xakilicious - Tumblr blog

xakilicious · 2 days ago

Text

It's Strange You Never Knew

pairing | 40s!bucky x 40s!reader & post-tfatws!bucky x 40s!reader & minor!40s!steve x 40s!reader

word count | 3.5k words

summary | decades after vanishing into war, bucky hears a voice on the radio that stops him cold—a voice he thought he'd never hear again. what he uncovers is a song written for him, by someone who loved him quietly, and died before he ever had the chance to say your name out again.

tags | post-tfatws, friends to almost lovers, slow burn (but it's too late), unspoken love, missed opportunities, angst/NO comfort , emotional gut punch, found after death, soft grief, lowkey alt!reader, songfic

a/n | another day, another 40s bucky fic, based on this request.

likes comments and reblogs are much appreciated ✨✨

ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

divider by @cafekitsune

Brooklyn, June 1942

It smelled like cigarette smoke and gin, the kind that clung to clothes and memories long after you left.

Bucky sat in the corner booth, elbow on the table, jaw in his hand. Steve sat beside him, upright, neat, always a little too polite for the space. Two beers sat half-drunk between them, sweating glass against stained wood.

And there you were—on the small stage, wrapped in dusk-blue light. Your voice didn’t suit the era. It wasn’t bright or chirpy, didn’t do big crescendos or razzle the room. It drifted. Mournful. Haunting. Strange.

And somehow, it held everyone captive.

You leaned into the mic, eyes barely open, like the whole room was a dream you weren’t sure you’d chosen to be in.

“I want to hold the hand inside you

I want to take the breath that’s true...”

Your voice poured out low and aching, each word like a secret too heavy to keep.

Bucky’s brows furrowed, watching you like you were something fragile and unsolvable. You’d been friends for years, all three of you. You’d grown up together. Laughed. Sat on stoops and shared cigarettes and talked about futures that never felt real.

And yet, there was still something about you that didn’t belong here.

Not in this club.

Not in this city.

Maybe not even in this world.

“I look to you, and I see nothing

I look to you to see the truth...”

Steve said it once. That you were the kind of girl people didn’t really understand until it was too late.

You weren’t cold. You weren’t aloof. You were just... elsewhere.

You felt things too deeply. Cried at newsprint poetry. Dissociated in diners. Laughed too hard, then got too quiet. You never looked at people when you spoke—except Bucky.

You always looked at Bucky.

And right now?

He didn’t notice.

“Fade into you

Strange you never knew

Fade into you

I think it's strange you never knew...”

Your eyes scanned the crowd—but not for applause.

Not for recognition.

Just... to see. To see him.

And Bucky? He was still frowning.

Not because he didn’t like the song.

Because something in it hurt. Something he couldn’t name.

Steve looked at him. Then at you. And knew.

You were singing about him.

And he didn’t even know.

“I think it's strange you never knew...”

The final note of your song settled into the room like smoke, warm and heavy.

A moment passed. Then, polite applause—soft, respectful. No whistles, no standing ovation. Just the kind of acknowledgment that came from being heard, not just listened to.

You gave a small, grateful smile and a gentle nod. Then turned and stepped off the stage, your heels clicking softly on the wood as you disappeared behind the curtain.

At the table, Steve exhaled through his nose.

“That was… somethin’ else,” he murmured.

Bucky didn’t answer.

His eyes were still on the stage, brows drawn slightly. Like he was trying to solve a math problem in a dream.

Steve glanced at him, then said gently, “She wrote that one, you know.”

Bucky blinked out of it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Still, Bucky didn’t say anything. Just rubbed the back of his neck and sat back in the booth.

Steve waited.

When nothing came, he tried again. “Sounded… personal.”

Bucky shrugged. “She always sings like that.”

“Not like that.”

Steve watched him carefully.

But Bucky didn’t respond. Not really. Just mumbled something about getting another round and stood, heading toward the bar without looking back.

Steve watched him go.

And just after you stepped out from backstage, the echo of the spotlight still clinging to your skin. You scanned the room, smile tugging at the corners of your mouth—small, shy, the kind you only wore around them.

But your eyes stopped at the table.

Steve sat alone.

You blinked once. Twice.

Then your gaze shifted—slow, unsure—and landed on Bucky.

