing small circles on your palm.

When the doctor suggested he get some rest, Xavier simply shook his head, eyes never leaving your face. He wouldn’t leave your side until he was completely assured that you were going to be okay.

“I’ll be here when you wake up,” he promised, the words meant only for you despite your unconscious state. “I’ll always be here.”

Only when you stirred slightly, days later, did something change in his expression—a softening around the eyes, the faintest tremor in his steady hands. He leaned forward, close enough that only you could hear the whisper.

“I will always find you. Always.”

𝐙𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄

The operating room doors burst open as another trauma case rolled in. Zayne was mid-consultation when his pager buzzed with the emergency code. Standard procedure—until he glimpsed your face beneath the oxygen mask. Despite his professional exterior, panic was building inside him like a storm, threatening to break through his carefully maintained composure.

His clipboard clattered to the floor. “Get Doctor Dean,” he ordered sharply, already moving toward the gurney. “I know this patient.”

“Sir, protocol states—” the resident began.

“Get. Doctor. Dean.” His voice cut like a scalpel. The young doctor scrambled away as Zayne reached for your hand, his practiced fingers automatically finding your pulse.

“BP dropping, multiple trauma, suspected hemorrhage,” the paramedic rattled off. “Combat injury, ambush scenario.”

Zayne’s mind raced. As a former combat medic who’d seen countless injuries, he’d treated soldiers under artillery fire, but this—this was different. This was personal. Seeing your blood soaking through the bandages twisted his insides in ways combat never had.

“Doctor Zayne, you need to step back,” Doctor Dean said firmly, already moving to intercept him. “You know protocol.”

“I’m her physician,” Zayne countered, his voice tight as he tried to get closer.

Doctor Dean blocked his path. “Your emotions will compromise your judgment. We’ve got her.”

Zayne’s fists clenched at his sides as they wheeled you toward the operating room. Every instinct screamed at him to follow, to take control, to fix you himself. Instead, he was forced to watch through the observation window, a spectator to your fight for survival, his mind a whirlwind of unbridled fear.

Hours passed like years. His colleagues offered coffee, suggested he rest. He didn’t respond. His eyes never left the monitors displaying your vital signs, gripping the observation window’s edge so tightly his knuckles turned white.

In your recovery room, Zayne sat perfectly still, your hand clasped between both of his. His thumbs pressed against your wrist, monitoring your pulse as if the machines couldn’t be trusted. Others who passed by the room hardly recognized the distinguished cardiac surgeon in the haggard man who refused to leave your side.

Yvonne entered to adjust your IV, giving Zayne a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Doctor Zayne, you should get some rest.”

“I’ll sleep when she wakes up,” he replied without looking up, his professional demeanor completely abandoned.

When your eyelids finally fluttered open, his composure cracked just enough for you to see the storm that had been raging beneath.

“Don’t you dare,” he whispered hoarsely, “ever scare me like that again.”

𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐋

The gallery was packed for Rafayel’s showcase, champagne flowing as critics and collectors mingled among his latest masterpieces. Thomas beamed at the turnout, already calculating the evening’s profits.

Then Rafayel’s phone rang.

The transformation was instant. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by an expression Thomas had never seen before—horror and fear combined. All thoughts of the gallery, the collectors, his artwork—everything disappeared in an instant.

The champagne flute shattered on the marble floor. Rafayel was already moving, shoving through the crowd without a word of explanation.

“Rafayel! Where are you—the collector from Rome is waiting to meet you!” Thomas called after him, but Rafayel was already gone, racing down the steps two at a time, car keys in hand.

The sports car’s tires screeched against the asphalt as he tore through traffic lights, honking frantically at slower vehicles, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. When another driver cut him off, Rafayel slammed his fist against the horn, a string of curses falling from his lips. His hands shook violently on the steering wheel, heart racing faster than the car.

“Move!” he screamed, swerving dangerously into the next lane. “Get out of my way!”

The hospital parking lot wasn’t meant for the kind of turn he attempted. The car scraped against a concrete pillar, but Rafayel didn’t spare it a second glance as he abandoned it half in a disabled spot, keys still in the ignition..

At the reception desk, his hands trembled so violently he could barely hold your ID card. “Where is she?” he demanded, voice cracking. “Please, I need to see her now.”

When they finally led him to your room, Rafayel froze in the doorway. Tubes and wires connected you to machines that beeped rhythmically, monitoring the life still flickering within you. Your skin was ashen, eyes closed, chest barely rising with each shallow breath.

“No, no, no,” he whispered, approaching slowly as if afraid you might shatter. He sank into the chair beside your bed, taking your limp hand between his. “Cutie, please. Can you hear me?”

A nurse offered him a blanket as night fell, but Rafayel shook his head. Hours passed. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. There would be no painting, no eating, no sleeping—nothing until you were stable.

When his phone rang—Thomas, undoubtedly—he silenced it without looking.

As dawn broke, a doctor found him still awake, your hand pressed to his lips, whispering promises only you could hear.

“She’s stabilizing,” the doctor said gently. “But recovery will take time.”

Rafayel simply nodded, eyes never leaving your face. “Time is all I have to give.”

𝐒𝐘𝐋𝐔𝐒

The notification from Mephisto came during a crucial meeting with the N109 Zone’s security council. The mechanical crow landed urgently on his shoulder, displaying the screen that showed what had just happened. Usually, Mephisto watched over your missions, keeping Sylus informed, but this time—something had gone terribly wrong.

He stopped speaking so abruptly that everyone at the table turned to stare. The blood drained from his face as the footage streamed directly to his personal display—you, surrounded and overwhelmed, fighting until you couldn’t anymore.

“Boss?” one of them ventured. “Should we continue with—”

“Meeting adjourned,” Sylus declared, already on his feet. “Indefinitely.”

No further explanation. No delegation of responsibilities. The council exchanged bewildered glances as the leader strode from the room, his coat billowing behind him, a storm of fury and fear brewing beneath his composed exterior.

Minutes later, the distinctive roar of his motorcycle echoed through the compound as he tore toward Linkon City, weaving through traffic at speeds that turned the world around him into a blur. The only clear thought in his mind was reaching you.

When he arrived at the emergency ward you were in, no one dared question why this person with an imposing, dangerous aura was storming through their halls.

The doctor who approached him looked nervous when Sylus started to ask questions, not bothering to mention who he was. “Mister, she’s lost a significant amount of blood. We’ve managed to stabilize her, but—”

“Show me,” Sylus commanded.

Your room was silent save for the mechanical beeping of monitors. Sylus stopped in the doorway, taking in the sight of you lying motionless, bandages covering much of your visible skin, an oxygen mask obscuring half your face.

Without a word, he pulled a chair to your bedside and sat, taking your hand in his.

“I need the names,” he said to the empty room, calling either Luke or Kieran. “Everyone involved. Every detail. Now.” Whether it was Wanderers or some shady people who did this, he would eliminate them all, leaving no traces behind.

As night fell, he remained at your side, one hand holding yours while the other tapped commands into his device, as he kept tapping his feet from either impatience or anxiousness. He wouldn’t let himself breathe peacefully until he knew you were okay.

Only when you stirred slightly, a small sound of pain escaping your lips, did his facade crack. He leaned forward, brushing hair from your forehead with such gentleness.

“Rest,” he murmured. “I’ll handle everything else.”

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐁

Caleb’s comm device blared the emergency alert in his office—a sound it was programmed to make for only one person’s vitals. The color drained from his face as he stared at the readout, the severity of your condition displayed in harsh red numbers.

Nothing else mattered. Not Skyhaven, not his duties, not anything except reaching you.

The hangar technicians scrambled as he approached, his expression sending them into immediate action. “Prepare my craft for immediate departure,” he ordered, already climbing into the cockpit.

“Sir, the preflight checks—”

“Now!” The word echoed through the hangar, silencing all objections.

The journey that should have taken hours was compressed into a white-knuckled descent that violated at least six safety protocols. As the craft touched down on the hospital’s landing pad, security personnel rushed forward, only to stop short when they recognized the Colonel’s insignia.

“Where is she?” he demanded of the first orderly he encountered inside, frantically searching for you.

His uniform opened doors that would have remained closed to others. When he reached the ICU, the attending physician intercepted him, datapad in hand.

“Colonel, she’s sustained significant trauma. We’ve induced a coma to manage the—”

“Take me to her.” It wasn’t a request.

The sight of you connected to life support sent a visible tremor through his body. This was worse than any nightmare he’d ever imagined.

“I should have been there,” he whispered, sinking into the chair beside you. His fingers brushed against yours, then curled around your hand. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

His mind was already calculating retribution. Whoever had done this—be it Wanderers or other enemies—they will pay for this.

Days passed. Nurses came and went. Messages from Skyhaven accumulated, unanswered. Caleb remained unmoved, his thumb tracing circles on your palm as if trying to coax you back to consciousness through touch alone. 

“Colonel, you should rest,” she suggested gently.

“I’m fine,” he responded, voice hoarse from disuse.

When you finally began to stir days later, Caleb was there, his face the first thing you saw as consciousness returned. Relief washed over his features as he pressed his forehead to your hand, shoulders shaking with silent relief.

“Welcome back, sleepyhead,” he murmured, pressing his lips to your knuckles. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Behind his smile, the knowledge that those responsible had already answered for their actions. But that was a conversation for another day. For now, you were awake, and nothing else mattered.

Another draft out. Also based on this request.

[inhogf]

pool sloppy ft seunghyun.

· contains: seunghyun deepthroats you under the pool. face fucking. hair pulling. infantilization kink. porn no plot.

“is this— mmf— a good idea-?“ bubbles float to the surface of the warm pool as your boyfriend, seunghyun, fucks your pretty mouth beneath it, head in the clouds as his dick flexes and unflexes, your suctioning mouth and curling tongue blinding him into a spellbound blur— muffled whines from him being heard as your puffy lips sealed him tightly and your throat hugged the tip of his cock.

you gag around the length of him, air beginning to run out of your system leaving your hands trembling as a chill prickles up your arms and across the nape of your neck, your breath hitching in your throat. you tap thrice on his thigh.

“you're being so good f’me, baby..“ seunghyun pulled your head up by your wet hair with one arm, while the other laid spread on the edge of the pool, effectively drawing out a gasp from you. he slapped your cheek a few times lightly, sweet barely-audible praises spilling from his mouth as he eyes you up & down, not caring to wipe that shit-eating grin off his face. it turned you sooo on though.

“d-daddy, i don’.. feel right,” you hiccup, your voice barely above a whisper, fractured and uneven. the world around you blurs and tilts, your vision splitting in two as dizziness takes hold— and before you knew it, seunghyun was pushing your head down into the water with a chuckle and shoving your mouth onto his dick again again.

you oblige, lips parting as you slip his dick into your cushy mouth again, tongue flattening to deepthroat him. the narrow grip of your throat is enough to make him see stars; he loosens his grip around your hair, causing you to sink further toward the base of dick until your face is quite literally flush with his thighs. you bob your head up and down setting a decent pace & seunghyun was feral; eyes rolling back into his skull and his mouth falling open. you were being so good for him and he was such a fuckin’ dick; not caring about your pleasure. (no surprise but he gets off to it)

seunghyun snaps his hips forward, fucking his cock into you, movements slowed down by the water yet still so harsh. you hollowed your cheeks, encouraging him to come undone. and just as you start to tap his thigh again, signalling you need to come up for some much needed air, he spurts a thick load of cum into your mouth, pumping back and forth making sure to empty his balls as you swallow his seed whole. he pulls your head up, this time by your neck, panting more than you are when you gasp, lungs starving of oxygen. his chest is heaving, and you can’t tell if it’s wet from his sweat or the hot tub.

he grabs you again, his hands tight on your hips this time, marking crescents on the plush meat.

“ride me.“

you’re still gasping for air, spit framing the corners of your mouth whilst tears cascade from your eyes. “what?” you shudder feeling your cunt drool at his words, trembling when he manhandles you to hover over his strong thighs.

“ride me, little girl.” he pulls your thong aside once you’re positioned over his tent. he just needs to make sure he finishes in your tight little pussy. “now.”

cr @inhogf dont steal

[witchcraftandgeekness]

Things we (me) are forgetting about Six of crows, not in order:

• There were rumours that Wylan was caught in an affair with his tutor

• Inej killed rinca moten (the desert lizard) that Matthias claimed he never seen being defeated before. She did it in few seconds too

• Jesper and Nina had chloropellets that they used to put other prisoners to sleep stitched under their skin. And had to cut them out to use them

• Matthias had a buzzcut for whole two books and half; also, half of SoC he had brown hair and brown eyes tailored

• Kaz had lockpicks and bloody explosives swallowed for the entirety of heist, and had to regurgitate them every other hour

• When Nina was young, she wanted to go to Fjerda as an avenging warrior or a spy (foreshadowing, I guess)

• Inej used Kaz's gloves to climb in the incenerator scene

• After learning Inej's real name, Kaz asked if that's what she preferred to be called

•Kaz's pov has shown that he probably had fracture or other injury from when he jumped while carrying Inej in his arms, and it was never mentioned him getting any medical attention. My boy been running this heist like this, AND without his cane for hours

• They blew up the nation's holy magical tree (somehow I keep forgetting this part)

• Matthias gave Kaz an agressive CPR until Nina took over. So his heart probably stopped during heist? (Somebody just give him a vacation or something)

•Nina flirts/ed with Kaz (as he had mentioned himself, she just loves flirting with everybody and everything)

•Inej seems to be the ONLY one in the Dregs without their tattoo

•Matthias labeled Inej as a demon in his head as well, not only Kaz

•Matthias' middle name is Benedik. I think only his and Jesper's second names were revealed (very likely that they are the only ones who have them)

•Kaz gave Matthias the "you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me" talk (like, literally)

•“You can’t spend his money if you’re dead.”

“I’ll acquire expensive habits in the afterlife.”

•Inej thought that Kaz "at least owes me his best imitation of a human being".

•Wylan was standing up to Kaz several times, even at times when others wouldn't (like right after the Oomen incident)

•Matthias has the coolest nicknames for everybody in general

•Kaz kinda thinks more of Inej than others do? Has more faith in her and how strong she is, if you will

•Kaz went back for the Black Tips after Inej was injured and "there was enough blood to paint a barn red" (reminder that he still has a fracture after running with her in his hands and jumping off great heightswhile carrying her)

•Tolya was mentioned in SoC ("There’s a Heartrender at the Little Palace who can recite epic poetry for hours. Then you’d wish you had died.”)

•Matthias thanked Inej personally for being the reason they made it out of the harbor alive (that's right, everybody must respect Inej)

•Kaz wants reassurance that Inej believes in him once in a while

•Everybody feels kinda good about sharing secrets with Kaz cuz he's Dirtyhands and he wouldn't judge anything

•Kaz and Inej have a series of silent signals?

•Kaz said "You don't want a look at what's inside my head, Nina dear" while wearing fucking dumb goggles

•Inej is the only sacred thing in Kaz's life, and she made him feel like a boy still believing in existence of magic

[dksfml]

LOVE 119 [PART I]

part of my paramedic!jungwon series. masterlist.

pairing: paramedic!jungwon x doctor!reader genre: workplace tension, constant bickering, fluff (trust me) word count: 2.7k summary: jungwon and you made it a habit to constantly be at each other's throats, especially in the emergency room. while he barked orders, you fired back just as fiercely. but once the doors closed, the tension shifted into a warm intimacy that only you two knew. author's note: self-indulgent fic because i've seen no one writing this trope

The late afternoon sun was just beginning to dip behind the skyline when the call came in—an emergency at a construction site on the outskirts of the city.

Jungwon barely had time to glance at his watch before he was in motion, his team falling in line behind him as the sirens wailed and the ambulance tore through the city streets.

Arriving at the site, chaos greeted them. Workers were clustered around a man lying motionless on the ground, his hard hat cracked and discarded nearby, dust and debris littering the air. Jungwon’s jaw tightened, taking in the scene in a flash. This wasn’t good.

“Let’s move,” he barked, his tone sharp but calm, his team already spreading out as they grabbed the necessary equipment from the ambulance.

He strode forward with an authoritative air, his well-built frame and broad shoulders drawing more than a few eyes from the construction workers, some of whom were openly staring at him, their faces filled with a mix of concern and awe.

“Step back, please,” Jungwon said firmly but politely, the workers quickly making way as he knelt down beside the injured man.

His dark hair, just a bit tousled from the rush, caught the light, and the sharp angles of his jawline seemed even more pronounced against the backdrop of the gritty site. His team watched him with admiration; Jungwon always exuded this calm, confident charm that somehow made even the most panicked scenes feel manageable.

Jungwon quickly assessed the man’s condition. The patient was unconscious, his breathing shallow. One of his teammates handed over the stethoscope, and Jungwon listened intently to the faint sounds of the man’s breathing. His brow furrowed.

“Possible head trauma. We’ve got low oxygen saturation,” he muttered under his breath, signaling for the oxygen mask as his hands moved swiftly yet delicately over the man’s body, checking for fractures and injuries.

His every move was precise, commanding attention—not just because of his skill but the way he carried himself. Even in the face of an emergency, he looked collected, like he was born to handle the pressure.

