A/N: unfortunately I couldn't finish the congressman!bucky x secretary!reader fanfic in time, so I humbly offer you another winter soldier one-shot, this time for my dark fics lovers <3. I'm so sorry for the unanswered inboxes and reblogs/comments but I'm offline until sunday for medical reasons. please, mind the warnings before reading! hope you'll enjoy 🖤

You had believed medicine was a discipline of precision and care, built to preserve life. 

HYDRA stripped that belief from you within the first forty-eight hours of your abduction.

They never called it what it was—kidnapping. No, they called it recruitment.

A late-night, sleep-deprived trip to the store for ice cream had cost you your freedom. At your awakening, you found yourself sitting in a white room with no windows, no wallet, no phone, and a man in a black uniform calmly explaining that your credentials were impressive, your skill set rare, and your cooperation expected. When you refused and demanded to leave, he wordlessly slid a thin file across the table. Inside were photos of your mother walking home from work, timestamps of months spent tailing her carefully highlighted in red.

You learned very quickly when to stop asking questions. To lower your head and listen. To do exactly as you were told.  You were just trying to survive. And yet, guilt still clawed relentlessly at your chest as soon as your head touched that filthy excuse of a pillow they provided you with.

You had no idea who he had been before HYDRA took him, what parts of his life had been stolen, what memories erased, what humanity suppressed. If he could even still be called a man, or if he was nothing more than an experiment, forged and trapped within these walls. Still, beneath everything they had done to him, there was a person. And no human being deserves to be reduced to a lab experiment, trained to kill and denied any life of their own.

The truth is that here, forced into a role you never wanted, you are still part of it. Every dose you administer, every wound you clean, every monitoring protocol you follow—even if it is just to keep him from spiraling into uncontrollable violence—you are still contributing to HYDRA’s system, keeping the gears turning. You are an important cog, however unwilling, and the sole thought is enough to make you nauseous, tormenting you during those sleepless nights spent on an uncomfortable mattress inside your new, grey bedroom.

You are a witness, a caretaker, a facilitator. And in keeping him alive, you sustain the very machine that caged him. Your hands remain steady, but each measured movement is weighted with fear and reluctant responsibility. 

The Winter Soldier is HYDRA’s greatest asset and its most closely monitored prisoner. Officially, you are not his handler. You don’t issue commands or mission parameters, nor have the power to activate him or order for his mind to be wiped. That job belongs to others—men who speak in clipped phrases and avoid eye contact with what they have turned him into.

You monitor his vitals, track the effects of the serum, treat injuries sustained in the field, and document behavioral anomalies. You make sure he eats when they remember to feed him, that his body remains functional between cryo cycles and the scars don’t fester.

You are also the only one allowed to touch him without restraints, but no one had planned for that.

At first, they tried rotating doctors. None lasted more than a week. Some requested reassignment after the first day; some broke down at the first violent outburst from the Soldier. One had a panic attack so severe she had to be sedated and removed from the facility entirely. 

The memory of the first time HYDRA insisted on assigning a second doctor is still too vivid to forget. An older man with trembling hands and a voice that cracked at the smallest instruction. The moment he’d stepped past the threshold, the Soldier went rigid, his gaze snapping from you to the stranger, like a gun sight locking onto a target.

The doctor hadn’t even touched him. He’d reached for a stethoscope, but the Soldier had moved faster than you could shout. 

Metal collided with bone. 

The doctor went down screaming, clutching his shattered wrist. 

Restraints were deployed seconds too late and sirens screamed as the Winter Soldier fought agents with silent, feral fury.

But you… well, he tolerates you.

That’s the word they use. Tolerates. As if there’s anything neutral about his actions towards you.

The Soldier doesn’t really speak. His responses are economical: a turn of the head, a shift of weight, the faint tightening of his jaw when something displeases him. You learned his language the way one learns a foreign alphabet—slowly, and constantly terrified of making a fatal mistake that could change everything. You learned the difference between stillness and readiness, between compliance and restraint. That when his shoulders went rigid and his metal hand flexed, you needed to step back and let him recalibrate.

The change didn’t begin with trust, though. It began with fear.

The rest of the agents were afraid of him. They had every reason to be, frankly. In the weeks leading up to the incident, the Soldier had grown volatile in ways HYDRA could not easily quantify. Missions ended messier and recovery periods stretched. There were moments—brief, unsettling lapses—where commands lagged and he hesitated just long enough for alarms to register before compliance snapped back into place.

HYDRA answered the way it always did: with punishment and pressure. And you saw the cost written across his body.

Until you finally stood your ground and intervened.

The Soldier had been awake for six minutes when the alarms went off. 

You knew this because you were watching the numbers climb in real time: heart rate spiking dangerously fast, blood pressure surging high enough to trigger red warnings across the console. His respiration was shallow and uneven, each breath dragged through clenched teeth and dilated nostrils. The biometric sensors embedded in the containment room floor registered rapid, erratic movement.

Pacing.

That was already bad.

“Why isn’t he responding?” An agent snapped behind you.

You didn’t answer immediately, your eyes still locked on the glass.

Inside the reinforced medical room, the Soldier moved like a caged animal. Back and forth, bare feet silent against the white floor, and metal arm rhythmically flexing and unclenching with a soft, mechanical hum. His head twitched even at the hiss of the vents, a low growl vibrating dangerously in his chest at the distant echo of boots in the corridor.

He was awake, but he wasn’t present.

“Soldier.” His handler barked, activating the intercom. “Stand down.”

No response.

At the next command—louder, sharper—he stilled for half a second, long enough for hope to painfully tighten your chest. Then, he turned abruptly toward the glass, eyes wild and unfocused searching not for authority, but for threat.

His vitals spiked again.

“Sedate him.” The handler ordered.

Your fingers curled hard around the edge of the console. “No.”

The word came out harsher than you intended.

You forced yourself to breathe, to think clinically. “If you sedate him now, you’ll exacerbate his fever.”

“What do you suggest then, Doctor?” Your title was laced with mockery.

You decided to ignore the umpteenth jab at your competence, swallowing as your eyes nervously flicked back to the glass.

“I need to go in.”

The room went quiet.

“That is not in accordance with the protocol.” He gritted out, earning himself a glare.

“I’m aware.” Your eyes didn’t waver as they met his. 

Inside the containment room, the Soldier struck the glass without warning, causing the whole room to flinch. The punch was not hard enough to crack it, yet the impact furiously reverberated through the observation wing. His metal hand connected again, producing a deep, resonant thud. His breathing was louder now, ragged, bordering on a growl.

His heart rate surged past one-sixty.

“Doctor—”

“If I don’t intervene now,” you said quietly, “You’re going to have to deal with a full-scale breach in under two minutes.”

Although they hesitated, you didn’t wait for their permission.

The moment the door to the observation wing slid open, something changed—not immediately, but the monitors noticed before anyone else did.

His heart rate dipped just a fraction. From one-sixty to one-fifty-six. His breathing hitched, then slowed, unevenly at first, as if his body had recognized a familiar presence that his mind still struggled to place.

You took a step into the containment room and the Soldier froze—a machine stalling after a conflicting input.

His head slowly turned toward you, his gaze snapping to your face and holding, unblinking, as if everyone else had just disappeared.

His breathing was still edged with some unnamed strain, yet each inhale felt deeper than the last. Controlled in a way that seemed forced, like he was dragging himself back from the brim of madness by sheer instinct alone. The rigid line of his shoulders eased with it, almost imperceptibly, but your eyes noticed it at once. 

The metal hand that had been clenched tight twitched, before fingers began uncurling one by one.

“Vitals stabilizing.” Someone murmured over the comms.

You ignored them and simply took another careful step forward.

“It’s alright.” You whispered, low enough that it wouldn’t carry past the barrier of reinforced glass. “You’re safe.”

You had no idea how much those words mattered to him.

His blown pupils tracked you with unnerving precision, following each movement of your body as if pulled by an invisible thread. He didn’t blink, nor looked away. It was the same way he watched you during examinations, through wound care, and in those long hours when you sat beside his cot and pretended not to notice how he would inconspicuously inch closer each time.

As if losing sight of you meant the world would pulverize below his feet.

You stopped far enough to not invade his personal space.

“Good.” You murmured, more to yourself than to him. “Just breathe with me.”

The monitors confirmed his compliance: heart rate down to one-thirty; blood pressure falling into safer ranges; temperature still elevated, but no longer climbing.

Behind the glass, the agents stared in silence.

“He didn’t respond to any of our commands.” One of them said under his breath.

You swallowed.

You knew it was only a matter of time before they would realize it.

You almost flinched when the Soldier took a deliberate step toward you, not aggressively. Every muscle in your body tightened anyway, instinct screaming at you to run and lock the door. But you didn’t back away. You had learned, painfully, that sudden motion broke whatever fragile equilibrium existed between you two.

He stopped close enough that you could not ignore the faint sheen of sweat along his temples, your eyes instantly catching the subtle tremor in his flesh hand that only appeared when he was overstimulated.

His eyes never left your face, though.

That’s when you gently lifted a hand, palm open. “Easy.”

His focus narrowed on the movement, his left hand uncertainly mimicking you, until cold metal met warm skin. The contact was light, but his pulse spiked anyway. Then, just as quickly, it settled.

“Heart rate down another ten.” Someone whispered.

You felt sick. Not because of him, but because of what this meant in their eyes.

They had suspected it before. Documented it in cautious, clinical language: the subject exhibited reduced agitation in the presence of primary medical staff. There was notable improvement in compliance during examinations conducted by you.

But what they mistook for obedience was nothing more than fixation.

And as the Winter Soldier stood in front of you—calm, silent, barely held together by your presence—you realized that whatever HYDRA had carved out of him, whatever they had taken away, they still couldn’t reach that deeply broken part of his mind that had latched onto you and refused to let go.

Without you, he spiraled: violent, unresponsive, lost in a haze of half-awareness and threat assessment. With you, his body remembered how to regulate itself. His fury quieted and his attention settled.

“Doctor,” the handler called slowly. “You may step back now.”

The Soldier’s head snapped up at the interfering noise.

His shoulders locked, palm pressing more insistently against yours. With his chest heaving quicker than normal, anyone could clearly see that his fragile control was splintering at the edges once again.

“If I step back,” you mumbled, keeping yourself still. “His vitals will spike again.”

No one answered.

Inside the containment room, the Soldier didn’t break contact with your hand—he just leaned closer to meet your eyes, enough that you could feel the rough, warm drag of his breathing tickling your nose. His posture was protective without being hostile, his formidable body subtly angled between you and the rest of the agents.

A warning to everyone else. A barrier between what had become his fixed point in the fog and the avid tide trying to take it away from him. 

“Alright.” The handler sneered at last. “Maintain position.”

You briefly closed your eyes, allowing yourself a slow sigh of relief. When your eyelids fluttered open again, the Soldier was still watching you, his breathing unconsciously syncing to yours.

From that moment on, nothing was ever the same again.

The containment wing is quiet, the silence settling in around the fact that you’re the only one left. Everyone soon learned that lingering would only lead to more troubles.

The reinforced glass wall stands between you and the Soldier once again, thick enough to stop a tank and threaded with sensors that track every shift of his weight, every minute fluctuation in his vitals. You sit alone at the console, tablet tucked against your ribs and eyes flicking between the readouts and the man behind the barrier. The room is all white and steel, with fluorescent lights loudly buzzing overhead like insects burrowed in your skull. 

He is standing today, shoulders squared, head slightly bowed, gaze fixed on you with unnerving intensity. You can’t hold it for long. Attention from him has always felt… dangerous. Like voluntarily stepping onto a frozen lake knowing it will inevitably crack beneath your feet. 

You keep your eyes on the monitors instead, scrolling through vitals you don’t like and couldn’t fix fast enough.

Even without looking at the data, his posture tells you how bad the night was. 

His heart rate is elevated—steady, yes, but high—and cortisol levels haven’t returned back to baseline since he was last put under. It’s clear that the serum is working overtime to compensate for something HYDRA refuses to name. Because the wound should have healed by now—a ballistic injury to the right side of the abdomen, deep enough to cause significant pain but not to damage any vital organ. Under normal circumstances, the serum would have closed it within two days. You have seen him regenerate from worse, his torn muscles and shattered bones reforming with brutal efficiency. Despite that, this time the tissue remains angrily inflamed, the sutures pulling tight instead of dissolving.

An asset that doesn’t heal is an asset that can fail. 

So they caged him here, again.

“At least vitals are holding for now.” You mutter to yourself.

He doesn’t respond, but his head tilts as you speak, just slightly, as if orienting himself toward your voice. The monitors reflect the hitch in his breathing instantly, and that causes you to shift your weight uncomfortably, the chair creaking slightly under you.