He was at the bar. Leaning in. Smiling.

Talking to a girl with curled hair and a cherry-red mouth.

Of course he was.

There was always some girl.

Something inside you settled low. Not a stab. Not a shatter. Just that dull, familiar ache.

The kind you’d grown used to.

Steve saw it.

The way your shoulders dropped. The flicker behind your eyes. The way your mouth stayed soft, but your light dimmed just slightly.

You turned to him, smiling like you hadn’t just been emptied.

“Hey,” you said lightly. “Walk me home?”

He nodded, instantly. “Of course.”

Because of course he would. He always would.

Even if you never saw him the way you saw Bucky. Even if he had to walk beside you in silence, knowing you were thinking about someone else.

Because you asked.

And he loved you enough to always say yes.

The Stark Expo, 1943

The night buzzed around you—lights flashing, music floating in the air, people crowding through stalls with wide eyes and sticky hands full of caramel popcorn. The future was plastered in every direction: flying cars, synthetic fabrics, mechanized kitchens. Howard Stark’s voice echoed through loudspeakers with the arrogance of a man convinced he was the future.

You stood beside Bucky, arms crossed lightly, hair pinned just enough to pass for neat. You weren’t a crowd person. Or a lights person. Or a people touching your elbow every five seconds because the walkway is too narrow person.

But Bucky had asked.

He’d written you when he was stationed upstate. A note folded three times, your name in familiar script on the envelope. Back for a few days. Stark Expo’s this week. You free, songbird?

And here you were.

You weren’t sure what you were expecting.

Probably not this—him in uniform, cheeks pink from the cold, blue eyes gleaming under the lights, standing beside you like he’d never been gone.

Still. You couldn't help yourself.

You kept your gaze ahead, watching a prototype robot swing a fake hammer at a fake nail, and said, dry, “You sure you want me here tonight? Pretty sure Connie would've made better company.”

You didn’t say it mean.

You said it like you always did—quiet, a little too flat, too easy to miss the wound beneath.

He turned his head to you, blinking like you’d spoken in a language he didn’t quite catch.

“Connie?” he echoed.

You shrugged. “She’s got that big laugh. She’d fit in better.”

Bucky was quiet for a beat. Then another.

And just when you were about to deflect with something half-funny and half-sarcastic to cover your own embarrassment, he said:

“I like being around you.”

You looked at him.

He looked back.

Not like it was a line. Not like it was a performance. Just… Bucky. Honest.

“I mean it,” he added, softer now. “I don’t have to… do anything when I’m with you. Don’t have to fill space. Don’t have to entertain. You don’t expect that from me.”

Your brows furrowed slightly.

He rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flicking to a group of sailors posing near a booth. “With most people, I feel like I gotta be on. Gotta be charming. Gotta talk all the time or tell jokes or flirt or—y’know, be that guy.”

He looked back at you.

“With you, I don’t gotta do that.”

You didn’t say anything at first.

But something in your chest pulled a little tighter.

“I mean—people always wanna talk, or laugh, or keep things busy. But you…” He glanced at you, eyes soft. “You don’t need all that. You��re... quiet in a way that makes me feel calm. Like I don’t gotta be anything.”

And maybe the fair lights glinted too hard in your eyes, because you couldn’t quite meet his for more than a second.

So you looked away.

“Suppose that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about my social skills,” you muttered.

He smiled. “Ain’t about skills.”

And for a minute, it didn’t matter that you hadn’t said what you felt.

He didn’t need you to perform.

And you didn’t need him to get it all right.

You just stood there, shoulder to shoulder, watching the future blink in lights in front of you—two people who’d never said I love you out loud, but kept trying to find new ways to say it without the words.

Later that night — Stark Expo Grounds

The crowds had thinned.

Most of the music had faded, replaced by the low hum of generators and the occasional pop of a leftover firework in the distance. The metal contraptions were winding down, the lights flickering soft above the empty food stalls.

You were standing a few feet away, looking up at some display—a rotating solar panel exhibit that buzzed faintly, glowing like it thought it was a moon.

Your hands were in your coat pockets. Shoulders slightly hunched from the wind. Your hair moving just a little in the breeze.

Bucky watched you.

