witheredwritings

[witheredwritings]

Blooming Rot

previous part <- -> next part

Summary: In an AU where joel never met Ellie, he shows up one day to his brother’s town, unannounced, unwanted. Though he keeps to himself, you seem to have caught his attention.

Word count: 2.9K

Warnings: Blood, gunviolence, stalking, creepy!joel, kidnapping, stalker!joel, AU!joel, age gap (reader is in her early 20s and joel in his late 50s)

A/N: No, Joel will not get sane. Yes, the reader is slowly becoming a replica of the freak that Joel is in this. Dinner is served x

He left you alone.

Not freedom—just absence. A permission wrapped in silence. Joel had sent you to the bathroom with an empty pack and a nod that felt too heavy to carry. Told you there were things in there you might want—might need—and said it without looking at you. His voice was low, almost gentle. He hadn’t looked at you when he said it. Just stood with his back turned, one hand gripping the door frame like it hurt to let go.

Like he was trying to make mercy look like distance.

Inside the small room, the air is stale. The kind of stillness that clings to corners after something’s died there. You don’t breathe too deep.

It’s there that you make your first real mistake.

The mirror is fractured—cracked like old teeth—and your reflection spills out in pieces. You catch yourself only in shards: the bloom of a bruise beneath your jaw, blood dried in a trail from temple to cheek, and your eyes—

Too wide. Too dark. Too gone.

Not your eyes. Not anymore.

What stares back is something emptied out. Hollowed. A marionette with the strings torn loose and her face still painted sweet. A shell in a girl’s shape.

And then the cabinet.

The shelves inside are lined. Careful. Clean. Toothbrushes still in their packaging. A razor. Pads and tampons sealed tight in Ziploc. As if waiting.

As if meant.

Joel hadn’t found these here. You know that.

He’d brought them.

He'd stolen them. From Jackson. From Maria, likely.

Your gut turns, sharp and sour. You sink down onto the toilet seat, hands trembling on your knees. You want to throw up. Or scream. Or claw at something until it breaks.

And that’s when you see it.

The window.

Not quite sealed. Nailed, yes—but loose in the frame. One corner shifts if you push just right. It’s small. But you’ll fit. You'd make it work.

You don’t think. You move.

As you walk up to it, you shove your shoulders against the frame, slowly trying to open it. It was small, but not impossible to think you could fit through and escape this place.

Hands wedge against the frame, arms braced. The cold hits your face and it tastes like freedom, bitter and thin. You grunt, push, drag yourself through—but the wood groans beneath your weight, and before you can even lift your legs—

He’s behind you.

No sound. No warning. Just there.

One arm catches your waist, the other braces your wrist, too tight. You twist, push, shove—but the world tilts and suddenly you’re on the floor, gasping.

Pain lashes through you—sharp, twisting. The bandages tear open, and blood slithers out slow, curling across the gauze like a snake waking in the cold. It coils red against the white, deliberate and mean.

Your scream is ragged. Pain and rage and shame braided into one torn sound.

Joel kneels. Not over you. Beside you. Quiet.

“I told you it was safer here,” he says. Not shouting. Not angry. Just… tired.

Resigned.

He doesn’t touch you now.

Just looks at the blood.

“Look what you did.”

He says it like you did it to yourself.

He takes you back into the main room. Shirt gone, chest half-wrapped in a bloodstained towel. Your arms tremble from the cold—or maybe something colder. Joel crouches in front of you, dragging the first aid tin open with reverent fingers, like he’s handling the last relic from a ruined chapel. He pulls gauze from its curled ribbon like it means something.

Like it’ll fix what’s already rotting.

He pours moonshine into the bowl, the harsh scent thick and bitter in your throat. The fabric soaks in it, limp and heavy between the rough pads of his fingers.

Then—he just sits there.

Staring at the wound like it’s mocking him. Like it speaks for you.

You want to scream. You want to claw at his face, rip into his quiet like it might bleed. You want to make him look at what he did.

But your body won’t obey.

When he touches you, it’s with unnatural care. Like he’s afraid you’ll shatter under him. Like you already have.

The burn hits slow, then sears deep. You flinch, hiss through your teeth. Joel’s hand clamps gently but firmly over your shoulder. “I ain’t gonna hurt you more,” he mutters.

It sounds like a lie he’s told before.

You hate how delicate he is. How his hands, capable of breaking bones and splitting skulls, move like he’s threading a needle. How he won’t meet your eyes, as if you’re too bright or too ruined.

It’s worse than cruelty.

It’s pity.

You’re frozen. Hollow.

"You did this to me," you whisper, voice raw with pain. I lose a shaky breath, fingers digging into the dusty couch cushions.

"You say you care—but how do you hurt someone you care about? Do you get off on shooting those you care about? Does it make you feel righteous?"

It doesn’t land the way you hope. The pain drains your voice, leeches the venom. The sting in your side steals your breath and with it, your rage.

I look down to his kneeling form. Watch how his face twitches and his eyes become troubled. Something bothers him. His grip on my arms became more rigid, fixed.

“We're heading to Idaho,” he says finally, voice low, gravel thick with something that might be regret or just memory. “Small town there, Swan Valley. ’Bout sixty-five miles west. Empty. Safe.”

He shifts his weight, knees creaking like old timber, but doesn’t stand. Doesn’t leave.

You listen to the sounds around you instead. The low creak of his boots against the floor. The scrape of fabric. His breath.

“We walk fifteen miles today,” he continues, quieter now. “Snake River Canyon. We’ll rest near the ridge.”

"...Why are you telling me?" you murmur. "I could run."

He looks at you for this time.

"You can try." His voice flattens. “But you won’t last long. You’re safer with me. You're better off with me. That’s just the truth.”

His voice has an edge to it, like the burden of his choices is being grounded into the rumble of his voice. His grip stays tight—just tight enough to remind you he could make it worse. Just tight enough to remind himself he hasn’t let go.

Still, when he’s done, you’re bandaged tighter. Cleaner. Warmer.

When he’s done, the bandages are tighter. Cleaner. You can feel your blood staying where it’s supposed to.

He stands, back turned. Like that means anything.

“Put your shirt on,” Joel mutters.

And you do.

Slowly. Fingers stiff. Mind numb.

Like a dog trained to heel.

The road west is bone-white with dust. Asphalt cracked and buckled, like the earth itself has been trying to tear free of what humanity left behind.

Fifteen miles. That’s what he told you. What he promised.

A day’s hike, he said.

What he meant was suffering.

Joel watches you limp across broken gravel, one arm still wrapped tight against your ribs. He keeps close, too close—his shadow swallowing yours up whole. Your boots are too big, a pair he scavenged from a dead man’s truck. The laces flap like tongues. You haven’t spoken since the shed.

But you haven’t tried to run, either.

That’s something.

He thinks about this morning. The quiet way your eyes didn’t meet his as you buttoned your shirt. The way your skin flinched under his hands while he cleaned the wound again. So careful. Too careful.

There was a moment—brief, ridiculous—where Joel thought you might have looked at him like he was human.

He tells himself it was guilt. That’s all. Remorse twisting his gut into something like love.

But the truth is meaner: it’s because your skin felt warm under his fingers. Because when you hissed in pain, he felt something ancient rise in his throat. Not pity. Not even shame.

Possession.

He pushes the thought away like smoke in his eyes.

By midafternoon, the road curves through the corpse of a collapsed gas station. Highway 26 stretches long ahead, a line of sun-bleached cars and rust-choked semis. Joel glances at the horizon—nothing. Still.

Too still.

He carves a path ahead of you like he’s done it a hundred times—through the rustbone skeletons of cars, the ivy-strangled bones of the old world. Every step he takes is certain, deliberate. He moves like a man made for this ending. Like he was waiting for it all along.

You trail behind him in silence, eyes tracing the loaded stillness in his shoulders, the way his boots land without hesitation. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look back to see if you’re following. He doesn’t need to.

This is his domain. Ruin. Collapse. The death of things.

You move like a ghost behind him, quieter now. Watching.

And then, abruptly, he halts. One foot on a crushed bumper, body gone still as stone. He tilts his head—not to listen, but to scent. Chin raised like a hound in thick woods.

He confuses you. Everything about him is contradiction: brute and caretaker, executioner and guide.

Then it hits.

The stench.

Sour. Metallic. Copper under the tongue. And something else—something sweeter, wronger. Like fruit left too long in the heat.

Rot blooming open.

He doesn’t turn to you, but you already know. They’re near.

And something in him is waking up to meet them.

Not a second later, you hear it shriek. Something between a scream and a howl, bone-dry and furious. You don’t even have time to speak. They're already coming.

They pour from the ruins of the diner across the street—four, six, nine of them. One missing half a jaw. One dragging its entrails like a wedding veil. One with a child’s shirt stretched over its bloated, man-shaped form.

You freeze. He sees it in your eyes.

Joel doesn’t.

Then chaos swallows you.

He moves first. Quicker than you’ve ever seen. Not like a man—like something torn loose from restraint, all sharp edge and intention. One shot cracks through the air, and the first infected drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

But the others keep coming.

You stumble back instinctively, ribs screaming with every jolt of movement. The pain knocks the air from your lungs, but you don’t get time to cry out. Joel’s already dropped the rifle. The machete flashes in his grip, gleaming wet.

He doesn’t fight clean.

He doesn’t fight like someone trying to survive.

He fights like someone trying to erase the world.

You watch the blade bury in one skull, then rip free with a wet snap. The body folds. Another infected lunges from the side—you don’t even see it until it’s too close. You flinch, too slow, but Joel’s there. His boot shatters its knee backwards and the machete takes its jaw clean off.

Blood hits your face.

You gasp. Choke. Stumble. The cars around you blur—windows flashing sun and shadow, broken glass underfoot.

Something grabs your arm.

You scream, flailing weakly, but your body won’t hold you up. You hit the ground hard, head swimming. Another infected barrels toward you, shrieking, face split by fungal rot.

Then Joel is there again—behind it, not in front.

He grabs a handful of its hair and slams its face into the fender of an old truck.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Until there’s nothing left but wet noise.

You can’t move. Can’t breathe.

Everything rings.

Joel stands over what used to be a man, panting, the machete dripping gore like it’s crying. His shirt clings to him with blood and sweat. His jaw is clenched, eyes scanning, wild, animal.

He turns toward you, panting, chest rising like a man possessed.

Not rushing—just watching.

Like checking if you're still real. Still breathing.

The sun glints off the wet edge of the blade.

He looks like something made for this. Not a protector. A punishment.

And yet—

You don’t back away.

You look at him. Really look at him. His eyes are blown wide, but not wild. His hands twitch, but they’re not reaching for you.

Something shifts. In you. In him.

Not safety.

Something worse.

You’re not as afraid now.

Joel sees it. Feels it like a heat in his ribs.

You’re watching him not like prey anymore—but something else. Something new. Something confused and dark and dangerous.

You stand still as he wipes blood from his face with a trembling hand.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t say what he’s thinking.

But the thought is there.

Whatever’s left of you, it’s his now. And whatever’s left of him— He’ll give it.

Even the rot. Especially the rot.

The Snake river murmurs beside you like it’s trying to forget something.

It’s late. You reached your destination for today without any other suprises after the previous infected attack.

The trees lean in overhead, black silhouettes with fingers for branches, and the moon cuts its way through the dark like a knife. Smoke curls from the fire Joel built, thick and fragrant, clinging to your clothes like grief. The rabbit he caught hisses in the pan, skin crisping, flesh pale and steaming. He doesn’t speak as he cooks—just watches the flames. Always watching something.

You sit across from him, legs curled under you, your bandaged side aching with every shift. The ache reminds you you’re still here. That you're still his.

He offers you the first bite. You take it.

Warmth spreads in your belly. It feels strange, to be fed like this. Not just handed food. Fed. Looked after. It unsettles more than it soothes.

You swallow, then ask, quiet, “That thing you did. Back on the road.”

He doesn’t lift his head.

“The way you… fought.”

Joel chews, slow. He doesn’t answer right away. His eyes are on the fire, reflecting back red.

You keep going. You don’t know why. Maybe it’s the firelight, maybe it’s the fatigue. Maybe it’s the twisted thread tightening between you, pulled taut since that first shot. “I’ve never seen someone kill like that.”

He finally looks at you, and it’s like being seen through. Like you’re a pane of glass and he’s measuring the cracks.

“I’ve had practice,” he says.

“That’s not what I meant.” You shift closer, slowly. Testing the heat of him. “You weren’t scared.”

Joel doesn’t blink. “Didn’t have time to be.”

“Is that who you are?” you whisper. “The man with the machete?”

He’s silent.

But his hand flexes near his boot, where the weapon lies clean now, wiped and resheathed. Reverent, almost. Like it’s earned a rest.

“No one in Jackson knew anything about you,” you murmur. “Not really. Tommy talked like you were a shadow. Even he didn’t know where you’d been.”

Joel lifts his eyes again. “And now you want to?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

That’s true. You don’t. But you know you’re colder when he’s not near. You know his violence didn’t frighten you—not really. Not after he stood between you and those things like it meant something.

He thinks you’re bending.

That the blood softened you. Cracked you just enough for something else to leak in. He watches you differently now, like he’s waiting for the moment your mouth stops curling in defiance. Waiting for the shift. Like it’s inevitable.

Maybe it is.

Maybe it’s already happened.

You stare at him across the fire, and for one sick second, you can’t remember what it felt like to hate him without question. That fury—bright and raw and righteous—now sits dulled in your chest, like a weapon you no longer remember how to wield.

He shifts, just barely. A small thing. But it makes your stomach turn.

His voice is sandpaper when he speaks. “Thought if I kept quiet long enough, you’d never ask.”

Your throat tightens. “Ask what?”

He doesn’t meet your eyes. His gaze drips down to the fire, where the flames chew on a blackened log. “Because if you knew who I was, you wouldn’t be here.”

Something in your chest twists.

You should scream at him. You should run. You should throw the half-eaten rabbit into the dirt and claw your way back to Jackson with your bare goddamn hands. But your legs won’t move. Your arms are dead weight. And the words just… don’t come.

You look at him—really look—and he seems smaller. Not physically. Something else. Like a man hollowed out from the inside and walking around wearing his own skin like a disguise.

You should be afraid. And you are.

But not of him.

Of you.

“I am here,” you whisper, slow. “You brought me here.”

His head tips just slightly, like he heard something in your voice he didn’t expect. Like a crack spreading through ice. His face doesn’t change, but something flickers underneath it. Something old. Something rotten.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t reach for you.

He doesn’t have to.

Because you’re still sitting there. You haven’t moved.

And that silence between you—it isn’t peace. It’s surrender, dressed up in stillness.

You chew slowly. Taste nothing.

The rabbit goes down like ash.

When he lays out the blankets later, he places them closer. The gap is smaller now. Measured in inches, not feet.

And when you lie down, facing the wall of trees, you don’t move away.

You tell yourself it’s to stay warm.

You tell yourself it’s survival.

But when your eyes close, it’s his voice that you hear in the dark— low, steady, and too close to the place where your hatred used to live.

A/N: I love these two freaks aaahhhhhh

Thank you so much for reading xx Leave a comment if you want!!

[witheredwritings]

A man's cock is so polite, it literally stands up so you can sit down

[witheredwritings]

I’ll be coming for your love okay

[witheredwritings]

Hollow Places

previously <- -> next part

Summary: In an AU where joel never met Ellie, he shows up one day to his brother’s town, unannounced, unwanted. Though he keeps to himself, you seem to have caught his attention.

Word count: 2.5K

Warnings: Blood, gunviolence, stalking, creepy!joel, kidnapping, stalker!joel, AU!joel, age gap (reader is in her early 20s and joel in his late 50s)

A/N: Really just messing around with this idea, without working out. But i hope you like it!! P.S. I posted this in french class so enjoy :)

He shouldn’t have shot her.

Christ.

He keeps seeing it. The way her mouth fell open. How her knees folded first, like she forgot how to stand. That flash of red blooming under her jacket, too fast, too much. She looked down at it like it betrayed her. Like he betrayed her.

Which, maybe, he did.

She’s sleeping now. Still breathing. He counted—forty-two times in the last minute. Shallow but steady. That’s good. That’s real good.

The cot creaks when he moves. He sits in the corner of the shed, back pressed against the wall, rifle across his lap. He hasn’t blinked in what feels like hours. Doesn’t trust the dark to stay still. Doesn’t trust his hands not to tremble. One of them is still stained—just a little—with her blood.