His metal hand lifts, fingers flexing once against the glass, this time not striking it. Just touching, as if to claim the boundary. Your throat tightens at the sight, forcing yourself to move your eyes back on the medical charts.

You have been listed as essential personnel. Singular. The only one he allows near him. The only one he hasn’t tried to kill until now. All because of that fateful night, three months ago. He hadn’t calmed until you had shoved past the guards and coaxed him with your shaky voice and his palm against yours. 

And HYDRA had taken note, as usual.

You keep staring at the same line for too long, until the numbers stop making sense and instead start looking more like indefinite shapes—meaningless, looping back on themselves. You drag a hand down your face and lean closer to the console, scrolling back up on your tablet, then down again, as if repetition might magically manifest a solution.

The serum markers now look like they’re fighting something.

Your fingers still, before you pull up a secondary panel to overlay two datasets, and your stomach drops. 

Threaded through the Soldier’s bloodstream like a parasite is an unfamiliar compound, its elevated concentration persistent.

“That’s not right.” You murmur.

Behind the glass, the Soldier’s spine straightens, eyes narrowing as if he’s felt the shift in your mood and decided he doesn’t like it at all. 

You glance up at him automatically. “Wait a second,” you’re already pushing back your chair. “Just—wait.”

His brow furrows in displeasure.

You step toward the door, loudly knocking on the metallic surface until the agent stationed outside opens the small view hatch, only his eyes visible to you. “Call Dr. Keller,” you say quickly. “Tell him it’s urgent.”

The guard hesitates for a mere second, before you hear him walk away.

In the meantime, behind you there’s a dull thump that pulls your attention back to the man caged there.

Your head snaps towards him, just in time to see the Soldier’s metal hand rest against the glass, but his fingers are now spread wide, pressing. His jaw is clenched, blue eyes fixed on you because you’ve drifted too far, out of his reach.

“I’m right here.” You cajole. “I’ll be back soon.”

His answer comes in the form of his flesh hand curling slowly into a fist by his side.

Dr. Keller arrives a few minutes later. 

He’s older, silver-haired, immaculate in a way that suggests choice rather than coercion. His confident posture is that of a man who belongs here because he wants to. 

Barely sparing the Asset a glance, he takes a small step into the room.

“What do you want?” He asks, already impatient.

You turn the tablet in his direction, yet he hardly looks at the screen. “This compound,” your finger taps the value. “It’s interfering with the serum. It shouldn’t be there at all. What is it?”

Keller squints at it, then his expression smooths in pure indifference.

“Oh. That.” He comments bored. “It’s CX-17.”

Your heartbeat quickens, something in your chest curling just wrong at the name. “And what exactly is CX-17?”

His hesitation lasts long enough for it to be intentional. “A behavioral catalyst. Part of Project Genesis.”

You squint at him in confusion. “Project what?”

Keller exhales through his nose, eyes rolling. “You weren’t cleared for the full scope, obviously. But I’m feeling generous today, since you clearly lack the intellectual capacity to reach any logical conclusion by yourself.” You grimace at his condescending tone.

“The serum alone is limited. Replication has been unsuccessful and subjects don’t survive long enough for meaningful results, so the Winter Soldier Program was suspended indefinitely.”

Your mouth dries. “What does that have to do with this compound?”

An annoyed huff falls from his lips. “The Asset remains the only viable template, therefore natural compatibility was… explored.”

The last word lands wrong.

“What do you mean ‘explored’?” 

Keller’s eyes briefly flick toward the glass, then back to you. “Attempts were made to encourage reproductive behavior. He resisted. Violently. So the directive was adjusted accordingly.”

“You drugged him.” Horror dawns on your features, your voice nothing short of a whisper.

“We enhanced instinctual drives and suppressed inhibitions.” Keller snaps. “CX-17 was designed to lower resistance. It was a necessary step to secure the future of HYDRA.”

“No. You created an untested compound,” you start slowly, the words feeling like shards of glass on your tongue. “And pumped it into a body already under extreme physiological stress. And you didn’t even think to mention it to me?”

“It wasn’t your concern.”

A sharp, disbelieving laugh escapes you. “I am his doctor.” Your voice rises. “You weakened the serum and destabilized him, and you didn’t even notice because you were too busy trying to turn him into—into a breeding machine!”

Keller’s face darkens as he takes a step forward. “Watch your tone, you little, insolent bitch.”

Your eyes harden, far from intimated as your shoulders straighten. “How dare you—”

A thunderous bang cuts you off.

The glass shudders as the Soldier slams his fist into it once. Twice. The sound is deafening up close. His breathing is irregular, shoulders rising and falling harshly as he regards you with eyes blown wide—fury, agitation, and something far less controlled flickering beneath it.

Your body instinctively faces him. “Soldier—”

Keller swears under his breath as he starts backing toward the door. “You seriously think you matter to that mutt?” He spits venomously. “You’re a variable, that’s all. And when you’ll stop being useful, he—”

Another blow. Harder enough for cracks to spiderweb the reinforced glass.

Keller pales. The sentence dies in his throat and with one last frown, he turns and quickly punches in the access code—the same one deliberately withheld from you, the person who knows this room and its equipment like the back of your hand—shouting for the guards as the door closes with finality behind him.

What a pathetic worm. 

Behind the glass, the Soldier roars—raw and wordless—slamming both of his fists against the barrier, rage finally breaking free of whatever flimsy control he had clung onto until now.

The monitor spikes, prompting you to run towards the console, throwing the tablet somewhere nearby.

“Don’t—” You gasp, but it’s too late. His heart rate surges again as his gaze locks onto the door behind you. 

“No!” You shout, but another blow strikes the glass. “Hey! Stop. Look at me.”

He freezes mid-motion, eyes flying to your face.

You move closer to the glass, palm lifting slowly, deliberately, as if approaching a skittish wild animal that could either bolt or break. 

“It’s me, see?” Your voice shakes, so you swallow around the lump of fear clogging your throat. “It’s only me in here.”

He wheezes once, as if his lungs forgot how to work properly, before his chest starts moving at a more normal pace. The fist lowers shakily, fingers uncurling as violence drains out in increments. At last, his forehead drops to rest against the glass with a tired, hollow thud.

Your palm meets the barrier, waiting for him to place his directly opposite to yours. “Good,” you whisper. “That’s it.” The monitors follow your lead.

You let out a long exhale at that point. Your startled reflection stares back at you, overlaid with his impassive face, so impossibly close. The proximity inevitably drags your mind back to a few weeks ago. 

It was past midnight when a handler shoved him inside the medical bay, scornfully laughing. “All yours, Doctor. He didn’t move fast enough.” 

The man left as fast as he came, the metal door locking behind him.

As your gaze returned to the still Soldier, you noticed a fresh, long cut sitting on his right forearm, the fabric of his tactical shirt ruined. Without thinking, your fingertips gently brushed the skin surrounding the wound, causing a shiver to run down his spine.

For the first time, his pupils dilated noticeably with something far from rage. You missed it entirely, too focused on retrieving some antiseptic, but he couldn’t take his eyes off your lips and the concern in your furrowed eyebrows as you asked him to sit on the cot. 

He inhaled deeply at the way your fingers tenderly wrapped around his wrist as you started to clean the cut, overtaken by a sudden, primal impulse that his programming couldn’t contain. And then, as you were cutting some gauze, something small and almost absurd appeared from his gear: a crumpled, battered flower. Most of the petals were gone, leaving nothing more than the crumpled stem clutched carefully in his metal hand.

“Oh.” Your eyes blinked in surprise at the sad daisy. Your weight shifted uncomfortably under his expectant blue eyes, hungrily waiting for your reaction.

“Is this…” You spoke meekly. “For me?” A sharp, quick nod. “I uhm... t—thank you, Soldier.” You mumbled finally, gently taking the offered gift. “I… never got flowers.” A careless, mumbled afterthought, only meant for you.

The Soldier frowned as if you had just spoken in a foreign language, his brain not comprehending how a pretty woman like you had never received flowers. His fingers flexed where they rested uselessly on his thighs, visibly uncertain about his next move.

The corners of your lips lifted in a genuine, small smile, hands already reaching back for the gauze when the Soldier stood up with sharp precision, forcing you to look up at him with wide eyes as you tried to take a few steps back.

He was faster.

Towering over you as he leaned in, his lips caught yours in a clumsy, desperate kiss. His mouth moved frantically, taking advantage of your little, startled gasp to shove his eager tongue in your mouth as his hands impulsively reached for your waist, tugging you closer with possessive certainty. Like he needed to make sure you weren’t just a lovely figment of his abused brain. 

You froze completely, feeling your heart slam painfully against your ribs. And yet, your body gradually turned pliant in his tight hold.

The kiss became more insistent, charged with urgent need. 

You should have stopped him. Should have taken a step back and made a run for the door to shout for his handler to take him away.

But instead, your eyelids fluttered close and your lips tried to keep up with his desperation, one hand cupping his jaw as your thumb brushed his cheekbone. All the caution and the fear dissolved with a stolen, fragile human gesture, sweet in his awkwardness.

You tried to avoid it, you forbade yourself from picturing his handsome features during those cold nights spent alone in your cell. And yet, the more you were forced to take care of the Soldier, the more you grew used to his silent, insistent presence and his constant watch over you during long, lonely hours.

And he, in turn, started to crave your gentleness and the way your pretty eyes would glance up at him with poorly concealed trepidation.

In that moment, the world narrowed to the feel of his rough hands palming your curves and the faint taste of copper on his tongue. The crushed stem rested between your palm and his chest. Something fragile held against something unsteady, caught in hands too tight to tell the difference between keeping and breaking.

Mine, his eyes screamed when you finally pulled away.

Ownership.

And God help you—you let it happen.

The memory shatters as a shrill creak resounds sharply in the room. Your eyes fly to your left, where the Soldier had moved. His metal hand is wrapped around the reinforced handle of the door, plates whirring as he tests it—pulling, twisting, applying calculated force. 

He wants out. He wants you.

“Hey,” you bark, your pulse ringing in your ears as you rush toward the console. “No, Soldier. Stop.”

His head turns just enough to meet your eyes. Then, his lips wrap around your name. Rough. Unused. The sound of it sends a chill down your spine.

“I’m here, I’m fine.” You babble. “You don’t need to come out.”

You can see the moment hesitation crosses his mind in the way his grip weakens for a mere second, before all hell breaks loose.

The Soldier plants his feet too wide, like the floor might slide out from under him, and presses his metal hand to the seam of the door, holding. His fingers curl and uncurl a couple of times, as if deciding how much strength to use. His shoulders begin to shake then, jaw locking hard enough that you can hear his teeth grind through the glass. His breath stutters out of him in short, broken growls, fogging the reinforced pane in front of his face.

“Please.” You beg, barely louder than a breath.

The word hits something already fractured.

His flesh hand slams flat against the door.

The impact booms through the room, a deep, concussive sound that rattles the console and thunders in your ribcage. The door doesn’t give, not immediately, but the frame shrieks in protest.

He hits it again.

This time he doesn’t pull back fully. He leans into it, forehead dropping to the steel, spine bowing as he pushes. The shaking gets worse, travels through him in violent tremors, like his body is overloading, like too much power is trying to flow through the limited space of his veins.

His right arm joins the metal one.

A low, involuntary snarl claws out of his throat, and then he pulls.

Something pops. A hinge shears halfway through with a sharp crack, the sound brief but catastrophic. The door tilts a fraction of an inch, enough that the frame bends, and bolts snap free one after another, pinging across the floor like shrapnel. 

With one final, brutal surge, he rips the door free of its housing. It tears loose with a roar that dies abruptly when the slab of reinforced steel crashes to the floor, denting it. The alarms begin their wail, red lights strobing the room, yet he stands there unbothered, framed by ruin, with the broken door at his feet like a fallen shield. His chest rises and falls like he’s just surfaced from deep water, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides as his gaze finally flicks over you with quick efficiency—hands, throat, face—checking. Cataloging.

If it was someone else, they would have completely missed the subtle way his eyes soften, like tension easing from a drawn wire.

The room is now open. And all that force, all that damage, was only ever aimed at getting to you.

Every instinct you have—doctor, captive, human—screams at you to run when the Soldier takes a step closer.

Your legs don’t listen though, even if your mind supplies you with a thousand terrible endings per minute as he keeps moving stealthily. A predator relishing the sight of his wounded prey before finally indulging in his coveted feast.

At the very beginning, when his anger started pouring out wild and unrestrained, you thought that there would be a moment he’ll turn on you as well. That you were foolish to believe you were different.

Maybe that day has finally come.

The Soldier stops right in front of you. You can see the conflict still raging behind the blue in his eyes, where anger stays coiled tight, barely leashed. He smells like metal, antiseptic and something burned. 

