Issy ♥️

But isn’t he just a disappointment anyway?

“Am I having fun watching you with another woman at my engagement party?” You ask softly, shaking your head. “I get it, I’m not your type. I knew that from people telling me so.”

He pauses, right in the center of the dance floor.

“Yet I expected some decorum, I expected you to at least be respectful, not to show the world how unappealing you find me,” you whisper, biting down on your lip, shaking your head now. “I wanted to at least try here, with you.”

Satoru can’t speak.

Until he spins you, and catches you, his big hand taking over your waist, thumb pressing under the swell of your breasts. He almost falls then, from just a look, yet he holds himself back, he stops every insane thought and action, laughing easily, like he’s amused.

Satoru is good at hiding.

“Ya thought we’d have some story book romance, huh? Oh… you’re a fairy princess and I’m from another kingdom? And oh…” He leans down, so low to you, lips a breath away. “I fall for the princess, she’s just so beautiful, how can’t I?”

“Gojo…”

“News to you, perfect little fairy princess, I’m not interested in marriage, or any of this shit, this show, I fucking hate it,” his words are harsh, as he squeezes you too tightly, so tightly you’re shaking, tears streaming down your cheeks. “Your prince from another kingdom just stuck his fingers in a waitress. That’s reality, sweetheart.”

You tremble in his hold, and he knows then.

He hurt you.

Good, he thinks, shit will be easier that way, safer if you hate him, if you smack him, tell him to fuck himself. Yet you tilt your chin up and spin as the dance calls for, giving a little curtsey as he steps closer, not showing a hint of emotion aside from your tears that you seemingly can’t stop.

“I see,” is all you say then, stepping back into his arms, as the crowd of gossiping families speaks of it all, you hold all of your composure, even as he raises a brow, looking down at you. “Maybe I am foolish, to have thought it that way. Yet I still don’t understand why you’re…”

“What, little princess? So mean?”

You just look down again, quiet, swallowing visibly, you smell too good, invading his fucking senses. “I didn’t think you were mean when I met you as a child.”

“As a child?” Satoru pauses, and you sigh, shaking your head.

“Of course you wouldn’t remember, I’m not very special.” You step back as the song ends, and your tragic eyes meet his, before lowering them and bowing a little bit. “Have a good rest of your evening, I’m feeling a little…” You look at the girl he’d just kissed. “Sick.”

When you rush off, politely excusing yourself, Satoru feels this sinking in his heart, questions simmering under the surface – what if he just was kind to you? What if he at least didn't make a fool of himself?

But he doesn't go after you, no that would have been the ‘right’ thing to do. The thing is, you're much better off without him. So he's dancing with women who make his family furiously whisper amongst themselves, and he just knows -

You will hate him, and you’re better off for it.

*****

You

You didn't expect a fairy tale marriage. Even marrying the man who is basically the ‘prince’ of all the families, all of the clans, the Gojo heir. You may as well be the ‘princess’ of your own, both of you promised as children to each other, knowing no love or match would come to anything.

This was it, your future, but you met him when he was just a little kid, he's two years older than you. His blue eyes and spiky white hair were enough to make your heart race, but mostly you noticed how sad those blue eyes were.

He wasn't mean then, he was kind and reserved, not boisterous, laughing and acting a fool. He was cautious more like you are, both of you not wanting to disappoint your very harsh parents who had so many expectations. Satoru had given you his hand, holding it tightly, pressing a little kiss on the back of it.

So you'll be my wife some day

Yeah…

You're um… pretty.

That was it, just a moment and then he'd had to run off. And you only saw Satoru in bits and pieces, here and there from afar, watching and knowing he didn’t notice you. Yet that moment gave you hope. 

Just to fucking crush it all.

It's your wedding night, and his staff is carrying all of your luggage inside the expensive mansion. Satoru is drunk, you notice he is around you, as if that helps with the pain of having to be married to you, stumbling just a bit and chuckling darkly when you try to help him.

“I'm fine,” he yanks your hand off like you burned him. Your tummy is in knots, you feel sick. “Let me show you your room. Princess.”

He says it always mockingly, tonight you know he was with someone again, he's made no attempt to hide kissing others. You're sure he probably does more, but you're innocent yourself so you don't exactly know what's what. Your parents pounded innocence and propriety in your head.

You'll be Gojo’s wife, you must be pure for him.

What a joke, really, to be pure for someone who will never want you, to watch him kissing on necks in the gardens, laughing until he sees your face. You never have been a very confident girl, but everyone has always told you that you're pretty, lovely, so you sort of didn't think your looks were an issue.