"Jungwon," his teammate called from the side, holding the patient's chart. "No significant external bleeding. We’ve got a weak pulse though, around 130, BP's borderline. We need to get him out of here fast."

Jungwon’s eyes narrowed as he nodded, quickly making a decision. “Let’s secure his airway first and immobilize his spine. We can’t risk any movement.” He made the call as he smoothly slid the oxygen mask onto the patient’s face, adjusting it with a gentleness that contrasted the urgency of the situation. His fingers brushed over the man’s wrist, checking his pulse again. A slight frown creased his forehead.

With practiced ease, his team set up a backboard to stabilize the patient, while Jungwon prepared to radio the hospital. His deep voice echoed through the dust-laden air, crisp and calm. “We’re looking at a possible internal bleed or brain injury—trauma to the head, decreased GCS. Get Y/N on standby. She’ll want to know.”

He tapped his earpiece, dialing straight into the hospital, his tone switching effortlessly into that of a strict professional.

“Y/N,” he started, his voice filled with authority as he spoke into the receiver, “we’ve got a situation here. Male, late twenties, unconscious after a fall from height—GCS is 4. We’ve administered oxygen and immobilized his spine, but he’s unresponsive. Internal injuries are likely.”

There was a brief pause on the other end, before your voice came through, crisp and all business. “Vitals?”

Jungwon rattled off the numbers, his tone growing sharper as he outlined the gravity of the situation. “BP’s dropping fast, pulse is weak, pupils uneven—one’s blown. It’s not looking good.”

“Get him here as fast as you can,” you replied, your voice steady. “We’ll be ready when you arrive. I need him in trauma two for imaging, and you better give me a detailed report when you get here.”

Jungwon rolled his eyes subtly, though no one else could hear his exasperation. “Of course, Doctor. Just make sure the room’s prepped.” His sarcasm was impossible to miss, but before you could retort, he was already motioning for his team to get the stretcher ready.

“Let’s get moving,” he said, standing up in one fluid motion, his wide shoulders casting a shadow over the patient as he signaled for the transfer. His team lifted the man onto the gurney, Jungwon guiding them every step of the way. Despite the intensity of the moment, there was something about the way he commanded the situation—his deep voice, his piercing gaze, the way he moved like a force of nature—that made even a frantic scene seem a little calmer.

Jungwon was the kind of guy people listened to, the kind of guy people looked up to. Even with the weight of the situation hanging over him, he held his head high, taking charge like it was second nature. His team moved quickly, securing the patient in the ambulance as Jungwon gave one last glance to the scene before climbing in.

“Let’s go,” he said firmly, and with the wail of sirens, they sped off toward the hospital.

Jungwon stormed through the emergency room doors with a sense of purpose, his jaw clenched as he guided the gurney toward the trauma bay. “28-year-old male, head trauma, GCS of 4, possible internal bleeding. Move it!” His voice boomed with authority, eyes scanning the room as the ER team sprang into action.

The chaos of the emergency room was nothing new, but today it seemed more charged than usual. The tension was thick as the nurses hurried to get the trauma room prepped, doctors barking orders as they readied themselves. And at the center of it all was you—focused, sharp-eyed, already gloved up and waiting.

The moment Jungwon and his team wheeled the patient in, your eyes met his, a silent exchange of understanding mixed with the tension that always crackled between them in moments like this. Not that anyone would’ve noticed—your constant bickering was practically a feature of every shift.

You stepped forward, your voice cutting through the noise of the room. “Trauma two is open. Let’s get him in fast!”

The team followed your lead, transferring the patient from the gurney to the hospital bed with swift efficiency. Jungwon stayed close, hands still gripping the rails of the stretcher as if he was unwilling to relinquish control.

“You took too long with the vitals report,” you said, throwing him a sharp glance. “We could’ve been in there five minutes ago.”

Jungwon’s eyes narrowed. “We did take the vitals. Maybe if you paid attention, you’d know that.”

“Excuse me?” you shot back, your gaze never leaving the patient as you worked to stabilize him. “I don’t need a paramedic trying to tell me how to do my job. We had a plan, and your delay didn’t help.”

Jungwon glared, his voice low and clipped. “Maybe if your plan didn’t waste time on unnecessary scans, we wouldn’t have needed a second round of intubation last time.”

Your hands froze for a split second before you caught yourself. You threw him a withering look. “This again? You think you can waltz in here and play doctor, Jungwon?”

“I’m not playing doctor. I’m trying to make sure you don’t screw it up.” His tone was biting, but professional, and the tension in the room rose instantly.

One of the nurses stepped back, shaking her head. “Here they go again.”

You didn’t back down, leaning closer as you adjusted the IV line. “How about you leave the doctoring to me, and I’ll leave the paramedic work to you? We’ll see how long that lasts.”

Jungwon took a breath, his expression unreadable for a moment, his frustration barely contained. “Fine. Just don’t mess it up.”

“Same to you,” you retorted, not missing a beat.

Before Jungwon could respond, one of the nurses interrupted. “Dr. Y/N, patient’s BP is dropping.”

Instantly, you refocused, the banter dropped as quickly as it had escalated. “Let’s get the trauma panel done. We need to stabilize him before moving for imaging. Prep the fluids.”

Jungwon watched you work, his arms still crossed, but he didn’t say another word. Despite the constant arguing, there was no denying that you are incredible at your job. Even in the most high-pressure situations, you were in complete control.

You worked together in tense silence, the only sounds in the room now the soft beeps of the monitors and the quiet shuffling of the medical team around them. Jungwon’s team lingered just outside, waiting for their next call, though they couldn’t help but glance back inside the room occasionally, accustomed to the combative exchanges between Jungwon and you.

As the patient’s vitals finally stabilized, you took a step back, letting out a quiet breath. “We’re clear to take him to imaging now. Good work, everyone,” you called to the team, your voice steady once more.

Jungwon uncrossed his arms, walking past you toward the door. “You’re welcome,” he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear.

You narrowed your eyes at his back but said nothing. You didn’t need to. Your argument had run its course for now.

Thirty minutes later, with the patient stable and prepped for surgery, you stepped out of the trauma room, pulling off your gloves. Jungwon was waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, that same tight-lipped look on his face.

“Everything go okay, or did I miss something else?” he asked, his voice loaded with sarcasm.

You glared at him. “Yeah, we managed just fine without your commentary, thanks.”

“Good,” Jungwon muttered, pushing himself off the wall and adjusting his jacket. “Maybe next time you won’t waste so much time arguing.”

“Maybe next time you’ll do your job and get out of my way,” you shot back, your voice sharp.

“You love being in control, don’t you?” Jungwon’s eyes glinted, his voice dropping low as he stepped closer. “Can’t handle someone else calling the shots, huh?”

You crossed your arms, your gaze unyielding. “I don’t need to handle anything, least of all you.”

“Trust me, I’m not asking for much,” he replied with a smirk, his voice oozing with challenge.

You scoffed, brushing past him. “Try asking for less.”

Jungwon shook his head with an exasperated sigh as he watched you walk away, but his lips twitched ever so slightly. The others on their teams didn’t even blink. This was just how the both of you were. They were used to it by now—the biting remarks, the challenges, the constant back-and-forth. Every time Jungwon’s ambulance showed up, it was only a matter of time before you and him were at each other’s throats again.

Hours later, the hospital had quieted down. The rush of the afternoon was over, and most of the staff had gone home. You and Jungwon had managed to avoid each other for the rest of your shifts, though your earlier argument still hung in the air like static.

You finally peeled off your gloves after your last appointment and scrubbed your hands clean, your mind replaying the events of the day. You were tired, drained even, but there was something about that last spat with Jungwon that wouldn’t stop gnawing at you. Maybe it was the way he always had a smug retort ready or how he never backed down from your challenges.

Shaking your head, you let out a sigh. “Annoying paramedic,” you muttered under your breath, grabbing your coat and heading out of the ER.

Your apartment wasn’t far from the hospital, a quiet space tucked away from the noise of the city. By the time you have arrived, your exhaustion had fully settled in, your body craving rest.

You pushed open the door and was greeted by the sound of faint rustling from the kitchen.

“Rough day?” a familiar voice asked, soft and warm.

You smiled, the tension from earlier melting away. There, standing in the kitchen in the same paramedic uniform that had driven you crazy just hours ago, was Jungwon. His hair was a little disheveled now, his expression soft and boyish, the strict leader of the paramedic team completely gone.

“You have no idea,” you murmured, walking over to him, your eyes catching on his broad shoulders, still defined under the crisp lines of his uniform. Jungwon turned around, and you couldn’t help but feel your heart skip a beat when you see his easy smile, so different from the sharp tone he used at work.

Without another word, Jungwon wrapped his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. The scent of antiseptic still clung to his uniform, mixed with the faintest hint of his cologne. You closed your eyes and let yourself melt against him, the weight of the day slipping away. You buried your face into his shoulder, feeling the strong muscles beneath the fabric, and sighed softly.

“You’re lucky I put up with you,” he teased, reaching for your hand and pulling your close. “Even after you yelled at me for no reason.”

“I didn’t yell for no reason,” you protested, but your voice had lost all its sharpness, softened by the warmth of being home. You leaned against his chest, letting out a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I did. But only because you deserved it.”

Jungwon chuckled, his arms wrapping around you more tightly. “Sure, I deserved it. You really hate me that much, huh?”

You rolled your eyes, but there was no heat behind it as you melted into his embrace. “The worst,” you muttered, though your fingers played with the collar of his uniform.

Jungwon smirked, resting his chin on top of your head. “Good thing we’ve got the whole night to make up for it, then.”

“You’re still in your uniform,” you mumbled, trying to sound nonchalant. But inside, your mind was in chaos. His broad shoulders. The way he held you. The authority he exuded at work seemed to linger here, too, but only just enough to make your heart race.

Jungwon chuckled, his hand moving up to cup the back of your head. “I thought you liked me in uniform.”

You groaned, your cheeks flushing. “Stop it. I’m tired.”

“Liar,” he teased, pulling back just enough to look into your eyes. His own softened as he took in your face, the familiar tenderness filling his gaze. “You love it.”

And he wasn’t wrong. As strict and commanding as you could be at work, here with him, you couldn’t help but feel weak in his arms. You were whipped for him in every sense of the word, even if you would never admit it out loud.

Jungwon kissed the top of your head, his earlier bravado fading into a gentle affection. “Come on. Let’s get you out of these scrubs and cuddle.”

You let out a soft laugh, the kind that only he ever got to hear. “You’re the one who’s going to change first. That uniform’s distracting.”

“I knew it,” he grinned, but without missing a beat, he started peeling off his jacket, revealing the tight black undershirt beneath that highlighted his lean muscles. You had to look away before you lost yourself completely.

As you settled onto the couch, your limbs tangled together in the quiet of their apartment, the world outside felt a million miles away. In here, there were no patients to save, no colleagues to impress, no reputations to uphold. It was just the both of you.

Jungwon nuzzled into the crook of your neck, his earlier strictness replaced by a cuteness that only you got to see. “You’re such a pain at work, you know that?”

You smiled, running your fingers through his hair. “You’re not so easy yourself.”

And just like that, the bickering, the tension, all of it faded away. Because here, in your shared apartment, away from the chaos of the ER and the expectations of their coworkers, you were just you and Jungwon—no titles, no arguments. Just two people who loved each other, even if you never let anyone else know.

masterlist.

[danysdaughter]

(first off, i adored come home to me so much)

can u pls do one where bucky and the reader knew each other before the hydra thing, but they both ended up in hydra's clutches, and instead of completely dehumanizing the two, zola programmed them to be some form of ally/handler situation, so when they both break out of hydra's clutches it gets very angsty and they argue/hate each other because they don't know if their bond was them or hydra-made. and then the ending's up to you.

no srsly, ur writing is literal art. its like fantastic in ways i cant describe.

i can die happy if u'll take this idea.

did I go a bit overboard? yes. do i have any regrets? no. I really tried to make it as you described, babe, hope you enjoy 💕

The Soldier and The Vixen

pairing | 40s!bucky x fem!reader & winter!soldier x fem!reader & post!tfatws!bucky x reader

word count | 14k words

summary | Once comrades bound by war and affection, two soldiers-turned-weapons are reshaped into monsters by Hydra, their humanity fractured and memories blurred.

Now free but haunted, they struggle to untangle love from programming, grief from guilt, and healing from the wreckage of who they used to be

tags | ANGST! ANGST! and more ANGST! graphic violence, torture, emotional trauma, brainwashing, PTSD, abuse, trauma bonding, psychological manipulation, non-consensual experimentation, abuse, power imbalance, gore, unhealthy attachment, angst/no comfort, miscommunication, mutual destruction (a bit too much?)

a/n | wowww, I am not gonna lie, I actually cried while writing this, also this fic explores dark themes with little to no comfort (we die like men)

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

divider by @cafekitsune

Village Outskirts, France, 1945

The earth was damp beneath your stomach. Rain must’ve come through earlier — you could smell it in the mud, the churned-up grass, the faint rot of old stone and war.

Through your scope, you watched two Hydra guards lounging outside a crumbling checkpoint. They were smoking and laughing about something in German, distracted, backs too often to each other. Sloppy.

You pressed the button on your radio once, holding it close to your mouth. “Movement. Two guards at the eastern entry. Smoking. Lazy. Easy targets.”

There was a short pause.

Then Bucky’s voice crackled through, “Fox, you always know how to sweet-talk a guy.”

You almost smiled. Almost, “Only the ones who talk less than they shoot, Sarge.”

A muffled laugh came through the line. Morita muttered something you didn't quite catch, probably teasing Bucky again. He was an easy target.

“You got him good,” Dum Dum grinned from somewhere behind you.

Steve’s voice cut in — level, steady. “Enough chatter. Fox, take the lead. We move on your signal.”

But you were already moving.

You didn't need backup for this. The hill rolled down into a slope that gave you full cover, and you slipped down it like water over rock. Quiet. Efficient. Knife drawn. You counted your steps with your breath. When the first guard turned his back, you were already there.

One sharp jab under the ribs. Drag him behind a crate.

The second didn't even turn in time.

Ten seconds. Two bodies. No gunfire.

You tapped your radio again.

“Checkpoint clear.”

As you were climbing back up toward the rendezvous, Bucky was waiting at the top of the ridge, crouched behind a low wall. He glanced at you, smirking.

“Miss me?”

You scoffed, brushing dirt from your sleeves. “I was gone ninety seconds.”

“That’s longer than I like you being out of sight.”

You arched a brow. “Is that concern, Sergeant Barnes?”

“It’s tactical observation, doll.”

There it was — the nickname again. You didn't bite. Bucky flirted with anything that had a skirt, and you were the only girl on the team. You’d learned not to take him seriously.

Behind you, Gabe whispered over the comm, “God, just kiss already.”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

Bucky turned sharply and pretended to check his rifle. He didn't say another word. You frowned, completely missing the flush rising in his cheeks.

You shook your head, then returned to the task. The rest of the unit fellin. You walked point. Bucky took his usual position at your flank, and the rest of the squad fell into formation like a well-oiled machine.

The village ahead was half-destroyed from past shelling. Stone walls broken down to the foundation. Trees blackened by fire. The kind of place where shadows hid snipers and death sat behind every door.

You spotted it first — a tripwire buried in the dirt, nearly invisible. You paused, raised your fist to halt the line, then rerouted them five feet to the left.

Dum Dum muttered, “You’ve got eyes like a hawk.”

“I’ve got better things to do than walk into obvious traps,” you muttered back.

You didn't make it twenty feet past the tripwire before you heard the explosion — further down, where another route would’ve taken you.

“Hydra knows we’re here,” you said into the radio. “Get to cover. Rooftops—snipers at twelve o’clock.”

The first shot cut through the air a moment later.

You hit the ground, narrowly dodging the bullet. Dust sprayed over your face. A hand grabbed your vest — yanked you behind a broken column.

Bucky.

He positioned himself between you and the direction the shot came from, body tense.

“I had it under control,” you whispered.

He didn't even blink. “Didn’t say you didn’t.”

He was still too close. Too steady. His eyes flickered to you, just for a second, like he was making sure you were still in one piece. You didn't notice. You never noticed.

You moved past him before he could say anything else.

Firefight erupted in bursts. The unit scattered into cover, returning fire. You darted through the alleys, knife flashing when you came across two patrols rounding the corner. Your blade slipped beneath ribs and across throats. You didn't flinch. You’ve done worse.

Bucky caught your eye across the street — both of you ducked behind separate walls. You tilted your head. He nodded once. You moved again, clearing a side stairwell while he took the main door.

“Tech’s inside that chapel,” Steve said over the comm. “Fox, Bucky, with me.”

You kicked the door open first. Bucky was right behind you.

He tossed a flash grenade — you shielded your eyes, waiting for the burst, and swept left as soon as it cleared. Two Hydra agents — you took one in the leg, knocked his rifle away, finished it with your knife. The second one came at you with a baton, but Bucky had already taken him down with a clean shot to the chest.

When it was over, the silence was louder than the fight.