His flesh hand lifts, hesitating, then falls back to his side like he’s afraid of what it might do.

“I need you.” He says hoarsely. A confession.

Your throat tightens. Slowly, you decide to nod. “I know,” you whisper. “I’m here.”

That’s all it takes.

He closes the distance, wrapping his muscled arms around your waist to pull you into his chest. It’s sudden and fierce, but still controlled—tight without crushing, as if holding a fragile possession he doesn’t trust himself to keep intact. His chin drops to your shoulder, breath hot and uneven against your neck.

Your hands hover uselessly for a heartbeat, before they uncertainly land on his back, delicately resting on his trembling shoulders. His body shudders at the contact. The storm inside his chest doesn’t dissolve completely, but it quiets, contained by the simple fact of having you in his arms.

Your eyes reluctantly close, an attempt to control your still racing pulse. Fear has braided tightly with a warmer sensation stirring in your belly, you realize horrifically. It’s not a secret that you have always been terrified of him, of what he could do if a wrong word dared to fall from your lips. And yet, here in his hold, standing in a room that resembles more a battlefield littered with steel and dust, you feel safe enough to breathe.

Once your cheek tentatively comes to rest against his chest, your focus narrows on his heartbeat.

It’s still too fast.

The sirens finally cut out one by one, as if even the system knows better than to challenge the Soldier right now.

Your fingers on his back twitch, instinctively curling in the snug fabric of his tactical shirt, before relaxing again. Your body feels divided—half screaming to pull away, half unwilling to test what might happen if you do.

His arms tighten, perceiving your sudden reluctance.

This is wrong, you think. This is all so wrong.

Project Genesis.

The letters keep pulsing behind your eyelids, nauseating in their simplicity. Creation. Beginning. Dr. Keller talked about it as if what they had done, what they had planned, was anything other than abuse dressed up in language that made men like him and Pierce feel important.

Your stomach twists violently.

You stood confused at this console for weeks... months. You obsessed over his vitals, adjusted dosages, charted reactions as you softly reassured him while the others kept barking orders. And all the while, something very specific had been running through his veins.

Something meant to break him.

“I didn’t know.” The words slip out without permission, thin and useless. Your vision blurs at once, tears welling too fast for dignity. You squeeze your eyes shut, but they spill anyway, hot and uncontrollable, soaking the fabric of his shirt.

“I didn’t know,” you sob. “I swear I didn’t—I would have—”

Your voice collapses completely.

The weight of it crashes down on you all at once. Not just the revelation, but everything that came before it. Every order you followed, every time you told yourself this is the only way you could keep him alive. Every moment you chose caution over confrontation.

A stupid, complicit coward—that’s what you are.

Your shoulders begin to shake. Embarrassed, you attempt to hide yourself by curling inward, forehead pressing harder against his pec.

You should have pried more, should have seen it. You’re a doctor, yet you blindly accepted whatever ineffective explanation they fed you.

“I let them do this to you,” you choke. “I let them use you. I was there. I was right there.”

Each sharp, stinging breath feels like a deserved punishment.

“I’m so sorry.” Your voice is feeble, almost inaudible. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The Soldier doesn’t move. For a terrifying second, you think you’ve gone too far, that your collapse has triggered some hidden, trauma response.

Until there is a subtle shift. 

His chin lowers, resting awkwardly on the top of your head, as if not entirely sure he’s doing it right.

“Stop.” The Soldier rasps out, lips briefly touching your temple.

You try, you really do, but the apologies keep flowing like a river in the middle of a storm, tangled and incoherent.

“I didn’t mean to—God, I didn’t—please believe me—”

“Not your fault.”

The words are blunt, stripped of any softness, but they land like a hand braced against your back meant to steady you.

You shake your head violently against his chest. “It is. It has to be. I was part of it, I was part of the—”

“No.” 

No elaboration, no uncertainty.

A weak laugh emerges through the tears, not a single trace of humor in it.

“You don’t understand.”

His next exhale is sharp, tinged with barely contained frustration. One arm loosens enough around your waist for him to pull back, not to release you, but to face you without any obstacles that could make you doubt the meaning behind his words.

You never noticed how piercing his eyes are up close. Almost too aware. 

“You didn’t hurt me. They did.” He continues solemnly. “You fixed my wounds. You talked to me... You stayed.”

“That’s not enough.” You sniffle, lips pressed tightly as they try to hold back an embarrassing sob.

“It is.” He answers at once.

You break again at that. A sound tears out of your chest, raw and forlorn as you throw yourself back into his arms, your face finding its refuge against his chest as your fingers curl around his forearms like an anchor.

“I’m scared of you,” you admit, the truth tasting like blood. “And I hate myself for that too.”

His body stiffens almost imperceptibly.

“I know.” He whispers.

“I thought you would hurt me,” you continue, words spilling faster now that the seal has broken. “At first. Every day, I kept waiting for it, waiting for the moment you’d decide I was like them.”

A broken chuckle bubbles up, humorless. “Maybe I am.”

His arms tense around you. “Never.”

His voice is rough at the edges. “You’re different. Always were.”

Blinking up at him with your vision still swimming with tears, you swallow thickly. “How can you be so sure of that?”

The Soldier hesitates—a pause where language fails him, where concepts don’t line up neatly because of the constant wipings.

“You don’t look at me like… weapon.” He mumbles carefully, a deep crease forming between his eyebrows as they furrow pensively. “You don’t raise your voice. You always ask.”

Your chin trembles dangerously.

“You listen.” He adds. “And you’re kind.” He nods as if stating a fact. “And beautiful.”

The last word is quiet, almost uncertain.

It hits you like a physical blow to your ribs. You had not expected that, not now. The intimacy of it feels treacherous and precious all at once in such a fragile moment.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He confesses suddenly, tension creeping back into his shoulders. His grip tightens again, reflexively. “I didn’t want to… they were asleep.”

The information feels like a bucket of icy water being dumped on your head.

“They wanted me to touch them, and—and do...” The words come out shakily. You swallow thickly once you realize his eyes have never looked so haunted, staring somewhere past you, as if the memory had successfully sucked him back. 

“I don’t want that. I—I refused.” His jaw clenches. “I just want you.”

The words are desperate. Simple. 

Around you, the red lights finally dim as well, until they go completely dark, the automated voice in the corridor announcing containment failure cut off mid-syllable, replaced by a heavy, unnatural silence that presses in on your ringing ears.

His arms lock around your waist, metal and flesh equally unyielding, anchoring you back against his torso as his wobbly chin hovers near the crown of your head. Every passing second, his grip tightens imperceptibly, until you are struggling to breath properly.

That’s when you feel it.

The hard press of something against your belly.

Your eyes widen abruptly.

In a last, desperate attempt to put at least a little distance between the two of you, you press your unsteady palm on his right pec, pushing just slightly. The Soldier instantly goes rigid, eyes flicking down to frown at the contact.

“You need to let me go.” You breathe out shakily.

The words are careful, measured. The same way you spoke to him when you adjusted his restraints, or changed a dressing after a particular brutal mission.

“No.” He replies. A single syllable that feels like a final verdict.

Your stomach drops.

“Someone’s going to come.” You swallow, your voice lacking conviction even to your own ears. “They’ll want to secure the area, they’ll... punish you.”

He doesn’t answer.

Minutes pass and the weight of his erection gets more insistent, just like his eyes on yours.

Finally, several footsteps echo somewhere far away, heavy and fast, causing you to perk up at the movement beyond the door—boots, murmured voices, the faint hiss of radios. Relief flares in your chest so intensely it makes you dizzy.

“They’re here.” You whisper, teeth biting the inside of your cheek to maintain your calm front.

His hold tightens. Not enough to hurt, just to remind.

“Stay.”

Then, the voices outside grow clearer.

“… Not worth it.”

“… You saw the damage on the glass...”

“… Calm now.”

Your breath hitches.

A familiar voice cuts through the thick metal door.

“Hold position,” one of the handlers barks. “No further advance.”

A pause.

“But sir—”

“He’s not agitated,” he grits out. “Vitals stabilized the moment she stepped in. You go in there, you change the equation and we are all dead.”

Another voice speaks up, uneasy. “What about the Doctor?”

Silence.

“If the Asset kills her,” the man states flatly. “Then she’s no longer a stabilizing factor. That tells us everything we need to know.”

Your blood turns to ice.

The handler goes on, cruel in his indifference. “She’s a variable, and variables are not meant to last.”

Your lips part but no sound comes out.

The Soldier’s grip shifts, pulling you impossibly closer, his body angling subtly between you and the door, as if protecting you from them.

“You’re safe.” He says.

The way his lips gently close around the lie has you shivering.

Your eyes are imploring as you weakly try to convince him again.

“I need to leave.”

The Soldier exhales sharply from his nostrils.

“No.” 

Both of your palms lie against his chest, pushing, testing. “I have to—”

His arms squeeze once again your waist, this time with enough strength to trap you against his firm body without hurting you. 

Ownership without chaos.

“Mine.” His voice repeats low, eyes glancing down at your lips with a glint dangerously close to panic. “Don’t go.”

The back of your eyes sting with fresh tears.

This is the breaking point you hadn’t let yourself imagine. The certainty of your fate seeps into your bones like cold—cruel and deep—as the minutes drag on and no one intervenes. No door opening, no voice calling your name. No order shouted to stand down.

HYDRA had made its decision.

They had weighed your life against his compliance and found you expendable.

At that point, the fight slowly drains out of you as the truth takes root in your heart, the way your body finally sags in surrender in his arms being interpreted by his fractured mind as acceptance.

“They’re not coming. They won’t help,” you mumble. “Even if you hurt me.”

You almost regret letting those words in the open when the small twinkle of hope dancing in his eyes dims abruptly. You try to hide in dejection, but the Soldier won’t allow that. Carefully, he places a shaky finger under your chin, tenderly lifting it until you are facing him again. His gaze searches yours with disturbing intensity, scanning for distress, for injury... for something he refuses to acknowledge.

“Hurt?”

“No.” You sigh tiredly. You peek at him through your lashes with your lips trembling in fear as your next words come out in a hushed whisper. “But you could.”

Confusion dawns on his handsome face, like the concept doesn’t fit with the way the world works in his head.

“I won’t.” 

Your gaze drifts past his shoulder to the sealed door, to the place where armed men stood listening and chose not to act. Where your life quietly stopped being worth the effort.

Your voice shakes. “Then… if I wanted to leave… would you let me?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Both his hands leave a trail of goosebumps as they slide from your hips to your wrists, thumbs pressed into the soft skin there, grounding himself.

“No.” He says with finality. Simple and honest.

His head leans down until his forehead finally meets yours. “I need you.” He repeats softly, as if that justified everything.

His breathing finally slows once he realizes you aren’t trying to pull away anymore. Your body turns pliant in his hold, hopeless and devoid of any belligerency as your eyes flutter shut with exhaustion. Your nerves are stretched thin to the point of numbness, yet your mind keeps screaming at you that you should be terrified.

And you are, to a degree. Some part of you is acutely aware of the danger of being cuddled by a war criminal who could snap your spine with his pinky. The vivid sight of the door falling, the lethal efficiency of his movements, the violence he unleashed on anyone who wasn’t you... they are still too fresh.

But wrapped up in that fear is a feeling you tried to push down for weeks. Something... you should be ashamed of.

Safety.

The Soldier has never hurt you. Not once. Not with his hands, nor with his voice. Even in his worst moments, he always stopped when you spoke, always turned back to the sound of your voice like you were his beacon in the middle of a sea-storm.

You had told yourself, at first, that it was conditioning. Then you tried to convince yourself it had to be pity. How could you not feel for a man stripped of his name, his memories, his choices? Used and discarded by the same people who had stolen your life without an ounce of guilt. It was natural, you reasoned, to feel compassion. To want to be gentle with someone so thoroughly brutalized.

That explanation held, for a while.

But pity didn’t explain the way your breath caught when he stood too close. Or the way you’d begun to notice the lines of his muscles, the quiet intensity whenever his eyes met yours; the strange, restrained grace in the way he moved when he wasn’t being weaponized.

Pity didn’t explain the way your body had responded to the kiss in the medical bay without thought.

You swallow around the lump in your throat.

Isolation and trauma pushed a mind desperate to find meaning—or comfort—anywhere it could. You were kidnapped, imprisoned, stripped of agency. Of course you had latched onto the one person who didn’t treat you like an object.

Of course you’d mistaken that for something deeper.

And yet.

You carefully lift your head, truly pausing to study his face. The Soldier is observing you again, always watching, expression unreadable but focused, memorizing the shape of your eyes, and the curve of your lips... as if expecting for his handler to come and shake him awake.

He is beautiful—in a stark, broken way.

That frightens you as well.

Your eyelids flutter close, a lonely tear slipping free despite your best efforts to calm yourself.