Not the way he wanted this.

Not the way it was supposed to go.

He hadn’t planned to hurt her. Hell, he wanted to protect her. She reminded him too much of—

Don’t say her name. Don’t you say it.

He rubs at his temple, skin already raw from doing that too often. Tries to slow his breathing.

It wasn’t supposed to go like that. She was smart. She would’ve understood, eventually. Jackson wasn’t safe. Not for people like them. Not with Tommy poking around, always asking questions, always needing things to be neat, fair, moral.

Tommy didn’t get it. None of them did.

She looked at him like he wasn’t a monster. Not at first. She saw something else. He was sure of it. And when she spoke to him, it was like he was human again.

But then she started pulling back. Asking too many questions. Watching him with that same suspicion he saw in her friends. Like he was gonna snap any minute. Like he didn’t know what he was doing.

And then he heard them. In town.

Dina whispering. Jesse’s voice too close.

“She might talk to Maria.”

“She might go to Tommy.”

“She’s afraid.”

He saw it playing out before it happened. Always does. Like some goddamn filmstrip rolling behind his eyes.

Tommy would drag her in. Maria would pull her aside. Then what? They’d take her from him. Lock him up. Kick him out. Make him leave again.

And he doesn’t do that.

Not anymore.

So he acted. Before they could.

A mistake. A misfire. He meant to scare her. Meant to stop her from leaving.

Instead he nearly—

No.

Doesn’t matter now.

He cleaned the wound. Stitched it. Held her hand through the fever. Even sang a little under his breath that first night, like he used to. She didn’t wake. Didn’t move.

But she stayed.

That’s what matters.

He looks over at her now, curled under the quilt, face pale but calm. Her brow furrows like she’s dreaming something hard. He hopes it’s about him.

Tomorrow, they’ll leave this shed. It’s too close to Jackson. Too close to Tommy.

They’ll hike upriver. Over the ridge. He knows a spot—a cabin, half-rotted but standing. No one goes that way anymore. He’ll fix it up. Make it safe. Cozy, even.

She’ll heal better out there. And in time—well. She’ll understand. She’ll come to see it.

He’ll treat her right. He already has. Cleaned her wounds. Kept her warm. Kept her safe.

That’s what love is, isn’t it?

She just don’t know it yet.

The boys her age wouldn’t know how to keep her alive in a storm, let alone in this world. All soft hands and loud mouths, eyes always looking for the next thing. She needs something real.

Needs him.

Eventually, she’ll come around. He can feel it, deep in his chest like a promise.

You treat a girl right, keep her safe, hold her when the nights get long—what else is there?

She won’t want to leave.

She won’t need anyone else.

And if someone ever comes?

If some man so much as looks at her?

Joel shifts his grip on the rifle.

No one will.

Because he’s gonna take her somewhere they’ll never find.

And this time, he won’t lose her.

Not like her.

Never again.

You wake to the sound of riverwater running nearby.

And birds. Distant, mournful. Like they know something you don’t.

Everything hurts. Your side throbs like a slow drumbeat, and your throat feels scraped out. For a moment, you think you’re still in the woods—that the pain, the blood, the heat in your gut—it was all some nightmare you got lost in.

But then you feel the bandages. Tucked tight. Clean.

You blink hard, and the world comes into focus in thin, brutal slices. Wood beams above you. Rust on nails. A single lantern, flickering in the corner. Dust motes hang like little ghosts in the air. The cot you’re on groans when you shift, and then it hits you—sharp, slicing pain tearing through your middle like something fresh and alive.

You gasp. A half-formed scream chokes in your throat. Your hand flies to your side and lands on fabric—your jacket’s gone. You’re in someone’s shirt. Too big. Smells like oil and old leather.

His.

You sit up too fast. The world swims. Your vision tunnels and goes black at the edges. The pain nearly folds you in half.

“Easy.”

The voice is slow, low.

You look toward the sound—and there he is.

Joel.

Sitting on an overturned crate in the doorway, like he’s been there for hours. Elbows on knees, hands loose between them. Not moving. Not blinking. Like a stone pretending to be a man.

“Where the fuck—” Your voice is hoarse, dry. It burns. “Where the fuck am I?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Just watches. His eyes drift across your face like he’s checking for something, some crack or signal.

You push yourself back against the wall behind the cot, your breath coming short. “You shot me, you sick bastard!”

“I patched you up.” His voice is flat. Like it’s just another fact, like he’s explaining a weather report.

You throw the blanket off—instinct, panic—and immediately regret it. The wound howls. You scream, raw and involuntary, but you’re still trying to get up, to stand, to run if you can, even if it means crawling with broken ribs.

He rises slowly.

“Don’t,” you say, voice splintering. “Don’t come near me. Don’t you fucking touch me.”

Joel stops. Two feet away, maybe less. A shadow, a wall. You feel small and shaking and ruined.

“You need to rest,” he says.

“I need to get the fuck away from you,” You whispered.

You hate how your voice wavers, how weak it sounds. You wish you were stronger, louder, someone else.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even look angry. Just quiet. Watching you like a puzzle he’s still working out.

“I couldn’t let you go,” he says after a while, like that explains it. Like that fixes anything.

“You shot me, Joel.”

“I aimed low.”

The tears come fast, hot, stupid. You’re not crying because you’re weak. You’re crying because you’re furious. Because this is hell and he’s standing in the middle of it like he belongs.

“You don’t get to do this,” you whisper. “You don’t get to decide for me. You have to let me go.”

He says nothing. Just studies you with that dead stare that used to pass for concern. You try to read him—to find guilt, regret, anything, but it’s like staring into stone.

You realize then: he feels something. He must. But it’s buried. Twisted. Mangled into a shape that looks nothing like love, but thinks it is.

“I hate you,” you spit. “I hate you more than anything.”

Joel’s jaw twitches. Barely.

Then, calm as ever: “You’ll feel different, soon.”

He turns away. Picks up a tin cup from the table. Pours water.

“You’re gonna eat. Rest. Then we move. You need to heal up first.”

“Move where?” you snap. “What the fuck does that mean?”

But he doesn’t answer.

He just sets the cup down on a crate beside your cot and walks to the doorway again. Sits. Rifle in his lap. Back to watching.

As if that’s all he has to do.

As if this is normal.

As if you're already his.

He never meant to hurt her.

That lie scratches in Joel’s skull like a rusted nail as he feeds dry bark into the wood-burning stove. The flame catches slow, reluctant—then blooms too fast, too hot, like it’s hungry for something it shouldn't have. Like it knows what he’s done. What he’s still doing.

He told you it would be warm here. Safer. A sanctuary, pulled from the bones of an old world rotting beneath the trees.

A lie, too.

The flame flutters. He closes the stove door soft, as if gentleness could erase the wound under your ribs. You’re in the back room now. Sleeping, he hopes.

Though he knows better than to hope.

He checks the bolt on the door again. The steel clicks loud in the hush.

Not to keep you in.

That’s what he tells himself, again and again.

It’s for the wolves. The raiders. The rot of this world.

Not for you.

Not because you’d run if you could.

Because of course you would.

He sits on the porch with his rifle across his knees, watching the trees. The pines loom tall and skeletal in the moonlight, all ribs and shadows and crooked limbs. The river hums a low dirge just out of sight, its voice cracked and endless.

His hands twitch. They were made for building, once. For holding. Now they shake when they’re empty. And all that’s left to hold is memory—and that’s heavier than any steel or stock.

He hears you through the wall.

Crying.

A thin, broken sound. Not loud. Not wild. Just worn. Like something unraveling.

Like something giving up.

He doesn’t go to you. Doesn’t speak. He listens. Soaks it in like penance. Like letting your grief wash over him might baptize what’s left.

I aimed low, he’d told you. Like that absolved him.

Like mercy and madness were just a matter of angle.

When the crying stops, the silence howls.

He waits an hour before going back inside. Long enough for your grief to dry on your face. Long enough for his to settle into bone again.

The lantern’s still lit, trembling against the walls. The lock on the door groans into place with a finality that sounds like coffin-lid. He tells himself it’s precaution.

But the truth hisses in the back of his mind like a wound that won’t clot.

It ain’t the world he doesn’t trust.

It’s you.

You, with your sharp eyes and younger bones and all the chances he never had.

You, with your voice that’s still yours.

And you will stay. You have to.

He glances toward the bed. You’re curled against the wall, thin and pale and stubborn even in sleep. Like something that still believes in doors opening.

Your fingers are tight against the bandage. Like you might reach inside and tear it out yourself.

Joel stares too long.

He hates the blood. Not just yours—his, too. The part he poured into you without meaning to. Like a curse handed down, generation to generation.

He lays down on the couch. Stiff. Cold. Not too close. Never too close.

The fire moans low in its iron cage.

He watches the ceiling. Counts the knots again.

One for every sin. One for every time he blinked and lost someone.

You’ll learn.

He’ll teach you to take, to shoot, to endure. He’ll give you what the world won’t.

One day, maybe, you’ll look at him with something that isn’t hate.

Something like need.

Like love, if there’s still such a thing.

You’ll see what he’s done for you. You’ll thank him.

He has to believe that.

Because if you don’t—if you spit his name like poison, if you look at him the way Sarah did when the light left her eyes—

He’s already halfway dead.

And if you leave, what’s left will follow.

Because you’re breathing in that room. And that’s the only thing keeping him human. The only thing left to burn.

You wake too still.

The air’s close—thick with the scent of smoke, damp wood, and coffee boiled down to tar in an old tin pot. It clings to your skin. Crawls into your lungs. Smells like rot and something older than fire.

You don’t move at first. Just breathe. Slow. Listening.

The river’s still out there, a low murmur past the wall. The stove ticks behind you—metal shrinking back into itself, full from a long night of burn. And under all of it, you hear the sound that unthreads your spine:

Humming.

Low. Tuneless. A man’s voice, just above a whisper. Not cheerful. Not anything like that.

Just steady.

You open your eyes.

The shed is small. Smaller than you remember from the night before. Wood warped from years of rain. One window, nailed halfway shut with rust-bitten hinges. A cot under you. Quilt tucked to your chin like a child’s, and that makes your stomach twist. Someone did that.

He did that.

Your eyes cut sideways to the couch across the room. Blankets there. Rumpled.

He slept right there.

Right by the door. Right by you.

Every part of you tenses. Blood under the bandages surges like it remembers who put it there. You’re aching deep—ribs, shoulder, jaw—but none of it hurts as much as the thought of being watched while you slept.

Your mouth tastes like copper and bile. You swallow it back.

And then you see him again.

Bent over the pan near the stove, sleeves rolled up, one hand steadying the cast iron while the other stirs. There’s something wrong with the sight of it—something warped. A man like that shouldn’t move gently. Shouldn’t cook. Shouldn’t hum.

But he does.

Not soft. No, never soft. Just… deliberate. Every motion carved from stone.

He doesn’t turn when he speaks.

“You're up.”

Flat. Not warm. Not cold. Just there. Like a wall.

You don’t answer.

He doesn’t ask again.

You sit up, slow. Pain lances through your side and back, but you don’t let it show. You don’t let him see it.

He plates the food. Eggs—powdered maybe, or stolen. Half a tomato. A heel of hard bread. Meat you don’t recognize. A lot of it. Too much. All for you. He makes a second plate—smaller. Sparse.

He slides yours across the table, closer. Doesn’t speak.

“Eat.”

That one word hits like a slap.

You don’t move.

He leans against the far wall, arms crossed. Watching you like you’re a wire stretched too tight. Waiting to see where it snaps. His face is carved in quiet judgment. Not cruel. Just worn. Like he’s already seen the worst and is just waiting for you to realize it too.

The plate steams.

Your stomach twists. Not from hunger—something else. Something meaner. More primal. Like defiance. Like grief.

But your hand still reaches for the fork.

Stupid.

It clinks against the tin plate.

Joel doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just watches.

And for one flicker of a second—just one—his face shifts. Not a smile. Not a frown. Something in between. Something lonely.

Then it’s gone again.

Like it never happened.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading and stay tuned for more x

[witheredwritings]

Bitter Taste

-> next part

Summary: In an AU where joel never met Ellie, he shows up one day to his brother’s town, unannounced, unwanted. Though he keeps to himself, you seem to have caught his attention.

Word count: 1.4K

Warnings: Blood, gunviolence, stalking, creepy!joel, kidnapping, stalker!joel, AU!joel, age gap (reader is in her early 20s and joel in his late 50s)

A/N: I wanna write something darker this time. Let me know if you want part 2 to this oneshot!

You felt it run down your hands, thick and slow, red like the pulp of summer cherries.

The Jackson summer heat had gotten to your head and melted what little joy the cherry preserve on your biscuit had left. You let the sticky mess drip down your fingers, past your wrists, down to the elbow. A small red puddle formed on the old wooden picnic table. It looked like a heart. A mangled, beat-up one. Fitting.

Someone was playing an old record of Linda Ronstadt through the loudspeakers. The kind of music that stuck to your ribs like warm soup. The clinking of plates and the chatter of the crowd at the community kitchen blended into a comforting hum. Dina, never one to run out of things to say, was deep into her third story about a fight that broke out during patrol rotations.

“Whole damn thing started over a pair of boots,” she huffed.

It was the first week after final assessments for new recruits. Dina had insisted you celebrate at the mess hall’s picnic area. Jesse and Ellie had argued you should go out on a longer patrol near the lookout tower—make it a camping trip. But Dina wouldn’t budge.

“I didn’t survive clickers and math evaluations to eat jerky on a log,” she’d said.

You couldn’t even be mad. The shade was kind, the food was warm, and Dina’s ranting was familiar comfort.

“I heard the Tipsy Bison’s got live music tonight,” Ellie said, strumming lightly on a half-strung guitar. She wasn’t even trying to be subtle about tuning it for attention.

“Didn’t peg you for a bar kind of girl, Ellie.” Jesse raised a brow, teasing.

“She’s not,” Dina grinned. “But she heard about the new guy.”

That caught your attention.

“What new guy?” You asked

“You know Maria’s husband, Tommy?” Dina leaned forward like a coiled spring ready to explode gossip. “Apparently, Tommy's older brother showed up some time ago. Just wandered in from one of the outer settlements. Lookin’ to trade work for a roof. Tommy offered up his spare room behind the saloon.”

Joel had shown up three weeks ago, no fanfare, just a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a gaze that didn’t belong in a place like Jackson. It was too still, too unreadable. Like something terrible had settled in behind it and decided to stay.

"I've seen the guy around a few times, but I didn't know he was Tommy's brother." You whispered.

He didn’t talk much, but when he did, it was low and deliberate. Like every word had been sifted through a meat grinder before coming out his mouth. And though he kept to himself mostly, helping Tommy with patrol schedules, tending bar, fixing up gear in the garage—his eyes always found you. Watching. Weighing.

"You know he was a contractor before all this?" Dina chimed in, biting into a melting popsicle that painted her lips the color of bruised plums. "A builder. Said he used to make homes for people. Now he tears 'em apart."

Jesse snorted. "What, he tell you that over dinner and a bottle of moonshine? He hasn’t said more than five words to any of us."

That wasn’t true. Not for you. Not after the next day.

It had started with a cut on your palm. A stupid slip of the knife while cleaning fish for the town kitchen. Blood welled up, hot and immediate, and someone called for Joel because he was closest. He didn’t say anything at first, just took your hand in his and wrapped it with that same blank expression he always wore. But something shifted in him when he touched you—like a wire pulled taut.

He’d looked at you, finally looked at you—not through you—and said, "You need to be more careful. There’s worse things out there than dull knives."

The way he said it chilled me. Like he knew those worse things personally. Like he was one of them.

Later, after dark, I was walking back from the library when I heard his voice behind me.

"You shouldn’t be out this late."

I turned and saw him half-lit under the amber glow of the watchtower light. He stepped out from the shadows like something conjured. There was no threat in his stance, not exactly. But I felt it anyway.

"You followin' me?" I asked, trying to sound braver than I felt.

His greying hair reflected the moonlight as his eyes stayed dull. No sparkle, no light to be found there.

"Ain’t followin'," he said, that half-Texan drawl coating the words like molasses. "Just... keepin’ an eye out."

He walked me home that night, saying nothing else. But I didn’t sleep well. Couldn’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his.

Tonight, the mess hall was alive with music and chatter. A small celebration for a supply run that had gone smoother than expected. You stayed close to your friends, tried to ignore the weight of his gaze across the room. But you felt it, like pressure on the back of your neck.

