⊹ 𝒯HE 𝒜SPIS ࣪ ⑅

And then you shatter. Fracture into a million pieces, the fabric of reality tearing apart at the seams around you as euphoria flows through you like wind on the surface of water. Every single cell in your body feels like it’s been lit on fire, burning bright like a shooting star soaring through a galaxy assembled by your love for him.

And then maybe a bit of a rogue option that basically no one has read, but I’ve always loved it, from Can’t Leave You Behind

You had given your life for this cause, and it was only proper for him to do the same. He knew he would see you again someday, on the other side of a rainbow, on top of a cloud where your golden aura shone brighter than the sun. 

‘broken ballerina’ is my heart and soul, particularly the lines i wrote below:

Some people press ink to paper, every flick of their pen expressing their inner-turmoil swirling like a tornado within their souls. You, however, channeled it through ballet. You were cloaked in tulle and feathers, but brewed destruction upon stage. You controlled that tornado and changed it into something elegant. Fouetté turns became your eye of the storm, and the carriage of your arms spindled every emotion together transcendently.

‘precarious nights’ was a fic i wrote quite quickly which shocked me because usually i take ages writing something, so below are my favourite sentences i wrote:

The evening breeze whispers too loudly tonight. It’s a cacophony of sounds too dazed to understand, but enough to keep you awake and wondering. You wonder if it’s indulging in kindness tonight, or if the bitterness of the air is an attack against your skin for attempting to unveil what humans shouldn’t. It’s the perfect solution ( or more powerful one ) to drown out your neighbour's gossiping blathers when you’d disembark from your home.

Your head throbs again, sharper this time – a warning.

You crack open one eye. The ceiling greets you first: white, slightly textured, edged with crown molding that doesn’t quite match the wallpaper. The second thing you register is the wallpaper itself – pink and white florals, sprigs of something that might be hydrangeas (Steve’s mom’s taste, unmistakably).

And the third –

Eyes. Arctic blue, and alarmingly close.

Bucky Barnes is lying on the pillow beside you, facing you, already awake. His expression is quiet, unreadable in the soft morning light. Peaceful, except for the severe crease between his brows that suggests that he too, is questioning the reality of this moment.

For one suspended moment, neither of you move. His breath tickles the loose strands of hair at your forehead. Yours has stopped entirely. His gaze stays on your face, steady but unreadable, like he’s waiting for you to say something first – or bracing for you to. His breathing is slow, controlled. Yours is not.

You become acutely aware of the absurdity of it all at once: the childhood bedroom, the floral wallpaper, the faint ache behind your eyes, the man you’ve spent the past month circling now lying inches from your mouth like this is the most natural place in the world for him to be.

Both eyes snap open fully, blinking sleep away and panic into focus. The entire night before comes crashing back with nauseating clarity

The rain.

The ruined lake house.

The frantic salvaging.

Steve and Natasha’s incandescent smiles when it all somehow worked out.

The champagne you should not have accepted.

The second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Nth glass you absolutely should not have accepted.

You – exhausted, delirious, running purely on adrenaline and relief – collapsing onto the nearest bed in Steve Rogers’ childhood home.

And somehow, inexplicably, Bucky ending up beside you.

He blinks, just once. The crease between his brows deepens, then smooths, like he’s made a decision you haven’t been briefed on.

You swallow. This is… a lot.

There’s too much context hastily skipped over, too many unanswered questions, entire conversations that need to happen. You really should say something – anything.

Instead, the both of you just lie there, staring at each other in the pale, barely-there light of early morning, and you have no idea – absolutely none whatsoever – how it started.

A month and a day earlier…

Saturday morning brunch is meant to be harmless.

At least, that’s what you assume when Natasha texts brunch? with no further explanation – which in your shared language means citrusy drinks with more alcohol than juice, Steve cheerfully announcing he’ll swing by to pick the two of you up, and maybe a passive-aggressive comment about how you never answer texts on time anymore since you made senior reporter.

The restaurant is bright in that deliberate, curated way – white tile, trailing plants, menus that list three kinds of toast and six kinds of alternative milks (for an upcharge, of course). Steve is already there when you arrive, standing to hug you like it’s been weeks instead of days. Natasha follows more smoothly, sunglasses still on despite being indoors, kiss to your cheek efficient and familiar.

You slide into your seat, shrugging off your jacket.

“So,” you say. “What’s the occasion?”

Steve grins. Natasha doesn’t answer.

You notice the table then – four place settings, evenly spaced. You pause, eyes flicking from the extra glass to the empty chair beside it.

“Are we waiting for someone?”

Steve opens his mouth.

“Oh,” Natasha says lightly. “Yeah. Bucky’s joining us.”

You blink. “Barnes?”

“He said he’s coming from a morning meeting with new clients,” she continues, reaching for a menu. “So he might be a little late.”

You open your mouth to respond – but then Steve peers over your shoulder. “Oh, there he is.”

You turn just in time to see Bucky Barnes crossing the café floor, riding jacket slung over one shoulder, expression composed in the way of someone who isn’t that late anyways but will be apologizing anyway. He looks exactly as you remember him – tall, self-contained, like he sort of exists on a slightly different plane from everyone else.

He lifts a hand in greeting and slips into the empty seat beside you with quiet ease. 

“Sorry,” he says by way of greeting. “Clients wanted to redo the entire second floor because their new feng shui master said the energies weren’t flowing properly. Whatever that means.”

“You’re fine,” Natasha replies. “We just got here.”

Then before you can interrogate Natasha on the true reason for why you both are here, the server arrives, menus appear, and the moment gets swept away in small talk. Drinks arrive and the table settles into that brief, expectant quiet that always precedes a big announcement.

Natasha and Steve exchange a look. It’s the look of two people who have already leapt and are now waiting for the ground to rise up and meet them.

Your stomach drops before your brain catches on.

“We wanted you guys to be the first to know,” Steve says. “We’re getting married.”

The sentence lands like a champagne cork popping somewhere inside your chest.

You blink once, because you’re reasonably sure you misheard – but Natasha is smiling in that precise, controlled way she does when she’s already braced for fallout, and Steve is beaming so openly it borders on reckless sincerity.

You make a noise. It is not a dignified one.

“What,” you say faintly, already halfway out of your chair.

“We’re getting married!” Natasha echoes, a million-watt grin on her face.

You scream.

There’s no other word for it. You scream, hands flying up, chair scraping back as you lunge across the table, nearly knocking over the water glasses in the process. She smells like citrus and coffee and something expensive and understated, and she laughs softly against your shoulder as you clutch her like she might vanish. “No. NO YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW!”

Natasha laughs as you throw yourself at her again, this time nearly climbing into her lap. “Show me,” you demand, pulling back just long enough to grab her hand, lifting it to the light, examining the ring from every conceivable angle.  “Nat, this is – this is perfect. Steve, are you – are you seeing this? This is her. This ring is literally her.”

Steve looks unbearably pleased with himself. “I had a bit of help,” he admits bashfully.

“I’m screaming,” you announce, already doing so. You absolutely do not care that the table beside you has gone quiet. “I’m so happy I might pass out! How long have you been hiding this from me?”

“About twelve hours,” Natasha says dryly. “We decided you’d explode if we waited longer.”

She isn’t wrong.

You drop back into your chair, breathless, eyes shining, hands still trembling faintly with the aftershock of joy.

Across the table, Steve beams like he’s watching fireworks set off just for him. His ears are pink, his smile helplessly wide. He reaches for his coffee, then forgets to drink it.

Bucky, meanwhile, reacts the way he does to most emotionally significant announcements – by doing nothing at all.

He leans back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, gaze flicking once between Steve and Natasha as if he’s checking that this is, in fact, real. His expression is unreadable at first – then cracks just enough to reveal a fond resignation.

“Well,” he says eventually, nodding once. “Took you long enough.”

Steve laughs, delighted. “I knew you’d say that.”

Bucky reaches across the table and claps him on the shoulder, solid and affectionate. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Natasha watches the exchange with a small, knowing smile. “You’re happy for us,” she says.

“I am,” Bucky replies immediately, without hesitation. “You’re good together. Always have been.”

You notice – how easily the words come out, how certain he sounds – and your heart squeezes a little.

Then he adds, dry as dust, “Still don’t know why you’d want a wedding.”

You blink. “How – how can you hate weddings? Weddings are –”

“Expensive,” Bucky supplies. “A waste of time. Full of speeches no one remembers and promises that half the room doesn’t believe in.”

You stare at him like he’s just announced he doesn’t believe in birthdays. Or seasons. Or the concept of marking time at all.

Natasha hums. “You’re projecting.”

“I’m being realistic.”

But then, he glances at Steve again, and his tone softens, “I’m happy for you,” he says. “Both of you. Really.”

Natasha nods once, satisfied. “Good. Because you’re the best man.”

Bucky freezes like she’s told him he’s being drafted. There’s that split-second tension, the recalibration. You, mid-sip of your mimosa, choke. Hah! Karma!

He looks from Natasha to Steve, then back again, as if hoping one of them will crack and admit this is a joke.

“I am what.”

Steve’s grin turns positively feral. “Yeah. Best man. Obviously.”

Bucky looks at all three of you in turn, trying to locate the hidden camera. “No,” he says slowly. “That’s not obvious. That’s a terrible idea. What part of I think weddings are useless did you not get?”

Natasha hands you a napkin. “And,” she continues, entirely unbothered, “she’s the maid of honour.”

Your head snaps up. “Me?”

“Of course you,” Natasha says. “Who else would I trust?”

Your whole body does a small, involuntary jolt, like someone pressed your internal panic-and-joy switch at the same time.

“Me?” you breathe. Then again, quieter, “Me.”

Natasha’s looking at you with that rare, unguarded sincerity she reserves for maybe three people on earth.

Your throat tightens. “I – yes. Of course. I’d be honoured.”

Bucky blinks once, slow, like he hadn’t expected quite that level of enthusiasm.

You’re just about to turn on Bucky for that face he’s making – something between disbelief and mild judgment – when the plates arrive, and for a brief, blissful moment, the promise of carbohydrates knocks every uncharitable thought clean out of your head.

This turns out to be a mistake, because the second you’re buttering sourdough with the single-minded joy of someone about to be fed, you’ve already forgotten to stay annoyed at him. Another thought slips in – soft at first, then niggling – that there’s a wedding to plan.  

“So,” you say, glancing up, smile bright. “I know it’s early, but when were you thinking of actually having the wedding?”

“Oh,” Natasha says, not even looking up from her eggs. “Maybe August?”

You beam. “August,” you repeat dreamily. “That’s beautiful. Late summer weddings are so romantic – warm nights, golden hour photos, none of those terrible July storms –”

She nods. “Mm.”

“And that gives you loads of time to plan,” you continue, already halfway to bliss. “Plenty of runway.”

Natasha smiles. Then, lightly – certainly too lightly for the bombshell she’s dropping – adds, “August this year.”

The knife slips in your hand. The world stops. You laugh and it feels like it’s coming out all wrong. “Sorry – what?”

You turn instinctively toward the person nearest you, seeking grounding, confirmation, sanity. Your hand finds Bucky’s forearm without thinking.

He doesn’t pull away; he doesn’t reassure you either. He’s wearing a strange expression – half amused, half wary – like someone watching a beautifully engineered bridge begin to smoke.

“August,” Steve repeats serenely. “It’s kind of perfect, actually.”

You stare at him. “That’s,” you say slowly, “next month.”

“Yes,” Steve says, pleased. “Exactly.”

Then you laugh again, louder this time, shaking your head. “Okay, okay! But –” you inhale. “What’s the plan?”

“Well,” he says, folding his hands like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “we were thinking simple.”

Your smile freezes.

Natasha nods. “Very simple.”

Your smile begins to strain. “Define simple.”

“Lunch,” Steve says. “At my parent’s place.”

“In the backyard,” Natasha adds. “Just family and close friends.”

The word lunch echoes in your skull like it’s been shouted down a hallway.

“A… lunch,” you echo faintly. Lunch is not a wedding word. Lunch is what happens when people have errands afterwards.

“Yes,” Natasha says calmly. “Low-key.”

You lean back into your chair.

Steve chimes in, “We don’t really need much, we just want to get married.”

There it is, that gentle, sincere, devastating honesty.

You stare at the two of them, these people you love more than most things in the world, and feel something inside you crack open like a dropped champagne flute.

“No,” you say.

Steve blinks. “No?”

“No,” you repeat, firmer now. “Absolutely not.”

Beside you, Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly amused – a reaction you’ll pointedly refuse to dignify in favour of the emergency at hand.

“Oh, come on,” Bucky says, “what’s wrong with lunch?”

You swivel toward him, eyes wide. “Everything. Everything is wrong with lunch.”

“People show up,” he says, shrugging. “They eat. They say congratulations. Nothing different from a big party.”

You gesture helplessly between him and the couple. “This is a wedding. You don’t just – eat and disperse.”

Natasha finally looks at you properly. “We’re not trying to make a production of it.” Steve nods in agreement. “Between school starting again and Nat going back into full ballet rehearsal season, this is kind of our window.”

“There isn’t another one,” she adds. “Fall is gone. Winter is Nutcracker. And then the company tours in Spring.”

Steve shrugs apologetically. “And once summer’s over, I’m back with the kids full-time. We don’t want to wait another year just to line up calendars.”

“It’s sensible,” Natasha adds. “Not romantic. Just… real life.”

“But –” you start, then stop, searching for something that doesn’t make you sound unhinged. “But you deserve more than real life.”

“We have each other,” Steve says gently.

“That’s not –” You turn again, desperate now, fingers digging into Bucky’s arm without a shred of dignity. “Tell them. This is insane, right?”

He stiffens slightly, clearly unprepared to be conscripted into this fight. “I really don’t see the problem,” he says honestly.

Your jaw drops. “It’s a milestone,” you insist. “It’s about marking the moment. About saying this matters enough that it stops time for a day.”

Bucky tilts his head. “Or,” he says, “they get married because they want to be married. The rest is optional.”

Natasha watches you both with interest. Steve’s head swivels between the two of you like he’s watching a tennis match.

“Behold,” you say dryly, gesturing at Bucky. “The patron saint of emotional rationing.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Better than being the apostle of overreaction.”

You release his arm with a huff. “You’re really telling me you’re fine with them getting married over sandwiches.”

“If they’re good sandwiches,” he says, unfazed. “Sure.”

You make a distressed, inhuman noise. Bucky studies you – really studies you – and for the first time since you met him, he seems to consider the possibility that something might be deeply wrong with you.

The table falls into a brief, careful quiet. It’s not uncomfortable, but it certainly is weighted. You slide your plate aside and, with the grim resolve of someone about to break an emergency story, pull out the battered journalist’s notebook you’re never actually without.

“Okay,” you say.

Three heads turn toward you.

“What if,” you say slowly, “I plan it.”

Natasha blinks. “You –”

“Everything,” you continue, gaining momentum. “The logistics, the vendors, the timeline. All of it. You don’t have to think about anything.”

When Steve starts to protest, you hold up a hand.

“No. Listen. You’re busy. I get that. You’ve both spent your lives showing up for other people.” You gesture between them. “Let us show up for you.”

Bucky watches you now, full attention, as if something in the room has shifted and he’s trying to locate the fault line.

“You two just –” you say, voice softer but no less certain, “you two just appear. Have a good time. Celebrate with us.”

Natasha studies you, eyes sharp, calculating. “You’d take this on?”

“Yes,” you say immediately. “Happily.”

Steve looks torn. “We don’t want to burden you.”

You laugh, quick and earnest. “You won’t. This is –” you falter, then recover. “This is important to me.”

A small, horrible beat passes in which you second-guess whether you’ve crossed a line.

Then Natasha exhales, long and thoughtful. “And you wouldn’t turn it into something enormous.”

You hesitate, just a tiny bit. “I wouldn’t turn it into something untrue,” you say. “I promise.”

That does it. Natasha reaches for your hand, squeezing once. “Okay.”

Steve smiles, relief washing over him. “Yeah. Okay.”

Your heart lifts – buoyant, determined, already sprinting ahead as you turn instinctively toward Bucky, eyes bright, dragging him into the moment without even thinking.

“And you,” you insist, “You’ll help.”

He stiffens. “I will not.”

“You’re the best man,” you say, steady, reasonable. “I’m the maid of honour. This is literally a two-person job, like it or not.”

His jaw flexes. “I don’t do weddings.”

“And I don’t do half-measures,” you shoot back. “So here we are.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again – clearly deciding that arguing with you is both futile and dangerous to his peace of mind.

Natasha laughs. Steve shakes his head, amused. The conversation drifts on – dates, timelines, logistics – while you’re already sketching invisible plans in the air like a general surveying an impending campaign.

Bucky leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression edged with a kind of begrudging vigilance, as if he now has to monitor whatever chaos you intend to unleash on his life. He doesn’t believe in weddings. And whatever this is – you, dragging him into a four-week matrimonial war zone – isn’t changing that.

It is, however, very clearly about to become his problem.

Three weeks and a day earlier…

“Remind me,” Bucky mutters, voice as flat as concrete, “why I’m here?”  

You don’t answer immediately. You’re too busy absorbing the lake house foyer – the clean timber lines, the citrus-and-sunlight smell, the exact kind of curated serenity that makes your pulse rise with possibility.

Bucky stands beside you like he’s been forced at gunpoint to be here – jaw tight, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels.

“It’s indoor-outdoor, one of the top venues in the state, and seats exactly who we need it to,” you recite automatically, even though no one has accused you of anything yet. “And because I asked you to come.”

“I noticed,” he deadpans. “What I didn’t notice was any advance warning before being hauled into – whatever this is.”

You wave him off. “24 hours is plenty.”

“For you, maybe,” he replies flatly. “Some of us don’t move meetings unless something’s on fire.” He looks pointedly around the perfectly intact room.

You open your mouth – ready to fight him, justify yourself, maybe both – but another couple steps in behind you. They’re glossy, coordinated, wearing the sort of high-fashion monochrome palette that suggests they have a shared stylist and a joint credit card. The bride glances at you, then at Bucky, eyes flicking quickly over the height difference, the arm loop, the proximity.

Something in her expression sharpens. Territory has been staked, competition engaged.

Oh. So it’s going to be like that.

You are not losing this venue to someone wearing three different shades of black.

It is at this moment – this precise, irrational, adrenaline-laced moment – the venue coordinator appears.  She is a woman in earth-toned linen who steps forward with her arms held out wide. “Welcome! You must be –”

“Engaged!” you blurt out.

Bucky chokes so hard it could be a medical issue.

You thump him on the back and keep smiling like nothing is wrong. “Yes,” you continue, “we’re so excited to be here.”

The woman’s smile widens, though she looks a little confused. Nevertheless, she clasps your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming in person and not sending a planner. I do prefer to walk the space with the couple themselves.” She tilts her head, studying the two of you like a composition. “I designed it that way,” she continues lightly, “otherwise the space gets confused. It needs to feel the energy of two people together.”

Bucky’s jaw flexes once – a man making peace with his own unbelievable life choices.

You do not give him time to regret it.

You keep smiling, turning just enough to close the distance between you as you decisively slide your fingers around the widest part of his biceps. It’s an action possessive to sell the lie, and strategic enough that he can’t object.

“Of course, we must accommodate the space,” you lie cleanly through your teeth.

Bucky’s gaze flicks to your hand.

Then to the woman.

Then back to your hand.

Something in his expression tightens – disbelief first, then resignation, then a faint, startled awareness of how close you suddenly are. His jaw works once, like he’s swallowing a protest.

The woman beams, satisfied. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can always tell when a couple’s right for the room.”

Bucky blinks.

“The room,” he mutters for your ears only, “is not the only thing being lied to.”

You squeeze his arm a little tighter – a warning, a threat, a plea for cooperation – and steer him forward.

“Just play along,” you hiss.

You move without thinking, guiding Bucky along with you. He leans down slightly, voice low and dangerous. “You did not tell me,” he says, “that I was going to be fake-engaged today.”

You smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d come if I did.”

“I can still walk out.”

“You won’t,” you say sweetly. “You’d never leave me to lose to them.”

His mouth presses into a flat line. “That’s not a compliment.”

The coordinator sweeps ahead, her linen skirts whispering across the polished floor, gesturing for all four of you to follow her deeper into the venue. Her energy is serene, ceremonial, almost priestly – the kind of woman who would absolutely believe a building has preferences.

You move first, still linked to Bucky because you can’t risk breaking formation now. His arm stays rigid under your hand, but he doesn’t shake you off. Not when the monochrome couple is still behind you. Not when the coordinator keeps glancing back, clearly assessing which pair the space prefers.

As you’re led deeper into the space – past long communal tables, a dramatic staircase, an absurdly beautiful internal garden that was built to reflect the chaotic natural energies of the lake – you let yourself breathe for the first time all week.

It has been chaos – that particular, grinding breed of chaos born from too many deadlines stacked on too little sleep. A week of logistics and emails, of vendor spreadsheets multiplying like rabbits. You’ve been sleeping with your phone pressed to your chest, waking up to half-drafted ideas and missed calls. Coffee is drunk consistently, at ungodly hours.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, your harmless little notebook of ideas has evolved into something far more serious: a swollen D-ring binder thick enough to cause wrist strain, complete with a colour-coded contents page, subsection tabs, and – because you hate yourself – a newly minted annex.

Bucky has watched this escalation with increasing distaste. He flips a page, pauses, then squints at it. “Why is this laminated?”

“It’s the Emergency Contingencies Index.”

He looks up at you like he’s just witnessed a war crime. “…You laminated contingencies.”

“Obviously.”

He exhales through his nose – long, beleaguered, resigned to his fate. “Of course you did.”

You ignore the jibe and slide a printout across the table toward him. “Venue viewing. Tomorrow evening.” You tap the date and time with your pen, already mentally drafting an email you’ll have to send from the back of the cab to work. “Just promise me you’ll show up.”

He exhales slowly, like a man considering his options. He said nothing, and yet –

Here he is.

You catch him out of the corner of your eye now, consciously shortening his stride so he doesn’t power ahead of you, free hand shoved into his pockets, jaw set in concentration as he maintains the fragile illusion of engaged unity. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.

The foyer opens into a long, sunlit corridor. Windows stretch floor-to-ceiling, throwing bright bars of late-afternoon light across the hardwood.

Beyond her, a sweeping wall of French doors opens onto the lake, the view so startlingly still it looks curated. The afternoon light pours in, warm and liquid, pooling over the polished floors as though the entire venue has been waiting – patiently, expectantly – for someone to notice how perfect it could be.

The other couple gasps appreciatively.

You smile, unsurprised. You know this view; you’d studied it from three angles online, read two overly reverent blog posts about it, and cross-checked Google Earth. Still, seeing it in person, it’s better – warmer, more alive.

Bucky notices, of course he notices, but he doesn’t comment – he’s too busy maintaining his posture of a reluctant hostage – but the corner of his mouth tightens like he’s bracing for you to sprint ahead and start taking photos.

You nudge him anyway. “Try not to look like someone dragged you out of a bunker.”

His glance is slow, unimpressed. “Try not to lie about our relationship status in front of strangers.”

“Tit for tat,” you murmur.

The coordinator begins talking about the original timber, about the intentional asymmetry of the beams, about the way light “wakes the room gently.”

You are listening with rapt attention.

Bucky is… enduring.

Every now and then she asks a question – Do you prefer natural wood tones? Would you want drapery? Do you lean toward a circular ceremony layout or linear? – and you open your mouth each time, prepared to answer.

But Bucky answers first – not with enthusiasm, or vision, or any interest in weddings whatsoever – but with that dry, unfiltered architectural practicality of a man who absolutely cannot help applying professional standards even when he hates the situation he finds himself in.

“A circular layout will bottleneck the aisle, especially if it’s indoors,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You’ll lose at least a third of the sightlines.”

The coordinator brightens. “Exactly.”

The monochrome bride stiffens.

You blink at Bucky, startled. He catches the look, scowls faintly, and mutters, “It’s obvious.”

It isn’t, but you let him have his dignity.

You walk on through another set of doors, which opens wide into the main reception hall – soaring beams, vast windows framing the lake, the whole space glowing.