Not the way he watched girls at bars or on street corners. Not the way he smiled and made them laugh and forgot their names by morning.

This was different.

You weren’t trying to look beautiful.

You just were.

God, you always had been.

He didn’t even remember when it started—when he began to notice the way your voice changed when you were talking about music, or how you’d go quiet in crowds like you were waiting for something to make sense. You were... still. Even when the world spun.

You grounded him.

And that scared him more than anything.

Because he didn’t know how to name what he felt. Didn’t have the words. Didn’t know if he deserved someone like you—someone who felt like poetry in a decade that had no patience for softness.

But he felt it.

In the way he always sought you out first. In the way he never had to fake a smile around you. In the way you hadn’t once asked him about the war tonight.

You turned then, catching him looking.

And you smiled.

Just a little.

He smiled back—slow, real, aching.

Maybe he’d tell you next time.

Maybe he’d say something when he had more time.

But for now, he stayed quiet.

And watched the girl he might’ve already been in love with, under a half-broken moon.

Brooklyn, November 1943– Atlantic Avenue Train Station

The platform was crowded. Not loud—but full. Families clustered in soft coats and wool hats, mothers holding handkerchiefs to their mouths, kids standing awkwardly near duffel bags they couldn’t lift.

You were standing near the edge, arms wrapped around yourself, coat buttoned all the way up. Your lipstick was a little smudged—one of those mornings. But your eyes were clear. Focused.

You spotted him as soon as he stepped off the steps.

Bucky looked good.

Not movie star good. Alive good. Real good.

His hair was pushed back from his face, uniform pressed. He had a bag slung over one shoulder, and the moment he saw you, his grin slipped right into place like it never left.

“You didn’t have to come,” he said as he walked up.

You shrugged. “Didn’t have anywhere else to be.”

He smiled at that, soft and a little crooked.

You stood facing each other in that liminal space between platform and train, not touching, not speaking.

You didn’t know how to say don’t go.

He didn’t know how to say I wish I didn’t have to.

“Steve couldn’t make it?” he asked.

“Doctor’s appointment,” you said. “They’re running more tests.”

Bucky nodded. Looked down at his boots for a second.

Then: “You’ll look after him, yeah?”

You smiled. “Always.”

He shifted his bag, like he wanted to say something else. Something bigger. But what?

Stay safe? Come back? I’ve never felt more myself than when I’m standing next to you?

Instead, he nodded again. “I’ll write.”

You looked at him then, really looked, and you almost said it.

Almost.

But you just reached up and brushed a piece of lint from his lapel, fingers soft.

“Make sure you get the name of the train stop right this time,” you murmured, your voice a little wobbly, a little teasing. “You sent a postcard to a grocery store last time.”

Bucky chuckled. “Maybe I wanted them to know how I was doing.”

You rolled your eyes, smiling, eyes stinging.

The loudspeaker crackled. Final call.

His smile faltered. “Well…”

You leaned up—quick, soft—and kissed his cheek. It lingered just a second too long.

“Go,” you said gently, stepping back.

He looked at you like he might say something. Like he might reach out.

But he didn’t. He just turned. Shouldered his bag. And boarded the train.

You stood there long after it pulled away.

Hands in your pockets.

Wind in your hair.

And everything unsaid echoing like a song you hadn’t written yet.

New York City, 2024

The city didn’t feel like it used to—not the way it did in memory, not even the way it did in nightmares. It wasn’t hostile, exactly. Just fast. Fast in ways Bucky wasn’t built for anymore.

But he was trying.

He had a therapist that didn’t flinch. A neighbor that smiled without fear. A plant that hadn’t died yet.

Progress.

Most days, he took long walks without an endpoint. Just movement. Just being.

Today, he ended up at a coffee shop. One of those low-ceilinged places with battered chairs and exposed brick that made people feel artistic. He didn’t need coffee—caffeine made him jittery—but he liked the noise. The murmurs. The steam.

He was flipping through a battered copy of The Stranger someone had left behind when he heard it.

A voice.

Low. Haunting.

Familiar.

Too familiar.

He didn’t move at first. Just blinked.

The radio on the shelf behind the counter buzzed through static, then cleared again as the song reached its chorus.