When you stepped outside to get some air, he was already there, sitting on the edge of the porch, cigarette smoldering between his fingers.

"Didn't know you smoke," you said.

He shrugged. "Helps me think."

"You do a lot of thinking?"

"Lately, yeah. Mostly about you."

His words should’ve scared you. Maybe they did. But there was something hypnotic about the way he said it—like it wasn’t a confession, but a fact.

"You ever get the feelin'," he continued, flicking ash into the dirt, "like you’re not supposed to be somewhere, but you’re there anyway? Like the world made a mistake lettin' you in?"

You swallowed hard, unsure how to answer.

He stood, and for the first time, came close. Close enough that you could see the scar above his brow, the faded bloodstain on his collar. He smelled like oil and metal and something older. Something buried.

"Let me show you somethin'."

He led you out past the gates. Said he knew a spot, real quiet, where you could see the stars better. The guards didn’t stop us. No one questioned Joel Miller.

We veered off the main path, into the wheat fields just past the edge of the safe zone. The moon overhead cast everything in silver. You followed him wordlessly, trusting my gut. The trail wound into the woods, the branches arching overhead like ribs. The moonlight barely touched the ground. You walked, surrounded by nothing but stars and the swaying hush of stalks brushing your arms. And when you stopped, it was in a clearing surrounded by trees that looked like they’d seen too much.

"Beautiful, ain’t it?" he asked, but his voice was distant.

He turned to face me, his eyes darker now, unreadable.

“The sky’s something else here,” you whispered.

Joel looked up. “Reminds me of the world before.”

His hand brushed my jaw. You didn’t flinch. Not until you caught a flicker of something behind those tired eyes.

You turned to him, lips parted to say something, when you felt it—a crack like thunder.

Your body jolted before your brain caught up. Heat bloomed in your abdomen, hot and furious. You looked down and saw it—the bloom of red, dark as plum wine, spreading across your shirt.

Joel stepped closer, gun lowered now, his eyes unreadable.

"You weren’t gonna leave, were you?" he asked softly. "Tell Tommy? Run?"

You staggered, breath hitching, fingers pressing to the wound. The blood slipped between them, coating my skin, sticky and red as fruit.

He reached for me—not cruelly, but with something that looked like care. Something twisted and wrong.

"Didn’t wanna do it like this," he muttered. "But you’re smart. Smarter than most. And you looked at me like I wasn’t just a shadow walkin’ around. Made it hard."

The trees swayed gently above you two, the stars watching in silence.

And as your vision dimmed, you realized he hadn’t come here to bury you.

He’d come to keep you.

Alive.

With him.

Somewhere no one would ever find you.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Don’t forget to check out my other work xx

PS: should i make a part two or not?

[witheredwritings]

Hello, I am wondering if u take request for a Tony Stark x female reader, who is also best friend of Tony Stark before he came Iron Man but she has been by his side through everything as well. But it’s a fluff one shot as at the end where they both reveal their feelings for each other which they had from the moment they met and they have their first kiss between them as well.

Ofcoursee, here it is! Hope you like it :)

Virtual Insanity

Summary: In which the infamous line "make love not war" isn't well-respected by this pair of friends. When cyberbullying at Stark industries level develops into a game between these two collegues and friends, something more begins to unravel between the two.

Word Count: 1.7K Warnings: none except Tony's unsufferable ego (all jokes)

A/N: This is a short oneshot. Might turn into more. I'm also still working on the "Soft in the right hands" series for bucky so stay tuned!

You’d known Tony Stark long enough to remember when he didn’t wear the suit — physically or emotionally.

Back then, he was all sharp smiles and sharper intellect, more interested in building arc reactors with cocktail napkin schematics than charming investors. Reckless with nearly everything except the way he treated you. Somehow, against all odds, you’d slipped past the velvet rope that guarded the real him — the sleepless inventor who showed up on your fire escape at 3AM with a bottle of Scotch and a theory about thermal diffusion that couldn’t wait till morning.

You were best friends before Afghanistan. Before Iron Man. Before Stark Tower had its own AI department and a floor reserved just for “Tony’s regrets, part I through XXV.”

And none of that stopped him from hacking your firewall during lunch.

You were approximately three minutes into a well-deserved lunch break — grilled cheese in hand, Spotify playlist on shuffle, and the sanctity of a lab entirely free of explosions — when your firewall went up in flames.

Digitally speaking.

The code on your main monitor began to twitch. Literally twitch. Then twist. And then it smiled at you. A little pixelated smiley face blinked up from the line of code you’d just written, followed by a dancing ASCII cat wearing sunglasses.

“Oh my God,” you muttered, setting your sandwich down like it had betrayed you.

You knew that coding style.

You knew exactly who was responsible.

With the patience of a saint and the energy of someone who was one click away from snapping, you launched into the system’s backend, pulling apart the layers of the digital graffiti with expert ease, unraveling each line of smug Stark-ware. And sure enough, right at the root folder, embedded in a hidden command string, was a line of text:

"Nice firewall, sweetheart. 7/10. Would hack again. - T.S."

Your eye twitched. Your soul twitched.

He didn’t just breach your system. He decorated it. That wasn’t a hack — it was a housewarming party in enemy territory.

The man had billions of dollars, a global tech empire, multiple Iron Man suits, and — apparently — nothing better to do than hack into your secure files during his downtime like a caffeinated raccoon with a superiority complex.

You were going to kill him. Slowly. Or worse — give him a lecture so long and boring it could be classified as psychological warfare.

And thus, the war began.

With your jaw clenched and your heart pounding in that very specific, very annoying way it only ever did around Tony, you stormed out of your lab and stomped down the hallway of Stark Tower.

You bypassed three interns and a mildly offended elevator AI before slamming open his door like righteous judgment. Finally, you flung open the doors to his R&D suite without knocking.

Tony didn’t flinch.

Sleeves rolled up, arc reactor glowing, fingers dancing across a holographic interface. He looked up. Grinned.

“Hey, sunshine,” Tony said lazily from behind a table cluttered with open panels, a half-dismantled drone, and at least three coffee cups. “I was just thinking about you."

“You’re a menace.”

“I’ve been called worse.” He finally looked up, dark eyes glinting with amusement. “But usually by people who didn’t bother updating their encryption protocols.”

You crossed your arms. “You hacked into my system during lunch, Stark. That’s below the belt. I was eating grilled cheese.”

“Maybe next time add some brie and fig jam. Class it up a little.” He grinned. “You’re welcome, by the way. I just gave you a free security audit.”

You stared at him, deadpan. “Did your ego eat your moral compass for breakfast?”

He stood, sauntering over like confidence incarnate in a Henley and jeans, and leaned against the edge of the workbench — arms crossed, smirk fully loaded.

“I’d argue my ego is my moral compass. And it always points due north to: mess with you.”

“You hacked my system,” you repeated.

He tilted his head. “If I can break in, so can Hydra. I’m doing you a favor.”

You crossed your arms. “This is the third time this month you've done something like this. Last week, you turned my digital assistant into a sassy version of yourself. I had to argue with my microwave for twenty minutes before it would heat my soup.”

He beamed. “He’s got a personality now! Named him Toasty.”

“I’m going to rewrite your DNA.”

“Only if we cuddle after.”

You were going to scream. Or kiss him. It was a very fine line these days.

“I’m going to kill you,” you said conversationally.

He grinned wider. “You’re going to miss me.”

So instead, you narrowed your eyes and said, “I hope you like Shakespeare just as much as JARVIS does.”

He blinked. “What?”

You pulled your phone from your pocket, already typing."Your little AI pet seems to have brushed up on his Shakespeare, because he’s about to speak exclusively in iambic pentameter for the next twenty-four hours."

“Wait. No—”

“And make all puns food-themed.”

Tony’s jaw dropped. “You’re a monster.”

You shrugged, already walking toward the door. “Some people bake sourdough for fun. I emotionally sabotage billionaire AIs.”

Tony groaned. “JARVIS

, don’t you dare—”

“Verily, sir,” JARVIS chimed in serenely from the overhead speaker, “I find thy attitude rather cheesy, like brie upon a croissant most greasy.”

Tony’s head hit the desk.

You smirked. “Toasty says hi.”

It went on like that for weeks.

Tony retaliated by installing a movement sensor in your lab. Every time you entered, SexyBack blared at full volume. FRIDAY wouldn’t let you disable it. She said it was “legally classified as a morale booster.”.

It was a war.

You replaced his AI’s voice with Gilbert Gottfried reading Twilight.

Tony responded by having your smartwatch shout hourly affirmations about his hair.

You hacked his suit’s startup sequence. Now it greeted him with:

“Iron Man: The Human Hot Pocket. Online.”

It didn’t stop there.

He replaced your screensaver with a live feed of himself winking, finger guns included.

You programmed his coffee maker to scream “INCOMING!” every time it dispensed espresso.

Naturally, collateral damage was inevitable.

Bruce’s tablet was cursed to play Baby Shark whenever opened. He developed a twitch.

Sam’s Falcon gear announced all takeoffs with: “I’m a little teapot, short and stout.”

Steve’s toaster quoted Pride and Prejudice in Cher’s voice.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged,” it belted one morning, “that a single man in possession of breakfast must be in want of jam.”

He punched a wall. You both got fined.

Even Clint, ever the stealthy one, wasn’t spared. Every time he drew an arrow, it whispered “pew pew” in Tony’s voice.

The tower teetered on the brink of chaos.

Pepper threatened to move to Dubai.

It was late.

The Tower was asleep, mostly. Except for Tony, who you found in the R&D lounge, hoodie on, arc reactor glowing soft under worn fabric. He looked… still. A rare moment for a man who moved like his thoughts could outrun time.

“You gonna yell at me for the coffee pot thing?” he asked, not looking up.

“I should,” you said, easing into the seat beside him. “FRIDAY tried to launch a counterstrike when I made a cappuccino.”

“She’s passionate.”

Silence fell. He just stared at you like he was debating something he’d rehearsed a hundred times in his head.

You blinked. “What?”

Tony opened his mouth. Closed it. Then, “Do you want me to stop?”

You frowned. “Stop what?”

“The pranks. The hacking. I mean, I know it’s probably childish and annoying and… I don’t know. Maybe I just like having a reason to see you all worked up, to just see you more.”

You sat back, heart thudding.

“That,” you said slowly, “is the least emotionally articulate confession I’ve ever heard.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, well. I build flying suits, not feelings.”

You stood and walked over, stopping inches from him. His breath hitched, and yours did too.

“For the record,” you said, “I love your flying suits. But I also kind of love… this.”

He blinked. “The chaos?”

“The banter. The sabotage. The way your face lights up when you think you’ve outsmarted me, even though I’m always two steps ahead.”

“Debatable,” he muttered.

You leaned in, lips brushing the shell of his ear.

“And I love the way you look at me like I’m the only firewall you’ve never wanted to break.”

He stilled.

Then: “I’ve been in love with you since the day you fried that Russian botnet and called it ‘a poorly coded insult to my intelligence.’”

You smiled.

And then, you kissed him.

It was messy and hot and gloriously overdue. His hands cupped your face like he’d been dying to do it for years, and your fingers curled into his shirt like gravity had given up and he was your anchor now.

When you finally pulled back, breathless, he whispered, “I should have hacked you sooner.”

You smacked his shoulder. “Shut up and kiss me again.”

He did.

And that night, neither of you changed each other’s passwords.

You called a truce.

Sort of.

Now your prank war has a rulebook and a scoreboard. Nat is the referee. Bruce runs support (begrudgingly). Steve is still in therapy.

JARVIS still speaks in sonnets during thunderstorms. Toasty hosts a podcast. FRIDAY hosts a revenge fund.

A year later, Tony proposed via custom hologram code embedded in your firewall — romantic, glitchy, and absolutely extra.

You said yes.

And now, sometimes, late at night, you’ll find yourselves coding side-by-side, teasing each other like always — except now, there’s no more pretending.

Just love. Loud, messy, sarcastic love. With bad lighting, too much coffee, and more happiness than either of you thought you’d ever deserve.

And every morning, when you walk into the lab, “SexyBack” still plays.

You don’t stop it anymore.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Don't hesitate to leave a comment behind <3

[witheredwritings]

Sorry for being offline for so long... Senior year is killing me :(

(promise more is coming soon xx)

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands - Chapter Four

Summary: After the bloodbath, Quinn finds herself trapped with someone she’d rather see dead. Meanwhile, Bucky fights desperately to track her down and bring her to safety. Word Count: 2.8K Warnings: PTSD, Angst, Violence, Blood, Gore, Corpses, Weapons, Injuries, Stalking, Death of Minor Characters, Kidnapping. Let me know if I missed anything!! A/N: This one gets a little deep into violence. But yk it is what it is. Have fun reading!

Quinn’s first sensation was cold.

It pressed against her skin, seeped into her bones. The sharp scent of antiseptic filled her nose, and the distant hum of machinery buzzed at the edge of her awareness.

Her head throbbed. Her limbs felt heavy, sluggish.

She forced her eyes open.

Darkness.

No—not total darkness. A dim fluorescent light flickered overhead, casting eerie shadows on steel walls. The air was sterile, wrong.

She wasn’t in her apartment anymore.

A faint clinking sound reached her ears. Metal on metal. Restraints.

Her wrists burned as she shifted, feeling the cold bite of cuffs against her skin. She was strapped to a metal gurney, her movements restricted. Panic flared in her chest, but she swallowed it down.

Think. Breathe. Assess.

The last thing she remembered—Arthur. The bodies. The world tilting as her vision blacked out.

And now she was here.

A door hissed open.

Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.

A silhouette appeared in the doorway, just out of reach of the light.

A voice, smooth and controlled, filled the space.

“Welcome back, Ms. Ashcroft.”

Quinn’s breath hitched.

She knew that voice.

And she wished she didn’t.

The man stepped forward, finally letting the light catch his face.

Quinn’s stomach twisted.

Dr. Elias Verrick.

She’d seen his face in Arthur’s classified files, in blurry photographs stolen from locked dossiers. A ghost of a man—one who shouldn’t exist anymore.

But he did.

And he was standing right in front of her.

“I have to admit,” Verrick mused, tilting his head, “I expected you to be harder to catch.”

Quinn glared at him, forcing her breathing to steady. “That’s funny. I expected you to be dead.”

Verrick chuckled. “Oh, neither are you, Quinn. But you and I both know the people in my line of work never stay dead for long. ”

A slow, creeping dread settled into her chest.

She flexed her fingers, testing the restraints. Too tight. No immediate way out.

Verrick watched her closely, a hint of amusement in his gaze. “You’re wondering why you’re here.”

“I figured that much out already.”

“Did you?” He took a step closer, lowering his voice. “Then tell me, Quinn—what exactly do you remember?”

Something about the way he said it made her pulse quicken.

Memories flickered at the edge of her mind. Disjointed. Flashes of a lab. A white coat. A voice in Russian. The Winter Soldier—no, Bucky—standing over her.

She swallowed hard.

Verrick smiled. “That’s what I thought.”

He turned away, pressing a button on the wall.

The gurney beneath her shifted.

And then, suddenly—pain.

Searing, white-hot pain tore through her skull like fire.

Quinn gasped, her body jerking involuntarily against the restraints as her vision blurred. Images crashed into her mind—a flood of moments she couldn’t place, couldn’t stop.

A name. A code.

Ulysses.

And then—darkness.

Again.

Bucky Barnes had been tracking Quinn for thirteen hours.

Her apartment had been a bloodbath, and Arthur Meyer was missing. No signs of struggle—except for Quinn’s coat, discarded near the door.

That wasn’t like her.

Which meant she hadn’t left willingly.

Now, standing in the shadows of an abandoned warehouse near the docks, he tightened his grip on his gun.

“You’re sure this is where the trail leads?” Sam’s voice crackled over the comm.

Bucky exhaled sharply. “Yeah.”

There had been whispers—underground sources, contacts who owed him favors. A name that kept popping up.

Elias Verrick.

The problem? Verrick had been declared dead three years ago.

Except now, it looked like that was a lie.

And if Verrick had Quinn, there was no telling what he was doing to her.

Bucky didn’t plan on waiting to find out.

He moved forward, slipping through the shadows, his every instinct on high alert.

He was getting Quinn back.

Or he was burning this place to the ground trying.

Quinn woke up screaming.

She barely had time to think before the pain hit.

Something was inside her head, clawing through her mind like jagged metal scraping against bone. Her body convulsed against the restraints, her throat raw from screams she didn’t remember making.