“This,” she says reverently, “is where most couples choose to place their focal installation.”

You know instantly what she means. The chandelier. You’d flagged it in your notes – a suspended floral-glass hybrid piece, deceptively delicate, impossibly heavy.

You open your mouth to ask about load-bearing specs, but –

“Your beam spacing’s inconsistent,” Bucky says first.

Everyone looks up.

He’s frowning at the ceiling, hands still in his pockets, the posture of someone who cannot stop being an architect even when he’s pretending to be an engaged man-captive.

“You’ve got a reinforced steel bracket hidden behind the main truss,” he continues, nodding toward a nearly invisible seam. “But if you’re planning anything heavier than a statement pendant, you’ll need secondary reinforcement. Otherwise the whole thing will torque.”

The coordinator’s eyes go very round.

The monochrome groom swallows, while his bride tightens her grip on her designer purse.

You stare at Bucky, stunned.

He glances sideways at you – and the look he gives you is defensive, almost irritated, the look of a man who realizes too late that he has just demonstrated interest.

“What?” he mutters. “You were gonna ask.”

He’s right, and that annoys you more than it should.

The coordinator beams. “Most people never notice that bracket. You have an extraordinary eye.”

Bucky grimaces, as if being praised for competence in a wedding venue is worse than being shot.

You step in smoothly. “He’s very detail-oriented.”

“He’s very particular,” the monochrome bride echoes, except in her tone, it’s an accusation.

Bucky lifts one brow at her – slow, unimpressed – and the bride looks away first.

The coordinator, oblivious or delighted, continues. “Of course, if you were envisioning a suspended installation – glass, florals, even a sculptural arc – we can accommodate it. The space responds beautifully to verticality.”

“We are considering something suspended,” you say before you can stop yourself.

Bucky shoots you a look that reads: You’re making up lies faster than I can track them.

You shoot him one back: Keep up.

He exhales through his nose. “If we do that, we’ll need that secondary bracket. And a counterweight system.”

The coordinator nods rapidly, already mentally rearranging her entire lighting rig. “Of course. That can be arranged.” Something shifts subtly. Her posture softens, and the way she nods is as if a check box has just been ticked.

The other groom glances back at you and Bucky, his earlier confidence visibly dented. You squeeze Bucky’s arm, unable to help the spark of satisfaction that flickers through you.

The moment the coordinator drifts out of both eyesight and earshot – no doubt to commune with the floorboards or interrogate the other couple’s aura – Bucky exhales like he’s been underwater.

“Okay,” he mutters, stepping back a fraction, putting space between your bodies the way a man pulls his hand away from a hot stove. “We’re done here. We saw the thing. You touched me. The room approved. Can we go?”

You stare at him. “We haven’t even reached the terrace. Or seen the lake.”

“We don’t need to see anything,” he says, already half-turned toward the exit. “You’ve clearly got this handled. The room is spiritually climaxing for you. I’m just taking up space.”

You blink at him. “Are you – mad?”

“No,” he says immediately, too quickly. “I’m not mad.”

He is mad. He is radiating annoyance in a very silent, very repressed, very Barnesian key.

You step in front of him before he can make a full escape.

“Bucky. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he says again, jaw tightening. “You lie through your teeth, drag me into a fake engagement, hold onto me like I’m part of the act, and suddenly we’re competing with –” he gestures vaguely toward the monochrome couple, “– those people. Nothing at all.”

You cross your arms. “I asked you to come. You came. That’s on you.”

His laugh is humourless. “You didn’t tell me I was signing up to be your emotional seeing-eye dog for a venue tour.”

You bristle. “I didn’t ask you to hold my hand.”

“You didn’t ask,” he shoots back, “but you sure as hell did it anyway.”

You open your mouth. Close it again in favour of studying him, as if the truth of this situation might be written across the rigidity of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth, and the glint in his eyes that isn’t anger so much as it is something that he doesn’t want to name.

This is not about the hand, this is not about the lie. This is something deeper and he’s trying very hard – too hard – not to be affected by it.

“Okay,” you say slowly. “So what are you actually angry about?”

He looks away first, toward the lake shimmering through the hallway windows. The light catches on the water, fractured and restless – and for a moment, so is he.

“You keep acting like this wedding is an exam you’re going to be graded on,” he says quietly. “Like if you don’t get the perfect score, you’d have failed something.”

Your heart climbs straight into your throat. His accuracy is unfair.  

“And you,” you say, more sharply than intended, “act like caring about something automatically makes it ridiculous.”

Unexpectedly, he flinches – a tiny, involuntary contraction, like you’ve brushed into a decades old bruise.

“It’s just a venue,” he says, and there’s no mockery in it now. Only something raw, frustrated, almost… unguarded. “A pretty one. But you’re acting like it’s going to make or break their marriage.”

His mouth twists. “Like the right backdrop magically carries the weight of everything else. And I don’t get it,” he exhales through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere past you. “Why this – all this – matters so damn much to you people.”

You people. It stings, but not in the way he thinks. Because underneath the snark, you finally see the real wound: he doesn’t understand ceremonies, symbols, anything beautiful for the sake of being beautiful – because he’s never let himself want any of it.

“Because it’s Nat and Steve,” you say, letting your voice soften to match his. “And I love them.”

He goes still at that.

You press on, because if you stop now you might not ever get it out. “I can’t fix their schedules,” you say. “I can’t tell them to stop adjusting their lives for everyone else. For rehearsals, for classes, for performances, for deadlines, for everyone who wants a piece of them.” You gesture around the sun-dappled riverbank. “This I can make good. This is their one wedding, and I refuse to let it be mediocre.”

A whole taxonomy of expressions moves across Bucky’s face – irritation, disbelief, something like reluctant comprehension, and then something else entirely, quick and unguarded, before he shutters it.

“And if all it takes is twenty minutes of us pretending…” you continue, voice steadying as you meet his eyes, “then yeah, I’m going to ask you to pretend like your life depends on it.”

He swallows – a small, tight movement, the only tell he gives away. You hold his gaze, refusing to look anywhere else.

“I’m not asking you to suddenly believe in weddings, Bucky,” you say quietly. “Just help me make one thing in their life perfect.”

His jaw works once, the fight leaving him in a slow, resigned exhale.

“…Fine,” he mutters, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just – don’t grab my arm like that again unless you warn me first.”

You smile, stepping past him toward the terrace where the coordinator has drifted off with the other couple. “No promises.”

*

The tour funnels you down a gentle slope, the house falling away behind you as the riverbank unfurls in front of it – a stretch of soft grass tapering toward the water, framed on one side by a broad, ancient oak. Its branches arc outward like the ribs of a cathedral, heavy with leaves that whisper in the breeze. You hadn’t noticed it from the house; from this angle, though, it dominates the horizon, dignified and steadfast, the kind of tree that seems older than the property deeds themselves.

The coordinator steps onto the very center of the lawn with the assured gait of someone taking her mark on a stage. This, you know instinctively, is where she believes vows ought to be spoken – the exact patch of earth where a couple should stand, framed by river light and the watchful canopy of the oak. She closes her eyes, lifts her chin slightly, and inhales through her nose like she’s tasting the air for nuance, for resonance, for meaning.

Sunlight spills around her like she arranged it.

“Well?” she asks. “What has the space said to you?”

You open your mouth, but Bucky beats you to it.

He straightens with the weary precision of a man reaching for a tool he resents knowing how to use. And, with all the cool detachment of someone reading a zoning violation aloud, he replies, “We’ll need to check with our feng shui master first. Just to confirm the alignment. Of the house. Of the day. Of us.”

You nearly swallow your own tongue as the coordinator woman’s eyes go wide. The monochrome couple freeze like meerkats spotting a predator.

“Your… master,” she breathes, reverent.

Bucky nods once, faux-solemn. “Yes. We never make major choices without him aligning the energies of the space.”

Something dangerously close to hysteria bubbles up – laughter, disbelief, the urge to grab him by the collar – and you shove it all down in favour of hissing under your breath, “Where the hell did you get that from?”

Without breaking eye contact with the woman, Bucky whispers back, “Someone said it to me last week.”

“Well.” Her spine straightens, chin lifting in pride. “You may assure your feng shui master that this house was built to honour all schools of thought. East, West, traditional, contemporary, celestial, terrestrial – every axis, every current, every flow – perfectly aligned.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky murmurs, and the audacity of him nearly floors you.

The woman stands a little straighter, the way someone does when intellectually challenged and spiritually provoked. Her eyes sweep once more over the riverbank, the grass, the house behind you – a slow, assessing glide, like she’s listening to vibrations only she can hear.

She inhales deeply, with great purpose. When she opens her eyes again, something in her expression has shifted. “The space,” she says, solemn as a vow, “has begun to speak.”

A hush seems to fall – not real, but perceptual, the kind that comes from someone making a proclamation with enough confidence that your brain scrambles to keep up.

She lifts her hands, palms open to the sky. “It is… forming an opinion.”

Behind you, Bucky stiffens in the exact way a man does when he desperately wants to object but also desperately does not want to extend this interaction by another minute.

The woman turns, serene and certain.

The monochrome couple immediately arrange themselves into a picturesque tableau – her hand on his chest, his chin lowered like he’s posing for a photoshoot. They look like they rehearsed this in the car.

She lifts her palms. “Energy reveals itself through contrast. This space,” she announces, “always reveals the truth of a couple.”

Bucky mutters, “Spaces are unreactive,” under his breath.

You nudge his ribs with your elbow, a warning.

The coordinator opens her eyes and turns toward the monochrome couple first. She tilts her head, studying them with a tight, delicate frown – the kind people give wilted herbs at a farmer’s market.

“Mmm,” she says. “There is… tension in your current alignment.”

The monochrome bride stiffens. “Tension?”

“Yes,” the coordinator says gently, almost apologetically. “A little blocked. A little… forced.”

Beside you, Bucky murmurs, “Told you posing wouldn’t help,” and you jab him again, harder.

Then the coordinator turns to you and Bucky and her eyes widen. She steps closer, blinking once, twice, as if a spotlight has turned on specifically above the two of you.

“Oh,” she breathes. “This… this is interesting.”

Bucky straightens, like he’s bracing to be insulted. Instead, the coordinator smiles – slow and reverent – as if she’s seeing the first bloom of spring emerge from frozen ground.

“Your energy is very strong together,” she says.

You blink. Bucky blinks harder.

“Our what?” he splutters.

“Your connection,” she clarifies, waving her hands vaguely between your bodies. “There’s an undeniable resonance. A grounding. A clarity. The space likes you.”

You nearly choke. “We – we just walked in.”

“Yes,” she says simply. “And the space settled. Didn’t you feel it?”

You feel Bucky staring at you, silently begging you not to say yes, which is why you smile sweetly and answer, “Of course.”

The monochrome bride sputters. “We’ve been engaged for fourteen months!”

The coordinator turns sympathetically toward her. “Sometimes longevity dulls resonance.”

Bucky quietly coughs to hide a laugh – or dies, it’s hard to tell.

The monochrome groom steps forward, indignant. “We’re very aligned. We meditate together.”

“Even more worrying,” the coordinator murmurs.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing. Bucky fails entirely; a tiny, traitorous sound escapes him.

The bride narrows her eyes at you like you might drop dead from the strength of her displeasure.

You loop your arm a little tighter around Bucky’s, partly to sell the ruse… partly because the absurdity has short-circuited your ability to stand upright on your own.

The coordinator makes a gentle sweeping motion with her hand. “Let us test the resonance.”

Bucky whispers, panicked, “What the hell does that mean?”

“How would I know?!”

But the monochrome bride is already stepping forward like she’s ready to ascend the throne, so you tug Bucky along to keep up.

The coordinator stands between both couples, waving her arms like she’s invoking some ancient rite. “Take one step toward each other.”

You and Bucky share a look – half dread, half the feral refusal to lose when the competition is right there. You both step forward in perfect sync.

You mouth, I’m sorry. A muscle twitches in his cheek – not annoyance – something closer to careful exasperation. His answer is a barely perceptible tilt of his head that reads, I know. Don’t worry about it.

You stop toe to toe, breaths brushing.

Nothing mystical happens, nothing supernatural – just Bucky Barnes standing close enough that the world seems to tilt around the space you share. You refuse to look him in the eyes – God knows what you’d see there – so you stare determinedly at the bridge of his nose, willing your expression into neutrality as the warmth of him crowds out every thought you were trying to have.

He inhales, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting you to be this close either. He too, appears to be doing his level best to not look at you, but it’s an exercise in futility. His gaze skims your mouth first – a flicker, unintentional and devastating – before darting up to your eyes like he’s been caught thinking something he absolutely shouldn’t.

Your pulse slams; he swallows once, hard  – small, involuntary shifts, now kept between the two of you like a secret.

The coordinator beams. “There. You see? Harmony.”

Bucky stares straight ahead, face rigid, ears just barely pink.

The monochrome couple step forward too – but the groom hesitates; the bride overcorrects; their hands collide awkwardly.

“Oh,” the coordinator says softly, pained. “Oh no.”

Bucky mutters, “Yikes,” under his breath, and you actually pinch his arm.

The coordinator claps once, decisive. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”

Everyone tenses.

She turns to you and Bucky. “The space responds to you,” she says with priestess-level certainty. “It welcomes you. It expands for you.”

You’re about to thank her when Bucky murmurs, “If the space is reacting to anything, it’s your dramatics,” but fortunately only you hear it.

Then the coordinator swivels toward the other couple. “You,” she announces solemnly, “must reduce your guest list.”

The bride gasps. “But we – my mother – ”

“The room,” the coordinator says gravely, “has decided.”

The groom looks genuinely shaken.

Bucky leans in, voice barely audible. “I can’t believe this is working.”

You whisper back, “It’s not working because of me. It’s working because of that chandelier lecture you gave.”

“That was structural integrity,” he hisses. “Not flirting.”

But he doesn’t let go of your arm.

And you don’t step away.

The woman turns back to you both, her expression warm and resolute. “Take your time,” she says, though she looks like she’d happily build a shrine in your honour to expedite the decision. “But tell your master he will find no faults here. None.”

“We will,” you promise.

She glides away, leaving you and Bucky standing in a halo of lake-light and competitive triumph.

Bucky exhales, long and tired. “This is exactly how people lose their minds.”

You guide him toward the exit anyway, fingers still hooked through his sleeve – not intimate, not quite polite, just necessary.

“Welcome,” you murmur unapologetically, “to wedding planning.”

Two weeks and a day earlier…

The week takes off at a dead sprint. Your phone vibrates itself into delirium, screen lighting up with vendors, reschedules, quotes, “circling back” emails, and three separate florists who apparently all forgot they’d already spoken to you twice.

Bucky, for all his sins, is enduring it. At every appointment he trails half a step behind you – a man hoping proximity alone won’t make him legally responsible for whatever decisions you’re about to make. Hands in pockets. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed as though each vendor is a fresh test of his moral fortitude.

And yet…

He comes. Without complaint, without needing to be chased.

And – this is new – somewhere between the cake tasting and the linen warehouse, the edge of him softens. Barely. A thaw measured in millimeters. A grunt instead of a sigh. A single, grudging nod when you ask what he thinks. A man not enjoying himself, exactly, but acclimating to the weather.

It’s not much, but for Bucky Barnes? It’s practically enthusiasm.

*

On Monday, you take him to the bakery.

That is to say: you enter the bakery; Bucky is tugged in behind you by the elbow like a particularly resentful ox being led to market. He drags his feet with the weary fatalism of a man heading into a tax audit rather than a pastel shop filled with butter and joy.

The shop itself is – there’s no other word for it – whimsical. Pastel walls, delicate bunting, sunlight slanting through the front windows as though the cakes have been personally blessed by the heavens. The air smells of warm vanilla and soft nostalgia, the kind that makes even cynics briefly believe in birthdays.

Bucky looks around as though the décor has personally wronged him.

The owner, whom you had coaxed into giving you the earliest slot of the morning through sheer force of will, gestures proudly to the tasting platter.

“We’ll begin with the Earl Grey sponge and lavender honey buttercream,” she announces, serene and certain.

Your eyes brighten.

Bucky’s narrow. “What happened to good ol’ chocolate?” he mutters, as though chocolate has been unjustly exiled from its ancestral lands.

You kick him beneath the table. Lightly. But not so lightly that it could be mistaken for affection.

“Eat,” you instruct.

He gives you the kind of look usually reserved for dire medical diagnoses, then reluctantly scoops the smallest, most suspicious sliver of cake onto his fork. He puts it into his mouth like a man testing whether the food is poisoned.

And then – you see it, the betrayal of expression he cannot stop. First surprise, then reluctant delight, followed almost immediately by the horrified awareness that he has enjoyed something he fully intended to hate.

“It’s fine,” he blurts, far too quickly.

You lean in, delighted. “You liked it.”

He scowls at the table, then at you, then at the baker – who is now beaming at him with the radiant satisfaction of a woman who has converted a lifelong skeptic.

It is not just fine.

It is objectively delicious.

And he hates – truly hates – that you saw the truth flicker across his traitorous face before he could stop it.

*

On Tuesday, Bucky takes one look at the flowers and immediately starts sneezing.

The florist winces in sympathy. “Allergies?”

“He’ll survive,” you say before Bucky can flee, even though he’s already retreating toward the far end of the worktable like a man hoping distance alone might save him.

The shop smells like cut stems and cold water – green and sharp and very alive – petals spilling across every surface in soft, painterly chaos.

The florist laughs kindly and gestures to a bucket of eucalyptus. “Don’t worry – these are hardy and allergen-friendly. They hold up in anything. Weddings, heatwaves, surprise drizzle…” He shrugs. “Outdoor ceremonies love a bit of weather drama, but flowers don’t – unless you pick the right ones.”

You perk up. “Is rain even a concern this time of year?”

“Not usually,” the florist says, selecting a spray of greenery and trimming it with quick, deft movements. “But you plan as if it might. Storms are shy until they aren’t.”

Bucky snorts. “Weather’s weather. Either it behaves or it doesn’t.”

You shoot him a look. “Some of us prefer contingency plans.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have noticed.”

You ignore him – mostly – as the florist flips to an empty page of his notepad.

“All right,” he says. “What’s the vision?”

You inhale to answer –

“Classic,” Bucky says before you can speak. “And nothing that sheds on cloth.”

Your head whips toward him. “Since when do you get a vote?”

“I don’t want to walk around looking like I’ve been rolled through pollen.”

“Oh my god,” you breathe. “This isn’t about you.”

But Bucky isn’t listening anymore. Somehow he’s gotten hold of a ranunculus – pale, full, elegant – turning it between his fingers with a strange, unexpected tenderness, like he’s examining the architecture of it rather than the bloom.

“Steve likes texture,” he says quietly. “And Nat wouldn’t want anything that droops. These won’t.”

Your heart skips a beat.

He pretends he hasn’t said anything meaningful, already shifting his attention to the eucalyptus as if the leaves are deeply compelling. The florist pretends not to notice, though his smile is unmistakably knowing.

Bucky clears his throat. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say.

(Not nothing. Not even close.)

*

On Wednesday, the décor warehouse tries to kill you.

It is cavernous and overwhelming, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling every two meters like glittering threats, and an entire aisle of linens that could double as medieval weaponry. Sequins glint, metallics glare, tulle menaces.

You are confronted with sequined tablecloths; Bucky is confronted with the very edge of his sanity.

“This,” he tells the décor consultant as he lifts one anyway, rubbing the cloth between his fingers with a frown so deeply judgmental it could be submitted for peer review, “is both a fire hazard and a crime.”

“It’s festive!” she chirps, a woman who has clearly never met Bucky Barnes before today.

“The weave is cheap,” you announce, already flipping to the corresponding tab in The Binder, which has now manifested in your hands like a grimoire. “It’ll pill and crease endlessly. And the reflective finish will give half the guest list a migraine before the night’s through. We need organic fibres. High drape. Low shine.”

Bucky’s head snaps toward you, narrowing his eyes at The Binder as if it is a sentient being he should probably file a restraining order against.

The consultant nods, chastened, and flips open a book of fabric samples. “Right. Understood. Organic fibres only.”

As she rifles through swatches, her gaze drifts upward – to you, then Bucky, then the two of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder, already leaning unconsciously toward the same bolt of ivory linen. Bucky has angled himself half a step in front of you in the quiet, instinctive way he does when something large or unwieldy is suspended overhead (in this case – chandeliers).

“You two work well together,” she says mildly. “That’s rare.”

Bucky stiffens, as if she’s accused him of tax fraud. You give her a serene smile. “We’re… efficient.”

The consultant brightens. “Wonderful! Now, what about centrepieces? I have a full catalogue –”

But you’re already unzipping The Binder. Its spine hits the table with a weighty thud, tabs fanning open like a legal case file.

The consultant startles. Bucky actually flinches.

“What is that,” he mutters, like you’ve revealed a cursed heirloom.

“My system,” you say, flipping to Décor –  Appropriate Fabrics – Do Not Attempt. “I have a plan.”

“A plan,” Bucky repeats, staring at the colour-coded pages with something between awe and genuine concern for your psychological welfare. “That thing looks like it could beat me in a fight.”

You pat The Binder affectionately. “It could.”

The consultant beams, totally unaware that Bucky is staring at you like he’s just realised he may be assisting someone who is, clinically speaking, unhinged.

“Right,” she says brightly. “I’ll pull samples.”

Bucky looks at the chandeliers overhead. Then at you. Then at The Binder.

And for the first time all week, he whispers – almost reverently, “…I should’ve stayed in the car.”

*

It happens late on a Sunday, at a café that should have closed twenty minutes ago.

The whole week has been a blur of vendors and spreadsheets and Bucky’s increasingly elaborate attempts to pretend he’s not helping while very much helping. By Sunday evening, the two of you have collapsed into the only open seats you can find – a wobbly bistro table by the window, your laptop occupying most of the surface and Bucky occupying most of the silence.

You’re hunched over the screen, brow creased, staring down a ceremony timeline that stubbornly refuses to make structural sense. Bucky is across from you, sleeves pushed up, sketching something on a napkin with the grim focus of a man troubleshooting a structural fault in a bridge rather than a wedding.

You rub your eyes. “What are you doing?”

Without looking up, he mutters, “Fixing a bottleneck. Your aisle’s too narrow.”

“Why do you care?” you mutter just as carelessly, distracted by your task.

His pen stills, his shoulders shift, and slowly, reluctantly, he looks up.

For a moment, everything seems to hush – the espresso machine becomes distant, the street noise flattens, and the tired overhead lights soften around the edges.

Bucky taps the pen once against the napkin, like anchoring himself before he says something foolish. “Because you care,” he says. Then, quieter, as if the words escaped without permission, “and you shouldn’t have to do all of this alone.”

It lands inside you with alarming precision – a warmth, a weight, something perilously close to a beginning.

You can’t breathe for a second.

And he must feel it, because he looks away fast, jaw tightening, shoulders drawing in as if he’s trying to fold the moment back up and hide it inside himself again. Like he’s said something intimate by accident, and he regrets this sliver of honesty.

Around you, the world resumes: chairs scrape, someone calls out a drink order, the barista stacks cups with end-of-night urgency.

Bucky clears his throat. “Anyway,” he mutters, sliding the napkin toward you without meeting your eyes, “don’t make it weird.”

But it is. It’s extremely, catastrophically weird.

The napkin is a clean little sketch of flow paths and corrected spacing, annotations in a tidy slant you didn’t know he had. A map of attention. Of care.

You fold it carefully before slipping it into your bag, feeling absurdly like you’re tucking away evidence of something neither of you is ready to name.

When you leave the café, the air smells faintly of rain – the kind that promises trouble but hasn’t yet arrived.

One week and one day earlier…

You do not sleep.

You perform the ceremonial gestures of sleep – lying down, closing your eyes, arranging your limbs in the socially approved configuration – but rest never actually arrives. Your mind conducts its own private military coup at 3:00 am, storming your bloodstream with insurgent thoughts: ‘Did the florist confirm final stem counts?’, ‘Did I remember to order table numbers?’, and ‘Would it work better if family speeches come before the entrées? Or after?’