Then again, it could just be you. Maybe you're boring, maybe you're too proper. Your mind wracks with doubts as he leads you up the winding staircase of the Gojo mansion up to a dark hallway. He opens a door and you pause, breath catching in your throat at how beautiful it is.

“This is our room?” You ask softly, the blue silk bed and gossamer canopy snug in a room of soft whites and blues. He chuckles, making you look at him.

“They had it made for us, pretentious isn't it?” You blink a bit.

“I think it's beautiful,” it's quiet when you step in, still in your beaded and saying white wedding gown. You slip off your veil and take a breath. Looking in the mirror.

You look gorgeous today.

No matter what he says or doesn't say, you see it in that reflection. In your lashes, in your eyes, in your lips, painted a pretty crimson. Your body is showcased to perfection, modest but still sensual, just hints of your lines and curves outlined, the material glinting in the soft light.

“Your room,” he says at the doorway, and you pause, making him smirk. “You didn't think we were fucking did you?”

You blush furiously, looking down nervously at your hands entwined in front of you. “I did think we would… make the marriage official even if you don't find me attractive.”

It's dead silent, lingering in the air – your insecurities rampant.

“Why? Because our duty?” He asks, stepping inside, his dress shoes echoing on the floor, coming to stand behind you, reflection in the mirror making you tremble.

“We will need to have babies, it's expected of me. Or I'll be… a failure as a wife.” Your voice breaks, and for a moment you see blue eyes soften, you feel fingertips slipping over your straps, yet they halt, and his eyes narrow. 

“I won't fuck you, not for duty or expectations, fuck them and fuck that.”

It's like a slap to the face. You take a breath, trembling now. “Gojo, am I that displeasing really? I tried so hard to look-”

“Nothing will make me fuck you,” he murmurs coolly. “We will ride this shit out till I find a way to end it somehow.”

“End it?” your brows draw together, eyes swimming in unshed tears, his fingers slip off now, going to your back, slowly undoing the little rows of buttons methodically.

“An annulment, divorce, whatever… fuck this shit, I'm not staying married.” he is casual as he helps you out of your dress, knuckles tracing up your spine, then he smirks. “Oh shit. You want me? Hah… that's cute.”

“I… um… you…” You're flushed, reflection in the mirror blushing, as you look at him, his cruel smirk, his mean eyes. “Am I not supposed to want you?”

“Of course you do, I am Satoru Gojo,” he presses those straps down, pausing when he gets a view of your breasts as you hold the dress against them, your back exposed and bare. “You can always touch yourself and think of me, who am I to deny that? But I will never touch you.”

It's like he just stabs you in the stomach. You turn, facing the cruel, tall man now, on the night you hoped for something, anything, but you're just met with a mean curve of his lips. “So what, you'll just… fuck anyone but me?”

“You can cuss?” He laughs a bit, fingers curling along one of the carefully coifed ringlets.

“Yes, I can. I just don't usually,” you take a breath. Trying to remember. 

Obey him.

Treasure him.

For your family

“You don't know me and you won't even try to, will you?”

“You want dick that bad, huh?” You gasp, slapping him as hard as you can then, he winces and rubs his cheek, glaring at you. You falter, looking at his pink cheek and gasping.

“I'm sorry. I…”

“Let's get one thing straight, princess,” Satoru Gojo leans over you, an arm on either side, tilting his head as you grip your wedding dress tightly to your chest. “We can do our own things. I get it. You have to live here for now.”

For now.

“But don't you dare fucking hit me,” he grips your wrist, bruising with his long fingers, you gasp out at the pain, tears falling. “Not used to men not wanting you, huh?”

“What!?” You're blinking in confusion, his grip tightening, your heart sinking.

You feel so sick.

“Never been turned down because you're the family princess, aww. So cute,” he leans down, touching your cheek, eyes a cruel bluee. “Everyone after that money, after a chance with you, so special. Well you're not fucking special to me, we are just the same.”

“I don't think I'm special or anything!? I never said that.”

“Don't have to, I can just see it.”

You're shaking in his hold. “I just thought we could try, you don't even know if we have anything, a connection or-”

Gojo laughs at you.

He laughs. 

“Try what, fucking you? You want my dick real bad.”

“No!? Just if we could feel a connection? I… like you haven't kissed me, how do you even-”

Satoru grabs your face, leaning low and pressing his lips against yours, capturing them and making you lose your breath. You melt when his plump lips work yours, when a hand comes to entangle in your hair, your hands slipping off your dress so that your nipples hit the cool air.

His tongue slips in your mouth, exploring the recesses with far too much finesse, hot and drooling as he presses you against the hard wood of the dresser.

You've never kissed.