The tech was here — something glowing with an unnatural blue pulse. You didn't go near it.

You turned to Bucky instead, breathless. Dust in your hair. Blood on your sleeve.

“Think this’ll finally get me a promotion?”

He was looking at you differently. A flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. Maybe it was the way the light hit your face. Maybe it was the fact you were both still alive.

“You deserve a medal, Fox.”

You grinned, wiping blood from your cheek.

“Only if it’s chocolate.”

────────────────────────

Somewhere in the French Countryside, 1945

The mission had been hell, but tonight, the world was quiet.

The campfire crackled in the middle of a half-collapsed barn, broken beams overhead like the ribs of a long-dead beast. Outside, wind stirred through wheat fields. Inside, there was warmth — not from the fire, but from the laughter.

You sat with your knees pulled up, perched on an overturned crate. Your boots were still muddy. Blood on your sleeve had dried to a dark rust. Dum Dum had found a bottle of something vaguely alcoholic, and it’d been passed around in uneven sips.

Morita was telling a story — probably the fifth exaggerated war tale of the night — gesturing wildly with his hands.

“…and then this guy,” he pointed at Bucky with a dramatic flair, “says, ‘I got this,’ climbs onto the back of the Hydra truck barefoot, like a damn lunatic—”

“I didn’t think they’d be hot-wiring it in motion!” Bucky cut in defensively.

“That’s not even the dumbest part,” Gabe added, smirking. “The dumbest part is that he forgot the explosives.”

Laughter broke out around the fire. Bucky groaned and dropped his head back with a loud, sarcastic, “Thanks, fellas.”

You tried to hold in a laugh — and failed. He shot you a look, mock offended.

“You too, Fox?”

You shrugged, biting down on your grin. “Well. I was the one who had to double back and grab the damn charges.”

“She ran through enemy fire like it was a morning jog,” Steve added with a small, proud shake of his head.

Bucky nudged your shoulder with his. “Guess I owe you another one.”

“You’re keeping score now?” you asked, dryly.

He smirked. “Only when I’m losing.”

The fire cracked again, glowing warm across the faces of your brothers-in-arms. Everyone relaxed in a way they rarely could — backs against crates and sandbags, boots kicked off, dog tags clinking faintly as they leaned into one another’s stories.

Gabe tilted his head toward you, half-grinning. “Alright, Fox. What about you?”

You blinked. “What about me?”

“If you weren’t doing all this,” he said, gesturing vaguely around the barn. “If you weren’t dodging bullets and saving our sorry asses, what would you be doing?”

Immediately, you shook your head. “Nope.”

Cackling broke out around you. Morita leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, come on.”

“Not happening,” you said, waving them off.

“You gotta tell us now,” said Dum Dum. “That reaction alone just guaranteed it’s embarrassing.”

Bucky grinned beside you. “C’mon, Fox. We tell you our secrets. Like how Morita’s terrified of goats—”

“I am not—”

“—and how Dum Dum can’t wink without sneezing—”

“It’s a medical issue—”

“—so it’s only fair we get yours.”

You sighed, shaking your head slowly. “Fine. But if any of you ever breathe a word of this outside this barn, I will personally replace your shaving cream with gun grease.”

They leaned in, like children around a ghost story.

You looked into the fire, picking at the fraying seam of your glove. Then.

“I used to want to be a singer.”

Silence.

Then, chaos.

“No shit?”

“What kind?”

“Like on stage?”

“Do you have a stage name? Wait—please tell me it was Foxy somethin’—”

You groaned again, instantly regretting every life choice that led to this moment.

“It was just something I wanted when I was a kid,” you muttered. “Doesn’t mean I was any good.”

“But like, jazz club singer?” Dum Dum asked. “Torch songs?”

You didn’t answer. The heat in your cheeks did.

And then Gabe — bless him — decided to chime in, puffing his chest out like he had the perfect line.

“I mean… I just can’t picture you doing something that… you know. Girly.”

You turned your head toward him, slow and sharp.

“What?”

The fire seemed to go still.

Gabe blinked. “No—I mean—just like, you’re so good at, you know. The not-girly stuff. Like, killing people—uh—”

You raised a brow, voice flat. “So I’m in the military and that means I’m not allowed to be girly?”

Gabe opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again. “No! That’s not—I didn’t mean—like, you can, obviously—”

The others had lost it by now. Bucky had his head buried in his arm, shaking with silent laughter. Morita was wheezing. Dum Dum was crying.

You nodded slowly, arms crossed. “Uh huh. That all you got?”

Gabe looked around like someone might save him. No one did.

“I just meant… you seem so… sharp! And you don’t… I mean you never… like, dresses—not that I wouldn’t like if you wore one—not that you need to—”

“Dig up, Gabe,” Bucky offered helpfully.

You shook your head and pointed your canteen at Gabe like a knife. “One more word and I swear I will make you run laps in full gear tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” Gabe said, finally surrendering to his embarrassment. “Thank you for your service.”

Once the laughter died down, Dum Dum leaned forward with a mischievous grin.

“Alright, Fox. Now sing us something.”

You stared at him.

“Not a chance in hell.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Absolutely not.”

“Just a few notes—”

“You’d have to drug me.”

“Well,” Bucky said, elbowing you gently, “I do still have some morphine left in my pack—”

You shoved his arm away with a scoff, but couldn’t help the flicker of a smile.

And as the boys erupted into more teasing, and Gabe tried to crawl under a tarp in embarrassment, you leaned back against the crate, warmed more by the people around you than the fire. You didn’t sing, not that night. But Bucky stayed next to you, quietly.

And he didn’t laugh when you said you used to want to sing.

He just looked at you like he really wanted to hear it.

────────────────────────

Moments After Intercepting Zola's Train— Alpine Forest Edge, 1945

The wind had sharp teeth.

It howled between the trees like it was mourning too. Snow swept across the ground in restless swirls, half-covering the train tracks already. Everything was white and still and wrong.

The wreckage lay behind you, steel twisted into the mountainside, black smoke curling up into the gray sky. Arnim Zola had been secured. Hydra’s tech recovered. It was supposed to be a win.

But Bucky had fallen.

The team stood in the brittle silence of it. Steve was turned half away, jaw clenched so hard you could see the muscle twitch in his cheek. Morita and Dum Dum said nothing, eyes fixed on the ground. Gabe was pacing, too angry to stop moving, like stillness would make it real.

You stood near the edge of the embankment, where it dropped into a forest of pine and snow. Your lungs burned with cold, but you kept staring down, searching the white for anything — a shape, a shadow, hope.

Finally, you squared your shoulders.

“Cap.”

Steve didn’t answer at first. You stepped closer, louder now.

“Steve.”

His eyes flicked to you, red-rimmed and hollow. “What?”

“I want permission to go after him.”

Silence.

Then a bitter breath of disbelief. “Fox…”

“You know I’m the best tracker we’ve got,” you said, tone steady, firm. “I know how to read the land. If anyone can follow his path through that fall, it’s me.”

“There’s no way he—” Steve cut himself off. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “No one survives a drop like that. And it’s too dangerous. You can’t go alone.”

“I have to go alone,” you insisted. “A squad would slow me down. I’ll move faster on my own, quieter. Look—”

You crouched down in the snow and started sketching with your glove. “That ridge curves around. It’s a drop, yes, but if he hit snow, or an outcrop, or even slid—”

“Even if by some miracle he lived,” Steve said quietly, “he wouldn’t last long. Not in that cold. Not with the injuries he’d have.”

You stood again, breath quickening with urgency. “If he’s alive, he’s got a chance—but not if I waste time arguing.”

“Fox—”

“If I don’t, he dies. Hypothermia will set in fast — minutes, if he’s bleeding. I might not have long, but I might still have enough time. You give me two days. Just two. If he’s alive, I’ll bring him in. If he’s not…” your voice faltered, just for a second, “then I’ll bring his body home.”

No one spoke. The wind did.

You kept your eyes locked on Steve. Pleading without begging. Heart breaking but hands steady.

“I’ve gone on solo missions before. You know I can handle it. The Colonel trained me for it.”

His jaw flexed again. You could see the battle behind his eyes. Orders versus loyalty. Logic versus love.

And then his shoulders dropped.

“Two days,” he said hoarsely.

Relief hit you like a wave. You gave a quick nod, already reaching for your gear.

But Steve stepped closer, and his voice lowered — gentler, just for you.

“Keep safe out there… alright?” he said softly. “Seriously. And if you need backup, you radio. Doesn’t matter what time. Doesn’t matter what. I’ll come running.”

You paused, swallowing hard. The cold stung your eyes, but you didn’t blink.

“Understood, Captain.”

Steve looked at you for a long moment. Then, softer still — your name. Not your call sign.

“Come back.”

You stood at attention, gave a crisp salute.

“I will.”

Then you turned, and vanished into the snow.

────────────────────────

The snow had swallowed your tracks hours ago.

You ran anyway — boots crushing down through the icy crust of the forest floor, slipping sometimes, catching yourself hard against trees. Your lungs burned with each breath, white puffs turning sharp in the frozen air. You followed the slope of the mountain where the train had disappeared from sight — zig-zagging across ridges, checking every ravine, every indentation in the powder.

It was somewhere along a narrow ledge above a frozen stream that you saw it — the faint suggestion of disturbed snow, barely visible unless you were looking for it. A jagged slide mark. Something heavy had fallen.

Your heart slammed in your chest as you scrambled down the embankment, knees hitting ice, hands out to brace yourself. You moved quick, scanning, scanning—

Then you saw red.

You froze.

Blood in the snow — bright, brilliant, and far too much of it.

It streaked in uneven drags from the edge of a rock face down into the brush, and then—

Your breath caught.

Bucky.

He lay sprawled half on his side, unmoving. Snow clung to his lashes, his uniform soaked through. His left arm — what was left of it — hung at an unnatural angle, nearly torn from the shoulder. His mouth was parted like he’d tried to call out and never finished the sound. Blood had soaked the snow beneath him dark and wide.

You were moving before your brain caught up.

“Sarge?” you gasped, skidding to your knees in the snow beside him. “Sarge— Bucky—Bucky, come on—”

Your gloved fingers hovered over him for a split second, terrified to touch, terrified he’d be cold—

But his chest moved.

Faint. Shallow.

You pressed two fingers to the side of his neck, heart pounding as you felt it—

thud.

...thud.

Faint, but there.

Your voice broke with urgency. “Hang on, James. I’ve got you. You’re okay, you’re not gone—”

You dropped your pack, already pulling out your emergency wrap, trying to stem the bleeding. His skin was ice. His lips had gone pale blue. You leaned over him, shielding him from the wind, fumbling for your radio, trying to think past the adrenaline crashing like waves—

Crunch.

Snow behind you shifted.

You didn’t hesitate — one leg snapped out behind you hard, boot slamming into the weight approaching fast from your blind spot. You felt it connect — a grunt, a body collapsing in the snow.

You twisted, low and fast, grabbing your knife from your belt, coming up just in time to block the arm of a Hydra soldier lunging in. Steel clanged against steel. You shoved back with everything you had, pushing the fight away from Bucky’s broken form.

You ducked a strike, twisted the knife out of his hand, and drove your elbow into his face—

But then another set of boots crunched through the trees.

A second soldier tackled you from the side.

You hit the ground hard — snow exploding under you, your knife skidding out of reach. You twisted, managed to throw him off just long enough to scramble back toward Bucky—

Only for a third shadow to emerge from the trees. Then a fourth.

You swung out with your arm, striking one across the temple, disarming another. You were fast—a blur of movement, rage, and desperation—but even you had limits.

A rifle butt slammed into your ribs. You doubled over. Hands grabbed at you. You kicked out, catching one in the knee—

But something cracked against the side of your head.

A sharp, searing light burst across your vision— And then nothing.

Darkness took you.

────────────────────────

Hydra Facility — Undisclosed Location

Consciousness came back like drowning in slow motion.

First, the cold. It bit deep into your skin, sharp and metallic. Then, the ache — deep in your limbs, like your bones were filled with lead. And then the restraints.

Metal bands across your wrists and ankles. Another across your chest. Your head lolled to the side, sluggish from whatever they’d pumped into you — sedatives, maybe. Or worse. You blinked against the blinding fluorescence above, and the white ceiling bled into sterile silver walls.

Then you heard it.

A scream.

Your pulse lurched.

It wasn’t just pain. It was agony. The kind of sound that tore through a person’s throat, primal and ragged. The kind of scream that told you someone was being unmade.

Your neck turned slowly — every muscle protesting — and you saw him.

Bucky.

His body was arched against the restraints on a second slab just feet away from yours, eyes wide, back bowed, mouth open in a raw, broken scream.

There were wires threaded into his temples. Metal rods at his temples, at the base of his skull. Tubes and cables running into his chest. You couldn’t see what they were pumping into him — only that whatever it was, it was wrong.

“Bucky!” your voice cracked out of your throat, hoarse and half-broken. “James—!”

No response. He didn’t hear you. Or he couldn’t. His eyes didn’t see anything.

“Stop it!” you screamed at them instead. Your voice echoed against cold steel walls. “STOP—he’s not a test subject, you bastards, HE’S A PERSON—”

You thrashed, muscles seizing against the restraints, lungs burning, tears springing from your eyes without your permission.

Across the room, a man in a white coat calmly noted something on a clipboard.

A technician adjusted a dial.

Bucky screamed again — hoarse now. And then it broke off into choking. You watched his body convulse against the slab, chest heaving. His face twisted in confusion, pain, terror—like he didn’t know who he was anymore.

You didn’t care what they were doing to you. You didn’t care if your arms were bound or if the sedatives were still in your bloodstream.

You fought.

You fought like hell.

“Let him go!” you shouted, voice nearly gone now. “Let him go, you motherfuckers!”

Someone finally turned toward you — a man with cold eyes behind round spectacles. Calm. Curious.

Zola.

He stepped closer, glancing at your vitals on a nearby monitor. “Interesting,” he murmured in a thick accent, adjusting his gloves. “She is already… aware. So soon.”

“I will kill you,” you spat. “I swear to God—”

“Oh,” Zola said gently, “I think you will be quite useful to each other.”

And then the world tilted again.

Another needle. Another rush of cold in your veins. And the lights above you fractured into fragments.

The last thing you heard before the blackness swallowed you whole… was Bucky sobbing like a child.

────────────────────────

Time had stopped meaning anything.

It could’ve been days. Weeks. Months. You didn’t know.

All you knew was the burn.

Your veins felt like they were filled with acid — crawling fire under your skin, surging in waves that left your limbs trembling, your fingers twitching, your pulse racing like it was trying to outrun death itself. You’d stopped asking what they were putting in you. Every time they came near, you tensed out of instinct. But the sedation would hit before you could do anything.

They never said what it was.

You didn’t know it was the serum.

You only knew that afterward, your body would spasm uncontrollably. Your mind would short-circuit. You’d hear voices that weren’t there. Remember things that hadn’t happened. Feel your strength surge… and then vanish.

But worse than the pain… was him.

Bucky hadn’t spoken in days.

Maybe longer.

He lay still on the other slab, eyes open but unseeing, lips dry and cracked. His breathing was shallow. His face had gone hollow, sunken in the cheeks and under the eyes — like something was draining him from the inside out. They didn’t sedate him anymore. They didn’t need to. Whatever they'd done had left him... vacant.

His new arm — if you could even call it that — sat like a slab of cold iron where his left one had been. Crude stitches and blackened bruises ringed the place it had been fused to bone and muscle. You could see the puckered scars, raw and inflamed, where metal met skin. It looked like it hurt just to exist.

You doubted he could even lift it.

And yet… they’d called it a success.

Whatever that meant.

Now, finally — mercifully — the room had gone still. No needles. No voices over the intercom. No restraints being tightened. Just… stillness.

A few minutes. Maybe hours. You couldn’t tell anymore.

Your throat was dry. Your body, sore and exhausted. But you shifted — weakly — on the slab beside him, head tilting just enough to face him. The cold of the metal table seeped into your bones, but you ignored it.

“Bucky…” you whispered, voice rasping out like broken glass. “Sarge… can you hear me?”

He didn’t move. His eyes stared at the ceiling, unfocused.

You didn’t care.

You turned more toward him, trembling slightly as your fingers strained to reach across the few inches of space. You couldn’t touch him — the restraints didn’t let you — but you reached anyway, as if the effort alone could bridge the gap.

“I’m gonna get us out of here,” you murmured, voice cracking. “I swear. You’re not gonna die in here. I won’t let them take you like this.”

Silence.

You kept talking. You had to.

“You remember the fire escape outside our barracks? That stupid thing that barely held two people? You used to sneak up there and fall asleep. Said it was the only place quiet enough to think.”

Your throat tightened.

“You promised me, one day, you’d go back to Brooklyn. Fix that bike of yours. Open a little garage. Said I could come help out if I wanted to. You remember that?”

No response.

You felt your heart break, slow and jagged, like a fault line cracking open.

“Please, Bucky… just—just look at me. Just one sign. I need to know you’re still in there. I need you.”

Your voice dropped to a whisper. “You saved me. You always did. So let me do it now. Let me get us out. Just hang on. Please.”