It wasn’t like anything else on the station. The other songs were crisp, polished, engineered to be catchy.

This voice didn’t care if it was catchy.

It ached.

Bucky’s grip on the book slackened.

He turned slightly toward the sound, frowning, lips parting.

He knew that voice.

It was buried in a place he hadn’t gone in years. Before war. Before Hydra. Before ice and blood and triggers.

But it was hers.

He turned to the guy behind the counter—a younger kid with a chipped name tag and AirPods still in one ear.

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly, nodding toward the radio. “Who’s this?”

The barista looked up, then grinned like he was always waiting to be asked. “Oh, this one’s a favorite. They reissued her stuff a couple years back after the doc came out. Cult following now.”

He paused to glance at the screen on the register.

Then he said your name.

A name Bucky hadn’t heard in decades. A name he hadn’t let himself say.

It hit like ice water, straight to the spine. His fingers loosened around the mug. His jaw slackened, just slightly.

The kid didn’t notice. Just went back to wiping the counter like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb into the middle of Bucky’s morning.

But Bucky couldn’t unhear it.

That voice. That name.

And suddenly he wasn’t in a coffee shop anymore—he was twenty-two. In a dim club. Watching someone sing like they didn’t care if anyone clapped, only that they felt it. And he never told you.

Not once.

The rain had stopped by the time he walked home, but he barely noticed. His thoughts moved like static—jumbled, crackling, stuck between then and now.

He sat at the edge of his bed, boots still on, and opened his laptop.

He typed your name into the search bar.

And there you were.

Not just a voice now.

Photographs—grainy, luminous. Pressed smiles and bold lipstick and that gaze he remembered, soft and distant like you were always looking at something no one else could see.

Hollywood starlet. Rising talent. Quiet icon.

He clicked through articles. Magazine scans. Studio portraits from the late 1940s, each one sharper than the last. Headlines gushed. Words like ethereal, unconventional, difficult to define.

Of course they said that.

You were never built to fit.

One article had a quote from you—typed clean in block letters:

“I don’t want to be the kind of famous people forget in five years. I want someone to hear my voice thirty years from now and still feel something.”

Bucky stared at the words.

And then he saw the date.

1952.

He clicked again.

And everything dropped out from under him.

Died tragically at the age of 33 in an automobile accident in Los Angeles, California, September 1952. Survived by no immediate family. Buried at Rose Hills Memorial Park. Her music saw a resurgence decades later following the release of a documentary celebrating her life and work.

The breath left his lungs.

He sat there, still, eyes fixed on the screen like if he stared long enough, it would change.

He missed it.

He missed everything.

You were gone.

Gone before he ever made it out of the ice. Before he even had the chance to remember you.

And still—

Still your voice had found him.

He leaned back slowly against the headboard, swallowed hard, and pressed a hand to his chest like he could quiet the ache growing there.

You were famous.

You were loved.

He kept reading.

Article after article. Fan pages. Archives.

And then—he found it.

The song.

The one everyone seemed to come back to. The one quoted, tattooed, sampled, played over clips of you smiling in old interviews and black-and-white concert footage. It had been your biggest hit. Released in 1945. Re-released. Covered. Immortalized.

“Without You.”

He clicked.

Before he hit play, he saw the description. An old interview—grainy transcript, scanned from some vintage magazine.

“It’s about a boy,” you had said. “A boy I never got to love. He went off to war and didn’t come back.”

“He made me feel seen. But he never saw me.”

“I think sometimes, if he ever heard this… he’d know.”

The words hit like a shot to the ribs. Bucky stared at the screen.

Fought.

Didn’t come back.

He had. But not whole. Not to you.

Not in time.

He sat there for a long time before he hit play.

The song began—soft, almost fragile. A synth swell. That voice. Your voice. But lower now, richer. Still carrying that sadness like it was stitched into every breath.

“Everything I want, I have

Money, notoriety, and rivieras…”

Bucky stared at the screen, the words soaking into him like rain on bare skin.

“Tell me life is beautiful, they all think I have it all

I've nothing without you…”

His throat tightened. He couldn’t breathe.

“Can you picture it? Babe, that life we could’ve lived…”

He shut his eyes.

Because he could.