You drift, jolt awake, repeat. Several times.

By morning, you’re running on nineteen minutes of sleep and pure vengeance. So, when the caterer calls you mid-zoom-interview at the press junket for Disaster Day to inform you they cannot, in fact, prepare the vegan entrée in a mini size, something in you goes very still.

You stare at your phone with the placid serenity of a war general who has already accepted casualties. “Can’t,” you say, voice crisp as a drawn blade, “is not a word in my vocabulary.”

Across the room, Bucky lifts an eyebrow over the rim of his laptop. He is technically working from home today – except “home” has quietly become your living room around 8:12 a.m. every morning. You’ve stopped asking why. He brings coffee. And pastries. And printouts for The Binder. And frankly, you no longer have the mental bandwidth to interrogate miracles.

“You shouldn’t threaten people before nine,” he says mildly.

“I haven’t threatened anyone.”

That is – generously – untrue. You have absolutely threatened everyone. Politely. With deadlines. And consequences. And lightly weaponised spreadsheets.

Bucky watches you pace while fielding the caterer’s excuses, your free hand slicing the air like you’re conducting an orchestra on fire. Something like amusement flickers across his face, but it softens quickly into concern – the subtle, steady kind he pretends isn’t happening.

And then, instead of retreating as any sensible person would before the detonation of a stressed maid-of-honour, he rises from the couch, crosses the room, and steps into your orbit.

He doesn’t grab your phone. He asks for it with one quiet, inexorable gesture of his hand.

“Give me that,” he murmurs. “Before the caterers fire us.”

“They are not going to fire us.”

“You’re vibrating.”

“I’m passionate.”

“You’re one ‘no’ from burning this whole city down.”

Before you can form a rebuttal, he slides your phone neatly out of your grip, taps the speaker off, and steps out onto the tiny balcony attached to your apartment. The door clicks shut behind him.

You watch him through the glass – leaning one forearm against the railing, phone at his ear, morning light catching on the metal lines of his arm. His hair curls slightly at the temples from the humidity, and he’s wearing that expression he saves for handling difficult subcontractors – patience wrapped in exhaustion, tied with a bow of menace.

He’s handsome in a way that feels entirely illegal before 9:00 am.

Three minutes later – just as you’ve abandoned your Zoom call in shame and are contemplating whether your cold muffin is a metaphor for your rapidly deteriorating sanity – the door opens again.

“All sorted,” he says, handing back your phone. “They’ll do it.”

“Really?”

“They just needed to be… encouraged.”

You narrow your eyes. “Encouraged how?”

He ignores you. Instead, he leans over your shoulder without warning, takes an enormous bite out of the muffin you were very clearly saving, grimaces, and declares, “These tasted better when they were fresh.”

“I hate you,” you lie.

He pats you on the head – like you’re a stressed-out Pomeranian instead of a full-grown adult on the brink of collapse – and sets the half-eaten muffin back on your plate.

“Be good,” he says absently, already grabbing his bag. “I’ve gotta be on the West Coast in…” He checks his watch. “Nine hours. Which is – too soon. Far too soon.”

“For the site walkthrough?” you ask.

“Yes,” he grumbles. “A walkthrough that could’ve easily been a Zoom meeting. But no. ‘In-person presence’ apparently matters when you’re paid obscene amounts of money to stare at blueprints and tell rich people their walls won’t collapse.”

He slings his jacket over his shoulder, pauses at your doorway, and glances back at you – at the chaos of your open laptop, the muffin carnage, the binder bristling with tabs like a hydra waiting to strike.

“You gonna be okay till I’m back?” he asks, voice low, deceptively casual.

You open your mouth to say yes. But your brain whispers table numbers and speech order and stem counts and seating charts and vegan mini entrées –

Bucky exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll bring more muffins tomorrow,” he says.

And then he’s gone.

Five days earlier…

By this time, you have achieved a certain notoriety amongst vendors. The florist replies to your emails instantly, the lighting techs refuse to take your calls unless you’ve sent a written agenda in advance, the décor rental company has assigned their most battle-hardened employee to answer your number specifically – the kind of woman who has seen things.

And that afternoon, you’re on the phone with her – Tiffany, destroyer of inventory lists – vibrating with equal parts impatience and righteous fear. “No, Tiffany, I don’t want these silver chairs,” you say, pacing your living room like a commander on the brink of mutiny. “I want the silver chairs in the original quote. No. No, don’t you dare. These are narrower. I can see it. Don’t gaslight me with measurements, Tiffany.”

Meanwhile, Bucky – freshly returned from LA and looking unfairly good for someone who spent six hours on a cramped plane – is crouched on the floor beside the coffee table, reorganising the seating chart with the laser focus of a man who has chosen physical labour over listening to you eviscerate a stranger.

He has rolled up his sleeves, exposing the long line of his forearms. He is using a ruler. A ruler. The concentration is so intense it borders on devotional.

Your leg, jittering with fury at Tiffany’s incompetence, keeps brushing against his knee.

And Bucky… doesn’t move.

Not an inch.

He goes absolutely still, like someone attempting not to startle a wild animal – except it’s not fear pinning him there. It’s something tighter, quieter, more dangerous.

You don’t notice any of this. You’re too busy convincing Tiffany about the discomfort of narrower chairs.

However, Bucky notices you. He notices the way your hair is falling out of its clip. He notices the focus in your eyes, the heat in your voice, the absolute refusal to compromise. He notices that every time your knee brushes his, it sends a pulse of something electric straight through him. And that his ears are burning.

He shifts the seating cards again – unnecessarily, compulsively – because it’s either that or he betrays himself.

You end the call with a victorious, “Thank you, Tiffany,” in a tone that means anything but, and drop onto the couch with a sigh.

Only then do you look down and see Bucky still on the floor, still close enough that your knee bumps his elbow, still very much there.

“Did you fix it?” you ask, nodding toward the seating chart.

He doesn’t look up immediately. When he does, his voice is steady in a way his pulse absolutely isn’t.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

Four days earlier…

You are Time Itself. No one moves unless you decree it.

“Load-in is at seven,” you announce to the empty air – or perhaps to the universe, which should know better by now than to test you.

“It says eight on the schedule,” Bucky replies without looking up from his laptop.

“It’s seven,” you say. “Now.”

He exhales the kind of sigh reserved for malfunctioning printers and divine punishment, but he adjusts the timeline anyway. He’s the only person who could argue with you – and the only one who genuinely doesn’t want to.

Then the DJ calls.

He tells you, very cheerfully and very incorrectly, that your preferred recessional song is “technically unavailable.”

You stop breathing.

“What do you MEAN unavailable?” you shout into the phone. “Music does not disappear! It doesn’t migrate! It’s not an endangered species!”

Somewhere beside you, Bucky goes very still, like a man anticipating shrapnel. He gently pries the phone from your hand, tells the DJ, “Sorry, she’s been like this all week,” and steps away to do damage control.

“You need to eat something,” he says when he returns.

“You need to stop babying me,” you shoot back.

“Funny,” he says mildly, handing you a granola bar. “Because you’re acting exactly like a child.”

You glare at him. Then, still glaring, you bite half the granola bar in a single, furious chomp.

He says nothing – just watches as you flip through The Binder, muttering about back-up music options, crumbs dusting your fingers.

And then he smirks, just this quiet, unbearably fond little curve of his mouth – like he has, against all odds, successfully tamed a dragon.

Or worse, like he likes being the one who can.

Three days earlier…

You return to the venue for a walkthrough, overseeing the preparations, with the air of a small, determined weather system. A storm cloud in sneakers, striding across the lawn.

The grass is crisp underfoot; the late afternoon light glances off every rented surface. Staff scatter at your approach like startled deer as you fire off instructions rapid-fire.

“Those chairs need to be straight!” “That table is too close to the aisle – Natasha will murder someone!” “No, no, the lanterns go in a gentle arc, not –  is that a semicircle? I said gentle! Arc!”

You are relentless. A force of nature. A benevolent tyrant.

And behind you, Bucky moves like the calm shadow of that storm – not blocking it, not dampening it, simply… shaping its path. As you pass through the space, he drifts after you with that quiet, commanding competence vendors obey without hesitation.

You bark, “The draping is too low!” Bucky adds, evenly, “Raise it four inches,” and the fabric lifts to exactly the right height.

You snap, “Why is that easel crooked?” He doesn’t even check – just straightens it in passing.

You whirl and demand, “Did we lose the programs?” Without looking up from the seating chart he’s reviewing, he murmurs, “Left table,” and somehow also manages to hand them to you as you spin past.

Somewhere in the chaos, the vendors begin turning to him instead of you – but he never answers without meeting your eyes first, the quiet your call? passing between you with the ease of something well-practised.

It shifts the atmosphere around you.

Not dramatically, not all at once – but enough that you feel it: the way people start to move around the two of you rather than through you, the way instructions seem to settle more cleanly when he repeats them in that low, steady voice. It isn’t deference so much as an unspoken acknowledgement that whatever this operation is, you and Bucky are its centre of gravity. Like the two of you have become a team. A pair.

The hours blur. At some point the sun shifts, turning the river gold; at some point you realise he has been tracking your movements by sound alone; at some point everyone else started stepping back when the two of you approached together, as if clearing a path for a unit that operates on instinct, not instruction.

And then – He’s gone.

One moment Bucky is beside you, adjusting a lantern hook before you can work up the breath to scold it; the next, he’s simply… vanished. No warning, no explanation.

You freeze mid-step, wondering if perhaps the lanterns were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe the arc was perfectly gentle after all. Maybe he’s halfway home by now, liberated from your tyranny, which is frankly more alarming.

Unfortunately, you don’t have time to worry about it. The rental company have just delivered the wrong chairs – again – and you’re rifling through The Binder for the order confirmation and delivery manifesto when you hear the tell-tale click of doors opening.

You don’t bother looking up. “Bucky, if that’s the caterer, tell them no, we do not want a cheese fountain. We already have a charcuterie table and this is enoughcheese as it is –“

“Not the caterer,” a voice cuts in, bright and very, very amused.

You freeze, snap your head to the door, and immediately want to scream. “Nat?”

She saunters in, sunglasses perched in her hair, dressed like she’s just come from robbing an art gallery. And behind her –

“Steve?”

He offers a sheepish little wave. “Hey.”

“What –” You spin around, scanning the unfinished chaos of the venue. The wrong chairs are still stacked in their delivery plastics, the table linens are half-unwrapped, and someone is vacuuming outside.

“What are you doing here?” you gasp. “We’re – this place is – not done.”

“Bucky called us,” Nat says casually, inspecting the archway of lanterns. “Said you were about to combust.”

You whirl around to glare at him. He’s loitering by the floral delivery, suddenly very interested in counting the number of petals on the hydrangeas.

Traitor.

Steve steps forward before you can explode. “Hey. We’re not here to stress you out. Just thought we’d – have a look. Say hi. Make sure you’re alright.”

“And point out any death traps,” Natasha adds helpfully.

“I –” you glance around the room as a bead of sweat slides down your spine. “I haven’t – okay, but the entryway’s a mess, and I haven’t confirmed if the florist finished –”

Steve claps Bucky on the back, murmurs something you don’t catch, and then turns to you with absolute sincerity.

“Just point out what’s left,” he says. “We’ll tell you if anything needs adjusting.”

You stare at him, hesitating.

There are a dozen things still bothering you – chair alignment, votive placement, aisle symmetry, the floral arch that’s slightly off-centre if you squint.

Natasha squeezes your hand. “Lead the way.”

So you do.

You walk them through the space, stomach clenched, waiting for them to flinch. Waiting for Natasha to raise an eyebrow. For Steve to say something painfully diplomatic like “Oh… interesting choice.” You start at the entryway, apologising for the seating chart station still being assembled. You usher them through the reception room hall, cringing at the wrong chairs. You pause by the catering tent, where someone’s left a crate of half-melted ice under the table.

But –

Steve is nodding. Nat is smiling. They’re chatting with the vendors like old friends. The florist’s assistant offers them tea. A tiny crack forms in the armour of your panic.

And then, you step outside, out onto the terrace.

The world opens.

The lawn rolls out before you, soft and immaculate, before dipping toward the lake – where the water is catching the last gold of the setting sun, shimmering in a way no Pinterest board ever adequately prepared you for. The breeze lifts warm against your face, and beneath it, a cooler ribbon of air slips past your ankle.

And there, at the centre of it all, stands the arch.

It rises from the grass as though it grew there overnight: a sweep of branches and late-summer blooms woven together so seamlessly it feels alive. Moss softens the base, wildflowers spill through the latticework, and the whole structure glows in the amber light like it has been waiting – patiently, inevitably – for Nat and Steve to stand beneath it.

The trees along the waterline rustle, not loudly, but with that faint, anticipatory shiver of leaves that hints at a change in the air. The whole place feels momentarily enchanted.

Natasha inhales softly. “This is breathtaking.”

Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders, his expression lighting up in a way that makes your throat sting. “It’s perfect,” he says.

Perfect. Perfect.

You have not heard that word in two weeks – not directed at you, not directed at anything you’ve touched. The sound of it seems to land somewhere deep in your chest, loosening a knot you didn’t realise had become part of your anatomy.

You turn slightly, catching Bucky watching you. Not Steve.

Not Natasha.

You.

For a moment his expression is unreadable – steady, assessing, something flickering just behind his eyes as if he’s cataloguing the exact second your shoulders begin to unlock. And when they do, when that infinitesimal shift in your posture betrays just how close to breaking you’ve been, something gentler settles across his features. Something warm. Something proud in a quiet, devastating way.

He doesn’t say a word.

But the silence feels like one: See? I told you. You did this. You can breathe now.

Natasha spins to face you, eyes bright. “Everything looks incredible. Truly.”

You swallow, the question slipping out before you can stop it. “Really?”

“Really,” Steve echoes. “We wouldn’t change a thing.”

The breath leaves you all at once – a long, trembling exhale you didn’t realise you’d been holding, as if your body had been bracing for criticism even now, even here. Your chest opens like someone finally snipped the last too-tight thread holding it together.

Maybe – just maybe – you haven’t been failing.

Maybe it’s all going to be okay.

Two days ago…

Bucky finds you by accident.

It’s late – late enough that the venue has finally exhaled. The last of the staff have gone, the caterer’s van taillights swallowed by the dark, the florist waving wearily before disappearing down the drive. Outside, a light drizzle patters on and off, the kind that can’t decide whether to commit to rain at all. The venue, which had buzzed like a disturbed hive all day, now settles into a deep, exhausted quiet.

He walks the grounds anyway.

The last staff car crunches over gravel as it pulls away; he stands under the overhang and watches its taillights disappear into the dark. He tells people go home, nods toward their umbrellas, makes sure no one is lingering in the drizzle out of politeness or fear you’ll summon them back.

Only when the final goodnight is called does he breathe out.

Inside, the place feels different. Dimmer. Reverent. The hallway sconces glow low, the air smelling faintly of wet cedar and the sweet scatter of greenery left behind. A final walkthrough, he tells himself. One last sweep before tomorrow.

He moves through the quiet halls checking what he knows: the service doors latched, terrace gate secured so the breeze won’t rattle it open, emergency exits clear. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and wet earth drifting in from outside. Overhead, the timbers creak softly with the shifting weather.

He pauses beneath the hanging chandeliers – delicate strands of crystal beading suspended amongst shimmering lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trembling slightly whenever the drizzle swells and the wind nudges the eaves. He counts them again, and again, pretending it’s for safety, ignoring the truth humming beneath the surface:

Everything is done.

Everything is perfect.

Everything is so unmistakably yours.

He assumes you went home hours ago. He hopes you did. He hopes you’re asleep, or at least horizontal, phone finally out of your hands. He should be doing the same. He should stop orbiting the edges of this day and let tomorrow arrive on its own.

He’s halfway to convincing himself to go when he hears it – a soft, papery sound. A rustle, quiet enough that he almost thinks he imagined it. He slows, frowns, and follows the sound into the reception hall, stopping short at the sight before him.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the reception hall, right beneath the hanging lanterns. The lights are dimmed to a buttery glow; outside, the drizzle streaks silver against the windows. The room is nearly silent, save for the faint breath of the lake through the open vents and the soft, intermittent rain.

Around you lie small squares of colored paper – pinks, creams, golds – scattered like fallen petals. Your shoes are set neatly to the side, and your hair has slipped from whatever pinned it up earlier, trailing loose around your shoulders, a few strands catching light each time you bow your head to fold.

You’re folding each piece with slow, tender precision, hands steady despite the exhaustion etched into every line of you.

A small flock already waits beside you – dozens of cranes ready to be strung up.

Bucky stands there, frozen, something in his chest tightening.

You don’t see him at first. Then he clears his throat. “You planning on sleeping at any point today?”

You look up, startled, then soften when you realize it’s him. “Nope,” you say, far too chipper for someone clearly on the brink.

He huffs out a laugh as he approaches you. “Of course not.”

You lift a paper crane between two fingers, holding it up to the warm light. “There’s an old belief about these,” you say lightly, as if it’s an afterthought and not something that’s been sitting on your tongue all night. “In some traditions, a thousand cranes mean a wish. Or a promise. Health, longevity, good fortune… luck in new beginnings.”

Your eyes flick to the pile beside you – uneven wings, crooked beaks, all of them imperfect in a way only sincerity can be.

“The kids at Steve’s school made a bunch,” you explain softly. “But it wasn’t quite enough for the installation. So I’m… just adding a few more.” Your smile tilts. “Stacking the odds.”

“Not just a few more,” he says automatically.

“I know,” you say lightly, “but it’s for good reason.”

Bucky looks at the cranes again, not as decorations, not as something hung from wires and beams and carefully calculated weight limits. But as wishes. Hundreds of small, deliberate hopes, folded by all the people that love Steve and Natasha, one careful crease at a time, suspended above a room meant to hold a beginning.

Something tightens in his chest. He should leave. He should go home. He should not be drawn to the floor beside you like it’s gravity and he’s helpless against it.

He sits down anyway.

The wood is cool under him. our shoulder is close – closer than it has any right to be – and heat pools along the inside of his arm just from being near you.

You hand him a square of paper. Your fingers brush his. He pretends the touch doesn’t short-circuit something fundamental.

“So,” he says, staring at the paper like it might explode. “Instructions?”

You grin – tired, luminous, devastating. “I knew you’d ask.”

He pretends that doesn’t do something awful and permanent to him.

You lean in, showing him the first fold as your fingers settle over his without hesitation. A warm, electric pressure crawls up his wrist and into his ribs. He swallows. Focus. Fold. Don’t look at her.

“You’re overthinking it,” you say softly.

“I’m not you,” he mutters.

“If you say so.”

You show him how to crease the wing. Your thumb grazes the inside of his palm. His pulse kicks so violently he’s certain you must feel it.

You finish your crane before he finishes his. He pretends not to notice – or admire – the deft precision of your hands. The shape of them. The small, quiet strength of your wrists.

He’s doing a lot of pretending in this lake house.

“You know,” you say, setting another finished crane on the pile, “I think this is the first moment I’ve sat still in two weeks.”

He studies you. Really studies you.

The smudged eyeliner. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of your eyes. The way your shoulders sag only now that no one but him is here to see it.

“You did it,” he says quietly.

You blink. “Did what?”

“Everything.” His gaze sweeps over the decorated hall, the crane installation, the arch waiting outside for tomorrow. “You really built this whole damn wedding from the ground up.”

You laugh, soft and self-conscious. “With help.”

“With me,” he corrects. “And I didn’t even want to be involved at first.”

You smile. “You warmed up.”

“No,” he says before he can stop himself. “I just realized something.”

You turn your head. “Which is?”

This is the moment he feels something tip inside him, heavy and irreversible.

He should lie. He should joke. He should deflect until the truth loosens its grip.

Instead, he hears himself say, “I realized I like seeing you care.”

Your breath catches; it punches through him like a single, unguarded truth.

He looks down quickly, pretending to fix a crooked wing.

“You’re intense,” he says, voice softer than before, “and stubborn, and about half a step from terrifying when you want something done right.”

“Gee, thanks,” you murmur, already starting on another crane.

“But you care,” he continues, ignoring the way his pulse stumbles. “And watching you fight for this – fight for Nat and Steve – finally made me understand it. All of it.”

You stare at him. He stares at the crane in his hands.

“Bucky,” you say gently. “Look at me.”

He does. God help him, he does.

Your expression is open and warm, lit from within despite exhaustion. Something he wants to hold – gently, carefully, protectively – even though he shouldn’t want anything at all.

“I know you don’t care for weddings,” you say.

“I don’t,” he replies immediately.

You raise an eyebrow.

He sighs and tries again. “I just care about this one.”

He doesn’t mean the wedding, but he doesn’t clarify. He can’t.

The silence stretches – soft, thick, dangerous.

You place another crane gently on the pile. His chest aches.

He folds his next one wrong on purpose. Your hand comes up, brushing his to fix it and he nearly stops breathing.

“You’re getting better at this,” you tease.

“I have a good teacher.”

Your eyes flick up at that. There’s a spark there, bright and undeniable. He has to look away, because if he holds your gaze any longer he’s going to say something he can’t take back.

You nudge his knee with yours – light, casual, intimate in a way that guts him. “Thanks for staying,” you say.

He swallows hard. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’s getting late.”

And that’s the truth. The whole terrifying truth.

You smile again – soft, grateful, too much – as you place another piece of paper in his hands. And Bucky realizes with a clarity that terrifies him more than anything has – he’d fold a thousand of these damn things if it meant sitting beside you like this.

He folds the next one, and tries not to fall in love with the way you breathe beside him.

He fails spectacularly.

One day earlier…

Your blissful slumber’s interrupted by the knocking on your front door. Pounding down your front door, by the sound of things. You’re dragged violently out of sleep, heart slamming against your ribs before your brain can catch up.

You groan, roll over, and bury your face in the pillow.

It keeps going.

A fist. Hard, urgent, unreasonable.

“Open the door!”

You peel one eye open and squint at your phone – 7:25 am on the one morning you promised yourself you’d sleep in. The one morning everything was supposed to be done.

You stumble out of bed, wrap yourself in the nearest blanket, and shuffle to the door with murder in your bones.

You yank it open.

Bucky Barnes stands there, breathless. His hair’s damp and his jacket half-zipped. But his eyes are sharp and wild in a way that snaps you fully awake in half a second.

“What,” you croak, “is your damage?”

“You weren’t answering your phone,” he says immediately.

You blink. “I was asleep.”

“You can’t be.”

“I will,” you insist petulantly. “The ceremony’s not until –”

“The storm last night –” he swallows once, “– a tree came down.”

The words don’t make sense. They hover between you like a foreign language.

“What?”

“At the venue,” he says, softer now, already holding his phone out. “During the storm last night.”

Your stomach drops before you even look.

You take the phone. The oak is ancient. Massive. The kind of tree people build towns around. Its trunk is split down the middle like bone. One half still rooted, the other flung sideways across the terrace roof as though the sky itself hurled it there.

The terrace pergola is gone – not damaged, gone – crushed into splintered ribs beneath the weight of bark and branch. The glass along the upper windows has blown outward. One beam hangs at an angle that makes your stomach lurch. Leaves are everywhere – plastered wet and dark against shattered timber, caught in gutters, smeared across the pale stone like something dragged itself there.

“No,” you whisper. “No – no, no –”

“I’ll drive,” Bucky says gently.

The drive passes in a blur of grey sky and tightening panic. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap that your fingers ache.

When you pull into the venue, the damage is worse up close.

The tree dominates. It has erased the terrace – erased the clean, architectural line you loved. The roof sags under the weight of it, one support beam visibly bowed. Sawdust coats the stone in damp, sticky drifts. Someone’s already tried to tarp part of it – the plastic snaps angrily in the wind like it’s offended that such a measly attempt could even begin to fix the damage.

The smell of wet wood and earth fills the air.

You stop walking.

Just… stop.

“It’s gone,” you hear yourself say. Your voice sounds very far away. “It’s all gone.”

Bucky steps closer, careful. “Hey –”

You don’t hear him.

You see the terrace where guests were meant to gather for pre-dinner drinks. The roofline that gorgeously frames the lake. The space you checked and rechecked and trusted.