Maybe you should have fought harder, screamed for help while he was still trying to break the door. You should have tried to run while you still could. But the ugly, inescapable truth is that the sole idea of being dragged back into HYDRA’s hands is more terrifying than standing here with him.

He is a prisoner, and so are you. You are the same, in that way: both trapped, owned, and reduced to functions. The only difference is that he is dangerous enough to be feared, and you aren’t worth even a spare glance. The Soldier is the only one who has ever made room for your humanity in this hell, even if he does it in the wrong way, for the wrong reasons, with a possessiveness that bleeds into obsession. That doesn’t mean, however, that you want to pursue this feeling. You know deep down in your guts that this bond is too fragile, built on circumstances that can shift without warning. One day, something might break, and you could be on the wrong side of it.

It’s only when his chest moves with a ragged breath that you notice the hard clench of his jaw. Your hand instantly reaches out to gently caress the tense muscle, yet your fingers still when the heat radiating off the solid wall of his chest becomes unbearably abnormal.

“What—” You whisper, the concern for him breaking through despite your despair. “What happened? It’s okay, you’re okay.”

His long locks tickle your skin as he tucks his chin, nose leisurely nuzzling the skin of your cheek, then tracing its way down to the slope of your neck. He stops right where your pulse thunders, inhaling your smell with a hungry grunt. 

Your body locks the moment his tongue takes a slow lick of your skin, a moan vibrating in his ribcage at your taste.

It can’t be—

His metal hand moves before you can elaborate. Big, cold fingers curl bruisingly around your wrists, a yelp falling from your lips as he pins them flat to his chest. His other hand stays heavy on the curve of your waist, flexing and digging into your skin as you squirm without success.

“S—Soldier.” Your voice breaks. “I think—you need to let me go now and—and go back—”

You don’t get the chance to finish, because he is pushing you back against the console, firmly enough to convey who has the upper hand. He towers over you, pining you with his weight against the edge that digs painfully into your back. 

“I need—” He groans against your throat. 

Your desperate attempt to free yourself dies as his tongue invades your mouth. Your fists weakly thump against his chest, but his flesh hand grips your chin with tight precision, forcing you to relax into the animalistic kiss that is more tongue and teeth than lips. His metal arm is unyielding around your torso, keeping you nice and still as his hips jerk forward, humping your covered mound in search of some kind of relief.

“Please, help me, need you, only you please.” He quietly whines against your lips, a mess of spit connecting your lips as he pants in your open mouth.

“Wait—” Your fingers curl against the rough fabric of his shirt. “I don’t—”

You choke on your next words as his hand lands on your thigh, squeezing the flesh hard. 

“We stay quiet.” He commands roughly. “So they don’t hear and—they can’t use you like those women.”

Your gasp is horrified, eyes going wide at the implication. “No!” You whisper-shout, petrified at the possibility of the agents potentially finding out and... 

“Please, please, don’t make me do it!” Your vision soon turns blurry again, and your eyes are hurting so badly. You are so tired of crying. “I can’t—”

The Soldier pulls back just enough to look at you, his hazy eyes reminding you of the ocean abyss as they fall on your lips, lewdly tracing the bare length of your throat until they land on your cleavage, his mouth parted in awe. The possessive hand on your thigh has moved up in the meantime, squeezing the flesh of your ass, his hold turning harsher the more he loses himself in the soft swell of your breasts, until a pitiful whimper catches his attention.

“Soldier, please.” You sob out as tears earnestly fall down your cheeks, your chest caving in at the sight of him, too far gone to comprehend your words.

“I’ll make it feel better, I swear. Just—please, only want you, want you always.”

He fucks you silently, with a primal, desperate urge to possess you. His strength is barely restrained as you desperately cling onto his shoulders. 

At first the Soldier can barely contain himself, narrowly missing your hole as his cock snuggles between your dripping folds. He pants into your mouth, forcing his lips on yours in a ravenous kiss as he indulges in the wet warmth that is your pussy. His hips frantically twitch against yours, dragging his length until it’s sufficiently coated in your slick.

Then, with a growl muffled against your mouth, he slides inside you with a harsh thrust.

You had fantasized about it before, in the dark—about how big he would be, how deliciously his cock could stretch you—until you realized where your mind had wandered, and promptly rolled onto your other side with a loud huff. As if that could be enough to chase those filthy thoughts away. Still, your mind could never prepare you for the fat, veiny girth that breached you after fighting off the compound-induced flames of sexual desire burning bright inside him for who knows how many weeks. There is no warning before his flushed tip catches on your hole; no patience in the way he forces himself inside you.

Your scream is stifled by your hand, your nails digging into the hard flesh of his flesh shoulder as his own groans are hidden against the slope of your neck.

“Mine.” He grunts in your ear, stubble rubbing your smooth skin raw. “Mine, only mine.” He insists, eyes wild and hips thrusting frantically.

You can barely form a coherent word, each thrust giving you the impression that the Soldier is trying his hardest to carve the shape of his cock into your body, over and over again. Sliding in and out so fast and hard his balls slap filthily against your asscheeks, his fingers dig into your thighs, keeping them open for him to use you like his favorite toy.

“Say it.” You cry out a moan once his lips devour yours, your mind traitorously conjuring the image of that clumsy, grumpy man trying to express how much he wanted you back in the med bay.

Your back arches forward when he goes back to lavish your neck with scorching bites and fervent licks, your head limply falling back as his fingers gracelessly move on your clit, rubbing and flicking in a confused yet eager circling motion.

“Say it.” He snarls again.

“Yours!” You sob. “Fuck! Only yours—only you.”

The sheer intensity of your orgasm hits you out of nowhere, causing you to cling precariously onto his broad shoulders. Your body squirms and clenches around him yet the Soldier never slows down. He continues to rut into you furiously, the sounds of his cock slamming into your wet pussy, thrusting without restraint, are obscene. His delirious half-smile conveys a twisted sense of satisfaction at making you come on his cock, proud that he is the only one that will ever make you scream and cry out of pleasure. Because now your body would fucking know who it belongs to. 

Your mouth opens in a soundless scream as the Soldier loses himself in this sick, distorted fantasy, pushing you more firmly against that damn panel.

You mewl and pant and sniffle against your shoulder, sweaty and on the brink of exhaustion, when the little sparks of pleasure still lingering behind soon transform into an uncontrollable fire, until your body is twitching, hit by an even more intense climax. Your pussy squeezes him so tight the Soldier chokes on his own saliva, but you can’t stop spasming around his girth, sucking him deeper as your mind fractures.

You are left breathless, hands barely holding onto his back, and fuck, he needs to come now or you are going to pass out and you cannot allow that. Not when HYDRA could potentially be lingering outside, waiting for the perfect moment to swarm this place once the Soldier calms down.

Your mouth promptly finds his, your hands clutching his cheeks as you share a passionate, hot kiss that finally throws the Soldier over the edge, muffling his pitiful whines against your tongue.

His head spins when your hand shoots down, gently fondling his balls as you drag your lips down to suck on his neck, causing only more cum to spill out. A whimper falls from your lips as the thick fluid fills you unforgivingly, until it becomes too difficult to hold inside, pooling at the edges of your folds and dripping onto the once pristine floor. Your walls pulse with every throb of his cock as his thighs shake, warm ropes of cum still painting your insides relentlessly. A broken moan escapes him at the thought of finally leaving a part of himself in you.

By the time he has finished emptying himself in your pussy, your body is lying drained in his arms. The silence after stretches for a few more seconds, until the Soldier finally breaks it, his nose tracing the damp skin of your neck breathlessly.

“Mine.”

They don’t call it a reassignment.

They call it a logistical adjustment.

You find out while standing in a narrow administrative corridor that smells faintly of printed paper, from a handler who doesn’t even bother looking you in the eyes.

“Given recent containment failures,” she reads from a folder, voice clipped and disinterested. “It has been determined that subject stability increases exponentially with your prolonged presence.”

Your fingers curl around the hem of your white coat. “I’m already his doctor. His only doctor.”

“Yes.” She sighs annoyed. “But you are not always with him.”

The meaning settles like a brick in your throat.

“You’re moving me.” You state, horrified. 

The handler finally glances up, eyes flat. “We are relocating you.”

Your stomach drops.

“To the same unit.” She continues. “Sleeping quarters, monitoring station, medical access—all integrated. You will remain within visual range of the Asset at all times unless otherwise authorized.”

You swallow. “And if I refuse?”

“You won’t.” She doesn’t even blink as her hand flips through the pages with boredom. “The subject becomes unmanageable without you. This arrangement minimizes risk to personnel and infrastructure.”

“What about risk to me?” You grit out.

She gives you a faint, irked exhale. “If the Asset harms you, Doctor, then your presence is no longer stabilizing. In that case, your loss will be… regrettable, but informative.”

You are escorted through corridors you had never been allowed to see before. Darker, silent. Past reinforced doors and biometric locks until you and the two agents reach a unit that feels less like a cell and more like a sealed habitat.

“He’s already inside.”

The door opens and you step in with a shaky exhale.

The room is quite large and anonymous, with padded walls, embedded sensors and a bed—reinforced, stripped of anything that could be turned into a weapon. 

The Soldier is standing in the center of the room, motionless, as if he’s been waiting. He turns the moment the door screeches, eyes immediately locking onto you.

Relief, raw and unmistakable, washes across his face.

“You’re here.” 

“Yes.” You whisper.

The door seals shut behind you with a sense of finality.

You flinch at the sound and that promptly gets him closer to you.

“Safe.” He nods.

You don’t know if the word is meant for you, or for himself.

Your eyes tentatively wander around the cell, taking in the absence of exits and the quiet hum of surveillance under every surface. 

They reduced you to a sedative with a pulse.

You set your bag on the floor slowly, knees shaking a little as you slightly bend down.

“This doesn’t mean…” You start, but don’t even know how to finish that thought.

The Soldier observes you with that same quiet devotion, head tilted sideways and jaw unclenched. His fingers catch your wrist when your hand trembles too hard to hide.

“Stay.”

You sigh. “Yes.” 

Understanding flickers, incomplete but earnest.

“Mine.”

That word should have terrified you. Instead, it wraps around the deep and aching pit in your stomach.

Your free hand comes to rest on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath your palm. Up close, you can see the faint dark circles under his eyes, the scar along his cheek from his last mission that still hasn’t properly healed, because that damn compound is still roaring high and bright in his veins to allow the serum to act to its full potential.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t be afraid.” You add, voice barely above a whisper.

The Soldier has never been gentle with the world, but he made sure to carve a warm, comfortable place for you to exist outside of that brutality. And somehow, that terrifies you more than his violence ever has.

His fingers gently squeeze your flesh, slowly bringing your wrist to his lips, as if uncertain of how you would react.

“Mine.” He mumbles against your knuckles.

That’s the final truth you have to face. Not because you are naïve, or foolish, but because in a place that has taken everything from you, he is the only one who has ever chosen you.

Even if that choice comes wrapped in possession. Even if it means you would never truly leave.

Your shoulders sag with a dejected sigh, finally allowing your forehead to rest against his shoulder as the Soldier engulfs you in his arms. 

Two prisoners, standing in the aftermath of a shattered boundary.

Outside, HYDRA recalibrates, adjusts protocols, writes new rules that reduce your existence to an item in a report.

Here, the Winter Soldier reverently watches over the only thing that has ever quieted the static noise in his head.

And you, caught between fear and comfort, between horror and something dangerously close to affection, come to the dreadful realization that this is not a rescue story.

This is containment.

And this time, you are on the inside.

When you wake this morning, one sleepy blink shows that the sun is just high enough in the sky that your alarm will be going off any minute. The idea of pulling yourself back to consciousness makes you groan, and you tuck yourself further into your husband’s embrace, chasing comfort and sleep.

Arms tighten around you, holding you closer. More tightly than usual, but not tight enough to cause any discomfort or alarm. Your sleep-addled brain takes this as an invitation to cuddle, and maybe even earn yourself a chance of him hitting the snooze button once or twice.

You wrap your arms around him with a sleepy sigh, sliding your leg between his and rolling on top of him in the way you know always makes him melt. He goes still, which is a little strange, but immediately relaxes and slides his flesh hand up your back in a soothing gesture that has you nearly drifting back to sleep. You hum in approval, pressing a kiss to the smooth skin of his chest and closing your eyes.

You feel more tired than usual this morning. You must have gone to bed late. Stayed up working on some sort of experiment-

Experiment.

Memories flood back to you like a dam breaking. Your eyes shoot open.

He feels you tense, and his hand stills on your back.

For a moment, one brief and horrible moment, you hope. You move to sit atop him, leg still between his and hands bracing against the pillow on either side of his head as you rip yourself back into consciousness and look into his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll look down and see Bucky.