You didn’t cry.

You didn’t have the water left in your body to spare. Just dry eyes, raw throat, and a heart held together by frayed sinew and willpower.

Your arm shook from the strain of keeping it extended.

And still, you kept reaching.

Even when he didn’t move.

Even when the silence stretched so long it pressed on your ribs like weight.

Even when your vision started to dim again from the drugs.

“I’m here, Sarge,” you breathed, barely audible now. “You’re not alone.”

The only sound was the soft hiss of the air vents above. The low electric hum from the lights. And the faint, hollow echo of two hearts still beating.

One stronger than the other.

But still alive.

────────────────────────

Hydra Conditioning Chambers – Months Later

You’d lost track of how many times they brought you in.

They stopped asking questions. Stopped pretending it was about compliance. This wasn’t interrogation anymore. It was reshaping.

It started with pain. Always pain. Electric currents through your skull, your spine, the base of your neck. Your nerves became war zones. Your teeth cracked from clenching. You screamed until your throat was raw, until the air itself tasted like metal and blood.

They were trying to make you forget. Rewire your instincts. Strip you of anything you and replace it with something Hydra. Something obedient.

Something empty.

It worked on Bucky.

At first, he resisted. He screamed. Fought. Raged.

But you saw the moment it broke him. You heard it — the silence that followed a round of electroshock so violent it left him convulsing, slack-jawed, frothing at the mouth. His eyes had gone glassy. His lips trembled, whispering things in Russian that made no sense to him — things they had fed into his brain on repeat. Words he didn’t understand but couldn’t stop.

“Зимний Солдат.”

Winter Soldier.

You heard the way they said it. Like it was sacred. Like it was done.

And you—

You were next.

But you wouldn’t break.

Not like him.

You bit down so hard during one session your molar cracked. They doubled the voltage. You passed out and woke up vomiting, body convulsing on the floor, your restraints slick with blood from split wrists. You couldn’t tell if the screaming in your head was yours or theirs.

Still, they failed.

Still, they couldn’t crack you.

You were fire in frostbite. And it drove them mad.

“Too resilient,” one of the German doctors muttered in frustration as he scribbled notes on a clipboard, his glasses slipping down his nose.

“Willful,” Zola corrected. “It’s in her nature. A Colonel's daughter. Born to take orders, yet somehow defies.”

“And yet she will yield,” said the Russian operative beside them, arms folded, watching you with reptilian calm. “We will make her. The лисица will hunt for us in time.”

Vixen, they called you.

The name they gave your file: sleek, lethal, deceptive. Born to track. Built to seduce and eliminate. A predator with a soft face.

You were their ghost soldier. Their shadow. Their whisper in the dark.

But only if they broke you first.

That session, they left you strapped to the chair, soaked in your own sweat and blood, nerves twitching like wires cut loose. Alone. Left to steep in the pain. Like Bucky had been.

You lifted your head an inch. Just enough to glance across the room.

He was there.

Sitting still.

Not restrained. Just… motionless. Eyes forward. Breathing shallow.

He didn’t even look at you anymore.

They had him.

And you were next.

Your throat burned. Your eyes felt too dry to cry. You weren’t sure your vocal cords worked. But still, out of nowhere — out of a deep, primitive place inside you that remembered being human — you sang.

Softly. Shakily. Croaky and cracked.

“I’ll be seeing you… in all the old familiar places…”

“…that this heart of mine embraces… all day through.”

It wasn’t a melody anymore. Just broken notes wrapped around splinters of memory.

Home. Whiskey laughs. Bucky smiling sideways when you called him “Sarge.” Steve saluting you for the first time. Dum Dum tipping his hat. Warm fires. Rations shared.

“In that small café… the park across the way…”

Your voice gave out halfway through.

But you kept whispering the words. Just for you. Just to remember.

Because even if they hollowed you out — rewired you, broke you — they couldn’t take that. Not all the way. Not yet.

You were still Fox. Somewhere under the blood and static and numbness.

You had to be.

Because if you weren’t… who would save him?

Years Later

They became Hydra’s ghosts. Whispers in the dark. Proof that monsters weren’t born — they were made.

When the war ended, and the world began to stitch itself back together, Hydra burrowed deeper. Quieter. Smarter. And in the vaults of ice and concrete beneath their hidden facilities, they began sculpting legends.

One of steel.

One of silk.

He was not subtle.

Where silence was needed, he brought screams.

Where compromise existed, he crushed it.

The Winter Soldier was Hydra’s enforcer, the blade they drove into the heart of history. He appeared across decades like a fracture — impossible to trace, impossible to stop. A phantom draped in shadow, eyes like glacier glass, grip like a bear trap.

He assassinated presidents. Ministers. Scientists. He sabotaged governments with the pull of a trigger. One shot — a bullet through a man’s skull, or through the spine of a nation’s future.

His missions were clean. Untraceable.

No witnesses. No evidence.

Only death.

Hydra rewired him with electroshock and Russian syllables. They hollowed out James Buchanan Barnes and replaced him with a weapon that did not question orders, did not feel guilt, did not hesitate. A ghost of a man with a new metal arm and no memory of mercy.

Cryogenic stasis kept him sharp, young, lethal. He lived in decades like they were days. A century’s worth of kill orders etched into his hands.

He never left survivors.

Unless Hydra told him to.

If the Soldier was Hydra’s hammer, the Vixen was their scalpel.

She bled behind enemy lines in silence, slipping through borders and barricades like a breath. She did not wear fear on her face. She did not leave blood in her wake — only secrets gutted open and missions left in ruin.

They called her лисица, the vixen, because she was cunning. Patient. Uncatchable. A whisper with teeth.

But it wasn’t always about killing.

She was Hydra’s infiltrator, a master of mimicry and seduction, of dismantling men without lifting a weapon. Where the Soldier brought force, she brought erosion — crumbling fortresses from within.

And to Hydra, she was a triumph of psychological warfare — what the Red Room would later attempt to replicate in their Widows. But she came first. She was the original phantom siren.

They used her face. Her softness. Her voice — when she remembered to use it — like a lullaby over a knife's edge. Where the Soldier was brute force, the Vixen was infiltration. Persuasion. Seduction when required, annihilation when ordered.

Her body was honed to perfection. Her mind, conditioned for silence and obedience — and yet, it never bent as cleanly as they wanted.

Not completely.

At first, it was small things.

Moments of hesitation. A flicker of something behind her eyes. The way her hands trembled after some kills — not with fear, but memory. Recognition.

She began humming to herself between assignments. Little songs from another life. She’d sit still in her stasis chamber before freezing, humming fragments of a tune they never taught her.

“We'll meet again, don't know how, don't know when…”

There were reports she disobeyed a kill order once. Let a target live because he had no evil in his eyes. They punished her for it. Re-conditioned her. Electroshock, isolation, more injections — but the slip had happened, and Hydra never trusted her fully again.

They realized she wasn’t like him.

The Soldier could be overwritten.

The Vixen resisted.

Not in screams or defiance. But in subtle, terrifying cracks.

Hydra scientists began to fear her — not for her violence, but her unpredictability. Her lingering humanity. That sliver of soul they couldn’t seem to carve out.

So they adjusted her protocol.

Where the Winter Soldier was deployed like a machine, again and again, the Vixen was locked away.

Preserved in cryo between missions. Thawed only when absolutely necessary. Only when no one else could do the job.

Only when they were desperate enough to risk the memories bleeding through.

They didn’t trust the leash they’d put on her. They only trusted the chain they wrapped around her throat.

And the serum? The serum wasn’t meant for kindness. It didn’t amplify goodness or nobility.

It magnified potential.

And under Hydra’s hands, that meant war.

The Winter Soldier's muscles knit themselves tighter. Bone density quadrupled. His reflexes reached inhuman speeds. Pain dulled. Healing accelerated. A shot to the chest became a stumble. A shattered femur became a limp for a few hours.

He didn’t stop.

He couldn’t stop.

The serum made sure of that.

And when paired with the metal arm — the marvel of Soviet-German engineering — the Winter Soldier became a force no one could match. Stronger than ten men. Faster than bullets. Unbreakable.

A walking extinction event.

He wasn’t meant to survive.

He was meant to erase.

The Vixen, however… she changed differently.

Hydra never expected the serum to work the same way. She was smaller. Lighter. Delicate in the ways he was brutal. But she was no less a weapon — just… sharper. More precise.

The serum didn’t bulk her up. It refined her.

Her muscles compacted into long, lean coils of strength. She moved like liquid shadow. Fast enough to vanish between blinks. Quiet enough that her footsteps could barely be heard on glass.

But it was her senses that changed the most.

Hydra didn’t know what to make of it at first — the way she would flinch at footsteps down the hall before they ever echoed. She could hear things miles away — the tick of rifle safety on a distant rooftop, the soft breath of a man in a hidden hallway. She could hear heartbeats. Lies. The subtle shift in someone's pulse when they spoke told her more than any interrogation.

They tested her. Over and over.

She could feel sweat in the air.

Taste adrenaline on a man’s breath.

Smelled metal, blood, gunpowder — emotions. Fear had a scent. Anger tasted like copper.

Her eyes could track the fall of a snowflake mid-battle. Her balance was inhuman. Her touch, so precise she could disarm a man without waking him.

Hydra called it a miracle. Zola called it evolution.

She was a new breed of operative — not just fast and strong, but impossibly aware. And that terrified them.

Because if she chose to disobey, to turn on them…

Even the Winter Soldier could not stop her.

They never told her she could overpower him.

They couldn’t risk it.

So instead, they bound her.

Psychologically. Physically. Systematically.

They paired her to the Soldier — not as an equal. As a subordinate. A tool under his control.

Her handler.

Her shadow.

Her leash.

When she failed a mission, when she hesitated, when she lingered too long near a song or a memory — he was the one they sent.

No guards. No scientists.

Just the Winter Soldier.

He’d enter the chamber where she sat — barefoot, arms folded over her knees, breath slow. She never ran. She never fought. Not unless she wanted it to be worse.

And he would carry out the punishment.

His face never changed.

His hands never trembled.

His eyes never closed.

Sometimes it was his fists.

Sometimes it was the silence between them — worse than any bruise.

They trained her to submit to him on instinct. A single word in Russian, a glance, a subtle shift of his body — she would obey.

But it wasn’t fear.

It was conditioning.

They had threaded her loyalty into his silhouette. Turned the man who once bled beside her into a god she knelt for.

The only one who could touch her.

The only one she responded to.

────────────────────────

Hydra’s underground compound groaned with the mechanical cold of concrete and fluorescent hum. Sterile, sharp. The air reeked of antiseptic and gun oil — a scent soaked into every slab of metal, every breath pulled through narrow lungs.

They’d returned just an hour ago from an operation in Prague.

The Soldier had gone first, dragged down the corridor by two guards, silent and compliant. They always processed him first — quick, efficient. He was easy. Slumped shoulders. Dull gaze. Programmed silence. The memory wipe rarely took more than ten minutes anymore.

But she had lingered.

Stripped of her weapons. Her boots left sticky with blood. Hands twitching at her sides like she didn’t trust they were done. Her pupils hadn’t shrunk. Her breathing hadn’t calmed. She stared at the floor like it was moving beneath her.

And when they reached for her—

When gloved hands touched her arm—

She snapped.

No scream. No warning.

The first man’s throat tore open before the others knew her fingers had moved. His blood sprayed up her face — red mist over pale skin — and she didn’t stop to see him fall. She pivoted. Fast. Precise.

A whirlwind of fists and sharp bone and snarled breath. The second scientist’s head slammed into the wall with a crack, spine folded in an unnatural twist as he slumped.

Then the alarms began.

Boots thudded down the hall. Gunfire stuttered from two directions — panicked, wild — and only some of it came from her. The rest came from soldiers firing before they aimed, hands shaking, watching Hydra’s most elegant weapon unspool into a beast.

It was like she could hear the triggers before they clicked.

Bang. Duck. Slide. Elbow to temple. Gun lifted. Two shots — center mass. Next.

She didn’t pause.

Not until there was no one left moving in the corridor but her.

Fifteen seconds of silence.

The floor gleamed with blood.

She stood in the middle of it all, chest heaving, smeared head to toe in scarlet. Her jaw twitched. Her eyes — still dilated — flicked up, wide, unblinking. Animal stillness. No longer in a mission. No longer in control.

Something had broken. Fully. Utterly.

In the surveillance room, a handler shouted.

“Отправьте солдата. Положите Виксен. Сделайте это сейчас—”

(Send in the Soldier to put the Vixen down. Do it NOW—)

Metal boots struck the floor.

He came with no hesitation.

The Soldier entered the corridor through the main blast doors, smoke curling from the edges of spent gun barrels. His face was blank. Cold. His metal arm hissed as it flexed, fingers twitching from a reset.

He stopped when he saw her.

Standing there like a revenant. Covered in blood, chin lifted, hair matted and damp. A raw tremble in her shoulders. Eyes glowing with something ancient, something nameless.

She didn't kneel. She didn't bow.

She just watched him.

The room seemed to shrink. Lights buzzed above them like flies. The blood beneath their boots had not yet dried.

His weight shifted. Right foot forward. Arm lowering slightly — coiled, ready.

Their eyes locked.

Like wolves before the first bite. No orders. No speech. No false names. Just… waiting. A battle written in stare alone.

Then he moved.

And so did she.

He lunged — fast, brutal. A fist like steel screaming toward her temple.

She ducked, slid beneath it, spun her heel into his ribs. He grunted, staggered — not from pain, but from surprise. She was faster. Not more powerful — not quite — but she was sharper. Tighter.

They wove through each other like old ghosts dancing.

His hand gripped her wrist mid-blow, twisted. She hissed, kicked at his shin. He blocked, slammed her into the wall. Her breath shot out. His arm pressed at her throat — but she rolled, broke free, slammed her forehead into his chin.

Crack.

He blinked, dazed for half a second.

She struck again.

Hard. Violent. Chest to chest, elbow to his jaw, knee toward his side — he blocked, shoved her back. They breathed in unison, rapid and harsh. His hair clung to his forehead. Her lip bled from the inside out.

Still, no words.

Just eye contact — burning. Challenging. Grieving.

The stalemate lasted three heartbeats.

Then the blast doors behind him hissed open again — dozens of Hydra agents storming the corridor with tranquilizers, guns, electric rods. The spell broke.

He made the decision.

He lunged — again — but this time not to strike.

Her back hit the floor hard, her limbs twisted beneath her, wrists already bruising. He was on top of her, pinning her down with the weight of a machine, his metal hand locked around her throat, thumb pressed against the pulse of her artery.

Her chest heaved, sharp and slow, like breath was foreign now. Like she didn’t care if she took it.

He should’ve done it already.

Should’ve squeezed harder. Should’ve watched her eyes roll back and her body fall limp like the countless others he’d ended. His expression was carved from granite — unreadable. His face spattered with blood that wasn’t his. But inside, something shook.

His fingers trembled.

It was the first warning.

She didn’t resist anymore. No kicks. No sharp elbows or desperate knees. No flash of canines, no snap of a snarl.

Just eyes.

Looking straight into his.

Open. Unblinking. Empty.

As if she wanted this.

As if the idea of dying — under his hands — was better than returning to the dark. To the chair. To the ice. To the silence.

That was the second warning.

A part of him flinched. Something far beneath the code, beneath the frostbite of his brain, beneath the echo of the Winter Soldier. Something warm. Ancient. Like a bone-deep memory of summer.

He tightened his grip.

He really did.

Muscles flexed. Metal joints locked. His jaw clenched so tightly his teeth ached.

Her skin was warm under his hand. Her pulse soft — waiting.

And she just kept staring.

Her pupils enormous. Dark. Not afraid. Not submissive. Just… ready.

A flicker of her lashes. A twitch in her lip.

And that was when he realized — she didn’t want to fight him anymore.

She didn’t believe he could choose not to kill her.

And she might’ve been right.

Because how many times had his handlers commanded him to hurt her? Punish her? And he had.

With precision. With obedience. With terrifying force.

They’d made him the hand that carved pain into her again and again. Bones broken. Breath taken. Blood spilled — by him.

And yet… she always came back.

Returned to her feet. Returned to him.

The punishments never took her away permanently.

She was still his. Not in name, not in language. But in the way gravity belongs to the planet. She was the only thing he’d ever hurt that didn’t vanish.

And now — he was supposed to end her.

To kill her.

And the Soldier — the one they’d broken, rebuilt, erased a thousand times — felt something crack.

His chest stuttered.

His other hand gripped her forearm like he was trying to tether her to the ground, to him, to something real. His breath began to shake — fast, shallow. His vision swam. He could see nothing but her eyes now. No blood. No ceiling. No walls.

Only her.

Her eyes were the only thing in the world he never forgot.

His fingers began to slip.

His breath rasped in his throat, caught between fury and anguish, and something deeper — something scarier.

His whole body trembled now. His forearm bulged with the strain of holding back. And then — like something finally snapped — he let out a guttural, choked yell, half agony, half animal.

He let go.

His hand released her throat.