Your chest caves inward.

“No.” You shake your head once, then again, harder. “I checked the forecasts. I talked to the landscapers. I –”

Your voice fractures. “This tree is not supposed to fall!”

The venue owner stands nearby, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the fallen tree like she’s in mourning.

“The space cries,” she murmurs to no one in particular.

A worker approaches her, clipboard in hand. “Ma’am, I know it’s just the terrace, but we can’t allow anyone inside until the inspectors clear the entire premise. Forty-eight hours,” he says carefully. “Minimum. Possibly longer if structural damage extends into the main hall.” 

Forty-eight hours.

You feel it then – the crack, the break, the thing you’ve been holding together finally giving way.

“It’s today,” you say, voice breaking. “The wedding is today.”

The owner looks at you, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”

You turn away blindly, stagger to a bench, and sit hard. Your breath comes in short, jagged pulls. Hot tears spill before you can stop them.

“I failed,” you choke. “I promised them – this was supposed to be perfect –”

Hands cup your face.

Firm. Warm. Steady.

“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. “Look at me.”

You shake your head.

“Please.”

You do, and you are met with an expression so fierce if startles you – protective, focused, utterly certain.

“I need you to breathe,” he says. “Because this isn’t over.”

You laugh, broken. “Bucky –”

Instead, he reaches into your tote – the one that has practically fused to your side over the past two weeks – and slides out The Binder. Your breath stutters. He holds it with the ease of someone who has done this before, who knows the weight, the tabs, the logic of your mind laid out in color-tabbed sections.

“I know you’ve got contingencies,” he says, flipping through pages with quick, efficient motions. “If it rains. If vendors can’t make it. If the power goes out.”

“Not – ” your voice cracks. “Not this.”

“No.” He closes The Binder gently. “Not trees falling.”

A beat.

A terrible, hollow beat where the question hangs between you: So what now?

You swipe at your cheeks. “We can’t fix the roof. We can’t move all the décor. We can’t – ” Your breath catches. “Bucky, we don’t have a – ”

“Venue?” he finishes, arching a brow.

You nod helplessly.

He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks. Then something in his expression shifts – subtle, almost imperceptible – like the first warm edge of dawn cresting over cold ground.

“Lucky for you,” he says quietly, “I’ve been spending a lot of time around someone who never accepts the first no.”

You blink. “Bucky – ”

“And,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small, reluctant smile, “maybe some of that has rubbed off.”

You stare at him. “What are you saying?”

He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for you to yell at him for the very thing that might save you.

“I’m saying,” he murmurs, “Steve’s parent’s backyard is flat. It’s big enough. The tent can be moved. The caterers can reroute. And the weather forecast gives us at least until tomorrow morning before the rain starts again.” A pause. “If we start now, we can make it work.”

The world tilts. Not disastrously – but like a compass snapping north after spinning for too long.

“Why?” you whisper.

He doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t joke. His voice is soft, steady, unbearably sincere. “Because you care,” he says simply. “And I’m not going to let this break you.”

Your chest caves open. Relief crashes in, messy and overwhelming.

You breathe in once, twice.

“Okay,” you whisper back. Then louder, steadier, “Okay.”

He squeezes your hands once, grounding you.“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ve got seven hours to save a wedding.”

*

The moment Bucky says “Let’s save a wedding,” things get moving – not metaphorically; literally.

He’s already striding away, already dialling, already speaking in that clipped, purposeful tone you’ve only ever heard when he’s absolutely out of patience or absolutely determined.  “Steve,” he says, pacing toward the parking lot. “Change of venue. Backyard. Yes, your backyard. No, I’m not joking. Trust me.”

You stumble after him, still half undone, still blinking tears off your face. “Bucky –”

“Nat’s going to love this,” he says to you, unfazed. “Call her. Tell her not to panic, and tell her she doesn’t have to lift a finger.”

He looks over his shoulder. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” you say automatically, phone already in your hand.

She picks up on the first ring. “Backyard wedding?” she laughs, delighted. “Perfect. I’ll see you at Steve’s.”

Steve is already texting his parents. Someone’s uncle has folding tables and someone else has a generator “just in case.”

It snowballs fast. The miracle of a small wedding becomes apparent very quickly – every guest is a real person, reachable by phone, reachable within minutes.

You start calling, texting, forwarding maps.

Change of plans! Still today! Bring a chair if you can!

And they’re all very amused by this development.

People reply with laughing emojis, with on our way, with honestly this is very them, with do you need cutlery?

By the time you reach Steve’s family home, the backyard is already transforming.

Someone’s SUV is backed into the lawn with its boot open like a mobile command station. Extension cords snake across the grass. A white rental tent is being muscled upright by three determined guests and one very determined aunt.

The caterers pivot without complaint, food arriving in trays that suddenly feel perfectly suited to long tables and paper plates. The DJ shrugs. “I’ve done a Punjabi wedding on a moving bus. This is nothing.” Music starts, soft and warm and easy.

And Bucky –

He moves through the chaos like a man who has made peace long ago with the fact that the universe likes to test him. He directs traffic, helps carry tables, adjusts tent poles, and somehow gets everyone to listen to him without raising his voice once.

When you open your mouth to worry, he’s already answering.

When you start to spiral, he meets your eyes and says, “Handled.”

At some point he has The Binder. You don’t remember handing it to him. You’re not even sure you did. He simply has it now, tucked under his arm like holy scripture.

And then, when you’re midway through redirecting seating placements, walking away from the tent to take in the big picture view, you notice something shifting in the light, a shimmer of cream and gold.

You stop.

A line of delicate shapes sway gently from the tent’s ridge pole. You take two steps forward, then three.

They’re paper cranes – your paper cranes.

Every single last one that you folded and strung together last night, every last one that you had to leave in the reception hall when the world collapsed.

You stare up at them, breath suspended.

“Bucky,” you whisper. “How did – ? They were –  They were in the reception hall.”

He doesn’t even stop tightening the rope he’s working on. “The reception hall wasn’t damaged,” he says. “Just the terrace. So I… grabbed them.”

You turn to him, struck speechless for a moment.

“You… went in?”

“The hall wasn’t damaged.”

“That isn’t the point!”

He shrugs once. “Doors are only locked if you don’t have the key.”

“You –  this is –  you could’ve gotten hurt!”

Bucky finally looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a small one – crooked and almost shy. “I wasn’t leaving them behind.”

The cranes shift again in the breeze, glowing in the late-morning sun like tiny lanterns, catching glimmers of gold from the fairy lights someone is stringing between the trees. They shimmer faintly as the breeze lifts them, little beacons of luck and persistence swaying above the lawn. They look impossibly delicate – and yet here they are, surviving storms, travel, relocation.

You realise, as you take it all in, that the rest of the wedding is taking shape in much the same improbable fashion. Piece by piece, person by person.

Because when you turn, the lawn is filling with chairs – mismatched, ridiculous, perfect – carried in by guests who did not hesitate for a single breath. “Everyone bring a chair,” he’d said, and somehow… everyone did.

Kitchen chairs. Lawn chairs. Folding metal ones that look suspiciously like the ones from the high school Steve teaches at. A wicker bench someone absolutely took from their own porch.

It’s ridiculous, it’s perfect.

You finally dare to look at the time and, “It’s –” you begin, startled.

“Ten minutes to start,” Bucky says, checking his watch. “We’re on schedule.”

You gape at him. “How are we on schedule?”

He nods toward The Binder, lying open on a cooler like a general’s map. “The Binder,” he says with a shrug, “has all.”

And for the first time all day –

You laugh. Really, truly laugh. Because somehow, impossibly, disastrously –  you’re going to pull this off.

Together.

*

The ceremony goes off without a hitch.

The tent stands steady despite the soft ground beneath it, canvas glowing warmly in the late afternoon light. Strings of bulbs flicker on as the sun dips lower, their reflections catching in the little puddles of water that have yet to evaporate. The grass is a little muddy in places, trampled by hurried footsteps and borrowed chairs. Nothing matches. Everything belongs.

And as the first notes play and everyone rises, you realize something with a clarity that makes your knees go weak:

The wedding didn’t survive despite the chaos.

It survived because of it.

You take your place near the front, hands folded, heart already too full.

Natasha walks in first, not down an aisle so much as across a stretch of grass cleared by people who love her. Her dress is simple and devastating, hair pinned back just enough to frame her face. She looks radiant, not because of the dress or the light or the day, but because she looks certain that this is where she’s meant to be.

Steve is already waiting.

He doesn’t try to hide it, the way his face changes when he sees her – like the world has finally resolved into something understandable. He forgets where to put his hands. Forgets that there are people watching. Forgets everything but her.

You feel tears sting immediately.

The officiant says a few words – nothing grand, nothing rehearsed beyond necessity. Something about finding home in another person. Something about choosing, every day, to stay.

And then, it’s time for vows.

Steve clears his throat, nervous in a way that feels almost boyish. “I don’t have a lot of fancy words,” he says, smiling at her like it’s a private joke, like the entire universe has narrowed down to just him and her. “But I promise to keep choosing you.”

Natasha’s bottom lip trembles. Steve swallows and continues.

“I’ve spent a long time thinking that doing the right thing meant standing alone,” he continues, voice steadying. “You taught me it doesn’t have to. Whatever comes next, I want to face it with you.”

You feel tears prick immediately, hot and unbidden.

Natasha takes his hands when it’s her turn, thumbs brushing over his knuckles, grounding him, grounding them both.

“I don’t make promises lightly,” she says. “But I promise you honesty – even when it’s hard. I promise to stand beside you, not behind you.”

Steve exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years.

“I’ve spent a long time surviving,” she continues, voice softer now. “With you, I want to live. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

And that’s when something in your chest gives way entirely.

You swipe at your eyes and, in the motion, glance to your left – toward Steve’s side.

Bucky is watching you.

Not the ceremony. Not his best friend standing at the center of it all. You.

There’s no surprise in his expression when your eyes meet. Just something steady and unguarded, something that makes your breath catch. You smile at him – small, private, meant only for this moment.

He doesn’t smile back, not fully, but his shoulders ease, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. His gaze lingers before he looks forward again, jaw tight, eyes bright.

The officiant speaks again, voice barely registering over the rush in your ears.

“By the power vested in me –” The officiant barely has time to finish the words before Steve kisses Natasha like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.

The backyard erupts – not in polite applause, but in cheers and laughter and the unmistakable sound of people witnessing something go right after so much nearly went wrong.

You look around – at the grass, worn and imperfect beneath polished shoes; at the mismatched chairs – kitchen chairs, folding chairs, one unmistakeable beach chair in the second row; at the tent, glowing softly against the darkening sky; at the faces – teary, smiling, wholly present.

Not a single dry eye.

And suddenly, with a clarity that feels almost sacred, you understand it.

This – this patched-together, last-minute, mud-on-the-hems miracle – this wedding is perfect.

You glance at Bucky again.

He’s watching the couple now, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. Something changed. As if he’s seeing the whole thing differently – not as an event, not as a spectacle, but as a moment that matters simply because the people in it do.

He catches your eye once more.

This time, he does smile.

And in that small, quiet exchange – barely noticed by anyone else – you feel it settle into place.

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Presently…

This bed isn’t yours. This room isn’t yours. And beside you – facing you, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm, is Bucky.

His eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against his cheek. There’s a smudge of sleep at the corner of his mouth, a softness to him you’re not used to seeing in daylight.

Your gaze drops – bare shoulder, collarbone, the fabric of his shirt rumpled from sleep. And then you feel it: his knee tucked lightly against yours beneath the covers, like neither of you moved much in the night. Like the space between you was never up for negotiation.

Your breath catches.

And in that moment, as the sun reaches across the bed and touches the curve of his jaw, you realize with slow, startling clarity –

You don’t want to move. You certainly don’t want to disturb this.

But then –

His blue eyes – soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges – blink open at the same moment. He inhales sharply, like waking into the shock of something impossible, like waking into you.

The two of you stare at each other.

The world holds its breath.

His hair is mussed, falling over his forehead. His mouth is soft, not yet disciplined into its usual guarded lines. One arm – his – rests over your waist like he reached for you in the night and never let go.

His voice, when it comes, is low. Rough.

“Hey.”

A beat.

A second.

A lifetime.

You swallow, suddenly acutely aware of how close your noses are. Of how his chest rises and falls against yours. Of how you ended up – both of you – pulled together into the same borrowed bed after the reception because there were no spare rooms left at Steve’s family house and “it’s fine, we’re adults, we can share.”

Except now you are awake and sharing feels like the smallest word in the universe.

Bucky’s eyes flick to your mouth. It is microscopic, the shift, but you feel it like a jolt of electricity down your spine. Your heart kicks painfully, traitorously, into your throat.

It feels like balanced-breath territory, the narrow space between what is safe and what is true.

Your throat works. “Hey.”

You can smell him – soap and clean cotton and something unmistakably him. Your heart starts to race.

“This…” you start, because the silence is suddenly too loud, too much, and you have the irrational urge to fill it. “This isn’t what friends do. Right?”

The words hang between you, trembling, dangerous and far too honest.

Bucky doesn’t move for a moment.

Then his gaze settles fully – wholly – on you, and everything inside him sharpens, awakens, and resolves.

“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”

Something in his voice makes your chest ache.

You shift, just a little. The mattress dips. His breath catches – not dramatically, but enough that you notice. Enough that it feels like a type of confession all on its own. His hand – warm, careful – slides from your waist to your hip. Not pulling. Just touching. Just holding you like the truth has finally found him.

“We should –” you start.

He doesn’t move away. Instead, he says your name once; just once, like it’s something precious.

“You think I do this –” he murmurs, eyes fierce, intimate, unbearably soft, “– with anyone else?”

You can’t speak.

He moves a fraction closer, the tiniest shift of the pillow, but it feels like the world tilting toward something inevitable and vast.

“I woke up,” he whispers, “and for a second I thought I was dreaming. Because you –” his voice hitches, “– you were looking at me like I was someone you wanted.”

You inhale sharply. “Bucky…”

“And if I’m reading this wrong,” he continues, tone still gentle, still unbearably composed for someone confessing like this, “then tell me. Tell me and I’ll –”

You don’t let him finish.

You lift your hand – shaking, barely steady – and cup his cheek.

His breath stops.

“I don’t exactly know when it started,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I think I’ve been wanting you for a while.”

He closes his eyes once. Slowly. Like the world has finally righted itself.

And when he opens them again, he is not uncertain. He is not hesitant. He is not a man fighting himself anymore.

“You know I don’t believe in weddings – I still don’t,” he says softly. “I don’t believe in big gestures or perfect days. But, this, I believe in things like this.”

His hand lifts – stops, trembling on the edge of daring – before he leans in instead, touching his forehead to yours. The world narrows to warmth and breath and the barest graze of his nose against yours, close enough that all you can see, all you can feel, is him. Your skin sparks, electric, even without his hand on you.

“I believe in you,” he continues. “In the way you care. In the way you fight for people. In the way you stayed up all night folding a thousand paper cranes because you wanted something beautiful to exist in the world. In the way you planned this entire wedding like the universe would collapse if Nat and Steve had anything less than perfect – because for you, caring this much isn’t some kind of twisted vanity, it’s how you move through the world.”

Your eyes burn.

“And I love you and I want to be by your side,” he says simply. “Whether it’s in the chaos or the quiet. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”

The room feels very still, very small, and very, very full.

You don’t trust your voice, so you do the only thing you can.

With your heart in your hands, you lean in and gently press your lips to his.

His breath shudders as your lips meet, like he’s been holding something back for a long time and finally lets go. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head with reverence, not urgency.

The world narrows.

When he deepens the kiss – just slightly – it feels like a promise. When you kiss him back, it feels like an answer.

When you pull away, forehead resting against his, everything has changed.

He smiles then.

Not the guarded half-smile. Not the amused deflection.

A real one. Open. Unmistakable.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

You laugh softly, breathless, overwhelmed. “Hi.”

Outside, the house begins to stir to life with footsteps padding across the hallway, the low clatter of someone in the kitchen trying (and failing) to move quietly, a kettle starting its slow, rising hiss. Chairs scrape gently over the deck. Someone laughs, hushed and tender, the sound drifting through the floorboards like morning light.

Inside, wrapped in tangled sheets and the quiet aftermath of a perfectly imperfect wedding, you realize – with a certainty that feels almost sacred – that this is how it begins – not with spectacle – but with choice, with closeness.

And with love, finally spoken aloud.

When you wake up again, it is to heat.

More specifically – heat and weight and a slow, lazy grind at the small of your back that your sleep-fogged brain misidentifies as a dream right up until you breathe in and, oh, it’s Bucky.

The first time you woke up, it was barely dawn. Just light creeping around the edges of the curtains, your faces inches apart on the pillow, his voice rough as he admitted he didn’t want to be just your friend. A kiss that felt like a beginning. The dizzy, terrifying relief of hearing your own feelings echoed back at you.

Then he’d cupped your cheek, pressed his forehead to yours, and said, “We can talk more when it’s not stupid o’clock.”

You’d agreed. You were exhausted. Your eyes had burned. He’d pulled you in against his chest, arm heavy around your waist, and the two of you had drifted off again, warm and close and newly, precariously honest.

Now it’s later, and Bucky is still spooned around you in the narrow guest bed of Steve’s childhood home, one arm banded heavy around your waist, his chest pressed to your back. His breath ghosts over the nape of your neck in warm, even little puffs.

And his cock is hard, pressed right against your ass.

You go very still.

The arm around your waist tightens, drawing you closer like he’s chasing you in his sleep. His hips roll, just a fraction, like his body’s following a rhythm his brain hasn’t caught up to yet. The thick line of him drags against you through two layers of cotton, and a completely traitorous pulse of heat shoots through you.

“Bucky,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to go any louder.

He makes a low sound, half groan, half wordless complaint, nose nudging into your hair. “Mm. It’s too early.”

“You’re –” You swallow, cheeks burning. “You’re kind of… uh… poking me.”

That seems to cut through the haze faster than any alarm. His body tenses behind you; his hips freeze. There’s a beat where you can feel him realize exactly where he is and what he’s doing.

“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough as gravel, dragging his face up from your neck. “Shit, darling, I –”

He starts to pull away and you instinctively reach back to grab his forearm.

“Wait,” you say.

He goes still again.

You could pretend you’re not already wet. You could pretend you’re not thinking about this every time he brushed past you in the venue kitchen this week, every time he stood too close at the lakehouse walkthrough, every time those stupid blue eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long.

You don’t.

“You’re not the only one,” you say quietly, rolling your hips back just enough that he can feel the way your body’s answering his. “If that makes you feel any better.”

Bucky lets out a shaky little breath right against your ear. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says, and there’s a muffled curse as his hand slides from your waist down over your hip, fingers digging in. He doesn’t move his hips. Yet. “You sure?”

You turn your head enough to see him, to catch his eyes, pupils already blown. “We already said this isn’t what friends do, right?”

“Pretty sure my friends don’t usually wake up tryin’ to fuck me,” he says hoarsely. His gaze drops to your mouth. “But I’m not complaining’.”

He kisses you before you can answer. It’s messy, morning-breath and sleep-warm, but his mouth is hot and eager and familiar in a way that makes your toes curl. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing under your chin, tilting your head where he wants you.

Behind you, his hips finally move. Slow, deliberate grind, the thick length of him dragging against you through the silky fabric of your dress. You gasp into his mouth; he swallows the sound with a low noise of his own.

“Been thinking about this for weeks,” he mutters against your lips. “You in that damn dress all day yesterday. Runnin’ around bossin’ everybody, climbing over me on those shitty folding chairs like it was nothing. You have any idea what you do to me?”

You push your ass back into him, just to feel how hard he is. “I think I’m getting an idea.”

“Tease,” he murmurs, and his hand presses low on your stomach through the dress, the heat of him burning through the thin fabric, fingers splaying like he’s steadying you for what comes next. “Can I?”

You nod, too quickly. “Yes. God, yes.”

He hums like that pleases him. His hand drifts lower, fingers skimming down, pushing the skirt of your dress up. He slides under it, into your panties, and finds you already slick and hot. His breath stutters. “Fuck, baby.”

He circles your clit once, light enough to make you whine, then slips his fingers lower, stroking through your wetness. “You this wet from just waking up next to me?” he asks, voice gone smug and filthy. “Or have you been dreaming about me?”

“Shut up,” you gasp, hips jerking. “You’re the one grinding on me in your sleep, Bucky.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing two fingers into you, slow and deliberate, “if you start sleeping in my bed, there’s gonna be a lot worse than grinding.”

Your reply dissolves into a broken moan as he curls his fingers just right. He works you open with careful, steady thrusts, his palm rubbing your clit on every stroke. It’s obscene how fast he finds exactly how to touch you, like he’s been mapping out how this would go for weeks.

You reach back blindly and find him, wrap your hand around the thick length straining against his waistband. Even through the cotton, he’s solid, heavy, twitching under your fingers.

He swears, low and vicious. “You’re killing me,” he repeats, hips rocking forward into your hand. “Get these off.”

Between the two of you, your dress and panties end up somewhere at the foot of the bed. He groans when he sees you, bare and open in the afternoon light. His fingers slide back through your slick, spreading it, thumb drawing lazy circles over your clit.

“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, almost to himself.

You push back, needy. “Bucky.”

“Yeah, I got you.” He shifts, fumbling one-handed with his own waistband until his cock is free, hot and leaking where it brushes the curve of your ass. He hisses through his teeth at the contact. “Fuck. You sure?”

You look over your shoulder, meet his eyes, and there’s no way he can mistake the answer. “Please.”

His expression crumples into something helpless and obscene. “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.”

He lines up and pushes in, the blunt head nudging against your opening, then stretching you, slow, slow, until he’s buried thick and deep. You gasp, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch just shy of too much.

“Jesus,” he groans, forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. “You’re so fucking tight. Grippin’ me like you don’t ever wanna let me go.”

“You could move,” you manage, voice high and shaky. “That might help.”

He laughs, broken and breathless, and pulls back only to slam in again, setting a rhythm that has the old headboard tapping the wall in soft, insistent knocks. His hand finds yours on the mattress, lacing your fingers together, grounding you even as he fucks into you harder, his other hand still working your clit.

The slick sounds of him moving in you fill the little room, mixed with your gasps and his low curses. Every thrust hits that perfect spot; every drag of his thumb winds you tighter.

“Listen to you,” he pants, voice right against your ear now. “Making those little noises for me. You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”

Your answer is more of a strangled sob than a word. Heat coils tight in your belly, sharp and bright.

“Yeah,” he says, like he can feel you clenching. “There you go. Let go for me. Come on, baby. I’ve got you.”

It’s the way he says it – like a reverent promise – that tips you over. You shatter around him, muscles fluttering, vision going white at the edges. You hear yourself cry out, feel him groan into your shoulder as your body milks him.

“Fuck – just like that, just like that,” he grits, thrusts turning messy. A few more and he’s gone too, burying himself deep as he spills inside you, whole body trembling against your back.

For a long moment, the only sounds are your breathing and the soft tick of the old clock on the nightstand.

Eventually, Bucky shifts, carefully easing out of you, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. He collapses onto his back beside you, one arm flung over his eyes.

“This,” you say, staring at the ceiling, still trying to remember how lungs work, “is definitely not what friends do.”

He laughs, low and wrecked, turning his head to look at you. His hair’s a mess, cheeks flushed, eyes soft in a way that makes your chest hurt.

“Good,” he says, reaching over to tug you against his side, tucking you into the crook of his arm like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “’Cause I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”

yap! i have a lot of feelings about weddings (i love weddings as a literary device as much as kevin kwan does LMAO) as you can tell... and i just got so juiced up with ideas i couldn't bring myself to cut anything so here we are! if you've read to the end, here is a kiss for you and i hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too long! also im a wedding lover, my own wedding is going to be my superbowl. remember to check out the other event fics! there's so much care and love there!!

Your head throbs again, sharper this time – a warning.

You crack open one eye. The ceiling greets you first: white, slightly textured, edged with crown molding that doesn’t quite match the wallpaper. The second thing you register is the wallpaper itself – pink and white florals, sprigs of something that might be hydrangeas (Steve’s mom’s taste, unmistakably).