You don’t.

The Winter Soldier gazes up at you. You gaze back down at him.

Fuck. You think.

“Hi.” You say instead, voice coming out awkward and hoarse with sleep.

“Hi.” He echoes, and you feel his fingers curl against you like he’s fighting the urge to pull you back to him. You almost let him, something about the look in his eyes making it difficult to think straight, but you shake it off.

You dislodge from him, rolling out of bed fast enough that he grunts with surprise, and try to smooth down your bedhead as you do your best to hide your disappointment.

“Breakfast?” Your voice is too high. Too light to be fully convincing.

He watches you in that incredibly observant way you still aren’t fully accustomed to, eyes never leaving yours but still seeming to account for every movement of your muscles, every twitch in your expression.

“Okay.”

-

“What are you doing?”

“Checking your vitals. The comparison might help me find something.” You explain absentmindedly, holding a little flashlight in front of his eyes and moving your finger back and forth. He follows the movement obediently, and so smoothly that it’s almost inhuman. You suppose it is, with his enhanced reflexes. You owe those reflexes quite a bit of gratitude, in fact. While Bucky moves with a practiced grace, he also tends to account for your own clumsiness, catching you before you even realize you’re about to trip or snatching an item out of the air a millisecond after you drop it. Such actions are often met with your surprise, and often followed by a cocky smile.

The Winter Soldier sits unnaturally still, leaning back against the couch cushions like a statue. You can’t even see the rise and fall of his chest. 

You pull the flashlight away to scribble in your notes, and his eyes remain fixed on you.

You try to ignore the featherlight touch of his gaze, fixed on you so intensely it feels like physical contact, as you press two fingers against his neck to check his pulse.

“It’s fast.” You observe, distracted.

“You’re close.” He answers, blunt, and you finally meet his gaze.

Something familiar and electric crackles in the air. You’ve been trying to ignore it. You really have. But as his cerulean eyes bore into your own, so much desire swimming in them that it makes your knees feel weak, you find that task to be increasingly more difficult.

Slowly, like you might bolt at any moment, his large hands come up to ghost over the backs of your thighs. Your breath catches in your throat at the feeling, but you don’t run.

Gently, but with a palpable restraint, he tugs you down into his lap, positioning your knees on either side of his hips without once breaking eye contact. You feel like you’ve been placed under some sort of spell. Like you couldn’t speak even if you wanted to.

Slowly, ever so slowly, a warm hand trails up over your side, his eyes following the movement like he’s hypnotized by the goosebumps he leaves behind. By the shiver that falls down your spine. His body tenses beneath yours, restraint fraying ever so slightly as his metal hand tightens on your leg. He presses two calloused fingers to your own pulse point, though you’re sure he can already hear how your heart is jackhammering in your chest.

“It’s fast.” He says, and his voice is low. His eyes are dark.

You nod, and, like he’s testing the waters, he moves his fingers away from your pulse, sliding them into your hair, and leans in to replace them with his lips.

The contact makes your breath stop. Makes your entire body freeze. When you feel his teeth scrape gently against the sensitive skin of your jaw, that breath comes back to you in the form of a sharp gasp.

His metal hand moves, sliding underneath your shirt to feel the skin of your lower back, and he tugs you closer to him until your chest is flush with his. Until you can feel his heartbeat against your own.

His lips move lower, trailing slow, hungry kisses over your neck like he’s chasing any noise he can pull from your throat. Your hands come up to his shoulders, and you tell yourself that it’s to push him away, but your fingers curl in the front of his shirt as if of their own accord.

“Bucky.” You whisper, the name leaving you like a sigh and a plea all at once.

“Yes.” He says, voice a craving growl against your throat. “I can be Bucky. Let me be Bucky for you.”

The words make you pause, and he feels it. His arms lock around you like he’s planning to keep you in place forever.

“Don’t make me stop.” He says, voice a low rasp that you can feel vibrating in your very bones. You can’t tell if it’s a command or a plea. Can’t bring yourself to care. Without warning, he flips you so your back hits the cushions of the couch, crawling atop you with predatory intent as his hand slides down to the back of your knee, hiking your leg up around his waist.

The look in his eyes is fucking feral.

“I remember you.” The words are low, his tone an almost guttural whisper as his mouth moves down to your ear. His breath tickles the delicate skin in a way that makes you arch against him, and he presses his body more firmly against yours with a noise so hungry it nearly makes you choke. “I remember your smile. The foods you like, the things you don’t.” You can’t breathe. Can’t think. He continues, hand skating down your side to pull you closer to him as his teeth scrape along the shell of your ear and make you gasp. “I know what you sound like. What noises you can make.” That same hand slides over your leg once more, thumb tracing over a spot on your inner thigh and making your breath come even faster. “There’s a freckle here. I know that when I bite it, you make a sound that makes me lose my mind.”

Everything in you has short circuited. Every ounce of logic has drained from your mind. Your fingers scrape against his back, clawing at him through the fabric of his shirt.

“That’s the most you’ve said in twenty four hours.” You breathe, “Do you remember-“ he cuts you off with a sharp bite to your collarbone, and it feels almost impossible to force your mind to form the words. “A-Anything else?”

“No. Just you.”

“Promising.” You try to joke, but his hips move against yours and anything else you might have to say is cut off by the embarrassing noise that rips its way out of your throat.

“No matter who I am,” he murmurs, dark and possessive as he moves up to face you, to grip your chin and force you to look him in his eyes, “you’re still mine.”

And then he kisses you, and every thought you’ve ever had flies out the proverbial window.

It’s just as rough and demanding as before, all teeth and tongues and desperation. His hands are everywhere, from tangling in your hair to cradling your face to pulling at the button of your jeans. His metal fingers wrap around your wrists, pressing them to the arm of the couch above your head, holding you firmly in place, and he trails open-mouthed kisses down to your throat once again, this time with an intention that has you feeling like you’re going to explode. His free hand pushes your shirt up so he can move down to your stomach, eyes catching yours and looking almost black in the low light of the living room. Every press of his lips is a claim. Every jolt of your body is met with a starved noise, a grip so tight you think you might bruise - not that you could possibly care less - a nip to your flushed skin.

The knock at the door cuts through the air like a fucking bomb going off.

You shoot up, ripped back into reality so quickly it feels like whiplash.

The Winter Soldier’s hand, still wrapped around your wrists, pushes you back down, firmly enough that your head bounces against the cushions of the couch. “Leave it.” He growls, hooking your leg over his shoulder as he tries to continue his mission. His teeth scrape against your hip as his free hand begins to pull your pants down to expose more of your skin.

It’s too late. You’ve been pulled out of the moment and back to yourself. Back to reality.

“Stop.” You say, too quietly, too out of breath and not nearly convincingly enough. Another knock on the door. You bump your knee lightly against his head, dislodging him as you pull yourself back upright. “Stop.”

He hesitates, but he releases you, expression tortured as he does so. You scramble to button your pants, to pull your shirt down. He watches your movements like he’s two seconds away from halting them. From yanking you back to him and holding you down until he can finish what he started.

“Stay here.” You say as you rise to your feet, and, because you’re still so paranoid about accidentally ordering him, you turn back and add a quick “please.”

You duck around the hallway and move towards the door, trying to shake off the feeling of lust that still clings to you like a heady perfume. You can feel the flush in your cheeks. The memory of Bucky’s body weight pressed against yours. No, not Bucky. Though he certainly felt like Bucky. Remembered you in ways only Bucky can know you. If you were thinking straight, you would file that away as a variable to be figured out later. Mark in your mind that maybe The Winter Soldier is even more Bucky than you previously thought.

You knew it was Steve from the first knock. The guy has his own key, has since you moved in and could enter any time he wants, but you’re pretty sure he would still knock politely if the building was on fire.

When you tug the door open, still flushed and trying to dislodge the feeling of need still humming in your veins, you’re met with a different set of blue eyes. Steve, thankfully, doesn’t seem to understand the expression on your face. He already looks concerned, but that concern seems heightened by the look in your eyes. Your uneven breathing. Shit, you don’t even remember what you texted him. Something vague, you’re sure. Something along the lines of emergency. get here fast.

“Woah, hey.” He steps forward, eyes scanning the empty little hallway like something might be chasing you. He doesn’t look like a soldier. A captain. Not right now. Now, he looks like a worried friend.

To your horror, that look makes the guilt surge back through your body like a tidal wave. The helplessness of it all. The fear that you really might never be able to fully get Bucky back. And now, looking up at his best friend, it’s all amplified by the fact that you didn’t even take Bucky away from yourself, from himself, but from Steve, too.

“Oh my God.” You say the words out loud as they echo in your mind. When it was just you and the Winter Soldier, you could think about it like a problem to solve. Like something that might not be permanent. Like a mistake that could be fixed. With another person in the picture, the weight of it all is finally hitting you like a fucking truck. The tears come back, and you are sick and tired of crying, but they still sting as you try to back up and wipe them away. “Oh my God, Steve. I fucked up.”

His arms are suddenly around you. Warm and familiar and comforting because it’s Steve. Kind, understanding Steve who walked you down the aisle at your wedding and reminisces with your husband about Coney Island on your couch until you’re all laughing and teasing one another into the early hours of the morning.

“We’ll fix it.” He says, firm and confident even before he knows what the problem is. His arms wrap more tightly around you, and you crush your face into his shoulder and try to pull yourself together. “It’s okay. Where’s Bucky? We can-“

And then, faster than a bolt of lightning, he’s being ripped off of you and thrown against the wall.

The impact is hard enough to leave a pretty significant dent, and you realize very quickly that the sight of Steve holding you to him while you cried was probably not the best thing for the overly possessive and paranoid Winter Soldier to see.

“Shit!” The word leaves you in a choked shout, and you make it less than a foot into the living room before time seems to slow.

Recognition flashes through Steve’s eyes, and you’re helpless to do anything, to even open your mouth to try to explain, as he switches from comforting friend into Captain America.

You try. You really do. As he stands and begins to move towards you, you manage a panicked “Wait, Steve don’t-!” Before you’re being tackled to the ground, covered from the obvious threat of the Winter Soldier in your apartment.

It takes no time at all for him to be flung off of you and across the room again. This time, he crashes into the TV, his weight snapping the appliance in half and knocking the table it sits on back into the wall with an Earth-shattering noise before he’s bouncing back to his feet just in time to block an oncoming punch.

“Get down!” He shouts to you as you scramble to your feet.

You don’t think. You just move. It might be the dumbest idea you’ve ever had, but you don’t have a ton of time to weigh the pros and cons.

You sprint, throw yourself forward, and jump onto the Winter Soldier’s back like some kind of feral spider monkey.

The next movements knock the breath out of you. He tenses up, backs away and spins around. You’re dislodged from him in one smooth and practiced movement, and he catches you before you can fall to the ground, caging you against the nearest wall like he’s going to block a blow coming your way. At no point are you even close to injured, but the swiftness of it all makes your head spin.

Steve shouts something, moving forward once again to presumably get you to safety before your neck is snapped. You ignore him, focusing entirely on Buck- the Winter Soldier.

“Stop!” You shout, to both of them. Something in your voice makes Steve pause, less than a foot away and still prepared to rip the other man off of you. The Winter Soldier is as still as ice, breath heavy but focused as his metal fist crushes into the wall behind your head.

Your hands move up to his face, forcing him to look at you. His eyes are dark. Angry.

“Look at me. Please, look at me.” He does. He meets your gaze with all of the fire in his own. It doesn’t burn out. If anything, it burns brighter. You keep pleading. “Stop, okay? Stop.”

He doesn’t calm, doesn’t relax, but he stops.

The silence settles over the apartment like a heavy blanket, tension crackling through the air. Your hands don’t leave your husband’s face, thumb brushing over the stubble on his cheek even as you try to collect your thoughts.

“Shit,” you say, looking over the Winter Soldier’s shoulder to the man behind him. “Did I just command him?” Panic begins to rise in your throat at the idea, and Bucky - not Bucky - shifts to crowd you into the wall a little more, like he’s trying to block Steve’s view of you.

“No.” He says, answering you simply in that low, rough voice, and you relax a little.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, observant eyes scanning the apartment. He takes in the state of Bucky, the scribbled notes littering the counter, and you sense understanding dawn on him like a wave.

You meet his gaze over the other soldier’s shoulder. See the emotions in his eyes. There’s no anger, but there is sadness. Worry. The silent conversation lasts for only a moment before you feel the body against yours move a little closer, protective and possessive.

“Let me go, please.” You say, returning your eyes to his and brushing your thumb over his cheek once more. A soft and reassuring touch.

He hesitates, like he’s planning to keep you locked against the wall until Steve leaves the apartment, but he steps back. Even then, he stands between you, body tense and eyes scanning over you like he’s prepared to bring the entire building down around him to keep you safe.