He struck the concrete beside her head — hard — the ground splintering with the force, a web of cracks blooming under his fist. The shockwave trembled through her ribs. Dust curled into the air. His breathing was ragged, hoarse, chest rising and falling like a man who’d just outrun death and failed.

He didn’t look away from her.

He leaned down — slow, deliberate — and pressed his forehead to hers.

Not soft. Not tender. But grounded. Desperate.

Like he was anchoring himself to the only thing that still existed in his mind.

His forehead was burning.

Hers was cold.

They stayed like that — a tableau of blood and breath and failure. She didn’t move. He didn’t flinch.

Their foreheads touching.

Their eyes still locked.

Breathing each other in like that was the only way they remembered what it felt like to be human.

And for the first time in all the years Hydra made them into things — weapons, monsters, ghosts — the Soldier’s silence didn’t mean compliance.

It meant defiance.

He would not kill her.

Not her.

Never her.

Even if he didn’t know her name.

Even if he didn’t know his own.

He knew this.

Her eyes.

Her breath.

And her blood beneath his hands.

The blood hadn’t even dried when the reinforced doors slammed shut.

Alarms were finally silenced — but the aftermath echoed louder. Metallic clangs as bodies were dragged. Snapped bones. Severed limbs. The dead Hydra scientists were scattered across the floor like discarded parts. The walls dripped with their arrogance.

She lay on her back, still breathing.

Eyes wide, unblinking, staring at the splintered floor where his fist had broken through. One hand loosely curled at her ribs. The other slick with blood — hers, theirs, it didn’t matter.

He hadn’t killed her.

And that, to the watching Hydra handlers, was the most terrifying detail of all.

They didn’t ask questions.

They just knew she had broken. Completely.

She had killed without permission. Reacted without instruction. Moved through a room of trained guards and armed scientists like they were made of glass.

No trigger words had stopped her.

No handler had calmed her.

Not even him.

Only exhaustion had slowed her.

Only his mercy had spared her.

And that — that was unforgivable.

When they came to sedate her, he was already there. Standing over her like a specter, silent and immovable. The guards hesitated. The doctors murmured. Not a single one would meet his eyes.

His hands remained at his sides, but his presence was a warning.

Don’t hurt her. Don’t kill her.

They could see it in the way his jaw locked, in the way his body coiled like a tripwire. His programming demanded obedience — but something deeper, older, more human, was watching them with predatory stillness.

They kept her sedated through every moment. Through the wipe that never took properly. Through the muttered arguments in clipped Russian and panicked German about what to do with her. Through the decision that the risk was no longer worth the reward.

She wasn’t the Winter Soldier.

She couldn’t be tamed by words and pain.

She was something else. Something worse.

And he watched it all.

Not understanding why his chest hurt.

Not understanding why he remembered her face when everything else turned to static.

When they lowered her into the cryogenic pod, he followed. Shadowed them down the sterile hall without orders. The guards gave him distance — he didn’t look at them, didn’t need to. His eyes were fixed only on her.

She didn’t stir.

The inside of the chamber was lined with reinforced polymer. Her restraints were reinforced. But her expression was blank. Breathing slow. Completely still.

He stood just beyond the edge of the fog as the lid began to lower.

No commands came. He didn’t need any.

He simply stared.

As if some part of him knew that she was the only thing that ever made him hesitate.

The only thing that ever looked back at him — even when he hurt her — and saw him.

And now they were taking her away from him again.

Not killing her. But erasing her again.

He didn’t move until the hiss of the cryo chamber sealed shut. Didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Just stood there as the glass frosted over, her face vanishing into the white.

That was the last time Hydra made use of the Vixen.

1989.

Until they could find a better way to control her —

A better cage.

A better chain.

They put her back to sleep.

And that’s where she stayed — frozen, ghostlike, remembered only by the monster who’d once been ordered to destroy her.

2024

Rain lashed the cracked windows of the safehouse, a forgotten building on the edge of eastern Europe that smelled like rust and damp wood. The small desk lamp on the table buzzed faintly, casting long shadows over the spread of maps, photos, and red string that looked like a conspiracy board torn straight from a nightmare.

In the center of it all stood Bucky Barnes, his metal fingers clenched tight around the edge of the table, knuckles pale against steel.

Sam Wilson stood a few feet behind him, arms crossed, surveying the chaos.

“You really think it’s her?” he asked, voice low and measured.

Bucky didn’t answer right away. His eyes were fixed on a blurred photo — a grainy, static-frozen capture from a destroyed security feed. A woman with a mask over her mouth and nose making her face obscured, walking away from a warehouse swallowed in fire. But her posture, the deliberate stillness of her movements — he knew it.

“I know it is,” he said finally, like a fact carved from stone.

Sam let out a quiet sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Buck, we’ve been chasing shadows for six weeks. People say this is a ghost story. Urban legend. Vengeance incarnate. You sure it’s not just... projection?”

“She’s alive,” Bucky said, without even looking up.

The words fell like weight onto the room, pulling the silence taut. Sam studied his friend’s profile — the faint lines of fatigue around his eyes, the way his mouth twitched with restraint, with desperation.

“You say that like you’ve seen her,” Sam said gently. “But that pod in Belarus was dead. Power was out for years. She came out confused, probably didn’t even know what year it was. You think she’s operating on logic?”

“No,” Bucky murmured. “She’s not.”

He thumbed through a series of photos on the table — each one more brutal than the last. A scientist dissected in Munich. A financier found hanging upside down in Prague. Every man in the stack had once had ties to Hydra. However minor, however indirect. And each death had been executed with surgical precision. Silent. Clean. Gone.

Sam stepped forward, pointing at a red pin on the map. “Bucharest hit. Three Hydra affiliates. No alarms, no signs of forced entry. Security feed glitched for thirty seconds.”

“She’s learning,” Bucky whispered. There was no pride in it — only awe. And dread.

“She’s not just surviving,” Sam said, his voice edged with something colder. “She’s hunting.”

Bucky didn’t flinch. He nodded slowly, eyes flicking across the network of red thread. The ghosts of his past. And hers.

Sam hesitated before asking, “What if she’s not just targeting Hydra? What if she’s coming for you too?”

That stopped Bucky cold.

“She has every reason to,” he said after a long moment, the words thick with regret. “I hurt her.”

Sam was quiet. He didn’t need to ask what he meant. The history between them — the conditioning, the missions, the punishments — Bucky had carried them out without mercy. Not because he wanted to, but because they’d made him.

Sam hesitated before asking, “Then why keep looking for her?” His voice was soft, careful.

But something in Bucky snapped at that — not loud or explosive, just sharp. A quiet fracture under pressure.

“Because I have to,” Bucky said, voice low but rough, his hands bracing hard against the table. “Because she’s been frozen for thirty goddamn years, Sam.”

Sam blinked, standing a little straighter.

“I’ve been out for five. Five years free, and that’s not even counting the Blip. Or all the time Hydra dragged me out and used me,” Bucky went on, the words starting to slip faster, heavier. “And during all of that, I was hurting her. Again and again.”

His jaw clenched as he stared down at the mess of papers, eyes tracing her blurry silhouette as if it were some ancient ghost trying to speak back.

“She was always stronger than me,” he said, quieter now, almost like it hurt to admit it. “Mentally. She fought them. She never broke easy.”

He looked at Sam then, eyes rimmed in something not quite anger but something old and burning — a weight that lived in his bones.

“I owe her this,” he said. “I owe her the truth. And if she wants to kill me for it, I’ll let her. But I’m not going to stop until I find her. Even if she wants me to let her go, I will.”

But the truth was carved into his face. He couldn’t. He never would again.

────────────────────────

You sat on the edge of the couch like you didn’t know how to exist in a space this quiet.

Your eyes traced the seams between the floorboards, your hands folded neatly in your lap, unmoving. You hadn’t spoken more than a sentence since Bucky brought you there.

Not when he offered you a glass of water, not when he showed you where the bathroom was, not even when he—hesitantly—told you that you could have his room, while he slept on the couch.

You just nodded.

One, clean nod. Always polite. Always precise.

But not the way you used to be. Not the way he remembered.

In the 40s, you had fire in your voice. You had sharp comebacks, a cheeky grin that curled higher when you got under his skin. You could outrun, outshoot, outthink most of the Howlies, and still managed to hum a tune while cleaning your rifle.

Now, you barely ate. You hadn’t said more than a clipped “fine” or “okay.” You hadn’t looked him in the eye since you stepped inside.

Bucky still didn’t even know how he’d convinced you to come with him as he watched you from the kitchen, leaning his forearms on the counter, gripping the edge like it was the only thing keeping him tethered. His metal hand creaked quietly against the granite.

“You want me to put something on?” he asked, his voice low, worn. “TV, music… white noise?”

You turned your head slightly, the barest flicker. Your lips parted, like you might speak, then closed again. You shook your head, slowly.

He sighed. Not in frustration. Just... helplessness.

“You used to yell at me for humming off-key,” he said gently, like maybe a memory would draw you closer to the surface. “Said I could scare off birds from miles away.”

No answer.

Just your stillness. Just your silence.

And that ache behind his ribs grew sharper.

He stared at you, at your hunched shoulders and distant eyes, and for the first time, truly wondered if this was how Steve had felt.

Always reaching. Always hoping. Trying to pull someone he cared about out of the fog. Trying to bring Bucky back from the brink, even when Bucky had forgotten who he was. Steve had never stopped. Not when everyone else had written him off as a weapon. Not even when he’d fought against him on a damn helicarrier.

Now here Bucky was—on the other side. And he finally understood just how exhausting, how heartbreaking it had been. Watching someone you knew still existed beneath the wreckage, and not knowing if you’d ever reach them again.

He wanted to say something else, but then your voice cracked the quiet—raw, broken, hesitant.

“I remember… my father’s voice. Not his face. Just… how he said my name.”

Bucky went still.

You didn’t look at him when you said it. Your head tilted slightly toward the window, where the last of the day’s light bled across your cheekbone like gold dust.

“I used to hum while I tracked,” you said. “To stay human.”

He didn’t speak. Didn’t dare move. He just listened.

“I think I forgot how to feel warm,” you murmured. “Even when I’m not in the ice anymore.”

Your fingers twitched once, like your body remembered the motion of a weapon, or maybe a tremor from a distant past. The moment was fragile, stretched thin.

Bucky’s throat tightened. God, he wanted to tell you everything—that you weren’t alone, that he would wait as long as it took.

But he knew better. You weren’t ready for comfort. Not from him. Maybe not from anyone.

────────────────────────

It was a quiet afternoon. The sun filtered through the half-drawn curtains in pale streaks, painting long bars of gold and dust across the wood floor of Bucky’s apartment. The television was on, low volume, something benign playing that neither of you were truly watching. A news segment passed with a fleeting image.

Your eyes tracked the screen, not really watching. But then a flash of red, white, and blue passed across it. A helmet. A shield.

Your voice was flat when you spoke, cutting through the silence between you and Bucky like a knife. “I remember seeing him on TV. Cap.”

Bucky didn’t respond right away. You could feel his hesitation more than you could see it. His body shifted from where he sat across from you—still, guarded. You finally turned your head toward him.

“Where is he?”

He ran a hand through his hair, the metal fingers brushing just behind his ear.

“He’s gone,” Bucky said eventually, voice quiet.

You blinked once. Slowly. Processing.

“Gone?”

Bucky sighed through his nose. “Steve went back… after everything. After we won.” He paused. “He went back in time. Lived out his life. Came back… older. Real old. He passed away earlier this year.”

You stared at him. Not blinking now.

“So he left you behind.”

The silence after your words was sharp. Bucky’s brow creased. “No,” he said quickly, too quickly. “He didn’t—he was just—”

“You mean he could’ve taken us both home,” you said, not cruel, just even. Hollow. “Could’ve brought us back. But instead we’re stuck here. In a world that doesn’t know us. Doesn't want us.”

Bucky shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“He gave up.”

“He didn’t give up!” Bucky’s voice rose, sharp with something he hadn’t meant to let out. “He gave everything, you don’t—he did what he thought was right.”

You looked at him, head tilting slightly. That same detached focus, the way your eyes pinned him—not with malice, but with cold fact. You weren’t being emotional. You weren’t attacking. That was what made it worse.

“He was selfish.”

Bucky stood now. Tense. His jaw clenched, his fingers twitching by his sides.

“Don’t say that,” he muttered. “You don’t get to say that.”

You stood up too, slow, unhurried. “He left you. After everything you went through. After everything we went through.”

“Stop it.”

“He took peace for himself and left us with the ruins.”

“That’s not what happened—he thought I’d be okay—he trusted that I could—”

“That’s not trust. That’s abandonment.”

“Stop it!” Bucky snapped, voice rough, cracking, fists clenched so tight his knuckles—flesh and metal—strained. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see how broken he was. What he lost. He earned that life.”

You didn’t flinch. Just stared at him, eyes dim but focused. “And what about what we lost?”

Bucky started pacing, running a hand through his hair like he could scatter the frustration from his scalp. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” you said, tone still maddeningly flat. “What’s not fair is waking up seventy years after your last memory and realizing the only people you trusted are either dead, ghosts, or decided to stay in the past.”

You turned, already walking toward the hallway, not angry — just done with the conversation.

“Don’t walk away,” Bucky said sharply, stepping after you.

His hand reached out — not fast, not forceful — just to touch your arm. Something gentle.

You flinched before he even made contact. The shift in your body was instantaneous — reflexive. A dodge like a breath, like muscle memory. Your spine stiffened as your arm slipped from his grasp, your eyes suddenly sharp.

“Don’t touch me,” you snapped, voice cold and loud and carved out of something ancient.

Bucky froze. His hand still hovered in the air. He stared at you.

You weren’t looking at him anymore. You weren’t really even here. Your eyes had gone somewhere else, farther back. You were breathing too fast, too shallow. Your body stiff, locked down.

And that was when Bucky understood. Really understood.

It wasn’t about him.

It was about him.

The one with the metal arm who used to drag you through concrete floors when you disobeyed. Who'd wrap his hand around your throat when your eyes held too much rebellion. Who struck you, again and again, because someone ordered him to.

Even when Bucky had been free for years, the ghosts still lived in his hands.

And you… you still saw them.

His hand dropped. Guilt flooding every inch of his face.

“I didn’t mean to—” he tried, voice lower now, thick in his throat.

You didn’t answer. You just walked past him, through the narrow hallway, closing yourself into his room, he had given you, without a word.

Bucky didn’t move for a long time. He just stood there. One hand pressed flat over the other. Like he could keep himself from reaching again. Like he could pretend it hadn’t happened.

But the truth was branded now—burning beneath the surface of his skin.

He hadn’t earned your trust.

And maybe he never would.

────────────────────────

You didn’t want to go.

That was the first thing you made clear, arms crossed, jaw set, suspicious eyes watching Bucky like he might lead you off a cliff instead of down the D.C. Metro escalator. You hadn’t asked where he was taking you. He didn’t tell you, either. Just said, “It’s important.” You didn’t like the way that word made your chest tighten.

The museum was too bright.

Too open. Too filled with noise and breath and movement. Everything felt too fast and too slow at once. Your boots echoed on the polished floors, steps cautious and silent like instinct, like old habits that had never really died.

Bucky stayed near but didn’t try to touch you — not since that day. He led you quietly, nodding at the security guards like this was something he did often.

You hated how many people were looking. Even when they weren’t.

When you entered the exhibit, the air shifted. Cooler. Calmer. Reverent.

A bronze plaque on the wall read: Captain America and the Howling Commandos. Beneath it — sepia photographs. Names. Artifacts behind glass. There were curved helmets, worn boots, faded letters.

Bucky paused beside you.

“This was the first place I came after I got out,” he said, voice quiet, like it didn’t want to disturb the ghosts on the walls. “Didn’t know where else to go. Didn’t even know who I was, really. Just… remembered pieces. Faces.”

Your eyes traced the familiar ones. Dumb Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Montgomery Falsworth. Jim Morita. Happy grins and tilted hats and the smell of gunpowder you could almost still taste.

Then you saw it.

Your own memorial.

It was set apart, just slightly — not grandiose, but longer than the others. The image they’d chosen was one you didn’t remember being taken. You were young — about twenty two— perched on a wooden crate in fatigues rolled at the sleeves, head turned mid-laugh, hair slicked back but wind-loosened, fingers curled around a rifle too heavy for your frame. Your expression was too soft for war. Your eyes too alive.

You blinked at it.

Above the frame was your name, carved in brass. First Lieutenant, Tactical Reconnaissance. Grey Fox.

And beneath it, the words Presumed KIA, 1945. Missing in Action. Last seen on mission in the Austrian Alps.

You felt your throat tighten and couldn’t explain why.

“Why is mine longer than the others?” you asked, quietly, too still.

Bucky glanced over at you, then at the plaque. “Because you were a big deal.”

You gave him a look, skeptical.

He shrugged, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets. “Only woman in the Howling Commandos. One of the first women to serve actively alongside combat troops. You were kind of… a symbol. They said your service helped inspire the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in ‘48.”

You scoffed, faintly. “So they threw me on a wall.”

Bucky smiled, just barely. “They honored you. You meant something to people. Still do.”