And Verrick was watching.

She could hear his voice—calm, analytical, almost bored.

“Fascinating. Neural degradation is minimal despite the surge. Increase voltage by another twenty percent.”

A sharp click.

Then—pure, unfiltered agony.

Quinn thrashed as white-hot electricity burned through her skull, turning her veins into molten fire. Images, memories, hallucinations—something—flooded her brain, each one worse than the last.

Her mother, bleeding out in their kitchen when she was twelve.

Arthur, his throat slit, mouth frozen mid-scream.

Bucky, staring at her with empty, dead eyes, a bullet hole between them.

She gasped, trying to separate what was real from what was being forced into her mind. The line blurred. Her head felt like it was splitting open.

Verrick leaned over her, his face a cold mask of curiosity.

“I wonder,” he mused, tilting his head, “how long before you break?”

Quinn clenched her jaw, forcing herself to meet his gaze through the haze of pain.

“Go to hell.”

Verrick sighed, shaking his head.

Then he nodded to someone behind her.

And the pain tripled.

Quinn’s world turned to static and screaming.

Bucky smelled the blood before he saw it.

The warehouse had led to a tunnel. The tunnel led to an underground lab. And the underground lab smelled like rotting flesh.

Sam’s voice was in his ear, distant. “Barnes? You good?”

No.

He wasn’t good.

Bucky stepped inside what looked like an abandoned surgical room. The walls were lined with steel drawers—body storage.

A morgue.

And the slabs weren’t empty.

Arthur’s rescues—Quinn’s people—were here.

Or what was left of them.

Bucky swallowed back bile as his eyes swept over the carnage. They weren’t just dead. They’d been ripped apart. Limbs severed, torsos carved open like experiments, eyes missing from some of the skulls.

And in the center of the room—

A chair.

Strapped to it was a corpse that looked fresh. Too fresh. The skin was flayed back, exposing muscles and tendons, and wires dug into what remained of the scalp.

A machine next to the body flickered with numbers.

This person—whoever they were—had been alive when this was done.

Bucky clenched his fists. His breath came out ragged, uneven.

Then he noticed the blood trail.

It led out of the room.

It led to a door.

And behind that door—

Bucky didn’t hesitate. He kicked it open.

And found hell.

Quinn hung from the ceiling like a marionette.

Chains dug into her wrists, her bare feet barely touching the ground. Her body was drenched in sweat and blood—most of it hers.

Her face was swollen, one eye forced shut from bruising. Her lips were split. Dried blood streaked her arms where electrodes had been ripped from her skin.

And she wasn’t alone.

A thing stood next to her.

At first, Bucky thought it was a person. But then it turned—and he realized it used to be.

Half of its face was gone, revealing a slick, wet skull beneath. Wires ran through its neck, disappearing into its spine. Its arms ended in metal claws, its skin stitched together like a patchwork doll.

And its milky, dead eyes locked onto him.

Then it moved.

Fast.

Bucky barely had time to dodge before it lunged, its claws slicing through the air where his head had been a second ago. He rolled, pivoted, fired—

The thing didn’t stop.

Even when the bullets tore into its chest, it kept coming.

Bucky snarled, gripping his knife.

Then, from behind him—

A weak, rasping voice.

“Bucky…”

Quinn.

Bucky didn’t think. He reacted.

He dodged another swipe, slammed his metal arm into the thing’s side, and drove his knife through its throat.

The creature convulsed, screeching like a dying animal.

Then it collapsed.

Bucky didn’t wait for it to move again. He was already at Quinn’s side, unfastening the chains. She barely had the strength to stay upright when he caught her.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed. “Quinn—”

She was shaking, her fingers digging into his jacket.

“We have to go,” she croaked, voice shredded raw.

Bucky nodded. “Yeah. We’re getting out of here.”

But then—

A voice crackled over the speakers.

Cold. Amused.

Verrick.

“Oh, James,” he said. “You’re too late.”

And then Quinn started screaming.:

She was dying.

Bucky could feel it.

She was burning up, her body wracked with violent tremors as he carried her through the dimly lit corridor. Her breathing was ragged, shallow. Every few steps, a wet cough tore through her throat, blood splattering his jacket.

But she still had her fingers clenched in his sleeve. Still fighting.

“Stay with me,” he murmured, not sure if she could even hear him.

She let out a weak, broken laugh. “No promises.”

Bucky swallowed, pushing forward. The lab was still crawling with Verrick’s people, but he’d take them all down if he had to. He wasn’t letting Quinn die in this hellhole.

Then his comm crackled.

“Barnes. Tell me you’re not in some deep shit right now.”

Sam.

Bucky exhaled, relief cutting through the adrenaline.

“Sam. I need an evac. Now.”

A beat of silence.

Then—“You got a location?”

“Underground facility, north of—”

A sharp gunshot rang out, cutting him off.

Bucky whirled, pressing Quinn against the wall, shielding her with his body. The shot had come from down the hall—figures in black tactical gear were closing in fast.

“Shit.”

“Bucky? You still with me?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got company.” He adjusted his grip on Quinn, tightening his jaw. “Get here fast.”

Another gunshot.

Then—

The ceiling exploded.

A rush of wind blasted down the corridor as a figure dove through the debris, wings flaring in a wide arc before landing between Bucky and the approaching gunmen.

Sam.

His goggles glinted under the emergency lights, his shield locking into place on his arm.

“Man,” he exhaled, glancing back at Bucky, “I knew you were in some deep shit.”

Bucky smirked, despite everything. “Shut up and cover me.”

Sam just rolled his eyes.

Then the fight began.

Bucky barely felt the cuts and bruises littering his body as he kicked open the door to the safehouse.

The moment they were inside, Sam rushed ahead, clearing the space. Bucky carried Quinn straight to the cot in the corner, carefully lowering her down.

She whimpered as he moved her, her body still racked with fever. She looked bad—too pale, her breathing uneven.

Bucky’s hands curled into fists.

Sam knelt beside her, pressing two fingers to her pulse. His brows furrowed.

“She’s burning up,” he muttered. “What the hell did they do to her?”

Bucky exhaled sharply. “Experimented on her. Hooked her up to some machine. It was messing with her head—”

Sam’s expression darkened.

“We need someone who actually knows what the hell they’re doing.”

“No hospitals,” Bucky said immediately. “Verrick’s got eyes everywhere.”

“Then we call someone who doesn’t give a damn about Verrick.”

Sam pulled out his phone, scrolling fast.

Bucky hesitated. “Who the hell are you—”

“Calling in a favor.”

Then, into the phone—

“Romanoff. We need you.”

Quinn was trapped in the dark again.

Her mind was a mess—fragments of memories colliding, bleeding together. Screams echoed in the distance. Faces she didn’t recognize flickered in and out, all of them contorted in pain.

She couldn’t tell what was real anymore.

She barely registered the hands gripping her shoulders, shaking her.

“Quinn.”

The voice was firm, urgent. Familiar.

She forced her swollen eyes open.

Bucky.

He was crouched in front of her, his face set in that look—the one that meant he was worried but pretending he wasn’t.

“Hey,” he said, softer now. “Stay with me.”

Quinn tried to respond, but her throat was raw.

Then—another voice.

“You look like hell.”

Quinn’s eyes flickered past Bucky.

A figure stood in the doorway, arms crossed, red hair falling over a sharp, calculating gaze.

Natasha Romanoff.

Her presence seemed to shift the room.

Bucky stood, tension coiled in his frame. “Took you long enough.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Had to get my nails done first.” Then her gaze dropped to Quinn. The teasing faded. “She doesn’t have much time.”

Sam crossed his arms. “You got a plan?”

Nat’s lips curved into something sharp.

“I always have a plan.”

Then she reached into her bag, pulling out a syringe filled with something dark and metallic.

Bucky tensed. “What the hell is that?”

Natasha twirled the syringe between her fingers. “Something that might flush out whatever the hell they put in her. Might kill her. Might not.”

Bucky’s hands fisted. “You don’t even know?”

Nat shot him a look. “You got better options?”

Silence.

Then—

“Do it.”

Everyone turned to Quinn.

Her voice was weak, but her eyes—her eyes were blazing.

“Do it,” she rasped. “Before I lose myself.”

Bucky inhaled sharply. Sam muttered a curse under his breath.

Nat didn’t hesitate.

She knelt beside Quinn, pressed the needle to her neck—

And injected the serum.

Quinn’s body arched.

Her scream tore through the room.

Pain.

Quinn had lived with pain before.

But this—this was something else.

Her body burned from the inside out, fire searing through her veins, eating her alive. Her lungs seized, her muscles locked, her vision fractured.

She felt hands holding her down. Heard voices—muffled, tense.

Then a whisper. Low. Steady.

“You’re not alone.”

The words cut through the chaos, grounding her.

Then darkness took her again.

When Quinn came back to herself, the pain had dulled into a deep, bone-deep ache. She was on a cot, draped in a blanket that smelled like gunpowder and leather.

She turned her head, blinking against the dim light.

Someone was sitting beside her, watching.

Natasha.

Quinn swallowed, her throat raw. “How bad do I look?”

Nat raised a brow. “Like you went three rounds with hell and lost.”

Quinn exhaled a weak laugh. “Sounds about right.”

Nat didn’t smile, just studied her for a moment.

Then she said, quiet, “You survived.”

There was something in her voice—something Quinn recognized.

A weight. A knowing.

Quinn held her gaze. “So did you.”

A flicker of something passed over Natasha’s expression, gone too fast to name. Then she nodded, just once.

That was the moment Quinn knew—Natasha understood in a way the others never fully would.

They had both been taken. Used. Hurt.

But they had survived.

And now, it was time to make them pay.

“You’re sure she’s ready for this?”

Bucky’s voice was low, edged with something close to concern.

Natasha didn’t even look up as she finished checking her weapons. “She doesn’t have a choice.”

Across the room, Quinn was lacing up her boots, rolling her shoulders. Testing her strength. She was still pale, still looked like hell, but there was a new steadiness to her.

Bucky exhaled sharply. “This isn’t just some revenge mission. Verrick is dangerous.”

“So are we,” Natasha said simply.

Sam leaned forward, arms crossed. “Alright. We know where he is?”

Quinn’s fingers tightened around the knife she was sharpening. “I do.”

The room went silent.

Natasha lifted a brow. “You remember?”

Quinn nodded, jaw clenched. “Not everything. But enough. He’s at one of his black sites, an old research facility in the mountains. That’s where it all started. Where he took me. Where he’s keeping the others.”

“The others?” Bucky asked.

Quinn’s throat worked. “I wasn’t the only one.”

A grim, heavy silence fell.

Sam’s expression darkened. “So we’re not just going after Verrick. We’re getting them out.”

Natasha looked at Quinn. “You in for that?”

Quinn’s eyes burned. “I have to be.”

Bucky nodded once. “Then we finish this.”

Natasha smirked, spinning one of her batons. “About time.”

The team had split up to gear up, check weapons, go over the plan one last time.

Quinn found Natasha in the back room, checking the straps on her suit.

“You always this calm before a mission?” Quinn asked, leaning against the doorway.

Natasha glanced at her. “You always this chatty before a suicide run?”

Quinn huffed a laugh, stepping inside.

Silence stretched between them for a moment, not uncomfortable, just there.

Then—

“Did you ever think,” Quinn asked, voice quieter, “that you’d never get out?”

Natasha stilled.

Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.

Then she looked at Quinn, something raw in her expression.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “I did.”

Quinn nodded, exhaling. “Me too.”

A pause.

Then Natasha stepped closer, tilting her head slightly.

“But we did get out.”

Quinn met her gaze. “And now?”

Nat’s lips quirked into something almost like a smile, but there was steel behind it.

“Now we burn it all down.”

Quinn felt something settle in her chest.

She reached for her knife, testing the weight in her palm.

“Let’s go.”

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Don't hesitate to leave a comment behind <3

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands - Chapter Three

Summary: After meeting the Avengers, Quinn finds out more about her past, her parents and what might link her to Bucky. Just when she's ready to find the answer to all her questions, it goes horribly wrong. Word Count: 3.8K Warnings: PTSD, Angst, Violence, Blood, Injuries, Stalking, Death of Minor Characters, Kidnapping, Gambling, Addiction, and Tony Stark bc he needs his own warning for all the chaos he causes . Let me know if I missed anything!! A/N: The end is a bit gory, so if you're not into that, it might be best to skip that part. Please read the warnings before you continue reading! Love, the author <3

The morning after the pancake-fueled chaos in Stark Tower, Quinn wakes up feeling something unfamiliar—rested. For the first time in a long time, she hadn’t had to sleep with one eye open.

But peace doesn’t last long.

She finds Bucky already up, sitting at the kitchen counter nursing a coffee like it’s the only thing keeping him from murder. She’s about to greet him when the sound of an electric razor hums through the room. She turns—and nearly chokes.

Tony. Standing in the middle of the kitchen. Shaving his goatee.

Quinn frowns. “Uh… what are you doing?”

Tony, deadpan: “Making a sacrifice to the gods of self-respect. What does it look like?”

Bucky grumbles, not looking up from his coffee. “It looks like you’re making a mess.”

Tony points the razor at him. “You, Barnes, are in no position to critique anyone’s grooming habits.”

Steve walks in, takes one look at Tony’s half-shaven face, and sighs like a disappointed parent. “Tony.”

“Steve.”

“Why?”

Tony shrugs. “Felt like a change.” He gestures at Quinn. “Speaking of changes, our mystery guest still hasn’t explained why she was crashing on Barnes’ couch last night. Not that I’m complaining. I live for drama.”

Bucky’s jaw tightens. He shoots Tony a warning look, but Quinn surprises him by speaking first.

“It’s not that interesting,” she says, though her body language says otherwise. “I needed somewhere safe. Bucky said this was safe.”

Clint, appearing from literally nowhere: “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.”

Quinn exhales sharply. “I didn’t kill anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Clint shrugs. “Good to know. But I was more asking who is after you.”

Silence.

Bucky sets down his coffee. “Quinn—”

“I don’t know,” she interrupts, voice clipped. “Not exactly. Just… people I don’t want finding me.”

That gets everyone’s attention. Even Tony, who had been fully prepared to continue shaving in the middle of the conversation, stops and actually looks at her.

Bucky frowns. “You said you got away clean.”

Quinn swallows. “I thought I did.”

Steve’s expression softens. “If you’re in danger, we can help.”

Her first instinct is to refuse. She’s spent years looking out for herself—trusting others has never come easily. But then her gaze flickers to Bucky. Despite his rough exterior, he hasn’t once looked at her like she’s a problem to be fixed. He understands.

So she stays silent, letting them talk around her, retreating into the quiet of her own thoughts. She isn’t sure how long she sits at the kitchen table, simply listening to the steady, comforting rhythm of their conversation. The smell of coffee and breakfast filled the air, and for the first time in a long time, she felt like she was somewhere safe. Somewhere normal.

But normal never lasted.

Bucky had been quiet beside her, responding only when necessary, his sharp eyes always watching. Not in a bad way—just aware. He always seemed to be waiting for something. A threat. A reason to leave. A reason to stay.

She understood the feeling.

Eventually, the others drifted out of the kitchen, their curiosity satisfied for now. Steve had gone to take a call. Tony had disappeared, mumbling something about an experiment. Clint had left after successfully stealing the last of the coffee.

That left her and Bucky.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, but it wasn’t easy either.

“You good?” Bucky asked finally, his voice low.

Quinn hesitated. Was she?

She’d spent the last year looking over her shoulder, staying three steps ahead of the past chasing her. But now, sitting here, she had slowed down.

And that was dangerous.

“I’m fine,” she said, though even she wasn’t convinced.

Bucky didn’t press. He just stood, motioning with his head. “C’mon.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Where?”

“Rooftop,” he said simply.

She hesitated. But then she followed.

The rooftop was quiet, save for the distant hum of the city below. A cool breeze brushed against Quinn’s skin, carrying the scent of rain and asphalt. She hugged her arms around herself, staring out over the skyline, feeling the weight of Bucky’s presence beside her.

Neither of them spoke at first.

She wasn’t sure why she had followed him up here—maybe because she was tired of sitting still, maybe because she didn’t want to be alone, or maybe because she knew he wouldn’t push her for answers she wasn’t ready to give.

But she was ready. At least, to give some answers.

“You were right,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “People like that don’t just pick random targets.”

Bucky turned his head slightly, waiting.