Your own gaze moves to the dent in the wall, the smashed TV on the opposite end of the room. “Fucking supersoldiers.” You growl, running a frustrated hand through your hair. “I knew we’d never get our security deposit back the day we moved in. It was either gonna be you two or another alien attack or something equally-“

“What’s going on?” Steve asks again, concern and impatience seeping into his tone.

You look from the damage to your friend, and finally back to your husband, a heavy breath finally leaving your lungs, and you explain.

-

“And Bucky agreed to it, because he loves and trusts me and completely believed me when I said I thought it would work. Which, clearly,” you gesture to the Winter Soldier, still leaning against the wall behind you and watching every one of your movements, “makes him an idiot.” You turn at that, offering an apologetic look, and add a quick, “no offense.”

He frowns. Furrows his brow, and mumbles something that sounds a lot like “offense.”

“Okay, well-“ Steve starts to say from his spot against the opposite wall.

“But-“ you interrupt him, still pacing, still wired with the millions of thoughts flying through your mind. “You’ve gotten him out of this before. You know how.” You turn, and from the look on his face there must be some sort of unhinged hope in your eyes. “So, do it. Break him out of this.”

“I don’t-“

You interrupt him again, holding up a hand. “And don’t give me any of that ‘I can’t make any promises, we’ll find a way with the power of friendship and muscles’ crap, okay?” Your voice is starting to shake. You’re looking into Steve’s eyes with a desperation you haven’t felt before. He’s your last hope. You failed. You lost Bucky. But Steve has brought him back twice and you aren’t prepared to take no for an answer.

“Hey, stop. Breathe.” Steve says, firm hands catching you by the shoulders and stopping your pacing. You meet his eyes, take in the brotherly comfort on his face, and begin to relax. That is, until a sound from behind you makes you turn.

“Oh my God, calm down.” You groan. The Winter Soldier is staring directly at Steve. At his hands on you. “It’s Steve. It’s not like he’s about to take me on the kitchen counter.”

The captain’s face turns very red, eyes filling with horror at your words. Sometimes you forget how much of a goody-two-shoes he is.

The other soldier in the room, however, hardens his gaze even more, looking about a second away from punching a hole through the wall. Or Steve.

“Okay, poor choice of words.” You admit, fighting back a cringe and stepping away. You look between the two men again, shoulders deflating, and offer one last pleading look to Steve.

“Bring him back.” You say, once last time, and you watch him steel himself. Watch him prepare to try.

He clears his throat, looking over to Bucky. “What do you remember?”

The other soldier’s eyes drift to you, and you nearly choke on air as memories of his words earlier echo through your mind.

“You uh… you might not want to ask him that.” If your comment a moment ago embarrassed him, you’re pretty sure whatever is about to come out of the other man’s mouth will make him faint like a little old lady.

Steve looks confused, brow furrowing as he looks back to you. It’s when he turns to the Winter Soldier, whose darkened gaze is still fixed on you, that he seems to understand your meaning.

“Well, that’s uh… at least something.” He says awkwardly, clearing his throat and seemingly deciding to move on from that particular line of questioning.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He finally says, clear and sure, and even the comfort in his tone can’t make you relax all the way. “We’ll figure this out. We just need time.”

Time. You don’t want time. You want results. You want this fixed, now. You want to go back in time and undo everything you’ve done. You want to apologize to Bucky, to feel him hold you and tell you that everything is going to be okay.

When Steve leaves the apartment, he stops you at the door. Reaches out like he’s going to comfort you again, glances over your shoulder at your newly-appointed guard dog, and stops himself.

“He’s still Bucky.” He says, and you go still.

“I-“

“He’s still Bucky.” He repeats, firmly, and this time you need to lock your knees to keep your legs from wobbling. You didn’t know how badly you needed to hear that. To have it confirmed. “He’s not someone else. He’s just Bucky. A different version of him, but not a different person.”

You’ve known. You’ve felt it. You can see it in his eyes. In the way he touches you. In the way he’s trying.

And you love him. You love him because he’s still Bucky. Because, despite spending so long thinking of The Winter Soldier as an entirely different person, the last twenty four hours have shown you that he’s still the man you fell in love with. Different, yes. He doesn’t remember a lot about who he is. He doesn’t hold you with the same restraint. But he’s still Bucky. His mannerisms are the same. His eyes are the same. The raw, unapologetic way he loves you is still the same.

“Thank you.” You say, like an exhale. Like a sigh of relief. And Steve just nods, dares to give you a comforting, brotherly squeeze, and leaves, closing the door behind him like he didn’t just lift a crushing weight from your shoulders.

-

Despite your talk, despite the confirmation that your husband is still there, you find yourself gripping the edge of the counter hard enough to turn your knuckles white.

They’re one in the same, sure. The man standing beside you like a statue is still Bucky, but he doesn’t have his memories. At least, not all of them. He’s still the Winter Soldier. There is still a problem here, one that you created and have to fix.

A metal hand brushes your arm. A silent question.

You rip yourself away, moving over to your scattered notes and trying to anchor yourself back to the present. Trying to look over your own scribbled handwriting and find out what you could possibly have gotten wrong in your original calculations. How to fix it.

“You’re upset.”

A startled, humorless laugh breaks free, and you finally turn to him. He’s standing there, still and observant and quiet and you want to fucking scream.

He speaks again, voice too level when all you want to do is give in to the tension tightening every muscle in your body. You need to do something. Hit something or grab something or rip something apart with your bare hands just to make all of this-

“Stop that.”

You don’t know what he means. If he wants you to stop scanning through your notes. If he wants you to stop gritting your teeth and refusing to speak to him. If he wants you to stop trembling with emotions you can’t seem to contain.

“Don’t.” You finally manage, and you’re not reading the page anymore. You’re just holding it. Too tightly. Crinkling the edges with your fingers.

“Tell me what you want.” It’s the words beneath the sentence, the silent promise of ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do anything’, that break you.

“Give me Bucky back.” Just be you again. Help me fix this before the guilt swallows me whole.

“I don’t know how.”

And oh, there it is. There it all is. The pain. The fear. The heartbreak. It explodes out of you like a fucking supernova.

“Then figure it out.” You snap, and the page you’re holding connects with the counter with a smack that rings through the apartment. You face him, unable to contain your frustration with your own mistake as you shove at his chest. “What do you want? Do you want me to command it?”

He doesn’t budge. Doesn’t fight. He’s still just looking at you with that familiar sort of devotion in his eyes, and it hurts so badly that it just makes you angrier.

“It won’t work.” He says, and you know that. You know, but you don’t want to hear it.

“Stop fucking looking at me like that!” You shove him again. He lets you. Even with the force behind the shove, he still doesn’t move. “I took your freedom away, Buck! You trusted me, and I broke it. You don’t even remember-“

“I remember you.” He interrupts, like that fact is the only thing that’s ever been important, and you want to scream.

“That doesn’t matter!” You try to shove him again, and this time he catches your wrists. Not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough that there is no way you’ll be able to break his hold.

“It’s all that matters.”

Those words stop you. Freeze you. He doesn’t say them like a comfort. Like a promise. It’s not even meant to be romantic. It’s just a fact.

You can see it in his eyes. Feel it in his skin where it touches yours. He’s not the same. He doesn’t remember. But he knows you. Every part of him that is still Bucky, and even the parts that aren’t, know you.

You stare at him. He stares back at you. And, for some reason, you can feel every beat of your racing heart repeating two words that haven’t felt entirely true until now.

Still Bucky. Still Bucky. Still Bucky.

And suddenly you’re surging forward, slamming your lips against his so hard your teeth knock together.

His hands immediately release yours, arms wrapping around your waist and yanking you close enough that there’s no room left to breathe. You don’t care. Couldn’t care if you tried.

He isn’t gentle. He doesn’t hold himself back. His hands move down to grip the backs of your thighs hard enough that you’re sure you’ll bruise, lifting you against him and guiding your legs around his waist as he backs you into the wall without removing his lips from your own for a second. You tug hard on his hair, nails scraping against his scalp as you try to pull him impossibly closer to you, and his metal arm dents the wall behind your head as his tongue slides into your mouth like he’s trying to devour you. The noise he makes is guttural and craving, and it shoots down your spine like a bolt of lightning.

You nearly tear his shirt in your desperation to get it off of him, to feel his skin against yours, and he doesn’t loosen his grip on you as he reaches behind him to tug it over his head, throwing it mindlessly somewhere nearby and diving back in to kiss you again like even the brief loss of contact caused him physical pain.

You’re too caught up in your own need, in the sounds he makes as your nails drag over the skin of his back and the fire that burns through your veins as his mouth moves over your neck, to even register where you are, that you’ve even moved, before you feel yourself being lowered onto the mattress in your room with a surprising amount of gentleness.

There’s a moment, when he crawls over you and looks down with those darkened eyes, that you finally feel a hint of restraint beneath his heated skin. His flesh hand comes up to your face, thumb dragging over your kiss-swollen lips as he looks down at you in a silent question. He’s nearly shaking. You can feel the tension in every muscle of his large body, and the fact that he stopped himself to check on you, despite how it seems to be nearly ripping him apart, makes your heart stutter in your chest.

Still Bucky.

You don’t speak. Can’t find the words. You just nod, a silent answer, reaching up and pulling him back down to you.

His mouth crushes against yours, stealing any remaining breath from your lungs. His hands move down to slide up your body with a reverence that makes you melt and burn at the same time, and he lowers his body down onto yours like the contact is the only thing in the world that has ever mattered. He tangles his fingers in your hair, and the heat and strange familiarity of it all consumes you like a living flame.

“Still mine.” You hear him say, almost to himself, so quiet that the words are nearly swallowed by the kiss.

And you are.

-

Hours later, as the dying light of day paints the room in hues of deep orange and yellow, you break the peaceful silence with a sleepy noise.

“We need a new TV.” You murmur, fighting against the bone-deep exhaustion weighing every one of your limbs down, and you feel him hum against the skin of your shoulder, still pressing gentle kisses over the marks he’s left.

“And a new headboard.” You add, and this time you swear you can feel a proud little smile, his hands tightening on you ever-so-slightly as he nips gently, almost playfully, at your collarbone.

He hums again, the sound vibrating through you, and rolls on top of you in a tangle of sheets and limbs. You’re still frowning at the splintered wood above your head, at the new tilt to the bed, when his hand moves up to catch your chin and turn your head so he can kiss you again.

“You need to sleep.” He says, lips barely leaving yours as he speaks, though the way his flesh hand slides up your body and settles into your hair suggests other ideas.

“Then let me.”

“Later.” He presses closer, and you don’t hold back your smile as he angles your head to deepen the kiss.

-

Eventually, tucked into his chest and feeling his warm hand slide soothingly over your back, you do finally drift off. There is still a part of you that’s terrified you’ll never fully and truly get Bucky back, but now things feel a little more…hopeful. It doesn’t feel like a distant goal anymore. It’s more of an inevitability than a possibility.

Before you fall asleep, you murmur into his shoulder. “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes…” and then, like last night, you tell him facts about himself. Who he is. Where he came from.

You feel him tense against you, just slightly, like he’s trying to focus on what you’re saying. Like he’s trying as hard as he can to force your words to unlock whatever gate is keeping all of those memories hidden away in his mind.

When you finish, you pull back, look into his eyes.

“Anything?”

He shakes his head, presses his lips to yours in a silent apology.

“That’s okay.” You say, trying to keep the disappointment from showing on your face. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

And you do.

And the next night.

And the next.

As it becomes routine, the hope you felt begins to sour into something dangerously close to terror. You push it down. Shove it away and refuse to let it cripple you.

And you keep trying. You both do.

-

When it happens, it happens out of nowhere. There’s no fanfare. No magical, Disney-like transition where he comes back to himself in a ball of fairy lights. Steve doesn’t even show up with a syringe to plunge into his neck.

You’re doing your best to chop vegetables in the kitchen, eyes focused on the recipe in front of you. Bucky usually does the cooking - you have a tendency to burn things - but you’ve ordered so much takeout this past week that you insisted on making dinner tonight.

The sting of the knife slicing your finger makes you jump.

You curse, a hiss of pain escaping from between your teeth as blood wells around the small cut. You grab a dish towel, wrap it around your finger, and-

“Shit, doll. You okay?”

Hands are wrapping gently around your wrists, pulling the towel off of your hand so he can get a better look at the injury.

You let him, relaxing against the firm grip of a soldier inspecting your wound with a familiar, careful precision. It’s not deep. Not bad at all. The bleeding should stop at any moment.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I just-“

You stop. You freeze.

“What did you just call me?” You look up, but his eyes are still fixed on your finger, dark brows drawn together as he dabs at the remaining blood with the towel and starts to mumble something about stitches that you already know you won’t need. At any other time, you would call him overprotective. Now, you can’t think straight with the dangerous hope that’s beginning to swell in your heart to the point of overflowing.