And the third –

Eyes. Arctic blue, and alarmingly close.

Bucky Barnes is lying on the pillow beside you, facing you, already awake. His expression is quiet, unreadable in the soft morning light. Peaceful, except for the severe crease between his brows that suggests that he too, is questioning the reality of this moment.

For one suspended moment, neither of you move. His breath tickles the loose strands of hair at your forehead. Yours has stopped entirely. His gaze stays on your face, steady but unreadable, like he’s waiting for you to say something first – or bracing for you to. His breathing is slow, controlled. Yours is not.

You become acutely aware of the absurdity of it all at once: the childhood bedroom, the floral wallpaper, the faint ache behind your eyes, the man you’ve spent the past month circling now lying inches from your mouth like this is the most natural place in the world for him to be.

Both eyes snap open fully, blinking sleep away and panic into focus. The entire night before comes crashing back with nauseating clarity

The rain.

The ruined lake house.

The frantic salvaging.

Steve and Natasha’s incandescent smiles when it all somehow worked out.

The champagne you should not have accepted.

The second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Nth glass you absolutely should not have accepted.

You – exhausted, delirious, running purely on adrenaline and relief – collapsing onto the nearest bed in Steve Rogers’ childhood home.

And somehow, inexplicably, Bucky ending up beside you.

He blinks, just once. The crease between his brows deepens, then smooths, like he’s made a decision you haven’t been briefed on.

You swallow. This is… a lot.

There’s too much context hastily skipped over, too many unanswered questions, entire conversations that need to happen. You really should say something – anything.

Instead, the both of you just lie there, staring at each other in the pale, barely-there light of early morning, and you have no idea – absolutely none whatsoever – how it started.

A month and a day earlier…

Saturday morning brunch is meant to be harmless.

At least, that’s what you assume when Natasha texts brunch? with no further explanation – which in your shared language means citrusy drinks with more alcohol than juice, Steve cheerfully announcing he’ll swing by to pick the two of you up, and maybe a passive-aggressive comment about how you never answer texts on time anymore since you made senior reporter.

The restaurant is bright in that deliberate, curated way – white tile, trailing plants, menus that list three kinds of toast and six kinds of alternative milks (for an upcharge, of course). Steve is already there when you arrive, standing to hug you like it’s been weeks instead of days. Natasha follows more smoothly, sunglasses still on despite being indoors, kiss to your cheek efficient and familiar.

You slide into your seat, shrugging off your jacket.

“So,” you say. “What’s the occasion?”

Steve grins. Natasha doesn’t answer.

You notice the table then – four place settings, evenly spaced. You pause, eyes flicking from the extra glass to the empty chair beside it.

“Are we waiting for someone?”

Steve opens his mouth.

“Oh,” Natasha says lightly. “Yeah. Bucky’s joining us.”

You blink. “Barnes?”

“He said he’s coming from a morning meeting with new clients,” she continues, reaching for a menu. “So he might be a little late.”

You open your mouth to respond – but then Steve peers over your shoulder. “Oh, there he is.”

You turn just in time to see Bucky Barnes crossing the café floor, riding jacket slung over one shoulder, expression composed in the way of someone who isn’t that late anyways but will be apologizing anyway. He looks exactly as you remember him – tall, self-contained, like he sort of exists on a slightly different plane from everyone else.

He lifts a hand in greeting and slips into the empty seat beside you with quiet ease. 

“Sorry,” he says by way of greeting. “Clients wanted to redo the entire second floor because their new feng shui master said the energies weren’t flowing properly. Whatever that means.”

“You’re fine,” Natasha replies. “We just got here.”

Then before you can interrogate Natasha on the true reason for why you both are here, the server arrives, menus appear, and the moment gets swept away in small talk. Drinks arrive and the table settles into that brief, expectant quiet that always precedes a big announcement.

Natasha and Steve exchange a look. It’s the look of two people who have already leapt and are now waiting for the ground to rise up and meet them.

Your stomach drops before your brain catches on.

“We wanted you guys to be the first to know,” Steve says. “We’re getting married.”

The sentence lands like a champagne cork popping somewhere inside your chest.

You blink once, because you’re reasonably sure you misheard – but Natasha is smiling in that precise, controlled way she does when she’s already braced for fallout, and Steve is beaming so openly it borders on reckless sincerity.

You make a noise. It is not a dignified one.

“What,” you say faintly, already halfway out of your chair.

“We’re getting married!” Natasha echoes, a million-watt grin on her face.

You scream.

There’s no other word for it. You scream, hands flying up, chair scraping back as you lunge across the table, nearly knocking over the water glasses in the process. She smells like citrus and coffee and something expensive and understated, and she laughs softly against your shoulder as you clutch her like she might vanish. “No. NO YOU ARE NOT DOING THIS TO ME RIGHT NOW!”

Natasha laughs as you throw yourself at her again, this time nearly climbing into her lap. “Show me,” you demand, pulling back just long enough to grab her hand, lifting it to the light, examining the ring from every conceivable angle.  “Nat, this is – this is perfect. Steve, are you – are you seeing this? This is her. This ring is literally her.”

Steve looks unbearably pleased with himself. “I had a bit of help,” he admits bashfully.

“I’m screaming,” you announce, already doing so. You absolutely do not care that the table beside you has gone quiet. “I’m so happy I might pass out! How long have you been hiding this from me?”

“About twelve hours,” Natasha says dryly. “We decided you’d explode if we waited longer.”

She isn’t wrong.

You drop back into your chair, breathless, eyes shining, hands still trembling faintly with the aftershock of joy.

Across the table, Steve beams like he’s watching fireworks set off just for him. His ears are pink, his smile helplessly wide. He reaches for his coffee, then forgets to drink it.

Bucky, meanwhile, reacts the way he does to most emotionally significant announcements – by doing nothing at all.

He leans back in his chair, arms crossing loosely over his chest, gaze flicking once between Steve and Natasha as if he’s checking that this is, in fact, real. His expression is unreadable at first – then cracks just enough to reveal a fond resignation.

“Well,” he says eventually, nodding once. “Took you long enough.”

Steve laughs, delighted. “I knew you’d say that.”

Bucky reaches across the table and claps him on the shoulder, solid and affectionate. “Doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

Natasha watches the exchange with a small, knowing smile. “You’re happy for us,” she says.

“I am,” Bucky replies immediately, without hesitation. “You’re good together. Always have been.”

You notice – how easily the words come out, how certain he sounds – and your heart squeezes a little.

Then he adds, dry as dust, “Still don’t know why you’d want a wedding.”

You blink. “How – how can you hate weddings? Weddings are –”

“Expensive,” Bucky supplies. “A waste of time. Full of speeches no one remembers and promises that half the room doesn’t believe in.”

You stare at him like he’s just announced he doesn’t believe in birthdays. Or seasons. Or the concept of marking time at all.

Natasha hums. “You’re projecting.”

“I’m being realistic.”

But then, he glances at Steve again, and his tone softens, “I’m happy for you,” he says. “Both of you. Really.”

Natasha nods once, satisfied. “Good. Because you’re the best man.”

Bucky freezes like she’s told him he’s being drafted. There’s that split-second tension, the recalibration. You, mid-sip of your mimosa, choke. Hah! Karma!

He looks from Natasha to Steve, then back again, as if hoping one of them will crack and admit this is a joke.

“I am what.”

Steve’s grin turns positively feral. “Yeah. Best man. Obviously.”

Bucky looks at all three of you in turn, trying to locate the hidden camera. “No,” he says slowly. “That’s not obvious. That’s a terrible idea. What part of I think weddings are useless did you not get?”

Natasha hands you a napkin. “And,” she continues, entirely unbothered, “she’s the maid of honour.”

Your head snaps up. “Me?”

“Of course you,” Natasha says. “Who else would I trust?”

Your whole body does a small, involuntary jolt, like someone pressed your internal panic-and-joy switch at the same time.

“Me?” you breathe. Then again, quieter, “Me.”

Natasha’s looking at you with that rare, unguarded sincerity she reserves for maybe three people on earth.

Your throat tightens. “I – yes. Of course. I’d be honoured.”

Bucky blinks once, slow, like he hadn’t expected quite that level of enthusiasm.

You’re just about to turn on Bucky for that face he’s making – something between disbelief and mild judgment – when the plates arrive, and for a brief, blissful moment, the promise of carbohydrates knocks every uncharitable thought clean out of your head.

This turns out to be a mistake, because the second you’re buttering sourdough with the single-minded joy of someone about to be fed, you’ve already forgotten to stay annoyed at him. Another thought slips in – soft at first, then niggling – that there’s a wedding to plan.  

“So,” you say, glancing up, smile bright. “I know it’s early, but when were you thinking of actually having the wedding?”

“Oh,” Natasha says, not even looking up from her eggs. “Maybe August?”

You beam. “August,” you repeat dreamily. “That’s beautiful. Late summer weddings are so romantic – warm nights, golden hour photos, none of those terrible July storms –”

She nods. “Mm.”

“And that gives you loads of time to plan,” you continue, already halfway to bliss. “Plenty of runway.”

Natasha smiles. Then, lightly – certainly too lightly for the bombshell she’s dropping – adds, “August this year.”

The knife slips in your hand. The world stops. You laugh and it feels like it’s coming out all wrong. “Sorry – what?”

You turn instinctively toward the person nearest you, seeking grounding, confirmation, sanity. Your hand finds Bucky’s forearm without thinking.

He doesn’t pull away; he doesn’t reassure you either. He’s wearing a strange expression – half amused, half wary – like someone watching a beautifully engineered bridge begin to smoke.

“August,” Steve repeats serenely. “It’s kind of perfect, actually.”

You stare at him. “That’s,” you say slowly, “next month.”

“Yes,” Steve says, pleased. “Exactly.”

Then you laugh again, louder this time, shaking your head. “Okay, okay! But –” you inhale. “What’s the plan?”

“Well,” he says, folding his hands like this is the most reasonable thing in the world, “we were thinking simple.”

Your smile freezes.

Natasha nods. “Very simple.”

Your smile begins to strain. “Define simple.”

“Lunch,” Steve says. “At my parent’s place.”

“In the backyard,” Natasha adds. “Just family and close friends.”

The word lunch echoes in your skull like it’s been shouted down a hallway.

“A… lunch,” you echo faintly. Lunch is not a wedding word. Lunch is what happens when people have errands afterwards.

“Yes,” Natasha says calmly. “Low-key.”

You lean back into your chair.

Steve chimes in, “We don’t really need much, we just want to get married.”

There it is, that gentle, sincere, devastating honesty.

You stare at the two of them, these people you love more than most things in the world, and feel something inside you crack open like a dropped champagne flute.

“No,” you say.

Steve blinks. “No?”

“No,” you repeat, firmer now. “Absolutely not.”

Beside you, Bucky exhales through his nose, clearly amused – a reaction you’ll pointedly refuse to dignify in favour of the emergency at hand.

“Oh, come on,” Bucky says, “what’s wrong with lunch?”

You swivel toward him, eyes wide. “Everything. Everything is wrong with lunch.”

“People show up,” he says, shrugging. “They eat. They say congratulations. Nothing different from a big party.”

You gesture helplessly between him and the couple. “This is a wedding. You don’t just – eat and disperse.”

Natasha finally looks at you properly. “We’re not trying to make a production of it.” Steve nods in agreement. “Between school starting again and Nat going back into full ballet rehearsal season, this is kind of our window.”

“There isn’t another one,” she adds. “Fall is gone. Winter is Nutcracker. And then the company tours in Spring.”

Steve shrugs apologetically. “And once summer’s over, I’m back with the kids full-time. We don’t want to wait another year just to line up calendars.”

“It’s sensible,” Natasha adds. “Not romantic. Just… real life.”

“But –” you start, then stop, searching for something that doesn’t make you sound unhinged. “But you deserve more than real life.”

“We have each other,” Steve says gently.

“That’s not –” You turn again, desperate now, fingers digging into Bucky’s arm without a shred of dignity. “Tell them. This is insane, right?”

He stiffens slightly, clearly unprepared to be conscripted into this fight. “I really don’t see the problem,” he says honestly.

Your jaw drops. “It’s a milestone,” you insist. “It’s about marking the moment. About saying this matters enough that it stops time for a day.”

Bucky tilts his head. “Or,” he says, “they get married because they want to be married. The rest is optional.”

Natasha watches you both with interest. Steve’s head swivels between the two of you like he’s watching a tennis match.

“Behold,” you say dryly, gesturing at Bucky. “The patron saint of emotional rationing.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Better than being the apostle of overreaction.”

You release his arm with a huff. “You’re really telling me you’re fine with them getting married over sandwiches.”

“If they’re good sandwiches,” he says, unfazed. “Sure.”

You make a distressed, inhuman noise. Bucky studies you – really studies you – and for the first time since you met him, he seems to consider the possibility that something might be deeply wrong with you.

The table falls into a brief, careful quiet. It’s not uncomfortable, but it certainly is weighted. You slide your plate aside and, with the grim resolve of someone about to break an emergency story, pull out the battered journalist’s notebook you’re never actually without.

“Okay,” you say.

Three heads turn toward you.

“What if,” you say slowly, “I plan it.”

Natasha blinks. “You –”

“Everything,” you continue, gaining momentum. “The logistics, the vendors, the timeline. All of it. You don’t have to think about anything.”

When Steve starts to protest, you hold up a hand.

“No. Listen. You’re busy. I get that. You’ve both spent your lives showing up for other people.” You gesture between them. “Let us show up for you.”

Bucky watches you now, full attention, as if something in the room has shifted and he’s trying to locate the fault line.

“You two just –” you say, voice softer but no less certain, “you two just appear. Have a good time. Celebrate with us.”

Natasha studies you, eyes sharp, calculating. “You’d take this on?”

“Yes,” you say immediately. “Happily.”

Steve looks torn. “We don’t want to burden you.”

You laugh, quick and earnest. “You won’t. This is –” you falter, then recover. “This is important to me.”

A small, horrible beat passes in which you second-guess whether you’ve crossed a line.

Then Natasha exhales, long and thoughtful. “And you wouldn’t turn it into something enormous.”

You hesitate, just a tiny bit. “I wouldn’t turn it into something untrue,” you say. “I promise.”

That does it. Natasha reaches for your hand, squeezing once. “Okay.”

Steve smiles, relief washing over him. “Yeah. Okay.”

Your heart lifts – buoyant, determined, already sprinting ahead as you turn instinctively toward Bucky, eyes bright, dragging him into the moment without even thinking.

“And you,” you insist, “You’ll help.”

He stiffens. “I will not.”

“You’re the best man,” you say, steady, reasonable. “I’m the maid of honour. This is literally a two-person job, like it or not.”

His jaw flexes. “I don’t do weddings.”

“And I don’t do half-measures,” you shoot back. “So here we are.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it again – clearly deciding that arguing with you is both futile and dangerous to his peace of mind.

Natasha laughs. Steve shakes his head, amused. The conversation drifts on – dates, timelines, logistics – while you’re already sketching invisible plans in the air like a general surveying an impending campaign.

Bucky leans back in his chair, arms crossed, expression edged with a kind of begrudging vigilance, as if he now has to monitor whatever chaos you intend to unleash on his life. He doesn’t believe in weddings. And whatever this is – you, dragging him into a four-week matrimonial war zone – isn’t changing that.

It is, however, very clearly about to become his problem.

Three weeks and a day earlier…

“Remind me,” Bucky mutters, voice as flat as concrete, “why I’m here?”  

You don’t answer immediately. You’re too busy absorbing the lake house foyer – the clean timber lines, the citrus-and-sunlight smell, the exact kind of curated serenity that makes your pulse rise with possibility.

Bucky stands beside you like he’s been forced at gunpoint to be here – jaw tight, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels.

“It’s indoor-outdoor, one of the top venues in the state, and seats exactly who we need it to,” you recite automatically, even though no one has accused you of anything yet. “And because I asked you to come.”

“I noticed,” he deadpans. “What I didn’t notice was any advance warning before being hauled into – whatever this is.”

You wave him off. “24 hours is plenty.”

“For you, maybe,” he replies flatly. “Some of us don’t move meetings unless something’s on fire.” He looks pointedly around the perfectly intact room.

You open your mouth – ready to fight him, justify yourself, maybe both – but another couple steps in behind you. They’re glossy, coordinated, wearing the sort of high-fashion monochrome palette that suggests they have a shared stylist and a joint credit card. The bride glances at you, then at Bucky, eyes flicking quickly over the height difference, the arm loop, the proximity.

Something in her expression sharpens. Territory has been staked, competition engaged.

Oh. So it’s going to be like that.

You are not losing this venue to someone wearing three different shades of black.

It is at this moment – this precise, irrational, adrenaline-laced moment – the venue coordinator appears.  She is a woman in earth-toned linen who steps forward with her arms held out wide. “Welcome! You must be –”

“Engaged!” you blurt out.

Bucky chokes so hard it could be a medical issue.

You thump him on the back and keep smiling like nothing is wrong. “Yes,” you continue, “we’re so excited to be here.”

The woman’s smile widens, though she looks a little confused. Nevertheless, she clasps your hands in hers. “Thank you for coming in person and not sending a planner. I do prefer to walk the space with the couple themselves.” She tilts her head, studying the two of you like a composition. “I designed it that way,” she continues lightly, “otherwise the space gets confused. It needs to feel the energy of two people together.”

Bucky’s jaw flexes once – a man making peace with his own unbelievable life choices.

You do not give him time to regret it.

You keep smiling, turning just enough to close the distance between you as you decisively slide your fingers around the widest part of his biceps. It’s an action possessive to sell the lie, and strategic enough that he can’t object.

“Of course, we must accommodate the space,” you lie cleanly through your teeth.

Bucky’s gaze flicks to your hand.

Then to the woman.

Then back to your hand.

Something in his expression tightens – disbelief first, then resignation, then a faint, startled awareness of how close you suddenly are. His jaw works once, like he’s swallowing a protest.

The woman beams, satisfied. “Wonderful,” she says. “I can always tell when a couple’s right for the room.”

Bucky blinks.

“The room,” he mutters for your ears only, “is not the only thing being lied to.”

You squeeze his arm a little tighter – a warning, a threat, a plea for cooperation – and steer him forward.

“Just play along,” you hiss.

You move without thinking, guiding Bucky along with you. He leans down slightly, voice low and dangerous. “You did not tell me,” he says, “that I was going to be fake-engaged today.”

You smile up at him. “I didn’t think you’d come if I did.”

“I can still walk out.”

“You won’t,” you say sweetly. “You’d never leave me to lose to them.”

His mouth presses into a flat line. “That’s not a compliment.”

The coordinator sweeps ahead, her linen skirts whispering across the polished floor, gesturing for all four of you to follow her deeper into the venue. Her energy is serene, ceremonial, almost priestly – the kind of woman who would absolutely believe a building has preferences.

You move first, still linked to Bucky because you can’t risk breaking formation now. His arm stays rigid under your hand, but he doesn’t shake you off. Not when the monochrome couple is still behind you. Not when the coordinator keeps glancing back, clearly assessing which pair the space prefers.

As you’re led deeper into the space – past long communal tables, a dramatic staircase, an absurdly beautiful internal garden that was built to reflect the chaotic natural energies of the lake – you let yourself breathe for the first time all week.

It has been chaos – that particular, grinding breed of chaos born from too many deadlines stacked on too little sleep. A week of logistics and emails, of vendor spreadsheets multiplying like rabbits. You’ve been sleeping with your phone pressed to your chest, waking up to half-drafted ideas and missed calls. Coffee is drunk consistently, at ungodly hours.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, your harmless little notebook of ideas has evolved into something far more serious: a swollen D-ring binder thick enough to cause wrist strain, complete with a colour-coded contents page, subsection tabs, and – because you hate yourself – a newly minted annex.

Bucky has watched this escalation with increasing distaste. He flips a page, pauses, then squints at it. “Why is this laminated?”

“It’s the Emergency Contingencies Index.”

He looks up at you like he’s just witnessed a war crime. “…You laminated contingencies.”

“Obviously.”

He exhales through his nose – long, beleaguered, resigned to his fate. “Of course you did.”

You ignore the jibe and slide a printout across the table toward him. “Venue viewing. Tomorrow evening.” You tap the date and time with your pen, already mentally drafting an email you’ll have to send from the back of the cab to work. “Just promise me you’ll show up.”

He exhales slowly, like a man considering his options. He said nothing, and yet –

Here he is.

You catch him out of the corner of your eye now, consciously shortening his stride so he doesn’t power ahead of you, free hand shoved into his pockets, jaw set in concentration as he maintains the fragile illusion of engaged unity. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.

The foyer opens into a long, sunlit corridor. Windows stretch floor-to-ceiling, throwing bright bars of late-afternoon light across the hardwood.

Beyond her, a sweeping wall of French doors opens onto the lake, the view so startlingly still it looks curated. The afternoon light pours in, warm and liquid, pooling over the polished floors as though the entire venue has been waiting – patiently, expectantly – for someone to notice how perfect it could be.

The other couple gasps appreciatively.

You smile, unsurprised. You know this view; you’d studied it from three angles online, read two overly reverent blog posts about it, and cross-checked Google Earth. Still, seeing it in person, it’s better – warmer, more alive.

Bucky notices, of course he notices, but he doesn’t comment – he’s too busy maintaining his posture of a reluctant hostage – but the corner of his mouth tightens like he’s bracing for you to sprint ahead and start taking photos.

You nudge him anyway. “Try not to look like someone dragged you out of a bunker.”

His glance is slow, unimpressed. “Try not to lie about our relationship status in front of strangers.”

“Tit for tat,” you murmur.

The coordinator begins talking about the original timber, about the intentional asymmetry of the beams, about the way light “wakes the room gently.”

You are listening with rapt attention.

Bucky is… enduring.

Every now and then she asks a question – Do you prefer natural wood tones? Would you want drapery? Do you lean toward a circular ceremony layout or linear? – and you open your mouth each time, prepared to answer.

But Bucky answers first – not with enthusiasm, or vision, or any interest in weddings whatsoever – but with that dry, unfiltered architectural practicality of a man who absolutely cannot help applying professional standards even when he hates the situation he finds himself in.

“A circular layout will bottleneck the aisle, especially if it’s indoors,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You’ll lose at least a third of the sightlines.”

The coordinator brightens. “Exactly.”

The monochrome bride stiffens.

You blink at Bucky, startled. He catches the look, scowls faintly, and mutters, “It’s obvious.”

It isn’t, but you let him have his dignity.

You walk on through another set of doors, which opens wide into the main reception hall – soaring beams, vast windows framing the lake, the whole space glowing.

“This,” she says reverently, “is where most couples choose to place their focal installation.”

You know instantly what she means. The chandelier. You’d flagged it in your notes – a suspended floral-glass hybrid piece, deceptively delicate, impossibly heavy.

You open your mouth to ask about load-bearing specs, but –

“Your beam spacing’s inconsistent,” Bucky says first.

Everyone looks up.

He’s frowning at the ceiling, hands still in his pockets, the posture of someone who cannot stop being an architect even when he’s pretending to be an engaged man-captive.

“You’ve got a reinforced steel bracket hidden behind the main truss,” he continues, nodding toward a nearly invisible seam. “But if you’re planning anything heavier than a statement pendant, you’ll need secondary reinforcement. Otherwise the whole thing will torque.”

The coordinator’s eyes go very round.

The monochrome groom swallows, while his bride tightens her grip on her designer purse.

You stare at Bucky, stunned.

He glances sideways at you – and the look he gives you is defensive, almost irritated, the look of a man who realizes too late that he has just demonstrated interest.

“What?” he mutters. “You were gonna ask.”

He’s right, and that annoys you more than it should.

The coordinator beams. “Most people never notice that bracket. You have an extraordinary eye.”

Bucky grimaces, as if being praised for competence in a wedding venue is worse than being shot.

You step in smoothly. “He’s very detail-oriented.”

“He’s very particular,” the monochrome bride echoes, except in her tone, it’s an accusation.