She exhaled slowly. “They didn’t come after me because of something I did. They came after me because of something my parents did.”

Bucky’s jaw tightened. He said nothing, but she could feel the shift in his posture—more alert, more focused.

“I lied to you. They weren’t drunks or gamblers. They were researchers,” she continued. “Not for Hydra, but for something close enough to get them killed.” Her fingers curled around the railing. “I don’t know all the details. I was ten. But I remember the night they died.”

She swallowed hard. The memory was always there, buried deep, waiting for moments like this to surface.

“I hid under the floorboards,” she murmured. “Like my dad told me to. I heard everything. The gunshots. The voices.” Her grip tightened. “I saw their faces when they left.”

Bucky’s hands flexed against the metal railing, but he stayed quiet, letting her speak.

“They didn’t kill me,” she continued. “I think… I think they meant to, but something changed. They took me instead.”

She felt rather than saw Bucky tense beside her.

Quinn let out a breath. “I don’t know why. Maybe leverage. Maybe an experiment. Maybe just because they could. But they kept me foryears.”

She didn’t elaborate on what that meant. She didn’t have to. The silence stretched between them, filled with the weight of understanding.

Then, finally—

“I escaped,” she said. “When I was seventeen.”

Bucky turned fully now, studying her. “How?”

She hesitated, then answered.

“Arthur Meyer.”

Bucky frowned. “The man who owns the café?”

“He was an my old neighbor. The man who got my parents that job,” Quinn said, voice softer now. “Before. He was ex-military, used to work with terrorist organizations like Hydra. But now he works with…. people like you.”

Bucky’s brows furrowed slightly.

“He’s been running an underground network in the basement of the café,” Quinn continued. “A place for people running from Hydra and their kind. He got me out.” She exhaled shakily.

Bucky studied her for a long moment. Then—

“You think they’re after him too.”

It wasn’t a question.

Quinn swallowed. “I don’t know. But if they are or they found out what he’s been doing, so many lives are on the line.”

The silence settled once more, but this time, it carried weight—thick and unsteady.

Then, the rooftop door let out a slow, creaking protest.

Quinn turned as Clint strolled in, a manila folder in hand.

She frowned. “What’s that?”

Clint didn’t answer right away. He handed the folder to her instead.

“We ran a search,” he said. “On you.”

Quinn’s stomach twisted.

Bucky stiffened beside her. “Without telling us?”

Clint shrugged. “Standard protocol.”

Quinn hesitated, then opened the folder.

At first, nothing surprised her. Basic information. Discrepancies in her records—normal for someone who had spent years off the grid. But then—

She stopped.

Her breath caught.

Bucky noticed immediately. “What?”

Quinn flipped the page, her hands tightening on the edges.

A surveillance photo.

Of him. The Winter Soldier.

And beside him—

A girl.

Young. Maybe ten, maybe a little older. Tired eyes. Staring at the camera.

Looking straight at him.

Bucky’s blood ran cold.

Quinn’s voice was barely above a whisper.

“Bucky… that’s me.”

Silence.

Bucky couldn’t breathe.

It didn’t make sense.

He didn’t remember this.

And yet—

That feeling, the strange familiarity, the way he had felt something click the first time he saw her—it wasn’t just paranoia.

It was memory.

Fragmented, buried, stolen—but real.

Quinn swallowed hard. “Bucky… who was I to you?”

He didn’t have an answer.

Not yet.

But he was damn sure going to find out.

The conference room was colder than Quinn expected. Not just in temperature—though Stark Tower had the kind of high-tech air conditioning that made the walls feel like steel—but in atmosphere. There was no easy banter, no lighthearted quips like there had been in the kitchen that morning.

Now, it was all sharp eyes and measured silence.

Quinn sat stiffly in one of the leather chairs, her fingers tightening around the mug of coffee that Tony had shoved into her hands before flouncing out of the room with a vague promise of “running diagnostics on the scary data.”

Bucky was standing against the far wall, arms crossed, a permanent scowl carved into his face. Steve was next to him, slightly more relaxed, but his sharp gaze remained steady on the redhead seated across from Quinn.

Natasha Romanoff was unnervingly still.

The Black Widow had an intensity that didn’t need to be announced—it just existed, woven into the way she held herself, the way her eyes flicked over Quinn as if memorizing every detail. Every shift of her body, every twitch of a muscle. She was studying her, and Quinn had the distinct feeling that no matter what she said, Natasha would be able to tell if she was lying.

“So,” Natasha finally spoke, voice smooth and quiet. “You’re the one Barnes has been keeping off the radar.”

Quinn fought the urge to bristle. “I wouldn’t say that.”

Natasha tilted her head, considering. “No? You show up at his doorstep, Hydra starts sniffing around, and now we’ve got ghosts from the past resurfacing.” She leaned forward slightly, resting her arms on the table. “That’s not a coincidence.”

Quinn swallowed, choosing her words carefully. “I never said it was.”

A beat of silence. Natasha’s gaze was heavy, searching. Then—

“Hm.”

That was it. Just a quiet, almost amused hum, like Quinn had done something mildly interesting.

Bucky sighed from his spot against the wall. “Just say what you’re thinking, Nat.”

Her lips twitched. “I’m thinking that if Hydra wanted her bad enough to keep her for six years, we need to know why.”

Quinn’s grip on her mug tightened.

Steve glanced at her. “You don’t remember much from that time, do you?”

Quinn hesitated, then shook her head. “Not in a way that makes sense. There are flashes of things, but…” She exhaled. “Most of it is a blur.”

Natasha watched her for another long moment.

Then, she moved.

Not fast. Just a shift—leaning back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other. But it was intentional. A subtle change in posture that somehow felt less… predatory.

“So,” Natasha said, her voice losing some of its edge, “tell me what you do remember.”

Quinn hesitated. Talking about it wasn’t something she did often. The memories were jagged, scattered—shadows in her mind that never fully connected. But Natasha wasn’t asking to be cruel. She was asking because she needed the information. Because the more they knew, the more they could figure out who was after Quinn—and why.

She forced herself to take a breath.

“I remember being taken,” she started, voice quieter now. “It was after my parents…” She trailed off, clearing her throat. “After they were killed.”

Natasha didn’t react outwardly, but there was something in her eyes that flickered for just a second.

Quinn pressed on. “I remember the facility. White walls, no windows. Tests. Needles.” Her stomach turned, but she kept going. “And I remember escaping. I don’t know how—I just know that someone helped me.”

“Arthur Meyer,” Bucky said, his voice low.

Quinn nodded. “Yeah. My old neighbor. He got me out and brought me somewhere safe. An underground network for people running from Hydra.”

Natasha tapped her fingers lightly against the table. “I know Meyer.”

Quinn blinked. “You do?”

Natasha’s expression didn’t change, but there was something almost nostalgic in her voice. “He’s been in the business of keeping ghosts hidden for a long time.” She tilted her head. “You’re lucky he found you first.”

Quinn let out a breath. “Yeah. I know.”

Another silence settled between them, but this one felt different. Not quite comfortable, but not as sharp as before.

Then Natasha’s eyes flicked to Bucky. “And you? What do you remember?”

Bucky’s jaw clenched. “Nothing.”

Natasha’s gaze lingered on him for a beat longer, like she was trying to decide whether or not to push. But then she simply nodded.

“Well,” she said, standing smoothly, “I guess we’ll just have to find out.”

She looked at Quinn again, and for the first time, her expression wasn’t guarded.

“You’re not running anymore,” Natasha said. Not a question—just a fact.

Quinn exhaled. “No.”

A small smirk tugged at Natasha’s lips.

“Good.”

An hour later, the team was gathered around Stark’s massive display screen, various files and documents flashing across the interface as Tony scrolled through information at an alarming speed.

“Alright, let’s start with the basics,” Tony said. “Quinn’s parents—Dr. Elias and Dr. Maria Ashcroft—were high-level researchers. Not for Hydra, but for a project with classified ties to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Which means,” Clint cut in, “they were either really smart, really dangerous, or both.”

Natasha’s expression darkened slightly. “Most projects like that didn’t end well.”

Quinn’s stomach twisted. “What were they working on?”

Tony tapped the screen, enlarging a heavily redacted document. “That’s where it gets interesting. Their work was connected to something called ‘Project Ulysses.’ Ever heard of it?”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “No.”

Natasha’s fingers tapped lightly against the table. “I have.”

All eyes turned to her.

She exhaled. “Project Ulysses was rumored to be an offshoot of early super-soldier experiments. But it wasn’t about making soldiers stronger—it was about making them smarter. Enhancing cognitive abilities, reflexes, memory retention. The idea was that a soldier who could out think an enemy was just as valuable as one who could overpower them.”

Quinn’s blood ran cold. “And my parents were working on that?”

Tony nodded. “Looks like it. But here’s the kicker—there’s no record of their research ever being completed. Which means either they destroyed it…” He let the sentence hang.

“Or someone else took it,” Steve finished grimly.

Quinn’s hands clenched into fists. “And if Hydra had me…?”

Natasha’s expression didn’t change, but her tone softened just slightly. “Then there’s a chance they used you as part of their own version of it.”

The air in the room grew heavier.

Bucky’s voice was low, controlled. “Can we find out what they did?”

Tony’s fingers flew over the interface. “Give me a sec.” The screen shifted, pulling up more files—scattered reports, medical logs, encrypted data. His expression turned serious. “This is gonna take some time to decode, but I can tell you one thing right now.”

He turned to Quinn.

“They weren’t just testing you. They were tracking you.”

Her pulse spiked. “What?”

Tony tapped the screen, zooming in on an old log entry. “Someone’s been keeping tabs on you for years. Monitoring your whereabouts, your health, your—” His eyes flicked back to her, more focused now. “Your brain activity?”

Quinn’s breath caught.

Bucky stepped forward. “What does that mean?”

Tony shrugged. “Beats me. But whatever they were looking for? They haven’t stopped.”

Quinn swallowed hard, the weight of it pressing down on her chest.

Bucky’s voice was quiet, steady. “Then we find out who’s watching.”

It was nearly midnight when the breakthrough came.

Quinn sat curled up on the couch, exhaustion tugging at her, but she refused to sleep. Not when answers were this close.

Tony was still at his workstation, muttering to himself, while Natasha worked through more classified files with an unsettling amount of ease. Bucky sat nearby, arms resting on his knees, eyes sharp and alert despite the late hour.

Then—

“Got something,” Natasha said.

Quinn bolted upright. “What?”

Natasha pulled up a new file. “The tracking data on you? It’s still active.”

Silence.

Quinn’s heart pounded. “Meaning…?”

Natasha’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Meaning someone still has access to it. And it’s not Hydra.”

Bucky stood. “Then who?”

Tony whistled low. “Now that’s interesting.” He spun the display around, revealing an encrypted signature buried deep within the data logs.

It wasn’t Hydra.

It wasn’t S.H.I.E.L.D.

It was something else.

Something older.

Natasha’s face darkened. “Leviathan.”

Quinn’s stomach twisted. “Who?”

Steve’s voice was grim. “A Russian offshoot of Hydra. Older, quieter, and just as deadly.”

Bucky’s expression hardened. “And they still want her.”

Natasha nodded. “Which means whatever they started with you… they aren’t finished.”

Quinn exhaled shakily, every muscle in her body tensing.

Bucky placed a hand on the back of her chair, grounding her. “Then we stop them.”

Quinn looked up at him. At Natasha. At Steve and Tony and the others.

For the first time in years, she wasn’t running alone.

She nodded.

“Let’s do it.”

The hallway was dimly lit, the only source of light coming from the cityscape outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Quinn stood near the glass, arms wrapped around herself as she stared out at the streets below. New York never slept, but in this moment, it felt distant. Like she wasn’t really here at all.

She heard Bucky before he spoke. His steps were quiet, controlled—he was always careful like that.

“You’re leaving.” It wasn’t a question.

Quinn turned, meeting his gaze. Bucky stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable, but there was something guarded in the way he held himself.

“I have to,” she said softly.

His jaw ticked. “You don’t have to do anything.”

She sighed. “Bucky—”

“No,” he cut in, stepping further into the room. “You don’t get to act like this is just some casual trip. You’re walking straight into danger, and you know it.”

Quinn clenched her hands into fists. “Arthur has answers. If anyone knows more about what my parents were working on, or what Leviathan is, it’s him.”

Bucky exhaled sharply through his nose. “And what if whoever's looking for you is already watching that place?”

She hesitated. It wasn’t an impossible thought. But she couldn’t just sit here and wait for Stark’s AI to magically figure out her past for her.

“I can’t keep running blind, Bucky,” she said. “I need to know the truth.”

He didn’t say anything at first, just looked at her with something almost unreadable in his eyes. Then, with a quiet breath, he stepped closer.

“Then I’m coming with you.”

Quinn shook her head. “No. If I show up with an Avenger, it puts a target on everyone in that bunker.”

His eyes darkened. “You already have a target on your back.”

She exhaled. “I know.”

A beat of silence stretched between them.

Bucky sighed and ran a hand down his face. “Quinn—”

“I’ll be okay.”

He scoffed. “Bullshit.”

A small smile flickered across her lips. “I appreciate the confidence.”

He didn’t return the smile. Instead, he just studied her, his expression hard. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he exhaled.

“Fine.”

Quinn blinked. “Fine?”

His jaw was tight. “I’m not gonna tie you to the damn chair. But if you’re not back by morning, I’m coming after you.”

Something in her chest warmed, but she ignored it. Instead, she nodded. “Deal.”

Bucky didn’t look happy, but he didn’t argue.

As she walked past him, he reached out, catching her wrist just for a second. She looked up at him, startled, but his grip was gentle.

“Be careful,” he murmured.

Quinn swallowed and nodded before slipping away.

The café door swung open with a quiet creak. The bell above it—so familiar, so ordinary—let out a soft chime, like a funeral bell.

Something was wrong.

Quinn froze just inside the entrance. The space looked the same—tables and chairs neatly arranged, cups stacked on the counter, the faint scent of coffee lingering in the air. But beneath it, something else curled in her nose.

Copper.

She swallowed.

The door had been unlocked. Arthur never left it unlocked.

Her heartbeat pounded against her ribs as she stepped forward. The floorboards groaned beneath her weight, too loud in the unnatural silence.

She glanced toward the back, toward the supply shelf that concealed the entrance to the bunker.

It was slightly ajar.

Her stomach twisted.

Moving quickly now, she slipped behind the counter and pressed her palm against the hidden scanner. The shelf shuddered, groaning open just enough to reveal the dark stairwell beyond.

The bunker was always dimly lit, but this was different. This was pitch-black.

The emergency lights should have kicked in. The generator should have been running.

Quinn hesitated, fingers twitching toward the knife she kept strapped to her thigh.

Then she heard it.

A slow, wet drip.

Her blood turned to ice.

She clicked on her flashlight.

The beam cut through the darkness—before hitting something slick.

Red.

So much red.

It was everywhere. Spattered across the walls in jagged streaks, smeared along the floor in desperate handprints. It dripped from the ceiling in thick, congealing rivulets, pooling into blackened puddles that soaked into the concrete.

Bodies.

Slumped over tables, collapsed in doorways, strewn across the floor like discarded dolls. Their eyes were open—glassily staring, mouths frozen in silent screams. Some had their throats cut so deep their heads lolled at unnatural angles. Others… others had been torn apart.

Limbs severed.

Faces unrecognizable.

Something inside Quinn locked up, her breath catching in her throat.

A flickering light buzzed overhead, casting broken shadows across the carnage.

She staggered forward, swallowing down the bile rising in her throat.

Her boots slid against something wet.

Arthur.

She barely registered the broken glass slicing into her palms as she hit the floor beside him.

Arthur Meyer, the man who had saved her, was slumped against the far wall, his chest a mangled ruin. Blood soaked his shirt, pooling beneath him in a dark, sticky mass. His fingers twitched—just barely, but it was enough.

Quinn let out a strangled gasp, hands trembling as she grabbed his shoulders.

“Arthur—” Her voice broke. “Arthur, hold on.”

His eyes fluttered open, unfocused, hazy with pain. Blood bubbled at the corner of his lips as he tried to speak.

She leaned in, desperate, tears blurring her vision.

“What happened?” she choked out.

Arthur exhaled a wet, shuddering breath.

Then—

His body jerked violently. His lips parted, his throat working—but the sound that escaped wasn’t human.

A rattling, gurgling noise tore from his chest, his eyes rolling back into his head.