He saw it in flashes—your laugh, that night at the Stark Expo, the way you looked when you sang for almost no one in that club in Brooklyn. The way he’d never told you. The way he always looked away.

“We were two kids just trying to get out

Lived on the dark side of the American dream…”

A choked sound left him.

Not quite a sob. But close.

Because it was him.

It had always been him.

And you’d sung that truth into the world when he wasn’t around to hear it. When you were grieving someone who never knew you waited. Someone who didn’t come back in time.

“All my dreams and all the lights mean

Nothing if I can't have you…”

The song ended quietly.

No fade-out. Just silence.

And Bucky sat there, surrounded by it.

Wrecked.

Alone.

And finally, finally, understanding what you had tried to tell him all those years ago.

He played it again.

The song.

He didn’t mean to. His hand just… moved. As if his body knew before his mind did.

The first note hit him just as hard the second time.

Then the third.

And the fourth.

By the time your voice cracked on “Hello? Hello? Ca-can you hear me?” his hands were trembling in his lap, and he was blinking too fast for it to mean anything.

The apartment stayed still around him—shadows long, lights off, only the soft blue glow of the laptop flickering against the walls.

He didn’t need a funeral.

He didn’t need a eulogy.

You were here.

In speakers. In wires. In this strange little machine you never lived long enough to imagine.

And your voice—God, your voice—was proof that you never really stopped waiting for him. That part of you, some secret, haunted part, had held on even after the train pulled away.

He didn’t cry. Not fully anyway.

Just sat there, hands curled into his sleeves like he was trying to stay warm, eyes fixed on nothing.

When the song ended, he didn’t move.

Didn’t shut the laptop.

Didn’t wipe his eyes.

He just let the silence settle around him.

Because for the first time in eighty years…

He finally heard you.

And he finally knew.

songs used: fade into you by Mazzystar without you by Lana Del Rey

418 notes · View notes

xakilicious · 2 days ago

Text

Danysdaughter Masterlist

• 19 • she/her • fanfic author • bucky barnes enthusiast • MDNI • POC girl

This blog is mainly for Bucky Barnes

My ask box is officially:

CLOSED TO REQUESTS

RULES FOR REQUESTS:

→ fluff and angst is always allowed

→ any kind of smut is allowed, except the HEAVY bdsm kinda stuff (yeah I am no expert, so don't ask me to write for that freaky business)

→ If you want to request a part 2 to a fic i've already written, please tell me what you would like to see in part 2

→ i will not write anything to do with sexual assault or rape

→ I will not write about cheating (if it has to do with bucky barnes SPECIFICALLY — if it's a past relationship cheating is allowed)

✧ — over 500 notes

✯ — over 1000 notes

✵ — over 2000 notes

•*⁀➷ I Think I Love You (5.4k words) ✵

— fwb!bucky x new!avengers!reader

— [smut + angst + hurt/comfort + fluff]

you agreed to keep it casual—just sex, no feelings. but when loving bucky in silence begins to break you, walking away is the only thing you can do… even if it destroys you both.

•*⁀➷ Hold Your Breath (6.6k words) ✵

— civil!war!bucky x fem!reader

— [angst + hurt/comfort + smut]

after a panic attack triggers something raw and vulnerable in bucky, a desperate kiss turns into a night of urgent, clothed intimacy where he clings to you for grounding, connection, and humanity.

•*⁀➷ Hold Your Breath - Pt 2 (15.8k words) ✯

— post-civil!war!bucky x reader

— [angst + hurt/comfort + smut + fluff]

a year after the fallout of the sokovia accords, the avengers come out of hiding and turn to nelson & murdock for legal defense. as you work alongside them, the tension between you and bucky barnes simmers—still unresolved since the night you pulled him back from the edge in berlin.

•*⁀➷ Come Home To Me (14.7k words) ✵

— 40s!bucky x 40s!fem!reader

— [fluff + angst + smut + hurt/comfort]

during the rise and ruin of the second world war, a sharp-tongued brooklyn girl falls for james buchanan barnes—only to lose him to the battlefield, a presumed death, and the silence that follows.

but almost two years later, when the war is long over and the wounds have scarred over, he comes back through your door, proving that some promises do survive the fire.