Bucky lifts one brow at her – slow, unimpressed – and the bride looks away first.

The coordinator, oblivious or delighted, continues. “Of course, if you were envisioning a suspended installation – glass, florals, even a sculptural arc – we can accommodate it. The space responds beautifully to verticality.”

“We are considering something suspended,” you say before you can stop yourself.

Bucky shoots you a look that reads: You’re making up lies faster than I can track them.

You shoot him one back: Keep up.

He exhales through his nose. “If we do that, we’ll need that secondary bracket. And a counterweight system.”

The coordinator nods rapidly, already mentally rearranging her entire lighting rig. “Of course. That can be arranged.” Something shifts subtly. Her posture softens, and the way she nods is as if a check box has just been ticked.

The other groom glances back at you and Bucky, his earlier confidence visibly dented. You squeeze Bucky’s arm, unable to help the spark of satisfaction that flickers through you.

The moment the coordinator drifts out of both eyesight and earshot – no doubt to commune with the floorboards or interrogate the other couple’s aura – Bucky exhales like he’s been underwater.

“Okay,” he mutters, stepping back a fraction, putting space between your bodies the way a man pulls his hand away from a hot stove. “We’re done here. We saw the thing. You touched me. The room approved. Can we go?”

You stare at him. “We haven’t even reached the terrace. Or seen the lake.”

“We don’t need to see anything,” he says, already half-turned toward the exit. “You’ve clearly got this handled. The room is spiritually climaxing for you. I’m just taking up space.”

You blink at him. “Are you – mad?”

“No,” he says immediately, too quickly. “I’m not mad.”

He is mad. He is radiating annoyance in a very silent, very repressed, very Barnesian key.

You step in front of him before he can make a full escape.

“Bucky. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he says again, jaw tightening. “You lie through your teeth, drag me into a fake engagement, hold onto me like I’m part of the act, and suddenly we’re competing with –” he gestures vaguely toward the monochrome couple, “– those people. Nothing at all.”

You cross your arms. “I asked you to come. You came. That’s on you.”

His laugh is humourless. “You didn’t tell me I was signing up to be your emotional seeing-eye dog for a venue tour.”

You bristle. “I didn’t ask you to hold my hand.”

“You didn’t ask,” he shoots back, “but you sure as hell did it anyway.”

You open your mouth. Close it again in favour of studying him, as if the truth of this situation might be written across the rigidity of his shoulders, the hard line of his mouth, and the glint in his eyes that isn’t anger so much as it is something that he doesn’t want to name.

This is not about the hand, this is not about the lie. This is something deeper and he’s trying very hard – too hard – not to be affected by it.

“Okay,” you say slowly. “So what are you actually angry about?”

He looks away first, toward the lake shimmering through the hallway windows. The light catches on the water, fractured and restless – and for a moment, so is he.

“You keep acting like this wedding is an exam you’re going to be graded on,” he says quietly. “Like if you don’t get the perfect score, you’d have failed something.”

Your heart climbs straight into your throat. His accuracy is unfair.  

“And you,” you say, more sharply than intended, “act like caring about something automatically makes it ridiculous.”

Unexpectedly, he flinches – a tiny, involuntary contraction, like you’ve brushed into a decades old bruise.

“It’s just a venue,” he says, and there’s no mockery in it now. Only something raw, frustrated, almost… unguarded. “A pretty one. But you’re acting like it’s going to make or break their marriage.”

His mouth twists. “Like the right backdrop magically carries the weight of everything else. And I don’t get it,” he exhales through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere past you. “Why this – all this – matters so damn much to you people.”

You people. It stings, but not in the way he thinks. Because underneath the snark, you finally see the real wound: he doesn’t understand ceremonies, symbols, anything beautiful for the sake of being beautiful – because he’s never let himself want any of it.

“Because it’s Nat and Steve,” you say, letting your voice soften to match his. “And I love them.”

He goes still at that.

You press on, because if you stop now you might not ever get it out. “I can’t fix their schedules,” you say. “I can’t tell them to stop adjusting their lives for everyone else. For rehearsals, for classes, for performances, for deadlines, for everyone who wants a piece of them.” You gesture around the sun-dappled riverbank. “This I can make good. This is their one wedding, and I refuse to let it be mediocre.”

A whole taxonomy of expressions moves across Bucky’s face – irritation, disbelief, something like reluctant comprehension, and then something else entirely, quick and unguarded, before he shutters it.

“And if all it takes is twenty minutes of us pretending…” you continue, voice steadying as you meet his eyes, “then yeah, I’m going to ask you to pretend like your life depends on it.”

He swallows – a small, tight movement, the only tell he gives away. You hold his gaze, refusing to look anywhere else.

“I’m not asking you to suddenly believe in weddings, Bucky,” you say quietly. “Just help me make one thing in their life perfect.”

His jaw works once, the fight leaving him in a slow, resigned exhale.

“…Fine,” he mutters, looking away as he rubs the back of his neck, “Just – don’t grab my arm like that again unless you warn me first.”

You smile, stepping past him toward the terrace where the coordinator has drifted off with the other couple. “No promises.”

*

The tour funnels you down a gentle slope, the house falling away behind you as the riverbank unfurls in front of it – a stretch of soft grass tapering toward the water, framed on one side by a broad, ancient oak. Its branches arc outward like the ribs of a cathedral, heavy with leaves that whisper in the breeze. You hadn’t noticed it from the house; from this angle, though, it dominates the horizon, dignified and steadfast, the kind of tree that seems older than the property deeds themselves.

The coordinator steps onto the very center of the lawn with the assured gait of someone taking her mark on a stage. This, you know instinctively, is where she believes vows ought to be spoken – the exact patch of earth where a couple should stand, framed by river light and the watchful canopy of the oak. She closes her eyes, lifts her chin slightly, and inhales through her nose like she’s tasting the air for nuance, for resonance, for meaning.

Sunlight spills around her like she arranged it.

“Well?” she asks. “What has the space said to you?”

You open your mouth, but Bucky beats you to it.

He straightens with the weary precision of a man reaching for a tool he resents knowing how to use. And, with all the cool detachment of someone reading a zoning violation aloud, he replies, “We’ll need to check with our feng shui master first. Just to confirm the alignment. Of the house. Of the day. Of us.”

You nearly swallow your own tongue as the coordinator woman’s eyes go wide. The monochrome couple freeze like meerkats spotting a predator.

“Your… master,” she breathes, reverent.

Bucky nods once, faux-solemn. “Yes. We never make major choices without him aligning the energies of the space.”

Something dangerously close to hysteria bubbles up – laughter, disbelief, the urge to grab him by the collar – and you shove it all down in favour of hissing under your breath, “Where the hell did you get that from?”

Without breaking eye contact with the woman, Bucky whispers back, “Someone said it to me last week.”

“Well.” Her spine straightens, chin lifting in pride. “You may assure your feng shui master that this house was built to honour all schools of thought. East, West, traditional, contemporary, celestial, terrestrial – every axis, every current, every flow – perfectly aligned.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Bucky murmurs, and the audacity of him nearly floors you.

The woman stands a little straighter, the way someone does when intellectually challenged and spiritually provoked. Her eyes sweep once more over the riverbank, the grass, the house behind you – a slow, assessing glide, like she’s listening to vibrations only she can hear.

She inhales deeply, with great purpose. When she opens her eyes again, something in her expression has shifted. “The space,” she says, solemn as a vow, “has begun to speak.”

A hush seems to fall – not real, but perceptual, the kind that comes from someone making a proclamation with enough confidence that your brain scrambles to keep up.

She lifts her hands, palms open to the sky. “It is… forming an opinion.”

Behind you, Bucky stiffens in the exact way a man does when he desperately wants to object but also desperately does not want to extend this interaction by another minute.

The woman turns, serene and certain.

The monochrome couple immediately arrange themselves into a picturesque tableau – her hand on his chest, his chin lowered like he’s posing for a photoshoot. They look like they rehearsed this in the car.

She lifts her palms. “Energy reveals itself through contrast. This space,” she announces, “always reveals the truth of a couple.”

Bucky mutters, “Spaces are unreactive,” under his breath.

You nudge his ribs with your elbow, a warning.

The coordinator opens her eyes and turns toward the monochrome couple first. She tilts her head, studying them with a tight, delicate frown – the kind people give wilted herbs at a farmer’s market.

“Mmm,” she says. “There is… tension in your current alignment.”

The monochrome bride stiffens. “Tension?”

“Yes,” the coordinator says gently, almost apologetically. “A little blocked. A little… forced.”

Beside you, Bucky murmurs, “Told you posing wouldn’t help,” and you jab him again, harder.

Then the coordinator turns to you and Bucky and her eyes widen. She steps closer, blinking once, twice, as if a spotlight has turned on specifically above the two of you.

“Oh,” she breathes. “This… this is interesting.”

Bucky straightens, like he’s bracing to be insulted. Instead, the coordinator smiles – slow and reverent – as if she’s seeing the first bloom of spring emerge from frozen ground.

“Your energy is very strong together,” she says.

You blink. Bucky blinks harder.

“Our what?” he splutters.

“Your connection,” she clarifies, waving her hands vaguely between your bodies. “There’s an undeniable resonance. A grounding. A clarity. The space likes you.”

You nearly choke. “We – we just walked in.”

“Yes,” she says simply. “And the space settled. Didn’t you feel it?”

You feel Bucky staring at you, silently begging you not to say yes, which is why you smile sweetly and answer, “Of course.”

The monochrome bride sputters. “We’ve been engaged for fourteen months!”

The coordinator turns sympathetically toward her. “Sometimes longevity dulls resonance.”

Bucky quietly coughs to hide a laugh – or dies, it’s hard to tell.

The monochrome groom steps forward, indignant. “We’re very aligned. We meditate together.”

“Even more worrying,” the coordinator murmurs.

You bite your lip to keep from laughing. Bucky fails entirely; a tiny, traitorous sound escapes him.

The bride narrows her eyes at you like you might drop dead from the strength of her displeasure.

You loop your arm a little tighter around Bucky’s, partly to sell the ruse… partly because the absurdity has short-circuited your ability to stand upright on your own.

The coordinator makes a gentle sweeping motion with her hand. “Let us test the resonance.”

Bucky whispers, panicked, “What the hell does that mean?”

“How would I know?!”

But the monochrome bride is already stepping forward like she’s ready to ascend the throne, so you tug Bucky along to keep up.

The coordinator stands between both couples, waving her arms like she’s invoking some ancient rite. “Take one step toward each other.”

You and Bucky share a look – half dread, half the feral refusal to lose when the competition is right there. You both step forward in perfect sync.

You mouth, I’m sorry. A muscle twitches in his cheek – not annoyance – something closer to careful exasperation. His answer is a barely perceptible tilt of his head that reads, I know. Don’t worry about it.

You stop toe to toe, breaths brushing.

Nothing mystical happens, nothing supernatural – just Bucky Barnes standing close enough that the world seems to tilt around the space you share. You refuse to look him in the eyes – God knows what you’d see there – so you stare determinedly at the bridge of his nose, willing your expression into neutrality as the warmth of him crowds out every thought you were trying to have.

He inhales, sharp and quiet, like he wasn’t expecting you to be this close either. He too, appears to be doing his level best to not look at you, but it’s an exercise in futility. His gaze skims your mouth first – a flicker, unintentional and devastating – before darting up to your eyes like he’s been caught thinking something he absolutely shouldn’t.

Your pulse slams; he swallows once, hard  – small, involuntary shifts, now kept between the two of you like a secret.

The coordinator beams. “There. You see? Harmony.”

Bucky stares straight ahead, face rigid, ears just barely pink.

The monochrome couple step forward too – but the groom hesitates; the bride overcorrects; their hands collide awkwardly.

“Oh,” the coordinator says softly, pained. “Oh no.”

Bucky mutters, “Yikes,” under his breath, and you actually pinch his arm.

The coordinator claps once, decisive. “I believe I’ve seen enough.”

Everyone tenses.

She turns to you and Bucky. “The space responds to you,” she says with priestess-level certainty. “It welcomes you. It expands for you.”

You’re about to thank her when Bucky murmurs, “If the space is reacting to anything, it’s your dramatics,” but fortunately only you hear it.

Then the coordinator swivels toward the other couple. “You,” she announces solemnly, “must reduce your guest list.”

The bride gasps. “But we – my mother – ”

“The room,” the coordinator says gravely, “has decided.”

The groom looks genuinely shaken.

Bucky leans in, voice barely audible. “I can’t believe this is working.”

You whisper back, “It’s not working because of me. It’s working because of that chandelier lecture you gave.”

“That was structural integrity,” he hisses. “Not flirting.”

But he doesn’t let go of your arm.

And you don’t step away.

The woman turns back to you both, her expression warm and resolute. “Take your time,” she says, though she looks like she’d happily build a shrine in your honour to expedite the decision. “But tell your master he will find no faults here. None.”

“We will,” you promise.

She glides away, leaving you and Bucky standing in a halo of lake-light and competitive triumph.

Bucky exhales, long and tired. “This is exactly how people lose their minds.”

You guide him toward the exit anyway, fingers still hooked through his sleeve – not intimate, not quite polite, just necessary.

“Welcome,” you murmur unapologetically, “to wedding planning.”

Two weeks and a day earlier…

The week takes off at a dead sprint. Your phone vibrates itself into delirium, screen lighting up with vendors, reschedules, quotes, “circling back” emails, and three separate florists who apparently all forgot they’d already spoken to you twice.

Bucky, for all his sins, is enduring it. At every appointment he trails half a step behind you – a man hoping proximity alone won’t make him legally responsible for whatever decisions you’re about to make. Hands in pockets. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowed as though each vendor is a fresh test of his moral fortitude.

And yet…

He comes. Without complaint, without needing to be chased.

And – this is new – somewhere between the cake tasting and the linen warehouse, the edge of him softens. Barely. A thaw measured in millimeters. A grunt instead of a sigh. A single, grudging nod when you ask what he thinks. A man not enjoying himself, exactly, but acclimating to the weather.

It’s not much, but for Bucky Barnes? It’s practically enthusiasm.

*

On Monday, you take him to the bakery.

That is to say: you enter the bakery; Bucky is tugged in behind you by the elbow like a particularly resentful ox being led to market. He drags his feet with the weary fatalism of a man heading into a tax audit rather than a pastel shop filled with butter and joy.

The shop itself is – there’s no other word for it – whimsical. Pastel walls, delicate bunting, sunlight slanting through the front windows as though the cakes have been personally blessed by the heavens. The air smells of warm vanilla and soft nostalgia, the kind that makes even cynics briefly believe in birthdays.

Bucky looks around as though the décor has personally wronged him.

The owner, whom you had coaxed into giving you the earliest slot of the morning through sheer force of will, gestures proudly to the tasting platter.

“We’ll begin with the Earl Grey sponge and lavender honey buttercream,” she announces, serene and certain.

Your eyes brighten.

Bucky’s narrow. “What happened to good ol’ chocolate?” he mutters, as though chocolate has been unjustly exiled from its ancestral lands.

You kick him beneath the table. Lightly. But not so lightly that it could be mistaken for affection.

“Eat,” you instruct.

He gives you the kind of look usually reserved for dire medical diagnoses, then reluctantly scoops the smallest, most suspicious sliver of cake onto his fork. He puts it into his mouth like a man testing whether the food is poisoned.

And then – you see it, the betrayal of expression he cannot stop. First surprise, then reluctant delight, followed almost immediately by the horrified awareness that he has enjoyed something he fully intended to hate.

“It’s fine,” he blurts, far too quickly.

You lean in, delighted. “You liked it.”

He scowls at the table, then at you, then at the baker – who is now beaming at him with the radiant satisfaction of a woman who has converted a lifelong skeptic.

It is not just fine.

It is objectively delicious.

And he hates – truly hates – that you saw the truth flicker across his traitorous face before he could stop it.

*

On Tuesday, Bucky takes one look at the flowers and immediately starts sneezing.

The florist winces in sympathy. “Allergies?”

“He’ll survive,” you say before Bucky can flee, even though he’s already retreating toward the far end of the worktable like a man hoping distance alone might save him.

The shop smells like cut stems and cold water – green and sharp and very alive – petals spilling across every surface in soft, painterly chaos.

The florist laughs kindly and gestures to a bucket of eucalyptus. “Don’t worry – these are hardy and allergen-friendly. They hold up in anything. Weddings, heatwaves, surprise drizzle…” He shrugs. “Outdoor ceremonies love a bit of weather drama, but flowers don’t – unless you pick the right ones.”

You perk up. “Is rain even a concern this time of year?”

“Not usually,” the florist says, selecting a spray of greenery and trimming it with quick, deft movements. “But you plan as if it might. Storms are shy until they aren’t.”

Bucky snorts. “Weather’s weather. Either it behaves or it doesn’t.”

You shoot him a look. “Some of us prefer contingency plans.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Some of us have noticed.”

You ignore him – mostly – as the florist flips to an empty page of his notepad.

“All right,” he says. “What’s the vision?”

You inhale to answer –

“Classic,” Bucky says before you can speak. “And nothing that sheds on cloth.”

Your head whips toward him. “Since when do you get a vote?”

“I don’t want to walk around looking like I’ve been rolled through pollen.”

“Oh my god,” you breathe. “This isn’t about you.”

But Bucky isn’t listening anymore. Somehow he’s gotten hold of a ranunculus – pale, full, elegant – turning it between his fingers with a strange, unexpected tenderness, like he’s examining the architecture of it rather than the bloom.

“Steve likes texture,” he says quietly. “And Nat wouldn’t want anything that droops. These won’t.”

Your heart skips a beat.

He pretends he hasn’t said anything meaningful, already shifting his attention to the eucalyptus as if the leaves are deeply compelling. The florist pretends not to notice, though his smile is unmistakably knowing.

Bucky clears his throat. “What?”

“Nothing,” you say.

(Not nothing. Not even close.)

*

On Wednesday, the décor warehouse tries to kill you.

It is cavernous and overwhelming, chandeliers dangling from the ceiling every two meters like glittering threats, and an entire aisle of linens that could double as medieval weaponry. Sequins glint, metallics glare, tulle menaces.

You are confronted with sequined tablecloths; Bucky is confronted with the very edge of his sanity.

“This,” he tells the décor consultant as he lifts one anyway, rubbing the cloth between his fingers with a frown so deeply judgmental it could be submitted for peer review, “is both a fire hazard and a crime.”

“It’s festive!” she chirps, a woman who has clearly never met Bucky Barnes before today.

“The weave is cheap,” you announce, already flipping to the corresponding tab in The Binder, which has now manifested in your hands like a grimoire. “It’ll pill and crease endlessly. And the reflective finish will give half the guest list a migraine before the night’s through. We need organic fibres. High drape. Low shine.”

Bucky’s head snaps toward you, narrowing his eyes at The Binder as if it is a sentient being he should probably file a restraining order against.

The consultant nods, chastened, and flips open a book of fabric samples. “Right. Understood. Organic fibres only.”

As she rifles through swatches, her gaze drifts upward – to you, then Bucky, then the two of you standing shoulder-to-shoulder, already leaning unconsciously toward the same bolt of ivory linen. Bucky has angled himself half a step in front of you in the quiet, instinctive way he does when something large or unwieldy is suspended overhead (in this case – chandeliers).

“You two work well together,” she says mildly. “That’s rare.”

Bucky stiffens, as if she’s accused him of tax fraud. You give her a serene smile. “We’re… efficient.”

The consultant brightens. “Wonderful! Now, what about centrepieces? I have a full catalogue –”

But you’re already unzipping The Binder. Its spine hits the table with a weighty thud, tabs fanning open like a legal case file.

The consultant startles. Bucky actually flinches.

“What is that,” he mutters, like you’ve revealed a cursed heirloom.

“My system,” you say, flipping to Décor –  Appropriate Fabrics – Do Not Attempt. “I have a plan.”

“A plan,” Bucky repeats, staring at the colour-coded pages with something between awe and genuine concern for your psychological welfare. “That thing looks like it could beat me in a fight.”

You pat The Binder affectionately. “It could.”

The consultant beams, totally unaware that Bucky is staring at you like he’s just realised he may be assisting someone who is, clinically speaking, unhinged.

“Right,” she says brightly. “I’ll pull samples.”

Bucky looks at the chandeliers overhead. Then at you. Then at The Binder.

And for the first time all week, he whispers – almost reverently, “…I should’ve stayed in the car.”

*

It happens late on a Sunday, at a café that should have closed twenty minutes ago.

The whole week has been a blur of vendors and spreadsheets and Bucky’s increasingly elaborate attempts to pretend he’s not helping while very much helping. By Sunday evening, the two of you have collapsed into the only open seats you can find – a wobbly bistro table by the window, your laptop occupying most of the surface and Bucky occupying most of the silence.

You’re hunched over the screen, brow creased, staring down a ceremony timeline that stubbornly refuses to make structural sense. Bucky is across from you, sleeves pushed up, sketching something on a napkin with the grim focus of a man troubleshooting a structural fault in a bridge rather than a wedding.

You rub your eyes. “What are you doing?”

Without looking up, he mutters, “Fixing a bottleneck. Your aisle’s too narrow.”

“Why do you care?” you mutter just as carelessly, distracted by your task.

His pen stills, his shoulders shift, and slowly, reluctantly, he looks up.

For a moment, everything seems to hush – the espresso machine becomes distant, the street noise flattens, and the tired overhead lights soften around the edges.

Bucky taps the pen once against the napkin, like anchoring himself before he says something foolish. “Because you care,” he says. Then, quieter, as if the words escaped without permission, “and you shouldn’t have to do all of this alone.”

It lands inside you with alarming precision – a warmth, a weight, something perilously close to a beginning.

You can’t breathe for a second.

And he must feel it, because he looks away fast, jaw tightening, shoulders drawing in as if he’s trying to fold the moment back up and hide it inside himself again. Like he’s said something intimate by accident, and he regrets this sliver of honesty.

Around you, the world resumes: chairs scrape, someone calls out a drink order, the barista stacks cups with end-of-night urgency.

Bucky clears his throat. “Anyway,” he mutters, sliding the napkin toward you without meeting your eyes, “don’t make it weird.”

But it is. It’s extremely, catastrophically weird.

The napkin is a clean little sketch of flow paths and corrected spacing, annotations in a tidy slant you didn’t know he had. A map of attention. Of care.

You fold it carefully before slipping it into your bag, feeling absurdly like you’re tucking away evidence of something neither of you is ready to name.

When you leave the café, the air smells faintly of rain – the kind that promises trouble but hasn’t yet arrived.

One week and one day earlier…

You do not sleep.

You perform the ceremonial gestures of sleep – lying down, closing your eyes, arranging your limbs in the socially approved configuration – but rest never actually arrives. Your mind conducts its own private military coup at 3:00 am, storming your bloodstream with insurgent thoughts: ‘Did the florist confirm final stem counts?’, ‘Did I remember to order table numbers?’, and ‘Would it work better if family speeches come before the entrées? Or after?’

You drift, jolt awake, repeat. Several times.

By morning, you’re running on nineteen minutes of sleep and pure vengeance. So, when the caterer calls you mid-zoom-interview at the press junket for Disaster Day to inform you they cannot, in fact, prepare the vegan entrée in a mini size, something in you goes very still.

You stare at your phone with the placid serenity of a war general who has already accepted casualties. “Can’t,” you say, voice crisp as a drawn blade, “is not a word in my vocabulary.”

Across the room, Bucky lifts an eyebrow over the rim of his laptop. He is technically working from home today – except “home” has quietly become your living room around 8:12 a.m. every morning. You’ve stopped asking why. He brings coffee. And pastries. And printouts for The Binder. And frankly, you no longer have the mental bandwidth to interrogate miracles.

“You shouldn’t threaten people before nine,” he says mildly.

“I haven’t threatened anyone.”

That is – generously – untrue. You have absolutely threatened everyone. Politely. With deadlines. And consequences. And lightly weaponised spreadsheets.

Bucky watches you pace while fielding the caterer’s excuses, your free hand slicing the air like you’re conducting an orchestra on fire. Something like amusement flickers across his face, but it softens quickly into concern – the subtle, steady kind he pretends isn’t happening.