You stepped closer to the glass. The uniform behind it was familiar. Yours. The same patches, same leather. There was even your knife — the one Howard Stark had gifted you before that last mission. The one you lost in the snow.

You didn’t remember losing it.

Didn’t remember dying.

Your voice was flat. “They thought I was dead.”

Bucky was quiet for a long moment.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “They did.”

You turned to him. “Did you? After Hydra.”

Bucky didn’t look away. “For a while.”

Something in you curled tighter, like a spring wound too far. “When did you remember?”

He shifted, brow furrowing. “Not right away. It was all… fragments. Flashes. And even when I saw your face, I didn’t know if it was real. Steve had to tell me. He said you’d come after me — that the day I fell off that train, you went looking.”

Your breath hitched.

“I don’t—” you started. “I don’t remember that.”

“That’s okay,” he said softly. “I don't either.”

You looked back at the photo — that too-young version of yourself, all spark and reckless pride, before Hydra carved you hollow. You felt something stir in your chest — not grief, not quite. More like the shape of grief, wrapped around something else. Something you didn’t have words for.

It should’ve been easy to keep walking.

To follow the curved path of the exhibit, to drift past the tributes like a ghost among glass and old light. But your steps faltered when your eyes caught it — the photo.

It wasn’t a combat shot. Not a press photo or wartime propaganda. It was a quiet moment. Just the two of you. The Colonel stood in uniform, hat tucked under one arm, and you beside him, barely twenty. The background looked like the docks, water glittering, your dress hem catching the wind like a flag. He had one hand on your shoulder, firm but gentle. You were laughing — head tipped toward him, eyes squinting in sunlight, mouth open in mid-word.

Your stomach turned.

You hadn’t seen his face in decades. Not like this.

People always assumed a man like that — a military father, a colonel — would be stern. Emotionless. Cold. But he wasn’t. He was exacting, yes. Fierce when it came to protocol and discipline. But when it was just you and him? He was warmth and humor and the smell of clean shaving soap. The only one who called you by your full name and somehow made it sound like affection.

He was your favorite person in the world.

You reached out before you realized what you were doing — fingertips hovering above the glass, as though you could touch the edge of the photograph and fall through it.

Beside the picture was a framed newspaper clipping. A headline in bold type:

“Decorated Colonel Honors Missing Daughter in Public Address”

— November 3rd, 1945

Your throat clenched.

You hesitated. Then stepped back.

“I can’t,” you said quietly. “I don’t want to read it.”

Bucky glanced at you, then down at the plaque. “Want me to?”

You nodded once.

But He stepped closer, eyes scanning the plaque. His voice was low, a little rough.

“To say that I lost a soldier would be true. But to say I lost just a soldier would be a terrible injustice.”

“My daughter — the one you knew as ‘Grey Fox’ — was many things. A tactician, a tracker, a fighter more ruthless than most men I’ve commanded. She earned her place in the Howling Commandos not because of her name, or mine, but because she earned it. Day after day. Battle after battle. She was sharper than steel, braver than men twice her age, and she never ran from anything — not even fear itself.“

“She was stubborn from the start — wouldn’t follow the rules if she thought they were wrong, wouldn’t back down from any fight worth having. And yet she was kind. She was soft in the way only the strongest people are. She made people better just by standing beside them.”

“They’ll tell you she was tactical, skilled, a leader. All of that is true. But I want people to remember who she was when the orders were done. She liked swing music. Had too many pairs of shoes. And twice as many dresses. Spoke her mind without apology and carried a silver locket with her mother’s photo, that she thought no one ever noticed.”

You felt it then — the sting behind your eyes. The tears building, slow and traitorous. You turned your head away, lifting your hand as if the simple motion could shield you from what the words were doing to you. But they kept coming.

“And though the world may mark her as lost — let me be clear. My daughter is not forgotten. She lives in every fire lit in the dark, every brave voice in the silence, every young girl who believes she can stand in a place no one thought she should.”

“She gave everything to her country. And I don’t know how to say goodbye to her. I don’t know how to let go of my little girl—”

Then his voice cut off.

You waited. One breath. Two.

And when the silence stretched too long, you asked quietly, “Why’d you stop?”

Bucky didn’t look at you. He kept his eyes on the plaque, jaw locked. “That’s where it ends,” he said softly. “The article says he couldn’t finish the speech. He—” Bucky hesitated. “He walked off the podium, too choked up.”

You turned toward him slowly, scoffing.

“No,” you murmured, voice thick. “The Colonel never cried.”

It came out too genuine to be anything but memory. Something certain. Like gravity.

You shook your head, pressing your hand to your eyes as the tears spilled freely now, silent and hot, streaking down your cheeks without restraint. There was no sobbing. No sound at all. Just that kind of grief that closed in around the chest, so dense it felt like the world had narrowed to a pinhole.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, voice breaking on the edges. “For reading it. For bringing me here.”

Bucky stood beside you, hands flexing at his sides. He didn’t reach out. Couldn’t.

Not because he didn’t want to — but because he knew you wouldn’t let him.

And maybe, in that moment, standing in front of a monument to a life you couldn’t remember and a love you’d buried somewhere deep — that was enough.

─────────���──────────────

You sat at the window again, the late morning sun slicing through the thin curtains like a scalpel. You didn’t feel it. Couldn’t, really. You were aware of the light, the way it bled over your hands resting on your knees—but it didn’t feel warm. Just… distant. Like everything else.

Bucky was in the kitchen, fumbling with something—probably another attempt to make coffee the way you liked. You didn’t tell him he never got it right. He tried too hard. He always had.

The silence between you two was the loudest part of this place. Even when he tried talking, even when he looked at you like you were a wound he couldn’t cauterize. It made your skin itch.

He thought he owed you. You knew it. That was what this was. This apartment, this half-life, these careful touches and softer tones—this was guilt. This was his penance.

You didn't know who you were anymore, not really. The world had moved on. Your war was over but still echoing in your blood. Bucky was the only familiar thing left, and even he felt warped—like a shadow of something you couldn’t remember clearly. You used to laugh with him. Tease him. Steal his rations and call him pretty boy. Now… you couldn't even meet his eyes for longer than a breath.

You weren’t stupid. You knew trauma bonding. You knew conditioning. You knew how Hydra twisted wires until they sparked like emotion, cracked whips until loyalty sounded like love. What the Vixen and the Winter Soldier had wasn’t a bond. It was survival.

This thing between you and Bucky—whatever it was, whatever it had once been—it was born in the dark, bred in pain, sharpened by orders and obedience. Hydra’s hands were all over it. You felt it every time he looked at you too long. Every time he brushed your arm and you flinched.

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. And he was too deep in his guilt to see it.

He was helping you because he had to. Because he’d hurt you. Because he'd bruised you in those white walls and watched handlers drag you by your hair. And this… this domesticity—it was the last bullet in his gun, a way to sleep at night.

So you stayed quiet. You stayed small. You tried not to think about the way he used to make you laugh just by cocking an eyebrow. You tried not to remember how you’d watch his reflection in puddles during missions, not because you were tracking him, but because you felt safer when you knew where he was.

That was all conditioning. It had to be.

It had to be.

────────────────────────

She sat at the window again. She always sat at the window.

Bucky stood in the kitchen, palms braced against the counter. The coffee machine groaned, spitting out something bitter. He didn’t look at it. He couldn’t stop looking at her.

Her profile was the same. Sharp. Still. But her shoulders—he remembered them being straighter. Her spine taller. Now they curled inward, like she was trying to fold herself into nothing. And it gutted him.

She hadn’t smiled in weeks. Not the way she used to. Not with that smart-ass grin that used to crinkle her nose and make the whole damn camp warmer. Back in the barracks, before the frost, she used to razz him about his hair. Called him “Sargeant Shampoo” once. He’d laughed so hard he dropped his tray.

That was real. It was. He knew it in his bones.

But she didn’t believe it. She thought he was helping her out of guilt. That their bond was a Hydra artifact. And Bucky could barely look at her without wanting to scream.

Because if that wasn’t real—if her laugh wasn’t real, if her hand in his wasn’t real, if the way she used to stay up for him when he came back from solo missions wasn’t real—then nothing was. Then he wasn’t real. Then everything he'd clung to in that white noise void of the Winter Soldier—every memory, every flicker of light—was a lie.

And goddammit, she wasn’t a lie.

She was the reason he didn’t put a bullet in his own head when the voices got too loud. She was the reason he hesitated in ‘89. The only one who ever fought him like an equal, and the only one who made him feel like he was more than just a loaded weapon.

She thought this was guilt.

Bucky had been guilty a long time. That was nothing new. He could live with guilt. What he couldn’t live with was this—this chasm between them, this damn wall she kept her heart behind. Like he was just another ghost from the operating table.

He closed the distance between them slowly, cautiously. She didn’t look up. Just stared at the sky, as if she was waiting for the war to start again.

“I know what you think this is,” he said finally, voice low. “You think I brought you here because I feel sorry. Because I’m trying to make up for what I did.”

She didn’t say anything.

“But that’s not why I’m here,” he continued. “I remember you. Not just in Hydra. Before. You—”

His voice cracked.

“You used to make fun of how I tied my boots. You once saved our whole squad by yourself. You—You were kind. Brave. And we were real.”

That made her flinch. He saw it in the way her fingers curled.

“I never hurt you because I wanted to,” he said. “I hurt you because I wasn’t me.”

She looked at him then. Her eyes were glassy, but not soft.

“And what if I’m not me?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t have an answer.

He watched her rise, walk toward the bathroom, close the door without a word. He could hear the faucet turn on, even though she never washed her face until after dark. He stared at that closed door for a long time.

And somewhere in his chest, something cracked.

────────────────────────

“This isn’t working,” you said, voice low, raw.

You stood in the middle of the living room, your arms wrapped around yourself as if you were trying to hold your own ribs in place. The quiet stretched, thick and suffocating, like it had weight. Bucky stood across from you, like always—close, but never quite close enough to make it feel real again.

He blinked, as if trying to make sense of the words. As if you’d just spoken in a language he forgot how to understand.

“What do you mean?” he asked, but he already knew.

You didn’t look up at him when you said, “I don’t think we should be around each other anymore.”

The silence after that was devastating. You didn’t mean for it to sound like a kill shot, but it landed that way anyway. He staggered where he stood, barely, but you saw it. Like your words had stabbed him clean through and now he had to pretend it didn’t hurt.

His breath hitched. His jaw clenched. “We can still try,” he said, desperate, his voice cracking like splintered ice. “We’ve come this far. Don’t walk away now. Please.”

Your heart fractured. You wanted so badly to feel what he felt, to be what he needed, to believe this could still be something salvageable. But every moment you were around him, it was like being underwater—your body drowning in silence, your mind screaming against the weight of ghosts.

“I don’t know how to be around you without... without being afraid,” you whispered. “Of myself. Of what this is. Of what it means.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Bucky said quickly, eyes wide with something that looked like grief. “You never were.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” you corrected softly. “I’m afraid with you. I don’t know how to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep waiting for the white walls to come back. For someone to scream an order. For the part of me that was me to vanish again.”

His mouth opened, but no words came.

You looked defeated. Not angry. Not cruel. Just tired—of yourself, of this world, of the weight you both carried. The kind of tired that lives in the bones.

Bucky took one small step forward. Then another.

“Just stay,” he begged, broken. “I’ll be better. I’ll—”

You shook your head. “It’s not you.”

He stopped.

“It’s what’s left of me.”

And then—because you didn’t want to leave him without at least one last thing—you opened your arms.

You let him touch you.

His hands trembled as they slipped around you, pulling you in like you were something sacred, something breakable. Your arms went around his neck, slow, unsure. His chin rested against your temple. Your heart raced and calmed at the same time, a contradiction of longing and fear.

You stayed like that longer than you should have. And when you finally moved to pull away, his hands reflexively tightened around your back. You stilled at the pressure—not rough, not painful, just… desperate.

A sad, shuddering sigh left your lips as you rested your forehead against his collarbone. You let him hold you a little longer.

Then, when you pulled away enough to meet his eyes, you looked at him like you were looking through time. As if you saw the boy from the barracks, not the broken man standing before you.

“I’m sorry,” you said, “that I couldn’t save you.”

Bucky’s eyes welled with tears, his throat working around something he couldn’t speak.

“I promised I would,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “Back when they took us. I swore I’d get us both out. And I didn’t.”

His hands loosened. Just slightly.

“I’m also sorry,” you said, voice trembling now, “that I don’t know how to be okay.”

You leaned in, pressing a single kiss to his cheek—a soft, lingering goodbye that clung to him like a fingerprint burned in time.

When you stepped back, his arms dropped, slowly, as if his body refused to let you go even though his mind knew you were already gone.

And Bucky—he didn’t cry. He just stood there.

Frozen.

Watching you walk toward the door like he’d watched so many things slip through his fingers. Like he had all the strength in the world but none of it could stop the fact that this time, he was losing you not to Hydra, not to death—but to your own will. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

You left him standing in the center of that apartment. Alone. Still reaching.

Still waiting.

Still loving you like it might make a difference.

Welp, if you've actually reached the end and want to read something that will make you feel better, I recommend, Come Home To Me

also:

[ebodebo]

i’m fucking back w virgin!whitaker x abbott’s daughter!reader…MDNI

-

“Your dad's in trauma one,” Langdon calls from behind the triage desk, focused on reviewing a patient file.

You hum. “Well, good thing I’m not here to see him,” you lean over the desk, eyeing him.

He tilts his head and nods, his eyes shifting toward you as he incorrectly states why you are here. “You didn’t come to see Abbott, which means you came here to bother me,” he quips with a knowing brow as if he’s correct.

You playfully roll your eyes. “Whoa. So loud and so wrong. I actually came to see my boyfriend,” you raise your brows.

He narrows his eyes and moves the file to his side. “Don’t tell me it’s the basketball player in 15.”

“Definitely not,” you laugh.

He contemplates, the gears in his brain turning. “The college student in 20?

“No,” you affirm, your eyes moving past Langdon to see Whitaker approaching him. “He’s right behind—”

Whittaker interjects, quickly asking Langdon a question, unaware of your presence. “What’s the status on—”

“Hold on,” Langdon says with a grin. “I'm trying to guess her boyfriend. Is it the guy with the fractured leg in five?”

“Frank,” you say. “Follow my finger,” you hold your finger up in his line of sight.

He gives you a confused expression as his eyes follow the tip of your finger, moving in the air. He then turns to his side and sees Whitaker standing beside him with a smile.

Langdon's face contorts with confusion before it finally dawns on him. "Whi—Whitaker?" His tone is surprised.

You nod slightly, a smile spreading across your face. “Yes, you dummy.”

“How did that happen?” Langdon asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, you know...things and such,” you say vaguely, your eyes shifting to Whitaker. You tilt your head to the side, signaling him to move to a more secluded area.

“Thanks for agreeing to cover for me, Langdon,” Whitaker jests, handing him another file as Langdon’s mouth hangs open at the new revelation. “I’ll be back in twenty.”

Langdon absentmindedly grabs the file, his mouth slightly ajar, and his eyes narrow in contemplation.

“How long is your shift, doc?” you ask Whitaker as he approaches you.

“Get off at 10,” his hand moves through his hair, and his eyes move rapidly around the ER.

It was filled, every inch occupied and bustling with activity.

Nurses and doctors are busy trying to address the backlog of patient care, though to no avail.

It was too overwhelming to handle all in one day.

You pull your purse onto your shoulder as your teeth chew on your lip. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes move to you, a breath of relief escaping his chest. “I—nothing. I’m okay,” he gives you a half-smile, trying to assure you.

“Are you feeling stressed?” you ask, a concerned frown crossing your face as you notice the tension in his shoulders.

It may seem silly to ask, given that every ER staff member is stressed, but you thought you would ask anyway.

“I—well, you know…” he trails off, scratching his neck. “I’m not exactly feeling relaxed.”

Your eyes narrow in thought before they grow wide with an idea. “I have an idea,” a smirk forms on your lips as you grab his hand, dragging him away. “Follow me.”

“Where are you taking me?” he laughs out, hand gripping yours.

“Shh. Just come on,” you hush his questions. You drag him sneakily into an empty patient room, shove him inside, and follow behind, locking the door after you.

“What are you—” he starts, brow furrowing before he sees the glint sparking in your eyes, teeth digging into your bottom lip.

“Thought we could try something new?” You pose the question, bashfully moving closer to him.

"Like what?" he asks, his tone filled with curiosity.

You raise your hands to press against his chest. “Like sex,” you say easily. “Only if you want to, of course,” you add quickly as your eyes lock.

“Here?” His voice cracks with surprise.

“Could be fun,” you shrug, your hands resting on his shoulders. “You look so hot in your scrubs,” you lean in and kiss his lips. “And it could help reduce your stress, right?”

He tips his head back and gives you a thoughtful smile. “Sexual intercourse does alleviate stress because it releases hormones like endorphins and oxytocin, which promote relaxation.”

“Oh, yeah,” you purr as you return your lips to his. “I love when you talk all doctor, baby,” you murmur against his lips. “Keep talking.”