Quinn reared back, a scream clawing at her throat.

Then she heard it.

The scrape of something shifting behind her.

Slow. Deliberate.

A presence in the darkness.

She barely had time to turn before a shadow loomed out of the black.

A flash of silver.

Cold steel pressed against her temple.

A voice, low and dripping with amusement, whispered in her ear.

“Found you.”

The last thing she saw was Arthur’s lifeless eyes staring back at her.

Then—blackness.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Don't hesitate to leave a comment behind <3

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands - Chapter Two

Summary: Quinn struggles with memories of her past and mysterious figures stalking her, do nothing to ease her anxiety. Bucky offers to keep her safe. Word count: 4.5K Warnings: PTSD, Angst, Violence, Stalking, Death of minor characters, kidnapping, gambling, addiction. Let me know if I missed anything!!!

The first thing Quinn remembered was the cold.

Not the kind of cold that seeped into your bones on a winter morning, or the chill of rain against bare skin. No, this was different. It was the kind of cold that lived inside you, that became a part of your body, tangled with your memories until you could no longer tell the difference between what was real and what was just another ghost whispering in the back of your mind.

She pressed a hand to her temple, feeling the thrum of a headache that had never quite gone away. The bunker walls around her were damp with condensation, the faint scent of metal and mildew pressing against her senses. She had woken up here before, more times than she could count, but the weight of it never got easier.

“You’re running out of time, Quinn.”

The voice—low, familiar, laced with something dangerous—echoed in her mind, unbidden. She exhaled sharply, trying to push it away. But it clung to her, just like everything else.

She knew the voice. She knew who it belonged to.

And that was the problem.

Quinn tightened the strap on her glove, flexing her fingers. The scar tissue pulled, a reminder of everything she’d lost and everything she’d done to survive.

She knew what came next.

And she wasn’t sure she was ready.

The storm had cleared.

Morning sunlight stretched long shadows across the damp pavement, gleaming off puddles left behind from last night’s downpour. The air was thick with that peculiar scent of wet concrete and something else—something colder, like the world had been scrubbed clean but not quite right.

Quinn stood behind the counter of the café, pretending to clean as she stared out the front window.

Something felt… off.

The storm had passed, but the weight in the air hadn’t lifted. If anything, it had thickened, pressing down on her shoulders like an unseen hand. The streets weren’t as empty as they should’ve been. A couple of people stood just a little too still across the road.That morning A black car had been parked near the curb and had stood there for hours now, its windshield reflecting the morning light, hiding whoever was inside.

Arthur had noticed it too. He had chosen to say nothing, just walked to the front door and flipped the Closed sign even though it wasn’t even noon.

That’s when she knew she wasn’t imagining it. That all of it was real, just like yesterday.

She sighed, wiping at a spot on the counter that didn’t exist. She had barely slept after the ghost of a man had shown up last night, stirring up old ghosts she had spent years burying. He hadn’t even stepped into the light of the street lanterns, but he didn’t have to. And then there was Bucky's abrupt visit, at just the wrong moment. She hadn’t explained anything to him while she closed up the café and rushed him out the door yesterday. But the way he looked at her—like he had seen the shadow of threat looming over her, like he knew exactly what it felt like to be haunted — had put her on edge.

And now, as if conjured by her thoughts, the bell above the door chimed.

Quinn stiffened.

She already knew who it was before she looked.

Bucky.

He stepped inside, moving slower than usual, like he was waiting for something to jump out at him. His jacket was damp at the edges, his hair pushed back but still slightly wet. He hadn’t shaved. He looked like he hadn’t slept either.

Quinn folded her arms. “You again.”

Bucky's lips twitched in something that might’ve been amusement if it weren’t for the tightness in his jaw. “You sound thrilled.”

She glanced past him, through the glass. The black car was still there. The two men across the street hadn’t moved.

“Arthur closed early,” she said.

“I saw.”

Bucky's voice was quieter than usual. She didn’t like it. He was already a man who spoke in low tones, but this was different. Sharper. Like a wire pulled too tight.

She grabbed a cup, more out of habit than anything else. “Coffee?”

Bucky didn’t answer at first. His eyes flickered toward the window, then back to her. “Yeah. Sure.”

Quinn poured him a cup, but her hands weren’t steady. She could feel the weight of unseen eyes pressing in on her, could hear the faintest echo of her own heartbeat thudding in her ears. The café, usually a place of comfort, felt too open. Too exposed.

She slid the cup toward him. He took it, but didn’t drink.

“They’re watching, aren’t they?” she asked.

Bucky didn’t pretend to misunderstand. He just nodded once, slow.

Quinn exhaled through her nose. “Fantastic.”

She wanted to ask who they were, but she already knew. People from her past never truly disappeared. They just changed faces, slipped into new skin. And now, somehow, she was back on their radar.

Because of Arthur. Because she still lived.

She should’ve been angry.

Maybe she was.

But anger wasn’t useful right now.

“What’s he doing here?” Arthur’s voice rang out in the empty room, his heavy footsteps sending tremors through the shelves, making the glasses quiver.

Bucky turned his head to acknowledge the gray-haired man in his neatly pressed suit. “Just wanted a drink, no trouble,” he said, keeping his tone measured, careful not to provoke him.

“We’re closed. Go home, son.” So much for staying on his good side.

“Arthur, it’s fine. Let him stay, please. He’s not causing any harm.” Quinn’s voice wavered slightly, a quiet plea beneath her words.

“If he stays, he helps you clean up,” the old man grumbled before striding toward the window.

Bucky started to rise, ready to assist Quinn, but she gestured for him to stay put and finish his coffee. Instead, she turned to the window as well, her voice drifting softly through the quiet room.

“What do they want?”

Bucky's grip tightened around his coffee cup. His metal fingers glinted under the café lights, a stark contrast to the warm ceramic.

“You. Me. It’s hard to say right now,” Arthur sighed before turning back to face the pair.

Quinn’s stomach twisted, but she kept her expression carefully blank. “Why?”

Arthur hesitated.

Quinn leaned in slightly. “Don’t look at me like that, Meyer. I deserve to know what the hell is going on.”

He sighed, setting the cup down. “They know you’re alive. They know where you are. I assume they know I’ve kept you safe”

She swallowed. “That doesn’t mean they want me.”

Arthur held her gaze, his blue eyes darker than before. “It does if they think you remember something useful.”

The words settled in her chest like a stone.

She didn’t remember much about her time with her captors—at least, not in ways that made sense. It was all broken fragments, half-formed memories that never quite fit together. But she remembered enough. The faces. The cold metal room. The smell of antiseptic and gunpowder.

And she remembered the man who had brought her there.

Quinn forced her breath to steady. “Do you think they’ll move soon?”

Bucky's jaw tensed. “I think they’re waiting.”

For what?

Her eyes drifted to the window again. The car was still there.

Quinn’s hands curled into fists.

She hated this. The feeling of being hunted again. She had built this life, carved it out with shaking hands and gritted teeth, and now it was slipping through her fingers like water.

Bucky stood, pushing his chair back with a quiet scrape. “I don’t think you should stay here tonight.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Yeah? And go where?”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was softer. “Somewhere safe.”

Quinn scoffed. “That doesn’t exist.”

“He’s right, Quinn. They’ve singled this place out. We gotta be careful. The follow you home and there’s nowhere for us to hide,” Arthur spoke.

Bucky looked like he agreed.

For a long moment, none of them spoke. The only sound was the soft hum of the espresso machine, the distant noise of the city outside.

Then Bucky reached into his jacket and pulled something out—a folded piece of paper. He set it on the counter, sliding it toward her.

“A safe place,” he said. “If things get worse.”

Quinn hesitated, then picked up the paper. The address was scrawled in messy handwriting, unfamiliar but solid. Real.

She folded it carefully and tucked it into her pocket.

Bucky nodded once, then turned to leave.

The bell chimed as the door swung shut behind him.

Quinn stayed where she was, staring at the cup he had left behind.

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there.

Long enough for the sun to shift, for Arthur to leave. Long enough for the black car outside to finally, finally drive away.

But not long enough to shake the feeling that someone was still watching.

And that, sooner or later, the storm would come back.

Quinn hesitated at the curb, staring up at the gleaming tower before her.

This had to be a mistake.

She pulled the folded paper from her pocket, smoothing it out with shaking hands. The address was unmistakable. Stark Tower. Or, as the world called it now, Avengers Tower.

What the hell was Bucky playing at?

She didn’t belong here. She had spent her whole life hiding from people like them—the ones who ran headfirst into danger because they believed in something bigger than themselves. Quinn had no such illusions. She believed in survival. And she believed that stepping through those doors might be the worst decision she’d made in years.

Yet here she was.

The weight of unseen eyes lingered on her skin, that same sick feeling from the café creeping up her spine. She had given Arthur the slip, didn’t tell him where she was going—because if she was being watched, she didn’t want to drag him into it.

But the paranoia hadn’t left.

Something had followed her. She could feel it.

Taking a slow breath, Quinn squared her shoulders and stepped inside.

The lobby was pristine, polished to the point of being almost clinical. It smelled like expensive cologne and freshly cleaned leather. A massive front desk stretched before her, sleek and modern, with a receptionist who barely spared her a glance before returning to her work.

Quinn clenched the address in her fist. This was a mistake.

Before she could turn around, a voice cut through the quiet.

“You lost?”

She froze.

The man standing a few feet away was impossible to mistake—broad figure, quiet brown eyes, an old-fashioned kind of presence that made the air feel heavier.

Happy Hogan.

Of course it had to be Iron Man's right hand man himself.

Quinn opened her mouth, then closed it. Her throat felt tight.

She had spent years hiding in the shadows, slipping between cracks, avoiding attention at all costs. And now, she was face-to-face with the Avenger of all people, caught like an animal in a trap.

Say something.

She cleared her throat. “Uh. I think I have the wrong address.”

Happy’s gaze flicked down to the paper in her hand. “That from Barnes?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

He sighed, crossing his arms. “You don’t have the wrong address.”

Quinn frowned. “I—”

A sharp, electric snap echoed through the lobby.

Quinn’s stomach lurched.

It was faint—barely there—but she knew that sound. The hum of something restrained. A security system? A warning?

Her pulse pounded as she glanced toward the walls, expecting to see nothing. But she did see something.

A shimmer.

Barely visible, like the air was rippling, bending around an unseen shape.

Not just one.

Three.

They were standing in the corners of the lobby.

Watching.

Waiting.

Her breath hitched.

Not real. They couldn’t be real.

But she had seen them before.

Hydra’s shadows.

Quinn took a step back, and suddenly Happy was in front of her. She hadn’t even seen him move, but his presence was solid, grounding.

“You okay?” he asked, voice quieter now.

No.

No, she wasn’t.

But she forced herself to nod.

He studied her, like he was trying to piece something together, and Quinn realized, too late, that she had clenched her fists—nails digging into her palm, old instincts screaming at her to run.

“I need to see Bucky,” she muttered.

Happy hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding.

“This way.”

Quinn followed him through the tower, her skin crawling the entire time.

The walls felt too clean, the air too sterile. She had spent her life in places that felt lived-in—cafés, back alleys, underground rooms where nobody asked questions. This place? It felt too controlled. Like it could swallow her whole if she wasn’t careful.

Happy led her into a room—a lounge of sorts. Modern, but not unwelcoming. A window stretched across one side, overlooking the city.

And there, leaning against a counter, was Bucky. He was seemed to be talking to a red-haired woman.

He looked up as they entered, and his brows furrowed at the sight of her. “Quinn?”

She swallowed hard.

Hogan crossed his arms. “I think you should talk to her.”

Without a word, he walked out with the other woman, who gave Quinn a brief smile as she passed. The door clicked shut behind them, leaving Quinn alone in the quiet.

The room felt smaller now, the air heavier. The weight of Quinn’s words lingered between them like smoke, like something unspoken finally clawing its way into the light.

Bucky studied her, arms crossed, jaw tight. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes—those sharp, knowing eyes—betrayed something deeper. Recognition. Familiarity.

He knew what it meant to be haunted.

Quinn swallowed hard. She hadn’t told this story in years. And yet, when Bucky spoke to her, his voice was steady. Grounding.

“Tell me what happened to you.”

Quinn exhaled slowly. “You mean all of it?”

Bucky nodded. “I need to understand.”

She hesitated, fingers twitching at her sides, before finally moving to sit down on the couch. Her muscles ached—whether from exhaustion or tension, she wasn’t sure.

Bucky sat across from her, elbows resting on his knees. He didn’t push. He just waited.

So she started talking.

“My parents were gamblers,” she said, voice quieter than she intended. “The kind that never knew when to stop. They were always looking for the next big win, the next way to fix their messes. But the deeper they got in, the worse it got.”

She rubbed a hand over her face. “And then they borrowed from the wrong people.”

Bucky didn’t move, but she felt his attention sharpen.

“They owed money to people connected to Hydra.” The words tasted bitter on her tongue. “At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. I was just a kid. I thought maybe it was just some underground operation, some crime syndicate they’d gotten tangled with. But Hydra doesn’t just want money.”

Her nails dug into her palm. “They want control. Leverage. People.”

Bucky's expression darkened.

“When they realized my parents couldn’t give back what they owed, they took me.” Her throat tightened. “And they killed my parents.”

A muscle in Bucky's jaw twitched, but he stayed silent. Letting her speak.

“I remember screaming,” she said, staring at the floor. “I remember the sound of the gunshots. The smell of blood. And then… the cold.”

Bucky's brows furrowed slightly. “The cold?”

Quinn nodded, eyes distant. “It was always cold where they kept me. A metal room, no windows, just four walls and a door that never opened unless they wanted something.” Her fingers traced a scar on her wrist absentmindedly. “They didn’t kill me, though. Not right away.”

She swallowed hard. “They were testing something.”

Bucky straightened slightly, his attention locked onto her.

She forced herself to keep going. “I didn’t understand it at the time. They ran tests. Took blood. Hooked me up to machines I didn’t recognize. I heard voices—people talking about potential, about exposure rates and genetic markers.”

She shivered. “I don’t know how long I was there. Days? Weeks? Time didn’t mean anything in that place. I was seventeen years old and stuck in a place where they treated me like a lab rat. Kept alive but not treated like a human being. ”

Bucky's voice was quiet when he finally spoke. “And then?”

Quinn exhaled shakily. “And then one day, I got out.”

She clenched her jaw, shifting slightly. “Arthur—my old neighbor—he used to work for them, after Steve went into the ice. But he got out before it was too late. He had regrets, I guess. He found a way to sneak me out, hide me. He took me in, raised me.”

Bucky's eyes darkened. “That café—”

“It’s more than a just a café,” she murmured. “Arthur’s been running it as a meeting point for years. People like me… people running from Hydra, trying to disappear. He gives them somewhere to go.”

Bucky's gaze dropped for a moment, then returned to her face. “You think they let you go?”

Her stomach twisted. “No,” she admitted. “I think they lost me.”

She met his eyes. “But they never stopped looking.”

Bucky's fingers curled into a fist on his knee. His metal hand flexed, the plates shifting with a faint mechanical hum.

“They found you again.”

Quinn let out a humorless breath. “Looks like it.”

Bucky nodded slowly, staring at the floor for a long moment. When he looked back up, his voice was different. Steadier.

“Do you remember who took you?”

Quinn hesitated.

Yes.

She did.

But she wasn’t sure she was ready to say it out loud.

Instead, she whispered, “I remember him.”

Bucky's breath hitched just slightly, but his expression didn’t change. “Who?”

She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know his name. But I remember his voice. The way he looked at me.” She swallowed. “Like I was already dead.”

Bucky's jaw tightened, his voice almost too quiet to hear.

“That’s how they look at all of us.”

A silence stretched between them.

Then Bucky leaned forward slightly, his voice steady. “If they’re coming after you again, we can’t let them get close.”

We.

The word settled in her chest like a strange kind of relief.

She nodded slowly.

Bucky exhaled, running a hand down his face. “You should stay here for a while.”

Quinn blinked. “What?”

He looked at her, expression unreadable. “If they know where you are, the café isn’t safe anymore.”

She stiffened. “And you think this place is any better? It’s so extravagant you might as well hang up a sign that says, ‘Here we are, come attack us.’”

His lips tightened into a thin line. “Yeah. I do.”

Quinn hesitated, glancing at the door, the window, the city beyond.

She hated feeling trapped. Hated the idea of running, of uprooting everything she had built.

But she wasn’t stupid.

She knew what happened to people Hydra wanted.