And then, instead of retreating as any sensible person would before the detonation of a stressed maid-of-honour, he rises from the couch, crosses the room, and steps into your orbit.

He doesn’t grab your phone. He asks for it with one quiet, inexorable gesture of his hand.

“Give me that,” he murmurs. “Before the caterers fire us.”

“They are not going to fire us.”

“You’re vibrating.”

“I’m passionate.”

“You’re one ‘no’ from burning this whole city down.”

Before you can form a rebuttal, he slides your phone neatly out of your grip, taps the speaker off, and steps out onto the tiny balcony attached to your apartment. The door clicks shut behind him.

You watch him through the glass – leaning one forearm against the railing, phone at his ear, morning light catching on the metal lines of his arm. His hair curls slightly at the temples from the humidity, and he’s wearing that expression he saves for handling difficult subcontractors – patience wrapped in exhaustion, tied with a bow of menace.

He’s handsome in a way that feels entirely illegal before 9:00 am.

Three minutes later – just as you’ve abandoned your Zoom call in shame and are contemplating whether your cold muffin is a metaphor for your rapidly deteriorating sanity – the door opens again.

“All sorted,” he says, handing back your phone. “They’ll do it.”

“Really?”

“They just needed to be… encouraged.”

You narrow your eyes. “Encouraged how?”

He ignores you. Instead, he leans over your shoulder without warning, takes an enormous bite out of the muffin you were very clearly saving, grimaces, and declares, “These tasted better when they were fresh.”

“I hate you,” you lie.

He pats you on the head – like you’re a stressed-out Pomeranian instead of a full-grown adult on the brink of collapse – and sets the half-eaten muffin back on your plate.

“Be good,” he says absently, already grabbing his bag. “I’ve gotta be on the West Coast in…” He checks his watch. “Nine hours. Which is – too soon. Far too soon.”

“For the site walkthrough?” you ask.

“Yes,” he grumbles. “A walkthrough that could’ve easily been a Zoom meeting. But no. ‘In-person presence’ apparently matters when you’re paid obscene amounts of money to stare at blueprints and tell rich people their walls won’t collapse.”

He slings his jacket over his shoulder, pauses at your doorway, and glances back at you – at the chaos of your open laptop, the muffin carnage, the binder bristling with tabs like a hydra waiting to strike.

“You gonna be okay till I’m back?” he asks, voice low, deceptively casual.

You open your mouth to say yes. But your brain whispers table numbers and speech order and stem counts and seating charts and vegan mini entrées –

Bucky exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’ll bring more muffins tomorrow,” he says.

And then he’s gone.

Five days earlier…

By this time, you have achieved a certain notoriety amongst vendors. The florist replies to your emails instantly, the lighting techs refuse to take your calls unless you’ve sent a written agenda in advance, the décor rental company has assigned their most battle-hardened employee to answer your number specifically – the kind of woman who has seen things.

And that afternoon, you’re on the phone with her – Tiffany, destroyer of inventory lists – vibrating with equal parts impatience and righteous fear. “No, Tiffany, I don’t want these silver chairs,” you say, pacing your living room like a commander on the brink of mutiny. “I want the silver chairs in the original quote. No. No, don’t you dare. These are narrower. I can see it. Don’t gaslight me with measurements, Tiffany.”

Meanwhile, Bucky – freshly returned from LA and looking unfairly good for someone who spent six hours on a cramped plane – is crouched on the floor beside the coffee table, reorganising the seating chart with the laser focus of a man who has chosen physical labour over listening to you eviscerate a stranger.

He has rolled up his sleeves, exposing the long line of his forearms. He is using a ruler. A ruler. The concentration is so intense it borders on devotional.

Your leg, jittering with fury at Tiffany’s incompetence, keeps brushing against his knee.

And Bucky… doesn’t move.

Not an inch.

He goes absolutely still, like someone attempting not to startle a wild animal – except it’s not fear pinning him there. It’s something tighter, quieter, more dangerous.

You don’t notice any of this. You’re too busy convincing Tiffany about the discomfort of narrower chairs.

However, Bucky notices you. He notices the way your hair is falling out of its clip. He notices the focus in your eyes, the heat in your voice, the absolute refusal to compromise. He notices that every time your knee brushes his, it sends a pulse of something electric straight through him. And that his ears are burning.

He shifts the seating cards again – unnecessarily, compulsively – because it’s either that or he betrays himself.

You end the call with a victorious, “Thank you, Tiffany,” in a tone that means anything but, and drop onto the couch with a sigh.

Only then do you look down and see Bucky still on the floor, still close enough that your knee bumps his elbow, still very much there.

“Did you fix it?” you ask, nodding toward the seating chart.

He doesn’t look up immediately. When he does, his voice is steady in a way his pulse absolutely isn’t.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

Four days earlier…

You are Time Itself. No one moves unless you decree it.

“Load-in is at seven,” you announce to the empty air – or perhaps to the universe, which should know better by now than to test you.

“It says eight on the schedule,” Bucky replies without looking up from his laptop.

“It’s seven,” you say. “Now.”

He exhales the kind of sigh reserved for malfunctioning printers and divine punishment, but he adjusts the timeline anyway. He’s the only person who could argue with you – and the only one who genuinely doesn’t want to.

Then the DJ calls.

He tells you, very cheerfully and very incorrectly, that your preferred recessional song is “technically unavailable.”

You stop breathing.

“What do you MEAN unavailable?” you shout into the phone. “Music does not disappear! It doesn’t migrate! It’s not an endangered species!”

Somewhere beside you, Bucky goes very still, like a man anticipating shrapnel. He gently pries the phone from your hand, tells the DJ, “Sorry, she’s been like this all week,” and steps away to do damage control.

“You need to eat something,” he says when he returns.

“You need to stop babying me,” you shoot back.

“Funny,” he says mildly, handing you a granola bar. “Because you’re acting exactly like a child.”

You glare at him. Then, still glaring, you bite half the granola bar in a single, furious chomp.

He says nothing – just watches as you flip through The Binder, muttering about back-up music options, crumbs dusting your fingers.

And then he smirks, just this quiet, unbearably fond little curve of his mouth – like he has, against all odds, successfully tamed a dragon.

Or worse, like he likes being the one who can.

Three days earlier…

You return to the venue for a walkthrough, overseeing the preparations, with the air of a small, determined weather system. A storm cloud in sneakers, striding across the lawn.

The grass is crisp underfoot; the late afternoon light glances off every rented surface. Staff scatter at your approach like startled deer as you fire off instructions rapid-fire.

“Those chairs need to be straight!” “That table is too close to the aisle – Natasha will murder someone!” “No, no, the lanterns go in a gentle arc, not –  is that a semicircle? I said gentle! Arc!”

You are relentless. A force of nature. A benevolent tyrant.

And behind you, Bucky moves like the calm shadow of that storm – not blocking it, not dampening it, simply… shaping its path. As you pass through the space, he drifts after you with that quiet, commanding competence vendors obey without hesitation.

You bark, “The draping is too low!” Bucky adds, evenly, “Raise it four inches,” and the fabric lifts to exactly the right height.

You snap, “Why is that easel crooked?” He doesn’t even check – just straightens it in passing.

You whirl and demand, “Did we lose the programs?” Without looking up from the seating chart he’s reviewing, he murmurs, “Left table,” and somehow also manages to hand them to you as you spin past.

Somewhere in the chaos, the vendors begin turning to him instead of you – but he never answers without meeting your eyes first, the quiet your call? passing between you with the ease of something well-practised.

It shifts the atmosphere around you.

Not dramatically, not all at once – but enough that you feel it: the way people start to move around the two of you rather than through you, the way instructions seem to settle more cleanly when he repeats them in that low, steady voice. It isn’t deference so much as an unspoken acknowledgement that whatever this operation is, you and Bucky are its centre of gravity. Like the two of you have become a team. A pair.

The hours blur. At some point the sun shifts, turning the river gold; at some point you realise he has been tracking your movements by sound alone; at some point everyone else started stepping back when the two of you approached together, as if clearing a path for a unit that operates on instinct, not instruction.

And then – He’s gone.

One moment Bucky is beside you, adjusting a lantern hook before you can work up the breath to scold it; the next, he’s simply… vanished. No warning, no explanation.

You freeze mid-step, wondering if perhaps the lanterns were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe the arc was perfectly gentle after all. Maybe he’s halfway home by now, liberated from your tyranny, which is frankly more alarming.

Unfortunately, you don’t have time to worry about it. The rental company have just delivered the wrong chairs – again – and you’re rifling through The Binder for the order confirmation and delivery manifesto when you hear the tell-tale click of doors opening.

You don’t bother looking up. “Bucky, if that’s the caterer, tell them no, we do not want a cheese fountain. We already have a charcuterie table and this is enoughcheese as it is –“

“Not the caterer,” a voice cuts in, bright and very, very amused.

You freeze, snap your head to the door, and immediately want to scream. “Nat?”

She saunters in, sunglasses perched in her hair, dressed like she’s just come from robbing an art gallery. And behind her –

“Steve?”

He offers a sheepish little wave. “Hey.”

“What –” You spin around, scanning the unfinished chaos of the venue. The wrong chairs are still stacked in their delivery plastics, the table linens are half-unwrapped, and someone is vacuuming outside.

“What are you doing here?” you gasp. “We’re – this place is – not done.”

“Bucky called us,” Nat says casually, inspecting the archway of lanterns. “Said you were about to combust.”

You whirl around to glare at him. He’s loitering by the floral delivery, suddenly very interested in counting the number of petals on the hydrangeas.

Traitor.

Steve steps forward before you can explode. “Hey. We’re not here to stress you out. Just thought we’d – have a look. Say hi. Make sure you’re alright.”

“And point out any death traps,” Natasha adds helpfully.

“I –” you glance around the room as a bead of sweat slides down your spine. “I haven’t – okay, but the entryway’s a mess, and I haven’t confirmed if the florist finished –”

Steve claps Bucky on the back, murmurs something you don’t catch, and then turns to you with absolute sincerity.

“Just point out what’s left,” he says. “We’ll tell you if anything needs adjusting.”

You stare at him, hesitating.

There are a dozen things still bothering you – chair alignment, votive placement, aisle symmetry, the floral arch that’s slightly off-centre if you squint.

Natasha squeezes your hand. “Lead the way.”

So you do.

You walk them through the space, stomach clenched, waiting for them to flinch. Waiting for Natasha to raise an eyebrow. For Steve to say something painfully diplomatic like “Oh… interesting choice.” You start at the entryway, apologising for the seating chart station still being assembled. You usher them through the reception room hall, cringing at the wrong chairs. You pause by the catering tent, where someone’s left a crate of half-melted ice under the table.

But –

Steve is nodding. Nat is smiling. They’re chatting with the vendors like old friends. The florist’s assistant offers them tea. A tiny crack forms in the armour of your panic.

And then, you step outside, out onto the terrace.

The world opens.

The lawn rolls out before you, soft and immaculate, before dipping toward the lake – where the water is catching the last gold of the setting sun, shimmering in a way no Pinterest board ever adequately prepared you for. The breeze lifts warm against your face, and beneath it, a cooler ribbon of air slips past your ankle.

And there, at the centre of it all, stands the arch.

It rises from the grass as though it grew there overnight: a sweep of branches and late-summer blooms woven together so seamlessly it feels alive. Moss softens the base, wildflowers spill through the latticework, and the whole structure glows in the amber light like it has been waiting – patiently, inevitably – for Nat and Steve to stand beneath it.

The trees along the waterline rustle, not loudly, but with that faint, anticipatory shiver of leaves that hints at a change in the air. The whole place feels momentarily enchanted.

Natasha inhales softly. “This is breathtaking.”

Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders, his expression lighting up in a way that makes your throat sting. “It’s perfect,” he says.

Perfect. Perfect.

You have not heard that word in two weeks – not directed at you, not directed at anything you’ve touched. The sound of it seems to land somewhere deep in your chest, loosening a knot you didn’t realise had become part of your anatomy.

You turn slightly, catching Bucky watching you. Not Steve.

Not Natasha.

You.

For a moment his expression is unreadable – steady, assessing, something flickering just behind his eyes as if he’s cataloguing the exact second your shoulders begin to unlock. And when they do, when that infinitesimal shift in your posture betrays just how close to breaking you’ve been, something gentler settles across his features. Something warm. Something proud in a quiet, devastating way.

He doesn’t say a word.

But the silence feels like one: See? I told you. You did this. You can breathe now.

Natasha spins to face you, eyes bright. “Everything looks incredible. Truly.”

You swallow, the question slipping out before you can stop it. “Really?”

“Really,” Steve echoes. “We wouldn’t change a thing.”

The breath leaves you all at once – a long, trembling exhale you didn’t realise you’d been holding, as if your body had been bracing for criticism even now, even here. Your chest opens like someone finally snipped the last too-tight thread holding it together.

Maybe – just maybe – you haven’t been failing.

Maybe it’s all going to be okay.

Two days ago…

Bucky finds you by accident.

It’s late – late enough that the venue has finally exhaled. The last of the staff have gone, the caterer’s van taillights swallowed by the dark, the florist waving wearily before disappearing down the drive. Outside, a light drizzle patters on and off, the kind that can’t decide whether to commit to rain at all. The venue, which had buzzed like a disturbed hive all day, now settles into a deep, exhausted quiet.

He walks the grounds anyway.

The last staff car crunches over gravel as it pulls away; he stands under the overhang and watches its taillights disappear into the dark. He tells people go home, nods toward their umbrellas, makes sure no one is lingering in the drizzle out of politeness or fear you’ll summon them back.

Only when the final goodnight is called does he breathe out.

Inside, the place feels different. Dimmer. Reverent. The hallway sconces glow low, the air smelling faintly of wet cedar and the sweet scatter of greenery left behind. A final walkthrough, he tells himself. One last sweep before tomorrow.

He moves through the quiet halls checking what he knows: the service doors latched, terrace gate secured so the breeze won’t rattle it open, emergency exits clear. The air smells faintly of eucalyptus and wet earth drifting in from outside. Overhead, the timbers creak softly with the shifting weather.

He pauses beneath the hanging chandeliers – delicate strands of crystal beading suspended amongst shimmering lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds, trembling slightly whenever the drizzle swells and the wind nudges the eaves. He counts them again, and again, pretending it’s for safety, ignoring the truth humming beneath the surface:

Everything is done.

Everything is perfect.

Everything is so unmistakably yours.

He assumes you went home hours ago. He hopes you did. He hopes you’re asleep, or at least horizontal, phone finally out of your hands. He should be doing the same. He should stop orbiting the edges of this day and let tomorrow arrive on its own.

He’s halfway to convincing himself to go when he hears it – a soft, papery sound. A rustle, quiet enough that he almost thinks he imagined it. He slows, frowns, and follows the sound into the reception hall, stopping short at the sight before him.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the polished wooden floor of the reception hall, right beneath the hanging lanterns. The lights are dimmed to a buttery glow; outside, the drizzle streaks silver against the windows. The room is nearly silent, save for the faint breath of the lake through the open vents and the soft, intermittent rain.

Around you lie small squares of colored paper – pinks, creams, golds – scattered like fallen petals. Your shoes are set neatly to the side, and your hair has slipped from whatever pinned it up earlier, trailing loose around your shoulders, a few strands catching light each time you bow your head to fold.

You’re folding each piece with slow, tender precision, hands steady despite the exhaustion etched into every line of you.

A small flock already waits beside you – dozens of cranes ready to be strung up.

Bucky stands there, frozen, something in his chest tightening.

You don’t see him at first. Then he clears his throat. “You planning on sleeping at any point today?”

You look up, startled, then soften when you realize it’s him. “Nope,” you say, far too chipper for someone clearly on the brink.

He huffs out a laugh as he approaches you. “Of course not.”

You lift a paper crane between two fingers, holding it up to the warm light. “There’s an old belief about these,” you say lightly, as if it’s an afterthought and not something that’s been sitting on your tongue all night. “In some traditions, a thousand cranes mean a wish. Or a promise. Health, longevity, good fortune… luck in new beginnings.”

Your eyes flick to the pile beside you – uneven wings, crooked beaks, all of them imperfect in a way only sincerity can be.

“The kids at Steve’s school made a bunch,” you explain softly. “But it wasn’t quite enough for the installation. So I’m… just adding a few more.” Your smile tilts. “Stacking the odds.”

“Not just a few more,” he says automatically.

“I know,” you say lightly, “but it’s for good reason.”

Bucky looks at the cranes again, not as decorations, not as something hung from wires and beams and carefully calculated weight limits. But as wishes. Hundreds of small, deliberate hopes, folded by all the people that love Steve and Natasha, one careful crease at a time, suspended above a room meant to hold a beginning.

Something tightens in his chest. He should leave. He should go home. He should not be drawn to the floor beside you like it’s gravity and he’s helpless against it.

He sits down anyway.

The wood is cool under him. our shoulder is close – closer than it has any right to be – and heat pools along the inside of his arm just from being near you.

You hand him a square of paper. Your fingers brush his. He pretends the touch doesn’t short-circuit something fundamental.

“So,” he says, staring at the paper like it might explode. “Instructions?”

You grin – tired, luminous, devastating. “I knew you’d ask.”

He pretends that doesn’t do something awful and permanent to him.

You lean in, showing him the first fold as your fingers settle over his without hesitation. A warm, electric pressure crawls up his wrist and into his ribs. He swallows. Focus. Fold. Don’t look at her.

“You’re overthinking it,” you say softly.

“I’m not you,” he mutters.

“If you say so.”

You show him how to crease the wing. Your thumb grazes the inside of his palm. His pulse kicks so violently he’s certain you must feel it.

You finish your crane before he finishes his. He pretends not to notice – or admire – the deft precision of your hands. The shape of them. The small, quiet strength of your wrists.

He’s doing a lot of pretending in this lake house.

“You know,” you say, setting another finished crane on the pile, “I think this is the first moment I’ve sat still in two weeks.”

He studies you. Really studies you.

The smudged eyeliner. The exhaustion tucked into the corners of your eyes. The way your shoulders sag only now that no one but him is here to see it.

“You did it,” he says quietly.

You blink. “Did what?”

“Everything.” His gaze sweeps over the decorated hall, the crane installation, the arch waiting outside for tomorrow. “You really built this whole damn wedding from the ground up.”

You laugh, soft and self-conscious. “With help.”

“With me,” he corrects. “And I didn’t even want to be involved at first.”

You smile. “You warmed up.”

“No,” he says before he can stop himself. “I just realized something.”

You turn your head. “Which is?”

This is the moment he feels something tip inside him, heavy and irreversible.

He should lie. He should joke. He should deflect until the truth loosens its grip.

Instead, he hears himself say, “I realized I like seeing you care.”

Your breath catches; it punches through him like a single, unguarded truth.

He looks down quickly, pretending to fix a crooked wing.

“You’re intense,” he says, voice softer than before, “and stubborn, and about half a step from terrifying when you want something done right.”

“Gee, thanks,” you murmur, already starting on another crane.

“But you care,” he continues, ignoring the way his pulse stumbles. “And watching you fight for this – fight for Nat and Steve – finally made me understand it. All of it.”

You stare at him. He stares at the crane in his hands.

“Bucky,” you say gently. “Look at me.”

He does. God help him, he does.

Your expression is open and warm, lit from within despite exhaustion. Something he wants to hold – gently, carefully, protectively – even though he shouldn’t want anything at all.

“I know you don’t care for weddings,” you say.

“I don’t,” he replies immediately.

You raise an eyebrow.

He sighs and tries again. “I just care about this one.”

He doesn’t mean the wedding, but he doesn’t clarify. He can’t.

The silence stretches – soft, thick, dangerous.

You place another crane gently on the pile. His chest aches.

He folds his next one wrong on purpose. Your hand comes up, brushing his to fix it and he nearly stops breathing.

“You’re getting better at this,” you tease.

“I have a good teacher.”

Your eyes flick up at that. There’s a spark there, bright and undeniable. He has to look away, because if he holds your gaze any longer he’s going to say something he can’t take back.

You nudge his knee with yours – light, casual, intimate in a way that guts him. “Thanks for staying,” you say.

He swallows hard. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “It’s getting late.”

And that’s the truth. The whole terrifying truth.

You smile again – soft, grateful, too much – as you place another piece of paper in his hands. And Bucky realizes with a clarity that terrifies him more than anything has – he’d fold a thousand of these damn things if it meant sitting beside you like this.

He folds the next one, and tries not to fall in love with the way you breathe beside him.

He fails spectacularly.

One day earlier…

Your blissful slumber’s interrupted by the knocking on your front door. Pounding down your front door, by the sound of things. You’re dragged violently out of sleep, heart slamming against your ribs before your brain can catch up.

You groan, roll over, and bury your face in the pillow.

It keeps going.

A fist. Hard, urgent, unreasonable.

“Open the door!”

You peel one eye open and squint at your phone – 7:25 am on the one morning you promised yourself you’d sleep in. The one morning everything was supposed to be done.

You stumble out of bed, wrap yourself in the nearest blanket, and shuffle to the door with murder in your bones.

You yank it open.

Bucky Barnes stands there, breathless. His hair’s damp and his jacket half-zipped. But his eyes are sharp and wild in a way that snaps you fully awake in half a second.

“What,” you croak, “is your damage?”

“You weren’t answering your phone,” he says immediately.

You blink. “I was asleep.”

“You can’t be.”

“I will,” you insist petulantly. “The ceremony’s not until –”

“The storm last night –” he swallows once, “– a tree came down.”

The words don’t make sense. They hover between you like a foreign language.

“What?”

“At the venue,” he says, softer now, already holding his phone out. “During the storm last night.”

Your stomach drops before you even look.

You take the phone. The oak is ancient. Massive. The kind of tree people build towns around. Its trunk is split down the middle like bone. One half still rooted, the other flung sideways across the terrace roof as though the sky itself hurled it there.

The terrace pergola is gone – not damaged, gone – crushed into splintered ribs beneath the weight of bark and branch. The glass along the upper windows has blown outward. One beam hangs at an angle that makes your stomach lurch. Leaves are everywhere – plastered wet and dark against shattered timber, caught in gutters, smeared across the pale stone like something dragged itself there.

“No,” you whisper. “No – no, no –”

“I’ll drive,” Bucky says gently.

The drive passes in a blur of grey sky and tightening panic. Your hands are clenched so tightly in your lap that your fingers ache.

When you pull into the venue, the damage is worse up close.

The tree dominates. It has erased the terrace – erased the clean, architectural line you loved. The roof sags under the weight of it, one support beam visibly bowed. Sawdust coats the stone in damp, sticky drifts. Someone’s already tried to tarp part of it – the plastic snaps angrily in the wind like it’s offended that such a measly attempt could even begin to fix the damage.

The smell of wet wood and earth fills the air.

You stop walking.

Just… stop.

“It’s gone,” you hear yourself say. Your voice sounds very far away. “It’s all gone.”

Bucky steps closer, careful. “Hey –”

You don’t hear him.

You see the terrace where guests were meant to gather for pre-dinner drinks. The roofline that gorgeously frames the lake. The space you checked and rechecked and trusted.

Your chest caves inward.

“No.” You shake your head once, then again, harder. “I checked the forecasts. I talked to the landscapers. I –”

Your voice fractures. “This tree is not supposed to fall!”

The venue owner stands nearby, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the fallen tree like she’s in mourning.

“The space cries,” she murmurs to no one in particular.

A worker approaches her, clipboard in hand. “Ma’am, I know it’s just the terrace, but we can’t allow anyone inside until the inspectors clear the entire premise. Forty-eight hours,” he says carefully. “Minimum. Possibly longer if structural damage extends into the main hall.” 

Forty-eight hours.

You feel it then – the crack, the break, the thing you’ve been holding together finally giving way.

“It’s today,” you say, voice breaking. “The wedding is today.”

The owner looks at you, eyes wet. “I’m so sorry.”

You turn away blindly, stagger to a bench, and sit hard. Your breath comes in short, jagged pulls. Hot tears spill before you can stop them.

“I failed,” you choke. “I promised them – this was supposed to be perfect –”

Hands cup your face.