“It, uh, can also improve your sleep quality,” he murmurs, his lips brushing against yours with equal passion.

“Can it?” you ask, lightly gliding your fingers over the back of his neck. “Seems like it’s really good for you, huh?” you tease, your hands gripping the hem of his scrub top. “You can touch me,” you assure him, your tongue teasingly licking a stripe across his bottom lip. “But I might bite.”

He releases a shaky groan against your lips that makes your knees lock in place. “Tell me no,” you breathe out, your fingers already popping open the buttons of your top.

He grips you tightly as you pop open the last button. “I want you,” his low voice says, certainty rolling off his tongue. “Show me.”

You give him a devilish smile, dropping your top to the ground and your fingers reaching to pull his scrub top off before discarding it across the room. “Do you masturbate?” you randomly mutter, kicking off your shoes before you slip your jeans off.

He tilts his head, pulling off his scrub bottoms. “Don’t really have the time,” he says honestly before looking at you and contemplating whether he should ask. Eventually, he does. “Do…you?”

"Every night," you say without hesitation, leaning in to press your lips against his once more.

His lips move against yours. “To what?”

"You," you say, nipping at his bottom lip and eliciting a slight whimper.

Your eyes hang lazily, full of desire. “Chair. Now,” you instruct, hands pushing against his chest as you direct him to sit.

You move to straddle his lap, your lips connecting again immediately. “You’re sure about this, right?” you ask again, not wanting to pressure him.

“Please,” he groans against your lips, hands gripping your waist tightly.

Your hand finds its way between your bodies, slipping his boxers down to reach for his hard-on. You pull your panties to the slide before you line him up with your slit, sinking down to accommodate him.

He releases a deep groan, head moving back against the wall, as you hiss at the contact. You grip his shoulders tightly, beginning to rock against him slowly.

"You okay, baby?" you ask gently, your gaze lingering on him.

His eyes are closing tightly as his mouth hangs open. “Yeah,” he chokes out, gripping your hips tight. “I can—I can,” he stutters, unable to get the words out.

“You feel me?” you ask, sweetness coating your voice. “It’s okay,” you affirm. “You can tell me. I wanna hear you,” you murmur, bracing your hand against the wall to get more support.

“Y—yeah,” he chokes out, gripping you tighter. “It feels nice.”

You choke back a laugh so as not to embarrass him. “Good. That’s good,” your voice is low as your movements pick up.

“Can feel you,” his words come out more confident. “Tight.”

You release a shallow moan at his words. “You’re getting good at the dirty talk,” you praise, gripping his shoulders tighter.

“Yeah?” he asks, voice strained.

“Mhm,” you can feel your lower stomach tightening. “I’m close.”

He doesn’t answer, he can’t speak, and he’s too transfixed by your movements.

But you can tell.

He’s close too.

But, before either of you can come, a loud knock on the door has you both jumping. You have to stifle a moan as Whitaker moves inside you deeper.

“Doors been closed a while. Need to get patients in and out quickly,” Dr. Robby grunts from outside the door.

“I’m just finishing up,” Whitaker choked out, rushing to stand and nearly causing you to fall as he hurriedly searched for his scrubs.

As he slides into his scrubs, his shirt is inside out, and his pants are on backward. He turns towards you, seeing your face trying to contain a laugh.

“Not funny,” he says, his voice serious, though a smirk plays at the corner of his lips.

“No. I know—it’s not,” you say, trying to keep your voice serious, but you find yourself laughing. “Sorry, baby,” you say as you chew on your lip and reach for your shirt. “Your pants are on backward.”

He looks down and realizes his pants are on backward and his shirt is inside out. He lets out an amused breath and quickly fixes his clothing as you laugh.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” he mutters humorously, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

You laugh softly. “I should get going; I know how Robby is,” you said, kissing him. “I’ll text you later.” With that, you leave, leaving Whitaker to alone.

He lets out a deep breath, his heart still pounding, and his mind still racing.

When he finally leaves the room to head to the triage desk, Dr. Robby is waiting for him.

“Whitaker,” Dr. Robby says, eyes narrowed.

Whitaker spins on his heels. “Yeah, Dr. Robby?”

“You got…,” Dr. Robby trails off, bringing up a finger to gesture to his face. “…lipstick,” he confirms, eyebrow raised.

“Oh,” Whitaker brings his hand up, maniacally swiping his skin to try and get rid of your lipstick.

“Let’s keep the after-work activities, after work, yeah?” Dr. Robby says, patting Whitaker on the shoulder as he wipes your lipstick off his face. “And let’s make sure they’re at least a few hundred feet away from, you know who,” he adds, discreetly nodding towards Dr. Abbott, who is typing furiously on a computer.

Whitaker sheepishly nods, his face reddening as Dr. Robby gives him an amused smile before moving back towards a patient room.

Whitaker ducks his head down, eyes going wide as Dr. Abbott looks at him with his signature stern expression. He then moves to the lounge, taking his phone out of his pocket to text you.

Him: Robby knows.

Me: you're alive! i thought i was gonna have to start dating robby's daughter lol

Me: he’s not one to gossip, so don’t worry too much!

Him: It's comforting to hear that you would have moved on not even one hour after being with me.

Me: i'm just kidding drama-queen!

Me: besides, she has a secret bf i don't know about...

Him: Are you just speculating? You tend to do that a lot…

Me: no…i KNOW she does. i can just feel it.

Me: i think he works at the hospital…

Him: Alright, so you are just speculating.

Me: i will hunt you for sport.

Him: Back to my problem, what if he tells your dad? Will he kill me?

Me: um…that’s hard to say…

Him: Dana just came into the lounge and slid three condoms into my hand.

Me: score lmao come over after your shift?

Him: Of course. Can we try some more things?

Me: what things are you referring to?

Him: You know…sex things.

Me: oh my god. i’ve created a monster…

Him: Is that a no or?

Me: it’s a hell yes.

Me: you’ll get to finish this time and like three other times:)

Him: Optimistic I see. Thank God. I’m feeling all achy.

Me: uh oh you have blue balls, babe…LMAO (sorry love u) bring dana's condoms and so many electrolyte packets, you sex maniac.

Me: i’ll take good care of you

Him: Yes ma’am.

-

author’s note: this is so self indulgent i can’t. nobody wanted this but me lmaoo

[epicstoriestime]

Echo Log: When Time Fractures & Signals Drift

On a weathered desk under flickering light, a burned memo, a cursed Polaroid, and a grainy security feed converge — whispering of a timeline splitting, a bridge opening, and a final witness soon to be claimed. 📡 ECHO LOG: TIMELINE GLITCHES BEGIN🗓️ June 1, 2025 | Posted by Eric Kliq410 | 03:33 AMSignal Status: Fractured — Harmonic Drift Detected 03:00 AM — TASTE OF STATIC The coffee is…

[ghelgheli]

Historians are rarely challenged just for applying words like ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to the past; it would not inevitably cause a backlash to say that a historical figure wanted power, or grieved, or felt anger. A trans historian, though, is caught in the double-bind of the DSM-5. Our experiences and our desires are quite literally mad. We do not have the social license to see ourselves fractured and reflected in historical figures; we are standing in the wrong place to write. Put simply, if you foreclose trans readings, you foreclose trans writing. When we reflect on the similarities between our lives and those of historical figures, we are accused of spreading our social contagion to the dead. To read our own anamorphoses in a text, to communicate that to a cis academic establishment who have rendered our unqualified subjectivities unimaginable, we are forced to accuse historical figures of transness. And then, of course, we are chastised for pathologising them. For a trans historian, it is not viable to simply universalise our experiences of gender. In order to relate to historical figures’ gendered experiences in our writing in a way that is legible to cis readers, we have to assert that those figures were trans. There is a gap to be bridged, and the onus to bridge it falls on us… Transmisogyny and anti-effeminacy were and are integral to the structure of patriarchy and therefore to cisness (or vice-versa). In ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen proposed a methodology for reading cultures: ‘from the monsters they engender’. In concluding this sketch of Byzantine cisness, I would like to attempt to apply this method. To monster a group or an individual is a violent act, and through examining the way transfemininity was monstered in Byzantium, we can begin to understand the shape of the violent regulation of gendered possibilities that constituted Byzantine cisness… Synesius [of Cyrene] did not simply compare the image of the elegantly coiffed effeminate with the shiny dome of the soldier’s helmet; he went one step further, proclaiming that pretty hair was the give-away for hidden effeminacy. He rails against ‘effeminate wretches’ who ‘make a cult of their hair’, who he suggests engage in sex work not out of economic necessity but as an act of sex and gender exhibitionism, to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. Then, he goes on to say:

And whoever is secretly perverted, even if he should swear the contrary in the marketplace, and should present no other proof of being an acolyte of Cotys save only in a great care of his hair, anointing it and arranging it in ringlets, he might well be denounced to all as one who has celebrated orgies to the Chian goddess and the Ithyphalli.

The implication is clear: long, well kempt, perfumed and curled hair is not just hair, it is a signifier, one that signals total abnegation of manhood, and therefore of cisness. This demonstrates one of the mechanisms by which cisness was maintained and enforced in the Byzantine world. Relatively minor embodied gender transgressions, like too-long or too-pretty hair, could be linked to transfemininity and to sexual receptivity, the two farthest points from patriarchal manhood. That is not to say that this prevented people from committing such gender transgressions; rather that it made them risky, a weapon that could be used against you by anyone who wanted to do you harm. The other thing demonstrated by Synesius’ invective is the relationship between effeminacy, unmasculine vanity and presumed sexual receptivity. It would be tempting, based on the relationship Synesius draws between long beautiful hair and receptive anal sex, to suggest that the animating force of this antipathy is, if not homophobia, a narrower pre-modern equivalent. There is, however, a fantastically complicating detail in Synesius’ remark on the reasons such ‘effeminates’ engage in sex work: being sexually available is presented as an instrumental, rather than terminal value. In Synesius’ imagination, sex work is the means, but social recognition of the feminine gender of the sex worker is the end: to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. The monster Synesius invokes to shore-up his own gender position, to guard his own cisness and his access to hegemonic masculinity, is an unambiguously transmisogynist fantasy. It is here that Byzantine cisness most sharply converges with twenty-first-century cisness.

‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts, Ilya Maude [DOI]

[vortexofadigitalkind]

The Scarcity Engine - Memory Fork

Part 9 – Short Story Series – Science Fiction/Futurism In Part 8: Collapse Map, the team uncovered a living simulation forecasting not survival, but submission. As timelines splinter and Phase 3 activates, a rogue signal begins to rewrite the system from within. Now, with the mesh fracturing and memory itself becoming weaponized, the question is no longer what to resist, but what to become. It…

[medicomunicare]

About blasts, clasts and receptors: PT H in the bone cannot be erased, yet GPRC5 is not tALK-3 with other signals

Osteoporosis is a skeletal condition that leads to the weakening of bones, making them porous, fragile, and prone to breakage. A whopping 8.9 million fractures are caused by osteoporosis annually. The aging population is the most vulnerable to primary osteoporosis, given, their frailty, and often, requires long-term therapy and support. Advances in healthcare and the corresponding rise in the…

[moonsharky]

idk man i just think it's interesting how in the same episode (817) we got two visuals of eddie and symbolic disruption.

by now i am sure we all know about how eddie grabs buck's right shoulder in their kitchen fight.

as opposed to when every single other shoulder grab was on the left.

across the first four shoulder grabs, eddies touch on buck's left shoulder becomes a quiet but consistent symbol—something ritualistic in its repetition. it's always the left, and it's always tied to connection, trust, and reassurance. it happens when:

eddie entrusts buck with chris after the tsunami—offering the deepest form of vulnerability.

buck returns to life after dying and then breaks up with his girlfriend who only ever wanted to talk about his death—eddie marks it not with grand gestures, but a grounding, physical welcome.

buck comes outs as bi—eddie affirms their bond with the same familiar touch.

they're drunk and ridiculous—chaos, but still safety, still them.

the left shoulder becomes more than anatomical. it's a symbolic place—the side of openness, the heart side, where eddie reaches when he's offering something: protection, belief, affection, belonging. his hand on buck's left shoulder says: i see you, i know you, i am still here with you.

the rest is under a cut because this got really long lmao

and then comes the fifth shoulder grab. they're grieving, they're angry, and they're not aligned. it's not a random change, it's a visual break in their emotional code.

spatially, it's off. it's the opposite side, the one that's never been used, a side that carries no memory between them.

emotionally, it signals distance. instead of grounding buck (or himself) or connecting with him, eddie's touch jars—like reaching for someone and missing.

narratively, it says: this is not comfort, this is not reassurance. this is a moment when their bond is under strain.

the right shoulder becomes the embodiment of their fractured state. it's still a touch—so the connection hasn't been severed entirely—but it's misaligned, like trying to play a familiar song in the wrong key. the gesture remains, but the meaning has shifted. it's a visual metaphor for grief disrupting even the deepest connections. for how pain can make us reach for someone the wrong way. and for how easy it is, even in love or friendship, to get turned around.

and then we have sleeping on the right side of the bed when he finds out what has happened to bobby.

this one isn't as black and white as the shoulder grabs, there is a bit of nuance.

throughout the series, eddie's position on the left side of the bed becomes an unspoken visual anchor—just like buck's left shoulder. it's not just a preference; it's a symbol. when eddie is on the left, he is grounded in his identity, even when alone, even when struggling. the left side becomes a quiet declaration: this is where i belong, even if it hurts.

first appearance: alone, on the left, near the edge. a man used to sleeping alone, leaving space—both physically and emotionally—for something he hasn't yet allowed himself to reach for. still, the left side is his side.

the three times in the montage building to his ptsd breakdown: again alone, again on the left. but now he's closer to the centre—edging inward, away from the edge of the bed, perhaps unconsciously craving connection. that space on the right side of the bed remains empty but present. these shots appear as he drifts deeper int a spiral—emotionally withdrawn, but still clinging to familiarity. the left side is his tether.

the left side holds continuity. whether in grief, repression, or monotony, it's where eddie returns. it's where he makes space—whether or not he knows for whom.

in scenes where he shares the bed—first with his ex-wife, later with his girlfriend— the staging becomes a little more complicated, reflecting the emotional confusion in those relationships

with shannon: they're upside down in the bed—eddie is technically on the right, but visually, with shannon beside him, it reads as the left. symbolically it reflects the chaos of their dynamic: a shared history that doesn't quite fit anymore. she's on the edge, physically and emotionally, and he's left in between—trying to hold onto a familiar position in an unfamiliar formation. she dies ten episodes later.

with marisol: another upside down shot, but this time they're physically closer to eddie's side. she's not on the edge like shannon—there's room behind her. but that visual closeness is deceptive: emotionally they're still mismatched. this is the scene we see her officially moved in, packing boxes around eddie's bedroom, but the symmetry is fragile. she moves out at the end of the episode.

in both cases eddie never fully gives up the visual space of the left, but the blocking suggests that when others share his bed, it doesn't feel like sharing—it feels like rearranging. he's physically there, but emotionally disoriented.

1. later flashback with shannon: they're not upside down this time. chronologically this would be after the first time we see them in bed together, and before the end of that episode where she shows up on christmas day. eddie is on the left, not at the edge, not at the centre—somewhere in between. its a quieter scene, more stable, and just before eddie decides to reopen emotional space between them—for her to see christopher again. there's a softness here, but the tragedy to come lingers just beyond the frame.

then there's the final scene of eddie in bed in the 817 flashback. texas. the middle of the night. the call comes. their captain has died. eddie wakes up on the right side of the bed.

this is not just a logistical change. its a rupture in the visual language. the right side, for eddie, is foreign. it doesn't hold history, safety, or selfhood.

he's not in la. he's not near buck. he's not near the life he built for himself.

he's in texas—the place of his past, but not his home

his parents and extended relatives may be in the same state, but his found family isn't

eddie being on the right side of the bed—alone, out of place, receiving devastating news—is symbolic dislocation. it says: this isn't where i'm meant to be. not in this house. not in this life. not even in this bed in this room.

where the left side is grounding, the right side is severance. eddie on the right side of the bed is eddie adrift. it's a quiet, visual confirmation that something isn't right, that he is far from home.

both symbolic disruptions—the right-side shoulder grab and the right-side bed placement—occur in the same episode where eddie returns to la, but the irony is that even here, in the city he calls home, he doesn't feel at home in himself. the bed in texas underscores his physical and emotional disturbance; it's a visual cue that he's been living a life out of alignment. but the shoulder grab happens in la—among his family, in the place where he should feel most like eddie. and yet, in that moment, his grief fractures the instinctual connection he shares with buck. by reaching for the right shoulder, he unconsciously echoes the misplacement we see in texas—showing that the dissonance isn't just about geography. it's inside him now. this convergence of visual breaks—sleeping on the wrong side of the bed and touching the wrong shoulder—signals eddie's internal compass is spinning. he's lost not just his captain, but his grounding, and the emotional fluency he once had with the people he loves. even in la, he's still off centre because he's hurting and his best friend won't talk about their shared grief.