And she wasn’t going to let them take her again.

So, finally—reluctantly—she nodded.

Bucky didn’t say anything.

But the look in his eyes told her everything.

This wasn’t over.

Not by a long shot.

Bucky's eyes searched her face. “Why’d you decide to come here tonight?”

She let out a breath, pressing a hand to her temple, trying to shove away the lingering echo of the figures she’d seen. Not real. They couldn’t be real.

“I saw them,” she whispered.

Bucky went still.

Quinn’s voice wavered. “The shadows, Bucky. I saw them again.”

His jaw tightened.

For the first time, she saw something in his expression she hadn’t seen before.

Not just concern.

Recognition.

Like he knew exactly what she was talking about.

Quinn’s hands trembled as she folded her arms tightly across her chest. “They were there, in the lobby downstairs. I heard the sound. The frequency. The same damn thing from before.”

Bucky exhaled slowly, running a hand down his face. “It wasn’t just your imagination.”

Her stomach dropped.

“Hydra’s tech wasn’t just about brainwashing,” he said, voice measured. Careful. “They experimented with—other things. Sensory manipulation. Perception tricks. And sometimes, if you were exposed to it long enough…” He hesitated. “It stays.”

Quinn felt like the floor had vanished beneath her.

“You’re saying—” Her throat closed up.

Bucky met her gaze.

“I’m saying that whatever they did to us? It doesn’t just go away.”

Silence stretched between them.

For years, Quinn had told herself she was free. That the ghosts in her mind were just that—ghosts. That if she kept moving, kept hiding, they’d never catch up.

But she had been wrong.

Because no matter how far she ran, the past had always been inside her.

And now, standing in Stark Tower, with Bucky looking at her like she was the only other person in the world who understood—

She realized she wasn’t running anymore.

She was trapped.

And whatever was coming next?

She wasn’t sure she was ready.

A few hours of conversation passed before Quinn’s stomach made its protest known. The low rumble was embarrassingly loud in the quiet room, and when she looked up, Bucky was already giving her a knowing look. One eyebrow raised, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“You need to eat,” he said, standing.

“I’m fine.”

Another stomach growl.

Bucky just crossed his arms, waiting.

Quinn groaned. “Fine.”

She had barely stepped into the kitchen before she regretted her life choices.

It wasn’t that the space was intimidating—though it was. The kitchen was massive, all sleek steel and marble, stocked with enough high-tech appliances to put a Michelin-star restaurant to shame. But that wasn’t what made her want to turn around and walk straight out the door.

No. That honor belonged to the man currently leaning against the counter in pajama pants and a Black Sabbath t-shirt, staring at her like she was the most interesting thing he’d seen all morning.

Tony Stark.

She’d never met him, but she knew him. Everyone did. And judging by the slow, knowing smirk spreading across his face, she was about to get the full Tony Stark Experience™.

“Oh-ho,” Tony said, setting his coffee down with a theatrical flourish. “What’s this? A guest?” His eyes flicked to Bucky, then back to Quinn, lighting up like a Christmas tree. “No. No, wait—this is better. Barnes, did you bring a girl home?”

Quinn blinked. “I—”

“No.” Bucky's answer came flat and immediate.

Tony ignored him entirely. “This is groundbreaking. Someone alert the press, call Cap—no, wait, I get to tell him. I deserve this moment.”

“Tony,” Bucky warned.

Too late.

A familiar blond figure stepped into the doorway, drawn by the sound of Tony’s antics. Steve Rogers took one look at the scene—Bucky standing stiffly beside a very confused Quinn, Tony practically vibrating with energy—and his expression shifted into something dangerously close to amusement.

Bucky groaned.

“Bucky,” Steve greeted, ever the gentleman. Then, with a tilt of his head, “And you? What are you doing here?” He smirked.

Quinn felt like she was being examined under a microscope.

Before she could explain herself, Tony jumped in. “I’m so glad you asked, Cap. This right here? This is Barnes’ first official guest.” He turned to Quinn, grinning. “I mean, sure, Steve drags him out sometimes, but I’ve never seen him willingly invite someone over. So, what’s the deal? Did you lose a bet? Blink twice if you’re being held against your will.”

Quinn let out an exasperated sigh. “I am not his guest. I got this address from him because I needed a safe place to go.”

Tony gasped dramatically. “Wait, wait, wait—so this is a damsel-in-distress situation? Bucky, buddy, I didn’t know you did rescues.”

Bucky's glare could have melted steel.

Steve, for his part, looked mildly entertained. “You never mentioned this, Buck.”

Quinn folded her arms. “Because I’m not anyone. I just work at the café , Steve. You know that.”

“That’s exactly what a secret girlfriend would say,” Tony mused.

“Oh my God,” Bucky muttered under his breath, rubbing his temples.

Before Quinn could attempt to salvage her dignity, another voice chimed in.

“Did someone say girlfriend?”

A lanky, unshaven man in sweatpants and a ratty hoodie strolled into the kitchen, a piece of toast in one hand. He surveyed the scene with sharp, perceptive eyes before stopping beside Steve and pointing his toast at Quinn.

“…Who’s she?”

“No one,” Bucky said immediately.

Quinn shot him an unimpressed look. “Wow. Thanks for that.”

Clint Barton chewed his toast thoughtfully, glancing between them. “She looks like someone. And she’s standing in the kitchen. Which means she exists. Which means Bucky is lying.”

Tony snapped his fingers. “Exactly. You see, Barton gets it.”

Steve sighed, crossing his arms. “Guys, let her breathe.”

Quinn exhaled through her nose. “Thank you.”

Tony, however, was undeterred. “Okay, fine, I’ll be polite—what’s your name, mysterious café girl?”

Quinn hesitated. Every instinct screamed at her not to trust them, to keep herself at arm’s length. But something about this entire interaction—these people—felt so normal in a way she hadn’t felt in years.

“…Quinn,” she finally said.

Tony nodded. “Quinn. Got it. And do you often take in lost assassins and grumpy ex-super-soldiers at your café, or is Bucky a special case?”

Quinn huffed a small, reluctant laugh. “He’s definitely a special case.”

Steve snorted. Even Clint smirked.

Bucky sighed, looking like he deeply regretted his life choices. “Can we please move on?”

“Fine,” Tony said, clearly enjoying himself. “But I demand one answer—are you here because you like Barnes, or because you have literally nowhere else to go?”

Quinn didn’t hesitate. “Option B.”

Tony’s smirk widened. “Oh, buddy, that’s rough.”

Bucky gave him a look. “I will throw you out that window.”

Steve clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. “Relax, Buck. It’s good to see you have people looking out for you.”

Bucky muttered something in Russian that Quinn was pretty sure wasn’t polite.

Tony, unfazed, waved a hand. “Alright, we’ve had our fun. Now—pancakes?”

Quinn blinked. “You actually have pancakes?”

Tony gestured to the counter. “What do you take me for? A monster? Stark Tower is fully stocked.”

“…I wouldn’t say fully,” Clint mumbled, eyeing an empty cereal box.

Quinn hesitated. She hadn’t had a normal breakfast in… she didn’t even know how long. But here they were, acting like this was just another morning, like she wasn’t someone with a messed up past, running from ghosts.

And maybe, just for today, she could pretend too.

She sighed. “Alright. I’ll take pancakes.”

Tony grinned. “That’s the spirit! You, my dear, officially have better taste than Barnes.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but said nothing.

As Quinn sat down, listening to the easy banter around her, she felt—just for a moment—like maybe she had found a place that didn’t feel like running.

And for now, that was enough.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! New chapter will be posted soon <3333

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands - Chapter One

Summary: Bucky is haunted by the memories of his past. It turns out Quinn isn't so different as him. Word Count: 3.4K Warnings: Nightmares, PTSD, Angst, Violence, Stalking, Death of minor characters, kidnapping, gambling, addiction A/N: this series doesn't really follow the mcu storyline. So if it doesn't make sense, then that's just because my brain doesn't function that well or i've decided to change certain aspects.

Bucky was running.

The air was thick with smoke, the scent of blood sharp in his nose. His body moved with precision, brutal and efficient. A knife in one hand, a gun in the other. Someone screamed. He fired. The body hit the ground with a wet thud, but he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.

His metal arm locked around a man’s throat, crushing his windpipe. The struggle lasted seconds before the body went limp. Footsteps pounded behind him. He turned, raised his weapon, and—

A child.

Wide, terrified eyes. A sob caught in their throat. They weren’t supposed to be here.

His finger hovered over the trigger.

“Soldat,” a voice commanded, cold and unwavering. Finish it.

He didn’t want to. He wanted to turn away. But his body was not his own. The metal fingers tightened around the gun. The child gasped—

Bucky woke with a start, his breath ragged, sweat clinging to his skin. The sheets were tangled around his legs, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst from his chest. Not real. It wasn’t real.

But it had felt real.

The gunfire. The screams. The weight of his metal arm pinning someone down. The cold, unrelenting control Hydra had over him. His body still carried the echoes of the past, wounds that had never quite healed.

He scrubbed a hand over his face, exhaling slowly, trying to ground himself. It was just another nightmare. Another reminder that no matter how many years passed, the ghosts never truly left.

Pushing himself upright, Bucky swung his legs over the side of the bed and pressed his feet to the floor. Brooklyn hummed quietly outside his window, the city never fully silent. The distant sound of a siren, the occasional honk of a car—these were the things that kept him tethered to the present.

He needed air. Needed to move.

The gym at the Stark Tower was empty when he arrived, save for Steve, who was already working over a punching bag. The rhythmic thud thud thud of fists against leather filled the room, steady and controlled. Steve didn’t need to turn around to know Bucky was there.

“Rough night?” the Captain asked, landing one last solid hit before stilling the bag with his hands.

Bucky just grunted, stepping onto the mat and rolling his shoulders. His body still felt stiff from the nightmare, his muscles wound too tight. He needed to move. Needed to hit something. Anything to shake the lingering haze of blood and violence in his head.

Steve tossed him a pair of gloves, but Bucky waved them off. “Bare hands,” he muttered.

Steve didn’t argue. He knew better than to try.

The first few punches were slow, testing. Bucky threw a sharp jab, then another, letting Steve block each one with ease. But Steve wasn’t fighting back yet. He was watching, reading Bucky’s stance, his breathing.

“Again,” Steve said.

Bucky exhaled sharply and swung again. This time, Steve dodged, moving too fast for the hit to land. The shift ignited something in Bucky, frustration burning under his skin.

Not good enough.

The thought hit like a whip crack in his mind, Hydra’s training surging up from the depths of his past. Faster. Stronger. Finish the job.

Bucky dropped low, swept out a leg—Steve jumped back, barely avoiding the hit. But now there was a glint in his eye. He was taking this seriously now.

Good.

Steve lunged, throwing a punch that Bucky barely dodged. They moved faster now, their strikes blurring into counterattacks, dodges, and feints. Bucky could feel the weight of his metal arm as he struck, the vibrations ringing through his bones when Steve blocked with his forearm.

A sharp elbow caught Bucky in the ribs. He staggered back a step, breath coming hard. But Steve didn’t press the advantage. He just stood there, waiting.

“You’re pulling your punches,” Bucky growled, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Steve sighed. “Because this isn’t a real fight.”

Bucky clenched his jaw. His fists curled at his sides, his breathing still ragged, but not from exertion. From anger. From something deep in his chest that he didn’t know how to name.

“I don’t need you to hold back,” Bucky muttered.

Steve crossed his arms. “You think hitting something’s gonna fix what’s in your head?”

Bucky didn’t answer.

Steve sighed, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. “Look, Buck. You wanna train? Fine. We’ll train. But this?” He gestured between them. “This isn’t about getting better. It’s about you trying to outrun something you can’t fight with your fists.”

Bucky exhaled sharply, dragging his metal fingers through his hair. Steve was right, and that made it worse.

He shook his head, stepping back. “I’m done.”

Steve didn’t stop him as he grabbed his bag and stormed out of the gym.

The clinking of silverware on plates filled the space around him as he walked into the Bean Voyage. It was quieter than usual, the lunchtime rush having already come and gone, leaving only a few scattered patrons hunched over their laptops or chatting in hushed tones.

Quinn was behind the counter, tying her apron as she glanced up. She smirked, already knowing what he was going to order.

“Let me guess,” she drawled, resting her elbows on the counter. “Black coffee. Extra brooding.”

Bucky huffed a short laugh. “Not today.”

That caught her off guard. She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? The world must be ending. What’ll it be then?”

He hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot, then exhaled sharply. “Surprise me.”

Quinn grinned, eyes lighting up like she had just won some unspoken battle. “Dangerous words, Barnes. You sure you can handle it?”

“Just make the damn drink.”

She laughed as she got to work, reaching for a canister on the shelf. “Alright, big guy, you’re getting a matcha latte.”

Bucky frowned. “Sounds fancy.”

“It’s not. It’s green tea with milk, but better. Helps with stress, boosts energy. Figured you could use some.” Her voice was casual, but there was something in the way she said it—an observation, not a joke. Like she actually saw him.

He watched her as she prepared the drink, the way she moved with ease despite the old machine sputtering in protest. There was something different about her today, something more subdued. Less teasing, more focused.

As she handed him the drink, Quinn finally asked, “So, what’s up with you today? You look… I don’t know. More restless than usual.”

Bucky studied her for a moment, then took a slow sip. The warmth was nice, the taste earthy and a little sweet. Different, but not bad.

“Didn’t sleep much,” he admitted. “Training helped, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

Quinn didn’t press. She just nodded, leaning on the counter. “Nightmares?”

He glanced at her sharply, but she wasn’t mocking. She was just… asking. Like she knew something about it.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Bad ones.”

She hummed, tapping her fingers against the counter. “I get those too.”

That surprised him. Quinn was always so sharp, always the one with the smart remarks. He never thought of her as someone who carried ghosts of her own. But now that he looked closer, there was something tired in her eyes, something distant.

“What about?” he asked.

She hesitated, then shrugged. “A lot of things. But mostly? Being trapped. Watching something terrible happen and knowing you can’t stop it. Knowing it’s already too late.”

Bucky’s grip tightened around his cup. He knew that feeling all too well. “You’re not just talking about dreams, are you?”

Quinn let out a soft laugh, but there was no humor in it. “No.”

He didn’t push. But for the first time, he felt like maybe he wasn’t the only one carrying shadows.

Quinn shifted, suddenly restless. “So, you like the drink or what?”

Bucky took another sip, this time slower, like he was actually considering it. “It’s not bad.”

Quinn scoffed. “High praise coming from you.”

She leaned against the counter, watching him with curiosity. “So, Barnes, you never talk about yourself. You always let your friends do the talking. What’s your deal?”

Bucky exhaled, his fingers tapping idly against his cup. “Not much to tell.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You were in the war with Steve. You got captured. Disappeared. Then, what? You just showed up decades later, no big deal?”

He met her gaze, and for a moment, he thought about giving her the real answer—the metal arm, the mind control, the assassinations. But he settled for something simpler. “I was lost for a while. Took some time to get back.”

She tilted her head slightly. “You ever feel like you’re still lost?”

Bucky hesitated. No one had ever asked him that before. Not Steve, not Sam. Not even himself. “Maybe.”

Quinn nodded as if she understood. “Yeah. Me too.”

He studied her, curiosity finally breaking through his usual walls. “What about you? You run this place, but… doesn’t seem like you always have.”

She snorted. “You got me there. I’ve had a weird life. Parents were… complicated. Messy. They made some bad choices, and I paid for them.”

Bucky frowned. “How so?”

Quinn’s expression didn’t change, but he noticed the way her fingers tightened around a napkin, crumpling it. “They had a gambling problem. One day, they lost too much, owed too many people. Got themselves killed because of it. I got taken for ransom.”

His stomach tightened. He knew what it was like to be taken. To be powerless. “What happened?”

She exhaled sharply, looking away for a second before meeting his eyes again. “They got their money. Let me go. I ended up staying with an old neighbor after that.”

Something about the way she said it made his mind hum with something familiar, something just out of reach. “Your neighbor…?”

“Yeah. Good guy. Ex-military. Taught me a lot. Kept me safe. He owned this café before I took it over.”

A strange feeling settled in Bucky’s gut. He didn’t know why, but something about her story was unsettlingly close to something he should remember. Something buried deep. She gave him a small, knowing smile. “Strange world, huh?”

Bucky met her gaze, unsure why he suddenly felt like it was. “Yeah.”