•*⁀➷ Come Home To Me - Pt. 2 (8.8k words)

— 40s!bucky x 40s!reader

— [angst + hurt/comfort + fluff + smut]

he came home in pieces, broken but breathing, and slowly—painfully—learned how to be whole again in the arms of the woman he loved and the child he never thought he’d meet. now, with another baby on the way, and a house built from promises once whispered in wartime, james buchanan barnes is finally learning what it means to be at peace.

•*⁀➷ The Soldier And The Vixen (14k words) ✧

— 40s!bucky x 40s!fem!reader & winter!soldier x hydra!reader & post!tfatws!bucky x fem!reader

— [fluff + angst + graphic + hurt/no comfort]

once comrades bound by war and affection, two soldiers-turned-weapons are reshaped into monsters by hydra, their humanity fractured and memories blurred.

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

•*⁀➷ Still Yours (9.4k words) ✵

— thunderbolts!bucky x fem!reader

— [smut + angst + hurt/comfort + fluff]

bucky lets his relationship slip into the background for the sake of duty and public image. but when the distance starts to break them, he realizes he’ll do anything to fight for the love he almost lost.

•*⁀➷ After Hours (7.8k words) ✵

— au!bucky x teacher!reader

— [fluff + smut]

when bucky barnes keeps showing up early to pick up his nephew from school, it’s definitely not just about being a good uncle—it’s about the sharp, no-nonsense kindergarten teacher who won’t give him the time of day. one desperate club night and a locked bathroom later, you finally do.

•*⁀➷ Once More To See You (12.8k words) ✯

— 40s!bucky x 40s!reader & post-catws!bucky x fem!reader

— [smut + angst + hurt/no comfort]

in the 40s, the two of you were meant to be forever—wild, in love, and untouched by anything but each other. but time tore you two apart, and when fate brought you back together decades later, love still lived between you and bucky... just no longer in the same lifetime

•*⁀➷ Confidential Affairs (4.4k words) ✵

— congressman!bucky x assistant!reader

— [fluff + smut]

congressman barnes thought he had control—over his office, his image, and especially his no-nonsense assistant. That illusion ends the moment you hit a man's head against a table, ruin your blazer, and ride him across a random desk like you're the one running the country.

•*⁀➷ It's Strange You Never Knew (3.5k words)

— 40s!bucky x 40s!reader & post-tfatws!bucky x 40s!reader & minor!40s!steve x 40s!reader

— [angst + hurt/no comfort]

decades after vanishing into war, bucky hears a voice on the radio that stops him cold—a voice he thought he'd never hear again. what he uncovers is a song written for him, by someone who loved him quietly, and died before he ever had the chance to say your name out again.

•*⁀➷ Сетка (10.4k words) ✵

— civil!war!bucky x widow!reader

— [angst + hurt/comfort + smut]

when you, a former red room widow crosses paths with the man who once trained you—now a ghost of the monster you remember—your collision reignites memories neither of you can outrun. in a world that only ever taught you two to survive, you find something you were never trained for: each other.

•*⁀➷ I Thought We Were Already Dating (4k words) ✵

— congressman!bucky x fem!reader

— [fluff + smut]

you thought you were spiraling over a situationship—meanwhile, bucky barnes had been acting like your very committed, very oblivious boyfriend the entire time. one public meltdown, a congressional office full of witnesses, and a very intense kiss later… you're officially his girl (and he never doubted it).

•*⁀➷ Please (3.6k words) ✧

— [congressman!bucky x gf!reader]

— [fluff + comfort + smut]

after a long day of political masks and quiet exhaustion, congressman barnes returns home to the only person who doesn’t ask him to perform—but demands his honesty. in your hands, he’s not a soldier, or a statesman—just a man unraveling, piece by trembling piece, begging to be seen, touched, claimed.

— civil!war!bucky x widow!reader & winter!soldier x widow!reader

•*⁀➷ Red Is The Color Of Want (4.8k words) ✯

— [hurt/comfort + smut + angst]

in a crumbling safehouse far from the fights you both escaped, you—a former black widow—unravel the man beneath the metal as the winter soldier comes undone in your arms. but when a page of trigger words drags bucky back into the shadows of who he used to be, the only thing more dangerous than his programming… is how much he needs you.

1K notes · View notes