You can see the change in his movement. Hear it in the Brooklyn accent that always comes out when he’s concerned or annoyed or even turned on. You know this man like the back of your hand, and yet you still have trouble believing that he’s actually back. It’s all happened so quickly. After so much time, so much helplessness There’s no way it can be true.

You speak again, chest constricting in a way that makes it difficult to draw breath. 

“Bucky?”

Something about the volume of your voice, the desperation in it, makes him look up to meet your eyes.

“Yeah? What’s - woah, what’s that look for?” His metal hand comes up to cradle your cheek, blue eyes worried and soft and so agonizingly familiar. You can’t imagine what your face must look like, but you know your expression is definitely freaking him out. “You’re scarin’ me, sweetheart. Talk to me.”

You don’t. Your hands fly to his face, smearing a drop of blood on his cheek as you look into his eyes. Bucky’s eyes.

Bucky’s eyes.

“Bucky. Oh my God, Bucky.”

You don’t know where to touch. What to hold. How to cling to him hard enough to keep him from leaving you again. Enough to convince yourself that this is real.

He’s so focused on comforting you that it takes him a few moments to even realize why he’s doing it. His arms wrap around your waist, pulling you close to anchor you to him. He speaks into your hair, soft and loving and achingly familiar.

“Hey, hey.” A metal hand smooths over the back of your head as his flesh one slides over your back. Comforting. Familiar. “I’m here, doll. You’re okay. Tell me what’s…”

And then, he realizes.

He stops breathing.

He suddenly crushes you to him like you might vanish at any moment. Like he might.

Bucky is never anything but gentle with you, but he pulls back to look at your face so quickly that it makes the small of your back bump hard against the counter. You can feel restraint in every tense muscle of his body as his hands begin to move over you almost frantically, checking you for any potential hidden injuries.

“Are you okay?” He asks, panic lacing his voice as his hands come up to your cheeks. “Baby, look at me. Are you okay? Did I-“

You stop him, grab his wrists, shake your head. “No. No, you didn’t hurt me. Not at all. I’m okay.”

“I don’t remember.” He sounds so apologetic and terrified that you start crying, a mixture of guilt and relief spilling from your eyes as his hands move to pull you back to him like you’re the most precious thing he’s ever held. “I don’t remember everything. Just bits and pieces.”

“I’ll tell you. You’ll remember.” He always has before. And if he doesn’t, you’ll make sure he does. You’ll move heaven and earth with gratitude that he’s completely himself once again. “Fuck, Bucky I’m so sorry I was so stupid I should have-“

He interrupts you with a kiss, hand cradling the back of your head and smoothing lovingly over your hair. It’s not the feral, desperate collision of mouths and bodies like the Winter Soldier kissed you. It’s firm, grounding, while still so gentle that it makes your knees weak. So wonderfully and perfectly Bucky.

You try to speak again, try to apologize against his lips, but he pulls back just enough to shake his head.

“It’s okay.” He says, pressing his forehead against yours. Kissing your nose. Kissing your cheeks. “It’s okay. I’m here. We’re okay.”

It takes a minute. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe many more. You lose track of time as his hands move over you like he’s reacquainting himself with the feeling of your body against his own. As your own hands grip him like he might vanish from your grasp.

You’re still smiling with relief, and he’s still pressing loving kisses to your tear-stained cheeks when you finally speak again. “What do you remember?”

“Need to apologize to Steve.” He says, nose skating over your jawline as he lifts you onto the kitchen counter, like the new position will help him find even more contact between your bodies. “Need to buy a new TV.” His lips find yours again, and you feel him grin against your mouth as he tugs you closer to him, cocky and seeming a little too proud of himself as he adds “and a new headboard.”

Despite everything, you feel a blush rise to your cheeks. You swat at his chest, and his smile grows, but he doesn’t break the kiss.

You melt into it, and soon you’re both laughing and holding each other and there is so much love and relief and joy in the room that you feel light-headed.

And then the smoke alarm goes off.

Your eyes fly open, focusing on the overflowing, smoking pot on the stove. Bucky laughs - really, completely laughs - and releases you to move across the kitchen and turn the stove off. The smoke alarm continues to blare, but he’s too busy pulling you back to him and kissing you again to seem in any way concerned by your now-ruined dinner.

“Can’t believe I let you cook.” He mumbles, but he’s still smiling.

You are too. You can’t help it. “Shut up, Barnes.”

“Make me.” The playful challenge has you wrapping your arms around his neck. Your legs around his waist.

And you do.

-

Previous

-

Now, you pace your lab, feeling blue eyes follow every one of your movements like a hawk. He watches you. Waiting. Observing. Not Bucky, but the Winter Soldier. The living breathing weapon. The deadly assassin.

You keep pacing.

“I was so sure.” You say, running a frustrated hand through your hair. “I was so sure. I thought it would work. I…I can’t even go back to find what we did wrong-“

“какие у меня заказы?” The Winter Soldier asks, what are my orders, and you nearly jump out of your skin at the sound of his voice.

“You don’t have any.” You snap the words, anger and frustration and just a little bit of heartbreak making you prickle.

He stops. Looks confused. Still quiet, still not Bucky, but confused. 

That look makes you deflate.

“Sorry, sorry. I just…” you sigh, closing your eyes and exhaling through your nose. “I’m sorry.” For everything. For failing this experiment. For not wiping this programming from his mind like you thought you could. For not knowing how to get him back.

The sharp sting of frustrated tears prickles behind your eyes. You press the heels of your palms to them, trying to push the surge of emotion away. You don’t have time to cry. You have to think and figure out a way to- 

Hands wrap around your wrists. Not deadly. Not incapacitating you or knocking you to the ground. The grip is firm, but gentle. Your hands are pulled down to your sides, away from your face.

You go still. Very still.

The Winter Soldier is looking down at you, like he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing, either. Like he couldn’t look away if he tried.

Your tears haven’t fallen, but they’re still pooling in your eyes. A metal thumb slides over your cheek, catching one as it escapes and wiping it away.

He murmurs something in Russian. You don’t understand it. He speaks again, in Romanian this time, and you still don’t know what he’s saying.

Finally, he speaks English, his thumb brushing your cheek once more in a way that’s so intimate that you have to search his eyes to see if Bucky hasn’t really come back.

“Don’t…do that.”  His voice is surprisingly soft, and his thumb trails from beneath your eyes, tracing over your cheek and down to your lips. His eyes follow the movement like he’s mesmerized by the sight, and you’re frozen in place as he leans a little closer.

“Who are you?” He asks, and there’s no accusation in his tone. No anger. Just curiosity, and something like reverence.

“I…” the answer catches in your throat. Not with fear, but with surprise. “I’m your…”

He leans closer, and you pull back.

“Shit.” You mumble to yourself, and he looks confused again. It’s strange, really, that the expression can look so sweet. So genuine.

He reaches for you. Tugs you to him again. It’s not forceful, but it’s firm. Like you yourself are an answer to an important question, and he isn’t going to let you walk away until he finds the answer.

“Who are you?” He repeats, deadly hands cradling you in a way that makes it difficult to focus. Still, you frown. You pull back again, defeated and tired and too close to crying for your own comfort.

You’ll get Bucky back, and you’ll try again. But for now…

“I’m your wife.” You say, reaching down to pull his arms from where they’ve wrapped around you. To your relief, he allows it. “And it’s time I take you home now.”

-

He doesn’t leave your side. Not for a moment.

You’re too wrapped up in your own thoughts, your own guilt and fear and frustration, to even speak to him. He’s not Bucky. He’s not in his right mind. And you put him there. You said the code words, so sure that they wouldn’t work, and they did. 

And now, it seems that your hubris has earned you a guard dog. One who glares at anyone who looks at you as you pass by. Who reaches for a knife that isn’t there when someone nearly bumps into you on the way to your apartment. Whose arm remains wrapped around you so firmly you think he might try to carry you up the stairs.

The moment you walk through the door, you break his hold and move towards the kitchen. Your notes are still lying on the counter, the ones you worked through with Bucky this morning over coffee. The ones you pored over for hours and hours as you convinced yourself that this time you had finally figured it out. You had finally worked through the problem and found the solution.

You lean over that counter now, watching through your peripheral as the Winter Soldier scans the apartment. It had been perfect. Your math, your calculations, had been drawn up to a fucking T and now-

Well, now an arm is wrapping around you, pulling you away from the counter so quickly that you drop a page of your own scribbled handwriting with a startled noise.

He spins you, presses you against the opposite counter. The granite digs into your back, not hard enough to be uncomfortable but enough that you register that you are being held very firmly in place.

You look up. He looks down. Familiar blue eyes lock onto your own.

You don’t know why you say it, but you do. The apartment suddenly feels so quiet that the question seems to echo through the air.

“Can I have Bucky back?”

Bucky will help you work through this. At the very least, he’ll help calm you as you stay awake all night trying to pore through your notes. He would probably make you go to sleep. Kiss your forehead and tell you that you’ll figure it out, that it will all be okay.

The Winter Soldier, still pressing you against the counter, furrows his brow at the question.

“Who’s Bucky?”

And that, those two simple words, make the tears break free.

He reaches up to wipe them away like he did in your lab, and your vision is blurry as you try to swat his hands away. His response is to pull you closer, and you push at his chest.

“Let me go.” You say, voice breaking. He doesn’t. 

You could command him to. You know you could. You said the code words. You brought the Winter Soldier out. But despite your frustration there is no part of you that could ever make yourself do it.

“Please, just give me Bucky back.” You say instead, voice muffled by his shirt. His metal hand is cradling the back of your head, too gentle for a living weapon. Too familiar, but not the same.

His voice is low, and it sounds almost pained as he speaks into your hair. “I don’t know how.”

You try to push at him again, but he holds you tight. You know, somewhere deep down, that if you were really fighting to get him off of you that he would let you go. Maybe even walk away. You don’t want him to. You should, but you don’t.

He pulls back, just enough to look at you. To look at the tears in your eyes and the way your fingers are curling against his chest like you don’t know whether to shove him again or pull him closer.

He cradles your face, so strangely gentle.

“Stop that.”

You look up at him, and it takes you a moment to realize what he means. He’s still wiping your tears away. He wants you to stop crying.

“I don’t know how.” You say, finally, defeated. A pathetic mimicry of his own words.

He looks at you, and you can’t decipher what’s lying beneath his gaze. What it means. What he wants. But, despite it all, you do see something.

He’s not Bucky, but Bucky is there. You’ve been trying to get the Winter Soldier out of him for so long, trying to make him himself again. You never really thought of this side of him as…well, human.

But the way he’s looking at you now, confusion and concern and a strange sort of devotion in his eyes, makes you realize that, even brainwashed like he was, he was still a person. Still a version of Bucky, as fucked up as it may be. Now that he’s here, with no orders and very little knowledge of why, you see it.

“I’m sorry.” You say, tears still falling. And you don’t know what those two words mean, exactly. For making him into this again, even with his consent. For failing the experiment. For everything that’s happened to him over the decades.

He wipes your tears away again, like it’s instinct.

“Tell me how to make this stop.” His voice is a murmur. He’s so close that his nose brushes against yours. Something crackles in the air, an electric tension that you can feel beneath your skin. His hands tighten on you, just slightly. His voice is still pleading, but it’s not gentle anymore. There’s something there, now. Something new and barely restrained and you’re too upset by the events of tonight to notice that it’s about to break free.

You shake your head. “I don’t think you ca-“

His lips crash against yours with so much force it knocks you back against the counter.

His arms wrap more tightly around you, pulling you so close you swear you can feel his rapid heartbeat against your chest.

Bucky Barnes kisses you with devotion. With love and thinly veiled hunger. Bucky is gentle, and even when he isn’t you can always tell that he’s still being careful with you. Always trying to hold back. Always trying to keep himself from hurting you, somehow.

The Winter Soldier kisses you like he’s starving.

It’s almost clumsy in its urgency, like the kiss is something he would die before he ever pulled away from. Like he needs it so badly he doesn’t know what to do with himself. With you.

His hand moves from your cheek to tangle in your hair, and he lifts you effortlessly onto the counter as he uses his grip to angle your head and deepen the kiss. Your noise of surprise is swallowed by his mouth, firm and almost desperate against yours as he anchors you to him like he’s drowning.

It takes a moment for the shock to wear off, but you kiss him back. The second he feels your reciprocation, he makes a noise in the back of his throat that sends an electric jolt down your spine. His free hand moves to your thigh, yanking you closer and guiding your legs around his waist as his tongue slides between your lips like he’s tasting something more addicting than any drug ever created.