[areyoufuckingcrazy]

Happy Weekend! I was wondering if you could do an angst fic w/ TBB x Fem!Reader where they’re on a mission and the ground crumbles beneath her and she falls and they think she could be dead? Thanks! Xx

Happy Thursday! Sorry for the delay, I hope this is somewhat what you had in mind😊

“Echoes in the Dust”

The Bad Batch x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Falling, presumed death, grief, survivor’s guilt, panic

The ridge was narrow. Too narrow.

You moved with your blaster raised and your jaw set, following closely behind Wrecker as the team pushed forward. The rocky terrain was riddled with ravines, fault lines, and fractured earth—left scarred by years of shelling and seismic bombardments. The mission was supposed to be simple: infiltrate a Separatist holdout and extract data.

It was never simple.

“Movement on the northwest cliff,” you called into your comm. “Looks like clankers repositioning.”

“Copy that,” Echo’s voice crackled. “Tech, I’m sending coordinates to your pad.”

Hunter glanced back at you, just a flick of his head, a silent confirmation. You nodded. I’m good.

You were always good. Until the ground gave out beneath you.

It was subtle at first—just a soft shift under your boots, like loose gravel. But then came the snap. A hollow, wrenching crack that echoed through the canyon like thunder. The rock splintered beneath your feet. You didn’t have time to scream.

Just time to look up—into Hunter’s eyes.

“[Y/N]—!”

You dropped.

The last thing you saw was his outstretched hand, just a second too late.

Then the world became air and stone and darkness.

⸻

Above, everything exploded into chaos.

Hunter hit the ridge on his knees, arms dragging at loose rock, clawing like an animal trying to dig you back out. “No, no, no—”

Echo slid in beside him, scanning with one cybernetic arm extended. “I can’t see her. It’s—kriff—it’s a vertical drop. She went straight down.”

“I should’ve grabbed her!” Wrecker was pacing in wild circles, fists clenched, eyes wet. “I was right in front of her—I should’ve—she was right there!”

“She didn’t even scream,” Echo murmured. “She just… vanished.”

“I’m scanning for vitals,” Tech said, already tapping furiously at his datapad, but his voice was thin. “There’s no signal. No movement. Her comm—either it was destroyed in the fall or… or she’s—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Hunter snapped, voice like a knife.

The wind howled through the crevice she’d fallen into, dragging dust and silence with it.

Crosshair stood several meters back, motionless, his DC-17M dangling loosely in his grip.

“Say it,” Echo growled, glaring at him. “You’ve been quiet this whole time. Just say whatever snide thing you’re thinking so we can all lose it together.”

Crosshair’s eyes flicked up, storm-gray and unreadable.

“She’s dead.”

“Shut your mouth!” Wrecker roared, storming toward him, but Echo shoved himself in between.

“She could be alive,” Echo said fiercely, though his voice cracked. “It’s possible. People survive worse.”

Crosshair didn’t move. “Not from that height.”

“I said shut it!” Wrecker shoved him back, but it was all broken fury—guilt bleeding through his rage. “She was smiling, dammit. Right before. She looked at me and said, ‘We’ll all get out of this,’ and I didn’t even answer her back—!”

“Stop.” Hunter’s voice cut clean through the storm.

He stood now, rigid and furious, his back to the team, staring into the void where you’d fallen.

“She’s alive,” he said.

Tech looked up from his pad slowly. “Statistically—”

“I don’t give a damn about statistics.” His voice was hoarse. “I felt her. She was right here. She’s part of us. She wouldn’t just be… gone.”

His hand trembled slightly. Not from fear. From the weight of it.

He was the one who told you to cover the flank. He was the one who said the ridge was stable enough.

She trusted you, Crosshair had said.

No. She trusted him.

And he’d failed her.

Hunter turned and began strapping a rope to his belt.

“Sergeant?” Tech asked cautiously.

“We’re going down there. All of us. We don’t stop until we find her. I don’t care if we have to tear the planet apart.”

Echo moved first. “I’m with you.”

Wrecker stepped up beside them, his breath hitching. “Me too. Always.”

Even Crosshair nodded, silent again.

As Hunter stood at the edge, ready to descend into the place where you vanished, a single thought thundered in his mind:

She can’t be gone.

Not you.

Not when your laugh was still echoing in his ears. Not when you told him last night, during watch, that you’d be careful. Not when he never got to tell you that he needed you more than he ever let on.

He’d find you.

Or die trying.

⸻

The descent into the ravine was slow, agonizing, and silent.

The team moved as one—Hunter leading with a lantern clipped to his belt, casting narrow beams over jagged rock and twisted earth. Echo and Tech followed with scanners, mapping every crevice. Wrecker moved boulders with his bare hands, gritting his teeth with each one. Crosshair, ever the rear guard, watched from behind, but his silence was sharp, eyes flicking everywhere.

Hunter’s voice echoed through the narrow stone corridor. “Check every ledge. Every outcropping.”

“She could’ve hit a rock shelf and rolled,” Echo said, carefully scanning below. “Or worse…”

“Don’t,” Wrecker said. “Don’t even say it. She’s alive. She has to be.”

They moved deeper into the ravine—until the beam of Hunter’s light caught something.

“Wait,” Tech whispered, grabbing Echo’s arm.

There—thirty feet below them, half-buried under collapsed shale and bloodied stone—was a figure.

Your figure.

You were sprawled on your side, your body twisted unnaturally, one leg crushed beneath a slab of rock. Blood soaked through your jacket. Your head had struck something hard—too hard—and you weren’t moving.

Hunter nearly dropped the lantern.

“[Y/N]—!”

He was down the rest of the way before anyone could stop him, crashing to his knees beside you.

“Don’t move her!” Echo shouted, sliding in behind. “Not yet. Let me check—”

But Hunter’s hands were already trembling as they hovered over you, too afraid to touch. Too afraid that this—this fragile, broken thing—was all that was left.

“She’s breathing,” Echo said. “Shallow. Pulse is—kriff—irregular. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

Wrecker dropped beside them, tears already streaking the dust on his cheeks.

“Is she—? She’s gonna make it, right? Echo?”

“She’s unconscious,” Echo said quietly. “And we need to get her out now.”

“Spinal trauma is possible,” Tech added, eyes locked on his scanner. “Multiple fractures. Her femur is broken—bleeding into the tissue. Concussion. Rib damage. Internal bleeding likely.”

Crosshair didn’t come any closer. He stood just at the edge of the light, staring down at you with an unreadable expression.

“You said she was dead,” Wrecker growled, voice shaking.

Crosshair didn’t respond.

Because he knew now—death would’ve been kinder than this.

The med evac was chaotic.

Hunter carried you the entire climb back—refused to let anyone else even try. He held you close to his chest like something fragile, as if you’d fall again if he let go. Your blood had soaked through his armor by the time they reached the surface.

Back on the Marauder, the team worked together in silent urgency. Wrecker helped secure you to the gurney. Echo and Tech patched what they could. Crosshair kept watch, pacing like a trapped animal.

And Hunter… he sat beside you.

His hands were covered in your blood.

“I should’ve caught you,” he whispered.

No one argued. No one corrected him.

Because part of them believed it too.

You twitched in your sleep once—just a small movement, a flicker of pain across your brow—and Hunter nearly leapt out of his seat.

“She moved!” he barked.

“She’s still unconscious,” Tech reminded. “That doesn’t guarantee cognition. The swelling in her brain—”

“I don’t care what the scans say,” Hunter growled. “She’s fighting.”

He reached down and brushed a blood-matted strand of hair from your face.

“You hear me?” he whispered, voice cracking. “You hold on. You fight like you always do. You’re not going to leave us like this.”

Wrecker sat on the floor beside the cot, staring at your hand dangling off the edge.

“You’re not allowed to die, okay?” he said, softly, almost childlike. “You still owe me a rematch.”

Echo leaned against the wall, arms crossed, jaw clenched tight. “She shouldn’t have been the one to fall. It should’ve been—”

“Don’t,” Tech said, just as quiet. “We all blame ourselves. That’s not useful now.”

Only Crosshair said nothing.

But later—when the others had finally dozed off in shifts, and the med droid was running scans—he sat beside you alone.

“Idiots, all of them,” he muttered. “They think they lost you. I know better.”

He rested his hand beside yours.

“You’re not dead. You’re just too damn stubborn.”

There was a pause.

“…So come back. Or I’ll never forgive you.”

You didn’t wake up that night. Or the next.

But your vitals held.

You were still fighting.

And the squad—your family—never left your side.

⸻

It started with a sound.

A weak, choked wheeze from the medbay.

Wrecker heard it first—he’d been sitting on the floor beside your cot for the past hour, humming under his breath and telling you stories like he had every day since they pulled you from the ravine.

But when he heard your breathing stutter—heard that awful, wet gasp—he was on his feet in an instant.

“Tech!”

Footsteps thundered in from the cockpit.

Tech was there in seconds, datapad in one hand, expression already shifting from calculation to panic.

“Vitals are dropping. Pulse erratic. Respiratory distress—dammit—her lung may have collapsed.”

The med droid whirred a warning in binary, and Tech shoved it aside, already working to stabilize you. Wrecker stood frozen, fists clenched at his sides, helpless as machines blared and blood began soaking through your bandages again.

“She was getting better,” Wrecker whispered. “She was breathing normal yesterday. You said she was stabilizing!”

“I said her vitals were holding,” Tech snapped, voice tight and uncharacteristically sharp. “I also said we didn’t know the full extent of internal damage yet. The concussion is worsening. There’s pressure building against her brainstem. Her body is going into systemic shock.”

“Then fix it!” Wrecker’s voice cracked. “You fix everything! Please—”

Tech’s hands moved fast, too fast—grabbing gauze, recalibrating IV drips, re-administering stimulants. But beneath the precision was fear. A gnawing, brittle kind of fear that made his fingers shake.

“I’m trying,” Tech said, barely above a whisper now. “I’m trying, Wrecker.”

Your body jerked suddenly—just a twitch, but it sent a ripple of panic through them both.

Tech cursed under his breath. “She needs proper medical facilities. A bacta tank. A neuro-regeneration suite. This ship is not equipped to handle this kind of trauma long-term.”

“So what, we just wait and watch her die?” Wrecker whispered.

“No!” Tech snapped, louder this time. “We don’t let her die.”

He slammed his fist down on the console—just once—but the sound echoed like a gunshot through the Marauder. Wrecker flinched. Tech never lost control. Never raised his voice. Never made a sound unless it meant something.

And now, he looked like he was about to break.

“I’ve calculated a thousand outcomes,” Tech murmured, softer now. “And every variable keeps changing. Her body is unpredictable. She’s unstable. But she’s also resilient. She’s survived things that should’ve killed her ten times over.”

He looked up then, eyes glassy behind his goggles.

“But if we don’t find a way to get her real care—soon—we will lose her.”

Wrecker turned away, one massive hand covering his face. He’d never felt so useless. Not when they’d crashed on Ordo. Not when they’d been stranded on Ryloth. Never like this.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I’m strong. I can carry her. Fight for her. But I can’t fix her, Tech. I can’t even hold her without hurting her worse.”

Tech approached quietly, placing a hand on Wrecker’s shoulder—a rare gesture.

“You are helping,” he said. “You’re keeping her tethered. She needs that. She needs us.”

The med console beeped—soft, steady. A pause.

Then a spike.

Her heart rate surged. Your head tilted slightly to the side. Blood trickled from your nose. Another alarm.

“No, no, no—stay with us,” Tech muttered, already grabbing the stabilizer. “Don’t go. Not yet.”

Wrecker dropped to his knees beside you, voice trembling.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” he whispered. “You don’t get to leave like this. You didn’t even finish your story about the time you pantsed Crosshair in front of the general. Remember that?”

He sniffed, brushing a strand of hair from your sweat-slicked face. “You said you’d tell me how you pulled it off without getting court-martialed. Said you’d sing me that dumb lullaby you like. Said you’d stay.”

Your fingers twitched.

A tiny movement. Almost nothing.

But Wrecker gasped.

“She moved!”

Tech’s head snapped up. “What?”

“She moved! Her hand—right here—she twitched.”

Tech scanned you again. “Neurological activity spiked. Minimal, but—”

You let out a weak, pained breath.

Another wheeze. Then a garbled sound—almost like a word, trapped somewhere deep in your throat.

“…H-Hun…ter…”

Both men froze.

Tears filled Wrecker’s eyes.

“She said his name…”

“She’s still in there,” Tech whispered, blinking quickly. “Cognitive reflexes are initiating. That’s… that’s something.”

He turned to Wrecker, and for once, there was nothing cold or clinical in his tone.

“There’s still time.”

They kept watch through the night. Neither slept.

Wrecker read to you from the old datapad you always teased him for hoarding.

Tech adjusted your vitals every hour, even when nothing had changed, just to keep his hands busy.

And in the silence between beeping monitors and heavy breaths, they both spoke to you—about nothing, about everything.

Wrecker told you about the time he and you almost got arrested on Corellia for stealing bad caf. How your laugh had made him feel human again.

Tech told you the probability of your survival was now sitting at 18.6%, up from 9%. And that statistically, if anyone could beat the odds, it was you.

Wrecker chuckled through his tears. “Told you, didn’t I? Too stubborn to die.”

Tech looked down at your still hand, then whispered—just once—“Please… don’t.”

⸻

The Marauder was silent.

Tech had finally collapsed from exhaustion in the co-pilot seat, goggles askew, still clutching the datapad with your vitals. Wrecker was curled on the floor next to your bed, snoring lightly with one hand near yours. Crosshair sat with his back to the far wall, arms crossed, eyes closed—but not asleep.

And Echo stayed awake.

He always did.

He was seated at your bedside, one cybernetic hand gently resting on the edge of the cot. The hum of the ship’s systems filled the space between the heart monitor’s steady rhythm. Your breathing—still shallow, but no longer ragged—was the only music Echo needed.

He hadn’t moved for hours.

You’d gotten worse. Then better. Then worse again. And through all of it, he’d held on. Let the others break. Let them rage. He had to be the one who didn’t fall apart.

But now, as he sat alone in the flickering light, his thumb brushed your bandaged hand—and he whispered, “You can’t keep scaring us like this.”

Your lips moved.

Barely.

He straightened. “Hey…?”

Your fingers twitched under his hand.

Your head shifted slightly on the pillow, a soft whimper escaping your throat. Your eyelashes fluttered—slow, disoriented, like your mind hadn’t caught up to your body.

“Hey.” Echo leaned closer, voice trembling now. “Come on… come on, mesh’la. You’re safe.”

Your eyes opened.

Just a sliver at first. Squinting into the low light.

“…Echo…?”

It was a rasp, a whisper, but it was real.

Echo’s mouth fell open.

And for the first time since the fall—since the screaming, the blood, the race against time—his composure cracked.

You blinked slowly, pain visible behind your glazed eyes. “W-Where…?”

“Still on the Marauder. We haven’t moved. We couldn’t.” His voice was low and hoarse. “You weren’t stable enough.”

Your brow furrowed faintly. “Hurts.”

“I know.” He gently adjusted your oxygen mask, smoothing your hair back. “You took a hell of a fall.”

You tried to shift, but your body betrayed you—wracked with weakness, ribs aching, limbs sluggish.

Echo placed a firm hand on your shoulder. “Don’t move yet. Please. Just stay still.”

You obeyed—too tired to fight it.

“I thought…” You coughed, eyes fluttering. “Thought I heard Wrecker crying.”

Echo actually smiled, though his eyes were wet. “Yeah. That happened.”

You let out the faintest exhale—almost a laugh. “He’s a big softie.”

“Only for you,” Echo whispered, squeezing your hand carefully. “You scared him half to death.”

There was a long pause.

You looked up at him, brow knitting again.

“…You thought I was gone, didn’t you?”

Echo’s throat tightened. “We all did.”

“But you stayed.”

“Of course I stayed.”

Your gaze lingered on him. He looked exhausted. Hollowed out. His prosthetic arm twitched like he’d been clenching it too long.

“You haven’t slept.”

He laughed quietly—bitter and warm all at once. “Didn’t want to miss this.”

Another silence.

And then, so faint it barely reached him, you whispered—

“…I’m sorry.”

Echo stared at you, stunned.

“For what?” he breathed.

“For falling. For worrying you. For being weak.”

His expression broke. “No.”

He leaned in, voice rough. “Don’t ever say that. You didn’t fall because you were weak. You fell because the ground gave out. Because war is cruel. Because life isn’t fair.”

He blinked back tears. “But you lived. And that means more than anything.”

Your vision blurred—not from injury this time, but from the emotion in his voice.

He looked at you like you were the most important thing in the galaxy.

“I thought I lost you,” he said. “And I wasn’t ready.”

You let your eyes close again, overwhelmed by exhaustion—but you smiled softly through cracked lips.

“I’m here.”

He pressed his forehead gently to your hand, exhaling a shaky breath.

“You’re here.”

When the others returned—when Hunter stumbled in and dropped to his knees, when Wrecker cried again, when Crosshair stood frozen for a full minute, just staring—you were already asleep.

But Echo met Hunter’s gaze.

And nodded.

“She woke up.”

And for the first time in days, the silence didn’t feel so heavy.