Firm. Warm. Steady.

“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. “Look at me.”

You shake your head.

“Please.”

You do, and you are met with an expression so fierce if startles you – protective, focused, utterly certain.

“I need you to breathe,” he says. “Because this isn’t over.”

You laugh, broken. “Bucky –”

Instead, he reaches into your tote – the one that has practically fused to your side over the past two weeks – and slides out The Binder. Your breath stutters. He holds it with the ease of someone who has done this before, who knows the weight, the tabs, the logic of your mind laid out in color-tabbed sections.

“I know you’ve got contingencies,” he says, flipping through pages with quick, efficient motions. “If it rains. If vendors can’t make it. If the power goes out.”

“Not – ” your voice cracks. “Not this.”

“No.” He closes The Binder gently. “Not trees falling.”

A beat.

A terrible, hollow beat where the question hangs between you: So what now?

You swipe at your cheeks. “We can’t fix the roof. We can’t move all the décor. We can’t – ” Your breath catches. “Bucky, we don’t have a – ”

“Venue?” he finishes, arching a brow.

You nod helplessly.

He looks at you for a long moment. Really looks. Then something in his expression shifts – subtle, almost imperceptible – like the first warm edge of dawn cresting over cold ground.

“Lucky for you,” he says quietly, “I’ve been spending a lot of time around someone who never accepts the first no.”

You blink. “Bucky – ”

“And,” he continues, the corner of his mouth lifting in a small, reluctant smile, “maybe some of that has rubbed off.”

You stare at him. “What are you saying?”

He exhales slowly, like he’s bracing for you to yell at him for the very thing that might save you.

“I’m saying,” he murmurs, “Steve’s parent’s backyard is flat. It’s big enough. The tent can be moved. The caterers can reroute. And the weather forecast gives us at least until tomorrow morning before the rain starts again.” A pause. “If we start now, we can make it work.”

The world tilts. Not disastrously – but like a compass snapping north after spinning for too long.

“Why?” you whisper.

He doesn’t dodge. Doesn’t joke. His voice is soft, steady, unbearably sincere. “Because you care,” he says simply. “And I’m not going to let this break you.”

Your chest caves open. Relief crashes in, messy and overwhelming.

You breathe in once, twice.

“Okay,” you whisper back. Then louder, steadier, “Okay.”

He squeezes your hands once, grounding you.“Come on,” he says, rising to his feet. “We’ve got seven hours to save a wedding.”

*

The moment Bucky says “Let’s save a wedding,” things get moving – not metaphorically; literally.

He’s already striding away, already dialling, already speaking in that clipped, purposeful tone you’ve only ever heard when he’s absolutely out of patience or absolutely determined.  “Steve,” he says, pacing toward the parking lot. “Change of venue. Backyard. Yes, your backyard. No, I’m not joking. Trust me.”

You stumble after him, still half undone, still blinking tears off your face. “Bucky –”

“Nat’s going to love this,” he says to you, unfazed. “Call her. Tell her not to panic, and tell her she doesn’t have to lift a finger.”

He looks over his shoulder. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” you say automatically, phone already in your hand.

She picks up on the first ring. “Backyard wedding?” she laughs, delighted. “Perfect. I’ll see you at Steve’s.”

Steve is already texting his parents. Someone’s uncle has folding tables and someone else has a generator “just in case.”

It snowballs fast. The miracle of a small wedding becomes apparent very quickly – every guest is a real person, reachable by phone, reachable within minutes.

You start calling, texting, forwarding maps.

Change of plans! Still today! Bring a chair if you can!

And they’re all very amused by this development.

People reply with laughing emojis, with on our way, with honestly this is very them, with do you need cutlery?

By the time you reach Steve’s family home, the backyard is already transforming.

Someone’s SUV is backed into the lawn with its boot open like a mobile command station. Extension cords snake across the grass. A white rental tent is being muscled upright by three determined guests and one very determined aunt.

The caterers pivot without complaint, food arriving in trays that suddenly feel perfectly suited to long tables and paper plates. The DJ shrugs. “I’ve done a Punjabi wedding on a moving bus. This is nothing.” Music starts, soft and warm and easy.

And Bucky –

He moves through the chaos like a man who has made peace long ago with the fact that the universe likes to test him. He directs traffic, helps carry tables, adjusts tent poles, and somehow gets everyone to listen to him without raising his voice once.

When you open your mouth to worry, he’s already answering.

When you start to spiral, he meets your eyes and says, “Handled.”

At some point he has The Binder. You don’t remember handing it to him. You’re not even sure you did. He simply has it now, tucked under his arm like holy scripture.

And then, when you’re midway through redirecting seating placements, walking away from the tent to take in the big picture view, you notice something shifting in the light, a shimmer of cream and gold.

You stop.

A line of delicate shapes sway gently from the tent’s ridge pole. You take two steps forward, then three.

They’re paper cranes – your paper cranes.

Every single last one that you folded and strung together last night, every last one that you had to leave in the reception hall when the world collapsed.

You stare up at them, breath suspended.

“Bucky,” you whisper. “How did – ? They were –  They were in the reception hall.”

He doesn’t even stop tightening the rope he’s working on. “The reception hall wasn’t damaged,” he says. “Just the terrace. So I… grabbed them.”

You turn to him, struck speechless for a moment.

“You… went in?”

“The hall wasn’t damaged.”

“That isn’t the point!”

He shrugs once. “Doors are only locked if you don’t have the key.”

“You –  this is –  you could’ve gotten hurt!”

Bucky finally looks up at you, and he smiles. It’s a small one – crooked and almost shy. “I wasn’t leaving them behind.”

The cranes shift again in the breeze, glowing in the late-morning sun like tiny lanterns, catching glimmers of gold from the fairy lights someone is stringing between the trees. They shimmer faintly as the breeze lifts them, little beacons of luck and persistence swaying above the lawn. They look impossibly delicate – and yet here they are, surviving storms, travel, relocation.

You realise, as you take it all in, that the rest of the wedding is taking shape in much the same improbable fashion. Piece by piece, person by person.

Because when you turn, the lawn is filling with chairs – mismatched, ridiculous, perfect – carried in by guests who did not hesitate for a single breath. “Everyone bring a chair,” he’d said, and somehow… everyone did.

Kitchen chairs. Lawn chairs. Folding metal ones that look suspiciously like the ones from the high school Steve teaches at. A wicker bench someone absolutely took from their own porch.

It’s ridiculous, it’s perfect.

You finally dare to look at the time and, “It’s –” you begin, startled.

“Ten minutes to start,” Bucky says, checking his watch. “We’re on schedule.”

You gape at him. “How are we on schedule?”

He nods toward The Binder, lying open on a cooler like a general’s map. “The Binder,” he says with a shrug, “has all.”

And for the first time all day –

You laugh. Really, truly laugh. Because somehow, impossibly, disastrously –  you’re going to pull this off.

Together.

*

The ceremony goes off without a hitch.

The tent stands steady despite the soft ground beneath it, canvas glowing warmly in the late afternoon light. Strings of bulbs flicker on as the sun dips lower, their reflections catching in the little puddles of water that have yet to evaporate. The grass is a little muddy in places, trampled by hurried footsteps and borrowed chairs. Nothing matches. Everything belongs.

And as the first notes play and everyone rises, you realize something with a clarity that makes your knees go weak:

The wedding didn’t survive despite the chaos.

It survived because of it.

You take your place near the front, hands folded, heart already too full.

Natasha walks in first, not down an aisle so much as across a stretch of grass cleared by people who love her. Her dress is simple and devastating, hair pinned back just enough to frame her face. She looks radiant, not because of the dress or the light or the day, but because she looks certain that this is where she’s meant to be.

Steve is already waiting.

He doesn’t try to hide it, the way his face changes when he sees her – like the world has finally resolved into something understandable. He forgets where to put his hands. Forgets that there are people watching. Forgets everything but her.

You feel tears sting immediately.

The officiant says a few words – nothing grand, nothing rehearsed beyond necessity. Something about finding home in another person. Something about choosing, every day, to stay.

And then, it’s time for vows.

Steve clears his throat, nervous in a way that feels almost boyish. “I don’t have a lot of fancy words,” he says, smiling at her like it’s a private joke, like the entire universe has narrowed down to just him and her. “But I promise to keep choosing you.”

Natasha’s bottom lip trembles. Steve swallows and continues.

“I’ve spent a long time thinking that doing the right thing meant standing alone,” he continues, voice steadying. “You taught me it doesn’t have to. Whatever comes next, I want to face it with you.”

You feel tears prick immediately, hot and unbidden.

Natasha takes his hands when it’s her turn, thumbs brushing over his knuckles, grounding him, grounding them both.

“I don’t make promises lightly,” she says. “But I promise you honesty – even when it’s hard. I promise to stand beside you, not behind you.”

Steve exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years.

“I’ve spent a long time surviving,” she continues, voice softer now. “With you, I want to live. And I promise I’m not going anywhere.”

And that’s when something in your chest gives way entirely.

You swipe at your eyes and, in the motion, glance to your left – toward Steve’s side.

Bucky is watching you.

Not the ceremony. Not his best friend standing at the center of it all. You.

There’s no surprise in his expression when your eyes meet. Just something steady and unguarded, something that makes your breath catch. You smile at him – small, private, meant only for this moment.

He doesn’t smile back, not fully, but his shoulders ease, like he’s finally letting himself breathe. His gaze lingers before he looks forward again, jaw tight, eyes bright.

The officiant speaks again, voice barely registering over the rush in your ears.

“By the power vested in me –” The officiant barely has time to finish the words before Steve kisses Natasha like he’s been waiting his whole life to do it.

The backyard erupts – not in polite applause, but in cheers and laughter and the unmistakable sound of people witnessing something go right after so much nearly went wrong.

You look around – at the grass, worn and imperfect beneath polished shoes; at the mismatched chairs – kitchen chairs, folding chairs, one unmistakeable beach chair in the second row; at the tent, glowing softly against the darkening sky; at the faces – teary, smiling, wholly present.

Not a single dry eye.

And suddenly, with a clarity that feels almost sacred, you understand it.

This – this patched-together, last-minute, mud-on-the-hems miracle – this wedding is perfect.

You glance at Bucky again.

He’s watching the couple now, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. Something changed. As if he’s seeing the whole thing differently – not as an event, not as a spectacle, but as a moment that matters simply because the people in it do.

He catches your eye once more.

This time, he does smile.

And in that small, quiet exchange – barely noticed by anyone else – you feel it settle into place.

Everything is exactly as it should be.

Presently…

This bed isn’t yours. This room isn’t yours. And beside you – facing you, chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm, is Bucky.

His eyes are closed, dark lashes resting against his cheek. There’s a smudge of sleep at the corner of his mouth, a softness to him you’re not used to seeing in daylight.

Your gaze drops – bare shoulder, collarbone, the fabric of his shirt rumpled from sleep. And then you feel it: his knee tucked lightly against yours beneath the covers, like neither of you moved much in the night. Like the space between you was never up for negotiation.

Your breath catches.

And in that moment, as the sun reaches across the bed and touches the curve of his jaw, you realize with slow, startling clarity –

You don’t want to move. You certainly don’t want to disturb this.

But then –

His blue eyes – soft with sleep, unfocused at the edges – blink open at the same moment. He inhales sharply, like waking into the shock of something impossible, like waking into you.

The two of you stare at each other.

The world holds its breath.

His hair is mussed, falling over his forehead. His mouth is soft, not yet disciplined into its usual guarded lines. One arm – his – rests over your waist like he reached for you in the night and never let go.

His voice, when it comes, is low. Rough.

“Hey.”

A beat.

A second.

A lifetime.

You swallow, suddenly acutely aware of how close your noses are. Of how his chest rises and falls against yours. Of how you ended up – both of you – pulled together into the same borrowed bed after the reception because there were no spare rooms left at Steve’s family house and “it’s fine, we’re adults, we can share.”

Except now you are awake and sharing feels like the smallest word in the universe.

Bucky’s eyes flick to your mouth. It is microscopic, the shift, but you feel it like a jolt of electricity down your spine. Your heart kicks painfully, traitorously, into your throat.

It feels like balanced-breath territory, the narrow space between what is safe and what is true.

Your throat works. “Hey.”

You can smell him – soap and clean cotton and something unmistakably him. Your heart starts to race.

“This…” you start, because the silence is suddenly too loud, too much, and you have the irrational urge to fill it. “This isn’t what friends do. Right?”

The words hang between you, trembling, dangerous and far too honest.

Bucky doesn’t move for a moment.

Then his gaze settles fully – wholly – on you, and everything inside him sharpens, awakens, and resolves.

“No,” he says quietly. “It’s not.”

Something in his voice makes your chest ache.

You shift, just a little. The mattress dips. His breath catches – not dramatically, but enough that you notice. Enough that it feels like a type of confession all on its own. His hand – warm, careful – slides from your waist to your hip. Not pulling. Just touching. Just holding you like the truth has finally found him.

“We should –” you start.

He doesn’t move away. Instead, he says your name once; just once, like it’s something precious.

“You think I do this –” he murmurs, eyes fierce, intimate, unbearably soft, “– with anyone else?”

You can’t speak.

He moves a fraction closer, the tiniest shift of the pillow, but it feels like the world tilting toward something inevitable and vast.

“I woke up,” he whispers, “and for a second I thought I was dreaming. Because you –” his voice hitches, “– you were looking at me like I was someone you wanted.”

You inhale sharply. “Bucky…”

“And if I’m reading this wrong,” he continues, tone still gentle, still unbearably composed for someone confessing like this, “then tell me. Tell me and I’ll –”

You don’t let him finish.

You lift your hand – shaking, barely steady – and cup his cheek.

His breath stops.

“I don’t exactly know when it started,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “But I think I’ve been wanting you for a while.”

He closes his eyes once. Slowly. Like the world has finally righted itself.

And when he opens them again, he is not uncertain. He is not hesitant. He is not a man fighting himself anymore.

“You know I don’t believe in weddings – I still don’t,” he says softly. “I don’t believe in big gestures or perfect days. But, this, I believe in things like this.”

His hand lifts – stops, trembling on the edge of daring – before he leans in instead, touching his forehead to yours. The world narrows to warmth and breath and the barest graze of his nose against yours, close enough that all you can see, all you can feel, is him. Your skin sparks, electric, even without his hand on you.

“I believe in you,” he continues. “In the way you care. In the way you fight for people. In the way you stayed up all night folding a thousand paper cranes because you wanted something beautiful to exist in the world. In the way you planned this entire wedding like the universe would collapse if Nat and Steve had anything less than perfect – because for you, caring this much isn’t some kind of twisted vanity, it’s how you move through the world.”

Your eyes burn.

“And I love you and I want to be by your side,” he says simply. “Whether it’s in the chaos or the quiet. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore.”

The room feels very still, very small, and very, very full.

You don’t trust your voice, so you do the only thing you can.

With your heart in your hands, you lean in and gently press your lips to his.

His breath shudders as your lips meet, like he’s been holding something back for a long time and finally lets go. His hand slides into your hair, cradling your head with reverence, not urgency.

The world narrows.

When he deepens the kiss – just slightly – it feels like a promise. When you kiss him back, it feels like an answer.

When you pull away, forehead resting against his, everything has changed.

He smiles then.

Not the guarded half-smile. Not the amused deflection.

A real one. Open. Unmistakable.

“Hi,” he murmurs.

You laugh softly, breathless, overwhelmed. “Hi.”

Outside, the house begins to stir to life with footsteps padding across the hallway, the low clatter of someone in the kitchen trying (and failing) to move quietly, a kettle starting its slow, rising hiss. Chairs scrape gently over the deck. Someone laughs, hushed and tender, the sound drifting through the floorboards like morning light.

Inside, wrapped in tangled sheets and the quiet aftermath of a perfectly imperfect wedding, you realize – with a certainty that feels almost sacred – that this is how it begins – not with spectacle – but with choice, with closeness.

And with love, finally spoken aloud.

When you wake up again, it is to heat.

More specifically – heat and weight and a slow, lazy grind at the small of your back that your sleep-fogged brain misidentifies as a dream right up until you breathe in and, oh, it’s Bucky.

The first time you woke up, it was barely dawn. Just light creeping around the edges of the curtains, your faces inches apart on the pillow, his voice rough as he admitted he didn’t want to be just your friend. A kiss that felt like a beginning. The dizzy, terrifying relief of hearing your own feelings echoed back at you.

Then he’d cupped your cheek, pressed his forehead to yours, and said, “We can talk more when it’s not stupid o’clock.”

You’d agreed. You were exhausted. Your eyes had burned. He’d pulled you in against his chest, arm heavy around your waist, and the two of you had drifted off again, warm and close and newly, precariously honest.

Now it’s later, and Bucky is still spooned around you in the narrow guest bed of Steve’s childhood home, one arm banded heavy around your waist, his chest pressed to your back. His breath ghosts over the nape of your neck in warm, even little puffs.

And his cock is hard, pressed right against your ass.

You go very still.

The arm around your waist tightens, drawing you closer like he’s chasing you in his sleep. His hips roll, just a fraction, like his body’s following a rhythm his brain hasn’t caught up to yet. The thick line of him drags against you through two layers of cotton, and a completely traitorous pulse of heat shoots through you.

“Bucky,” you whisper, not trusting your voice to go any louder.

He makes a low sound, half groan, half wordless complaint, nose nudging into your hair. “Mm. It’s too early.”

“You’re –” You swallow, cheeks burning. “You’re kind of… uh… poking me.”

That seems to cut through the haze faster than any alarm. His body tenses behind you; his hips freeze. There’s a beat where you can feel him realize exactly where he is and what he’s doing.

“Shit,” he mutters, voice rough as gravel, dragging his face up from your neck. “Shit, darling, I –”

He starts to pull away and you instinctively reach back to grab his forearm.

“Wait,” you say.

He goes still again.

You could pretend you’re not already wet. You could pretend you’re not thinking about this every time he brushed past you in the venue kitchen this week, every time he stood too close at the lakehouse walkthrough, every time those stupid blue eyes lingered on your mouth a second too long.

You don’t.

“You’re not the only one,” you say quietly, rolling your hips back just enough that he can feel the way your body’s answering his. “If that makes you feel any better.”

Bucky lets out a shaky little breath right against your ear. “You’re gonna kill me,” he says, and there’s a muffled curse as his hand slides from your waist down over your hip, fingers digging in. He doesn’t move his hips. Yet. “You sure?”

You turn your head enough to see him, to catch his eyes, pupils already blown. “We already said this isn’t what friends do, right?”

“Pretty sure my friends don’t usually wake up tryin’ to fuck me,” he says hoarsely. His gaze drops to your mouth. “But I’m not complaining’.”

He kisses you before you can answer. It’s messy, morning-breath and sleep-warm, but his mouth is hot and eager and familiar in a way that makes your toes curl. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing under your chin, tilting your head where he wants you.

Behind you, his hips finally move. Slow, deliberate grind, the thick length of him dragging against you through the silky fabric of your dress. You gasp into his mouth; he swallows the sound with a low noise of his own.

“Been thinking about this for weeks,” he mutters against your lips. “You in that damn dress all day yesterday. Runnin’ around bossin’ everybody, climbing over me on those shitty folding chairs like it was nothing. You have any idea what you do to me?”

You push your ass back into him, just to feel how hard he is. “I think I’m getting an idea.”

“Tease,” he murmurs, and his hand presses low on your stomach through the dress, the heat of him burning through the thin fabric, fingers splaying like he’s steadying you for what comes next. “Can I?”

You nod, too quickly. “Yes. God, yes.”

He hums like that pleases him. His hand drifts lower, fingers skimming down, pushing the skirt of your dress up. He slides under it, into your panties, and finds you already slick and hot. His breath stutters. “Fuck, baby.”

He circles your clit once, light enough to make you whine, then slips his fingers lower, stroking through your wetness. “You this wet from just waking up next to me?” he asks, voice gone smug and filthy. “Or have you been dreaming about me?”

“Shut up,” you gasp, hips jerking. “You’re the one grinding on me in your sleep, Bucky.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, pushing two fingers into you, slow and deliberate, “if you start sleeping in my bed, there’s gonna be a lot worse than grinding.”

Your reply dissolves into a broken moan as he curls his fingers just right. He works you open with careful, steady thrusts, his palm rubbing your clit on every stroke. It’s obscene how fast he finds exactly how to touch you, like he’s been mapping out how this would go for weeks.

You reach back blindly and find him, wrap your hand around the thick length straining against his waistband. Even through the cotton, he’s solid, heavy, twitching under your fingers.

He swears, low and vicious. “You’re killing me,” he repeats, hips rocking forward into your hand. “Get these off.”

Between the two of you, your dress and panties end up somewhere at the foot of the bed. He groans when he sees you, bare and open in the afternoon light. His fingers slide back through your slick, spreading it, thumb drawing lazy circles over your clit.

“Prettiest thing I ever seen,” he says, almost to himself.

You push back, needy. “Bucky.”

“Yeah, I got you.” He shifts, fumbling one-handed with his own waistband until his cock is free, hot and leaking where it brushes the curve of your ass. He hisses through his teeth at the contact. “Fuck. You sure?”

You look over your shoulder, meet his eyes, and there’s no way he can mistake the answer. “Please.”

His expression crumples into something helpless and obscene. “Okay,” he says hoarsely. “Okay. I’ll take care of you.”

He lines up and pushes in, the blunt head nudging against your opening, then stretching you, slow, slow, until he’s buried thick and deep. You gasp, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch just shy of too much.

“Jesus,” he groans, forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. “You’re so fucking tight. Grippin’ me like you don’t ever wanna let me go.”

“You could move,” you manage, voice high and shaky. “That might help.”

He laughs, broken and breathless, and pulls back only to slam in again, setting a rhythm that has the old headboard tapping the wall in soft, insistent knocks. His hand finds yours on the mattress, lacing your fingers together, grounding you even as he fucks into you harder, his other hand still working your clit.

The slick sounds of him moving in you fill the little room, mixed with your gasps and his low curses. Every thrust hits that perfect spot; every drag of his thumb winds you tighter.

“Listen to you,” he pants, voice right against your ear now. “Making those little noises for me. You gonna come on my cock, sweetheart?”

Your answer is more of a strangled sob than a word. Heat coils tight in your belly, sharp and bright.

“Yeah,” he says, like he can feel you clenching. “There you go. Let go for me. Come on, baby. I’ve got you.”

It’s the way he says it – like a reverent promise – that tips you over. You shatter around him, muscles fluttering, vision going white at the edges. You hear yourself cry out, feel him groan into your shoulder as your body milks him.

“Fuck – just like that, just like that,” he grits, thrusts turning messy. A few more and he’s gone too, burying himself deep as he spills inside you, whole body trembling against your back.

For a long moment, the only sounds are your breathing and the soft tick of the old clock on the nightstand.

Eventually, Bucky shifts, carefully easing out of you, both of you hissing at the oversensitive drag. He collapses onto his back beside you, one arm flung over his eyes.

“This,” you say, staring at the ceiling, still trying to remember how lungs work, “is definitely not what friends do.”

He laughs, low and wrecked, turning his head to look at you. His hair’s a mess, cheeks flushed, eyes soft in a way that makes your chest hurt.

“Good,” he says, reaching over to tug you against his side, tucking you into the crook of his arm like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “’Cause I’ve never wanted to be just your friend.”

yap! i have a lot of feelings about weddings (i love weddings as a literary device as much as kevin kwan does LMAO) as you can tell... and i just got so juiced up with ideas i couldn't bring myself to cut anything so here we are! if you've read to the end, here is a kiss for you and i hope you enjoyed it and didn't find it too long! also im a wedding lover, my own wedding is going to be my superbowl. remember to check out the other event fics! there's so much care and love there!!

@fynnjafox @auradastler @raindrop2401 @gay-little-isopod @afriendofblahaj @isopost-headquarters @thatonemint @here-queer-drowning-in-fear @0dividedby0haha @allknowingbirb @minttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt @silly-gizmo @mildlybizarrecorvid @silly-moth-123 @mintopoleli

Gooo my mutualls i summon thee

Hehe :3