She wiped her hands on her apron, breaking the moment. “Well, drink up. It won’t fix your nightmares, but it won’t make them worse either.”

He took another sip, letting the warmth settle in his chest. He wasn’t sure why, but he had the sense that this wouldn’t be the last time he and Quinn had a conversation like this.

Bucky stepped back into the Stark Tower with the kind of exhaustion that wasn’t just physical. The sparring session with Steve had left his body sore, but it was his mind that carried the real weight. Quinn’s words still echoed in his head, nagging at something he couldn’t quite place. Something about the girl. Something about the way she looked at him—like she was searching for something in him, too.

But for now, he needed a distraction. Something else to fill the spaces in his mind before they became too loud.

As he walked further in, the scent of something warm and rich drifted toward him from the common area. The lights were dimmed just enough to feel cozy, and the sound of familiar voices made the tension in his shoulders ease just a little.

“Bucky, my man!” Sam’s voice rang out as he stepped into the living room. “Figured you were off brooding somewhere.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Not all of us have the luxury of being this charming all the time.”

Sam smirked. “Yeah, well, I try to set the bar high.” He gestured toward the couch. “We got a game going. You in?”

Bucky hesitated for only a second before he noticed the others spread out around the room. Nat was perched on the arm of the couch, nursing a glass of something dark while Clint shuffled a deck of cards with practiced ease. Wanda sat cross-legged on the rug, a soft smile playing on her lips as she watched Peter practically buzz with excitement over something Tony was explaining. The boy had settled into their mismatched little family with ease, his enthusiasm bordering on contagious as he embraced his place among the Avengers. Like any kid his age, he reveled in the thrill of it all. He fit seamlessly with the others, lingering around the tower as if savoring these fleeting moments of peace—like the calm before an inevitable storm. It wasn’t quite normal, but it was the closest thing to it.

“Sure,” Bucky finally said, dropping onto the couch beside Sam. “What’s the game?”

“Poker,” Clint answered, arching a brow. “You any good?”

Bucky snorted. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Clint chuckled, passing out cards while Natasha sipped her drink. “He’s probably got some century-old tricks up his sleeve.”

“Literally,” Tony added, gesturing at Bucky’s metal arm.

Bucky just shook his head and studied his cards. The game moved quickly, banter flying between them like it was second nature. Peter was terrible at bluffing, Sam was too confident for his own good, and Natasha—unsurprisingly—was impossible to read. Even Wanda, who didn’t always involve herself in these moments, seemed at ease, nudging Peter whenever he made an obvious mistake.

It was easy to forget, for just a little while, the weight of everything else. To let himself sink into the rhythm of the group, the familiar push and pull of conversation. They didn’t ask him about his day. They didn’t press when his mind wandered for a second too long. They just let him be.

And for that, he was grateful.

For a moment, his mind strayed to Quinn. Would she have a new family to hang out with after what happened to her parents? Was she as close with her neighbor as they all were? The group would like her, he thought. Natasha and Wanda would greet with open arms, stringing her in as the next girl in their testosterone-filled group. A smile crept up his face as he tried to imagine it.

A few rounds in, Tony leaned back with a dramatic sigh. “Alright, I’m calling it—Barnes is a hustler. There’s no way he just ‘picked this up’ after seventy years in the ice.”

Bucky smirked. “I never said I was rusty.”

Natasha gave him a knowing look. “You used to do this during the war, didn’t you?”

He didn’t answer right away, just let the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “Maybe.”

Clint groaned, throwing his cards down. “Unbelievable.”

“You know what, I’m done,” Sam announced, pushing back from the table. “I refuse to lose to a guy who doesn’t even own a phone.”

Bucky snorted. “Your loss, Wilson.”

“Yeah, yeah, keep laughing, old man.”

Despite the teasing, there was something in the way Sam said it—something light, easy. Not mocking, just familiar. The kind of thing that made Bucky realize, as much as he still felt out of place sometimes, maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

As the group started to break apart, Peter stretched his arms over his head. “Anyone else hungry?”

“Kid, you’re always hungry,” Tony said, but he was already standing. “Alright, let’s raid the kitchen. Who’s in?”

A chorus of agreement followed, and before he knew it, Bucky was being dragged along too. The kitchen was a chaotic mess of half-attempted meals and stolen snacks, Peter and Sam arguing over the last piece of leftover pizza while Wanda casually floated a bag of chips toward herself with a flick of her fingers.

And Bucky? He just leaned against the counter, taking it all in.

For the first time in a long time, the silence in his mind wasn’t unbearable.

He let himself exist in this moment—brief as it was—before he had to step back out into the world again. Before he had to go back to the café. Back to Quinn.

Back to whatever it was that was waiting for him there.

An hour later, he was out the door, his jacket pulled tight around him as he walked the familiar path to his favorite place. The cold air did little to chase away the restlessness in his chest, but the motion helped. One foot in front of the other. Keep going. That’s all he could do. To get to her.

The storm rolled in fast that evening, thick clouds swallowing the Brooklyn skyline as rain lashed against the windows of Bean Voyage. The usual warmth of the café was dampened by the flickering power, the old lightbulbs buzzing like they, too, were anxious about the storm outside.

Bucky didn’t mind storms. Not anymore. They were sharp, brutal things—loud and fleeting. It was the quiet that got to him. The empty spaces between sounds. The way the night pressed in like a memory, thick and suffocating.

But tonight, it wasn’t the storm or the silence that unsettled him. It was Quinn.

She wasn’t behind the counter where she was supposed to be. Instead, she was standing at the front window, arms crossed, staring into the street like she expected something—or someone—to appear. The light caught the sharp edge of her profile, casting shadows under her eyes. Her usual fire, that quick-tongued defiance, was missing.

Bucky set his coffee down, barely making a sound as he stepped toward her. “Something wrong?”

She flinched, just slightly, before shaking her head. “No.”

Liar.

Her fingers gripped the sleeves of her sweater, knuckles pale. She wasn’t good at hiding things—emotions flickered across her face like a badly tuned TV. Bucky had seen that look before. People only stared at the dark that long if they were waiting for something to crawl out of it.

He shifted, looking past her shoulder to the street. The rain had turned the pavement into a glossy, distorted reflection of the neon signs. The sidewalks were mostly empty, save for a few stragglers hurrying home.

But then he saw it.

A man across the street. Standing under the dim glow of a busted-out streetlamp. Not moving. Just watching.

Bucky’s instincts prickled instantly, the back of his neck tightening. He had spent enough time in the shadows to recognize when he was being watched. The man wasn’t dressed for the weather—no umbrella, no hood, just a dark jacket with the collar flipped up. The rain poured over him like he didn’t even notice.

A second passed. Then another.

Quinn exhaled sharply, forcing a laugh that sounded wrong. “God, I hate the rain.”

Bucky didn’t look away. “Who is he?”

She froze. It was a tiny thing, just a hitch in her breath, but Bucky caught it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Another lie.

Bucky clenched his jaw. “He’s been standing there for five minutes.”

Quinn didn’t answer. Instead, she finally turned away from the window, grabbing a rag and busying herself behind the counter, wiping down a perfectly clean surface. “You’re being paranoid,” she said, but there was a crack in her voice now, something fragile beneath the usual sarcasm.

Bucky exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through his hair. Something was off. The way Quinn was avoiding his gaze. The way her shoulders hunched, tense like a rabbit waiting to bolt. He’d seen that posture before, in himself, in others who carried ghosts too heavy to shake.

The bell above the door jingled suddenly, sharp and metallic, slicing through the tension like a blade.

Bucky turned before he even thought about it, body coiled, ready for a fight.

And then an greay-haired gentleman stepped inside, dressed top to bottom in dark clothes and a large coat.

The old man was soaked through, his usual neatly pressed button-down clinging to his frame, his gray hair dripping. He was breathing hard, eyes darting between Bucky and Quinn like he had walked into something he wasn’t prepared for.

“Arthur?” Quinn frowned. “What are you doing out in this mess?”

The man didn’t answer right away. He flicked a glance toward the window, then back to Quinn. “We need to close up early tonight.”

Quinn blinked. “Why?”

Arthur wiped a hand over his face, but it didn’t shake the tension from his expression. “Because some ghosts don’t know when to stay buried.”

The words sent a chill down Bucky’s spine.

Quinn stiffened. Her eyes flicked back to the street—back to where the man had been standing.

But when Bucky looked again, the sidewalk was empty.

The storm raged on.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. Don't hesitate to leave a comment behind <3

[witheredwritings]

Main Masterlist:

Marvel

Bucky Barnes:

Series: Soft in the Right Hands

Tony Stark:

Oneshots: Virtual Insanity

TLOU

Joel Miller:

Series: Bitter Taste part one part two part three part four

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands

Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five coming soon

[witheredwritings]

Soft in the Right Hands - Prologue

Summary: Bucky Barnes walks into Bean Voyage every day, ordering nothing but black coffee, his quiet routine a mask for the chaos of his past. But Quinn Hodge, the sharp-witted barista with no fear of the notorious Winter Soldier, seems to see right through him. In a place that feels too ordinary for someone like him, Bucky finds himself returning, not just for the coffee, but for the mystery of Quinn—and maybe something more than he’s willing to admit. The question is: what happens when the walls he’s built around himself start to crack, one sip at a time? Word count: 1.4K Warnings: none really, maybe a bit of language. ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE GUYS A/N: My first ever fic and part one of an upcoming series. Please leave a message behind, criticism as welcomed :)

The bell above the door jingled as Bucky stepped into the Bean Voyage, the scent of burnt espresso and cinnamon clashing in the air. The place was small, tucked between a bodega and a laundromat, with mismatched chairs and a crooked menu board that had been written and rewritten so many times, half the prices were smudged beyond recognition.

Steve had been the one to drag him here months ago, claiming it was “good for you, Buck—y'know normal people things.”

Normal. Right. Because nothing screamed normal like a hundred-year-old ex-assassin ordering coffee like he didn’t wake up sweating from nightmares five times a week.

Sam had followed soon after, mostly to piss off Bucky and flirt shamelessly with the barista. Quinn.

Bucky's eyes flicked toward the counter, where she stood—hair tied back, a sharp look of concentration on her face as she attempted to fix the ancient espresso machine by smacking it with a metal spoon.

“Work, damn you,” she muttered, whacking it one more time.

Bucky stifled a smirk.

The girl was a force to be reckoned with sometimes. He often wondered how someone could be so goddamn bad at their job and still never get fired. She had a way with the costumers though. Always smiling, never showing it if she was in a sour mood. She treated everyone with respect. She never looked at him the way others did. Didn’t seem to care that Captain America and co were her regulars, that he came here nearly every other day.

No fear. No curiosity. No whispers of that’s him—the Winter Soldier.

To her, he was just the grumpy guy who always ordered black coffee and left a generous tip, even though he rarely said more than a few words.

And for some reason, that made him come back.

“Ah, the usual suspects,” Quinn said as she spotted him and waltzed over. “Grumpy, Blondie, and Birdman. What can I get you? The usual?”

“First of all, I have a name,” Sam said, pointing at her. “Second, how do you still have a job when you make the worst coffee in Brooklyn?”

“Charm and spite,” Quinn shot back.

Steve chuckled, nudging Bucky forward. “Go on, tell her what you want.”

Bucky hated how all eyes landed on him like he was some kind of shy teenager. He huffed. “Black coffee.”

“Shocking,” Quinn deadpanned, scribbling on a notepad. “You do realize other drinks exist, right? We’ve got caramel lattes. Hazelnut mochas. Hot chocolate, if you’re feeling bold.”

Bucky crossed his arms. “Black. Coffee.”

Quinn grinned. “One cup of personality juice coming right up.”

Sam howled with laughter. Steve looked like he was fighting a smile. Bucky just shook his head, but when Quinn turned away, he felt something he hadn’t in a long time.

Something dangerously close to fondness.

Steve’s voice sliced through the laughter before Bucky had a chance to roll his eyes.

“Quinn, stop making fun of the guy who has absolutely no interest in your weird flavored concoctions,” the blond-haired man said, not looking up from the crumpled menu in his hand.

Quinn flipped her hair over her shoulder as she grinned. “I’m just trying to introduce him to the world of taste, Stevie. He’s missing out.” Her voice was a perfect blend of playful and exasperated, like she’d said this exact thing a hundred times before. Bucky could almost hear the smirk in her tone.

Bucky's eyes narrowed, though he was fighting the grin tugging at his lips. “I like what I like.” He’d heard that line from a million people over the years, but there was something about saying it to Quinn that made it sound different, less defensive, and more… amusing.

He slid into his usual seat by the window next to Sam, where the cracked glass made everything feel just a bit off-kilter, but in a way that kind of worked. Brooklyn was like that. A little messy, a little broken, but beautiful anyway.

As Quinn finished up the orders for the other patrons, she finally turned around, wiping her hands on a rag before leaning casually against the counter. She met his gaze, her eyes not exactly warm but… not cold either. Neutral. Like they always were. Maybe even a little curious.

“What’s the deal with you, huh?” she asked, her tone light, but her eyes sharp. “I mean, you walk in here like you’re on some mission to ruin everyone’s day. Yet you come back every damn time. You’re loyal, I’ll give you that.”

Bucky blinked, caught off guard by the directness of her question. Most people tiptoed around him, acted like they were afraid he might snap—except her. Quinn wasn’t afraid of him. That much was obvious.

“I don’t ruin anyone’s day,” Bucky muttered, though a small smirk was pulling at his mouth now. “I’m not here to make friends.”

“Oh, please, you’re practically family at this point,” Quinn shot back, motioning around the café. “We’ve got this down to a science. You come in, you sit at that window seat, order black coffee, and avoid any real human interaction. And I, for some strange reason, don’t mind. It’s predictable.”

Bucky chuckled under his breath. Predictable. Yeah, that sounded about right. He wasn’t in the mood for surprises, not since—well, for a long time now.

“What’s your name again?” Quinn asked, wiping a stray speck of foam from the counter. “I’m sure Sam’s told me a thousand times, but I’ve got this thing with remembering names. They just… slip.”

“Bucky,” he said. “Bucky Barnes.”

She paused for a moment, as if testing the name on her tongue. “Bucky Barnes,” she repeated, nodding slowly. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re secretly a tortured soul or just a guy who really likes black coffee. Either way, I’m gonna keep giving you your drink, because you leave an amazing tip every time.”

He froze at the mention of the tip. It wasn’t much, just enough to show he appreciated their service, but for some reason, Quinn always noticed it. And it was… unsettling in a way he couldn’t explain. It felt too personal. Too real.

“You don’t have to keep giving me compliments,” Bucky mumbled, his gaze shifting back to his hands. He wasn’t good at this, at being seen, not in this way.

Quinn’s laugh rang out, light and genuine. “I don’t think I’m complimenting you, Barnes. I think I’m just noticing you. Big difference.”

Sam, who had been pretending to read the menu, like that was gonna fool anyone, snorted into his coffee. “Oh, Bucky, she’s got you figured out, man.”

Steve shot Sam a warning look, but it didn’t matter. Bucky's face burned, but there was something about Quinn’s bluntness that disarmed him. She wasn’t coy or awkward. She wasn’t trying to flirt with him. She just… was.

“So, what’s the deal, Buck?” she asked again, leaning on the counter, her elbows now resting on the worn surface. “What’s the real reason you come in here?”

It was too much. Too personal. Too… human.

Bucky exhaled through his nose, shaking his head slightly. “I just… want the damn coffee, Quinn.”

Her eyes softened, just a little, and she gave him a small nod. “Fair enough. But you know, the next time you show up, I might make you try something new. You never know—could change your life.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress the small smile creeping onto his lips. “I’ll take my chances.”

“Your loss,” she said, walking back to the espresso machine, but her tone was light, teasing.

It felt like a weird kind of truce. And Bucky had to admit, a part of him was almost looking forward to the next time he came in. To the strange, awkward little conversations. To Quinn’s sharp humor. To the way she never treated him like the Winter Soldier, like someone too dangerous to even look at. No, she treated him like… like he was just him. Like people treated him seventy years ago.

And maybe that was all he really needed.

The bell above the door jingled as he walked out, black coffee in hand, but Bucky didn’t hurry this time. He walked slowly, his mind already drifting to the next time he’d find himself in that tiny café, ordering the same damn thing.

Because for some reason, it wasn’t just the coffee he was coming back for anymore.

A/N: Thank you soo much if you read this and stay updated for new parts xxxx

[witheredwritings]

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