Your own hands fly up to his hair, unable to stop yourself or even think clearly as your nails scrape against his scalp. The sound he makes is so low, so hungry that it sounds almost feral, and you’re barely able to register that you’re moving again before he’s pulling you off the counter and you’re crashing down onto the kitchen floor. You think, vaguely, that the force of him catching you before your head bangs against the ground might leave a dent in the linoleum.

Despite the near-violence of the movement, he doesn’t stop kissing you, teeth dragging against your lips as his knee slides between yours and he presses you into the floor like he can’t get enough of the feeling of you against him. You feel his flesh hand slide up beneath your shirt, gripping your waist and tugging you impossibly closer. You gasp, and he growls as he chases the sound with another tug at your hair, forcing your head back as his lips break from yours to move down to your neck.

You can’t think. You can barely breathe. And it takes a moment for you to realize that he’s speaking in a language you don’t know. You’re pretty sure it’s Russian. You don’t understand it, can barely register anything other than his body atop yours and his calloused hands sliding over the skin beneath your shirt, but with the way he’s saying the words, between open-mouthed kisses and bites to your skin like he’s trying to tattoo them onto you with his lips and teeth, you think they might be words of devotion. Of claiming.

You reach up, unsure what your hand is seeking, whether it be his face or his hair or anything. His metal hand leaves the back of your head and catches yours, pressing it back down onto the floor as his fingers tangle in your own in a gesture so intimate that it snaps you back into reality.

“I-wait.” You blink, trying to drag yourself out of the haze of lust and back to the present. He doesn’t seem to hear you, pressing his body impossibly closer and biting down at the juncture where your neck meets your shoulder hard enough to make you gasp and nearly forget where you even are. 

Your voice is shaky when you manage to speak again. “Wait, stop.”

He hears you this time, and he does. Not because it was an order. You can feel in the hesitation to release you, to pull his lips from your skin and look into your eyes, that he stopped because you asked.

Holy shit, his eyes are on fire. The blue is nearly blown out by his pupils, and they’re burning with so much intense want that it makes your head spin. Those eyes meet yours for only a second before they fall back to your lips, and he begins to lean down like a man hypnotized. Your free hand flies up, covering his mouth before it reaches your own and knocks all logic out of your mind again.

His eyes return to yours, confused and absolutely fucking starved.

“I…” words. Find words. “You’re not Bucky.”

You feel him frown beneath your palm, and he reaches up to move it away from his mouth. “So?”

You don’t…really have an answer. Your mind is still too fogged over and the weight of his body on top of yours is too distracting. You wiggle out from under him, and he makes a noise that sounds almost like loss as he releases you. You push yourself back against the cabinets, and he looks seconds away from crawling over to you and pulling you to him again. His eyes drop to your mouth once more, like he’s contemplating it.

“Stop looking at me like that.” You say, and he doesn’t. He seems to try, though, watching the rise and fall of your chest as you catch your breath like he’s watching something holy.

“You said you’re my wife.” His voice sounds rough. Low.

“I’m Bucky’s wife.” You clarify, leaning your head back against the cabinet behind you. “And I don’t know how much…you, is him. Or how much him is you. I don’t know how ethical this is.”

He looks confused again. You suppose that’s fair. It’s not like he’s used to being around people with stellar moral codes.

Frustration and pain pool in your stomach, and you exhale. Slowly. Trying to calm yourself.

“I don’t know how to get him back, and it scares me.” You let the statement hang there. An admission. Honest and raw.

He frowns again, and you swear you can see his eyes soften. It’s an odd sight, but then again, this entire night has been strange.

“I’ll try.” He says, and you can’t help the feeling of relief, the odd sense of something like gratitude, that washes through you.

“Thank you.” You whisper, the words spilling out on an exhale. You sigh, thunking your head lightly against the cupboard again. “I have to call Steve.”

His frown is back, but you sense a glimmer of recognition at the name. Also maybe a bit of something else. Something like jealousy that makes him prickle. “Whose Steve?”

“Your best friend. And kind of mine, too, I guess. He’s broken you out of this before.”

“Is he going to hurt you?”

The question surprises you, and you raise your head to look at him. He looks concerned. Protective. You shake your head quickly. “No. Never. He’s actually going to be super understanding and nice about this, which is probably going to piss me off.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t deserve it. I fucked up. I got the math wrong, and I lost Bucky.”

He just looks at you for a minute. You look back at him.

“You do the same staring thing he does.” You observe.

“I want you.” He says back, and the simpleness of the sentence nearly makes you laugh, even as lust curls in your stomach once again, the feeling of his lips against your skin still tingling.

“Yeah, I kind of got that.” You say, unable to keep the small smile from curling at the corner of your mouth. His eyes fall to the movement of your lips like he’s entranced. You pretend to ignore it.

“I want you like Bucky has you.”

“You’re blunt like him, too.”

He just stares at you again, and you furrow your brow. “Are you…jealous? Of your own alter-ego?”

“Yes.”

“You know you’re still Bucky, right?”

“You said I’m not.”

“I…” you sigh, dragging a tired hand through your hair. “You’re right, I did. I don’t know. I don’t…I didn’t account for all of this. Like I said, I got too cocky. I’m a scientist. The philosophical questions surrounding someone’s brainwashed assassin alter-ego aren’t exactly my specialty.”

More staring.

You give up, dragging yourself to your feet, and he stands with you like you’re a magnet guiding his movements.

“Look, can we just go to bed?”

His eyebrows raise, and you roll your eyes. “Not like that. To sleep.”

He looks disappointed, but he nods and follows you into the bedroom on almost disturbingly silent feet.

You grab pajamas for yourself, wordlessly gesture to the dresser where all of his clothes are held, and make your way to the bathroom to wash up.

When you return, he’s staring at you again, standing by your bed in a pair of his sweatpants. No shirt. Like that helps your recently established ‘no sex’ rule.

He looks down at your shirt - oversized and clearly his - and back up to your face.

God help you, he looks like he’s about to pounce again.

“Relax,” you grumble, trying to ignore the feeling of his gaze igniting your skin like a firework, “it’s not like it’s lingerie.”

“It’s mine.” There’s a weight behind the words that makes you nearly pause. He catches it, because of course he does, and his gaze darkens. You just move over to the bed, crawl beneath the covers like you have a thousand times, and try to throw your walls back up.

“It’s Bucky’s.” You grumble, dropping your head against the pillow.

“I’m Bucky.” He says it simply. Almost like he’s craving for it to be the truth. It makes your heart hurt. Desperation for that to be completely, entirely true nearly makes you curl in on yourself and cry.

But he’s trying, and that’s enough. You turn to him, eyes softening as you pat his side of the bed in silent invitation.

He moves like he was waiting for permission, climbing in beside you.

You don’t touch him. Just turn on your side, face him with your hand resting beneath your pillow, and try to observe.

He turns, faces you too. For a while, you just stare into each other’s eyes. Silent and studying. Like the weirdest, most oddly intimate staring contest that’s ever been held.

And then you break it. Try one last tactic. You reach your hand up, brush your fingers over his cheek.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes.” You say, quietly. He leans into your touch, but doesn’t break your gaze. Like he’s listening. Like he’s trying. You tell him his age. His sister’s name. His mother’s. You even repeat facts about his time in the war. About the day you met him. About the day he proposed.

When you finish, his eyes are soft, but he’s still not Bucky.

You offer a humorless, heartbroken little smile. “Kind of thought that would work.” You admit, defeat lacing your voice. “Guess I’m oh for two tonight, huh?”

He doesn’t smile back, but he does seem to give in to something. His arm slides around you, and he pulls you into his chest.

You let him.

You sigh, letting your eyes drift shut, and inhale his familiar scent. He doesn’t hold you delicately. He holds you like he’s protecting you. Like he’s prepared to fight anyone and anything that might try to take you away from him.

And when you fall asleep, emotionally exhausted and still hurting in ways you can't even put a name to, he’s still holding you just as tightly.

-

Gabriel the Judge of Hell feared and alone, carried the weight of his duties like a burning crown. Love was like a sin to him a dangerous distraction that threatened the balance he swore to uphold. So he pushed everyone away, his anger flaring not just at the damned but at himself for feeling so deeply.

When you, a gentle and kind angel assigned to heal and assist him, arrived unexpectedly tender and patient he bristled at first. No one had ever shown him softness only fear or hatred. Yet your quiet strength and warmth began to crack the cold fortress he built, even as he fought tooth and nail against the feelings growing inside him and that.. make him fear for the first time in a long while...

-When Angel first arrives as the healer assistant in Limbo and his healer too Gabriel was cold harsh and distant...His stoic exterior hides the exhaustion and frustration he feels from his endless judging duties.

-Gabriel is initially suspicious and unwelcoming often snapping at Angel when she tries to help! annoyed by what he sees as interference and mock

-At first Gabriel resisted your help insisting he didn’t need “Heaven’s delicate hands” on him now, he sits without protest when you patch him up.

-You’ve seen him at his most exhausted, head resting on the table after hours of hearings; sometimes you drape your cloak over him, and he pretends not to notice.

-His sarcastic streak is sharper around others, but with you, it’s laced with a fondness he can’t hide

-Despite his gruffness Angel notices subtle cracks moments where Gabriel’s eyes betray a deep weariness and vulnerability.

-Over time, Gabriel’s harshness softens, but not without a fight. He gets flustered easily around Angel, especially when she shows genuine concern or affection.

-When he’s embarrassed or caught off guard, Gabriel tends to yell or shout in frustration sometimes at himself to hide how much he actually cares.

-Angel finds his rare moments of clumsiness and awkwardness endearing like when he accidentally drops his judgment tools or stumbles over words when trying to talk about feelings.

-Gabriel secretly admires your calm rulings in the First Circle, though he’ll never admit it outright.

-Gradually, Gabriel begins to trust Angel leaning on her presence as a rare comfort in the lonely heavy world.. or hell uh anyways

-He’ll never say he’s scared of losing you or unworthy of your care. Instead, he hides it behind biting remarks and stoic silence, but his eyes betray the turmoil beneath.

-He has a habit of watching you while you work on his injuries, as if studying the way you focus; sometimes his gaze lingers too long

-Over time, your unwavering support teaches Gabriel that love is not a sin but a strength something that fuels rather than distracts.

-He never says the words “I love you” outright, but you hear it in the way he always returns to you after the trials are over.

-though your new relationship is secret Gabriel insists on keeping your relationship hidden. Not because he doubts your feelings, but because he’s terrified of what others will think or how it might undermine his authority as the Judge of Hell... but the real reason is he Fear of judgment He worries that if his love is exposed, his reputation will crumble that other angels or demons will see him as weak or compromised.

-Despite his stubbornness, Gabriel sometimes feels guilty that you have to hide your love. He worries you deserve to be proud and open about it.

-Late nights when the judgment halls are quiet, he might let his guard slip quietly confessing fears about his role, or mumbling regrets about what love “costs” him.

-Touch starved.. starved for comfort well Despite his gruffness Gabriel craves physical connection sometimes reaching out hesitantly for your hand or allowing himself to rest his head on your shoulder, even if he won’t admit how much it means to him.

-In a place where most fear or hate him, your gentle care shocks him. It’s a balm to his battered soul he won't admitted out loud

-Being a fellow judge means you sometimes clash in court he is unyielding, you are merciful but it’s these debates that draw him closer to you.

-When he’s overwhelmed by the weight of his duties and the pressure of secrecy, you’re his safe place the one who grounds him and reminds him he’s more than his title.

-His hands are always warm, even in Hell’s fire he likes resting them on your back or waist as a subtle claim of “mine.”

-In public Gabriel maintains his harsh, intimidating persona. But behind closed doors, he’s softer, more vulnerable, and sometimes even clumsy with affection.

-Sometimes he’ll take you to hidden places between Layers(Mostly limbo/lust) silent gardens in purgatory, abandoned star-lit ruins to escape the constant watch of Heaven and Hell.

-Your time together is mostly in private corners, shadowed hallways or late-night meetings where no one else is watching. Those fleeting touches and whispered words mean everything to him.

-Gabriel often tells himself he’s protecting you by keeping it secret, but deep down he also fears something else then the judgment.. it's the day you might leave because of the walls he builds around himself.

-but with slow acceptance and Over time with your patience and love, Gabriel starts to believe that his relationship doesn’t have to be a shadow that love can be a source of strength not shame...

Sketching, lineart (which was abandoned eventually, as you can see lmfao) and basic color/lighting blocking:

I created mockup poses using DAZ3D, as well as using Dotflare's 'HD Gabriel' model and Xetirano's 'V1 model' as visual references for drawing some of the details correctly.

I modelled the background by hand in Blender and aligned it with my previously-created DAZ3D poses to get the perspective correct and kinda just...slapped some colors and perspective blur on it and called it a day.