You try to move your tongue back, knowing you're awful at it, your arms slipping around his neck. He's mean, he's cruel, but you want to try, you want to have this. Feel whatever this dizzy sensation is, one of his hands gripping your breast as he pulls back, lips glossy, eyeing them now.

“I'll give you this,” he murmurs softly. “You have perfect tits.”

“Um…” You're stammering again, whimpering when his thumb brushes your nipple. 

“Perfect posture, pretty face, nice little body. It's not enough though sweetheart," he pulls back now, grinning and crossing his arms as you just stand there. “There, your kiss, and there's nothing between us. Is there? Enough to shove that fantasy out of your head?”

Nothing!?

“You think keeping your tits out will make me hard?” You gasp, covering them up, blinking back more hot tears.

He wipes his lips with his thumb. As if to remove the kiss from his memory. You look down, pain making you dizzy – deep pain.

“I just… you’re so sure that this won’t work that you’re not trying!” He laughs softly, without humor.

Charming. Handsome. Cruel.

Satoru’s two fingers brush down your collarbone and across it, a mean smile on a devastatingly pretty face as he watches goosebumps dance across your skin. "You want me to touch you. Hmm?"

"I just…" you cover yourself with your arms now, suddenly so insecure, you were anyway but this was more. It was worse, having the man you've been infatuated with since a kid turning you down, on a night you felt so beautiful. "I just thought we could try to find some common ground, to maybe make this work. Become… more?"

He leans down, his sweet breath against your lips, tickling them as his blue eyes glitter, cold like the most beautiful sapphires, and just as hard, there’s no emotion in their depths. So cold you shiver, swallowing nervously.

"Oh sweetheart, I don't want any of it. What they tell me to do, what they expect, no... I'll burn it all to the fucking ground, and them with it.”

“Burn it to the ground?” Your whisper is soft, his lips curve mean when he grips your chin.

"You're a pretty girl, but I'm not for you. That's the most you're getting from me.”

Not. For. You.

"What is so wrong with me?” You hate how desperate you sound.

Was this who you are?

Do you know yourself outside of becoming Satoru Gojo's wife?

“It’s not…” he trails off, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “You just don’t seem to get it, little princess. It’s an inconvenience, this entire thing.”

Great.

You’re just a fucking inconvenience to your ‘husband’.

“We will let them think we're good for a year, maybe two. Then I'll get out of this, you should thank me really, it's not like you chose it either.”

He turns now, leaving you close to collapsing, with the pain, with the casual cruelty. “Satoru…”

“Don't fucking call me that,” he snaps, looking back at you. You step back and bump into the elegant dresser, shaking as he looks at you with such hatred. “You don't get to call me my first name.”

“I am… I am sorry if I messed something up. If I did something wrong…” You're sniffling your tears, trying to keep it together. “I haven't even kissed before and I probably am just bad at it. Just give me a chance to-”

“Stop trying,” his voice is softer, like he fucking feels bad for you. That's worse than his cruelty – pity. “Just keep to yourself and I will too, until I find a way out of it. It's useless to try.”

“Useless to?”

“Sweetheart,” his tongue is honeyed, a lilt to his voice. “I'll never want you.”

The knife in your heart?

Twisted.

“Oh, I see…” You take a breath, just nodding then, hands gripping the beaded material so tightly they ache.

Obedient.

Sweet.

Serve your husband.

It's what you were trained to be, a traditional wife who follows her husband's orders, even your stinging palm was beyond what you're used to. How can you serve a man that doesn’t want you, how can you obey someone when their only order is for you to quit trying?

As he walks out, with just one look over his shoulder before he shuts that door, leaving you alone in the room on your own in tears on your very wedding night… how can you act like that kiss meant nothing to you? How can you not sink down on that bed all alone, and sob.

The boy you fell in love with doesn't remember you.

Doesn't want you.

No, he hates you.

And you'll have to endure this and be a failure to your parents, the worst of all your fears.

You don't stop sobbing until dawn breaks into the windows.

*****

Gojo

It's been a month of having you in his home, you're trying to be so perfect too. Dinner ready every night, you sit there and wait for him, smiling so pretty, wearing some new outfit as if he will ever touch you again, trying to talk to him, to get to know him.

Satoru can't stand you.

All you do is make him want to end it quicker, so that he has no feelings in this. No amount of slutty little slips or lingering before bed time is getting him to consummate the marriage, to give in to what his family and elders shoved on him, controlling his entire life.

Nah fuck that.

Satoru is balls deep inside his secretary right now, condom dripping with her cum as he lets her bounce up and down his latex covered cock. He leans back and moans as she works him like a pro, bouncing her ass and letting it jiggle under the shoved up pencil skirt.

Of course he thinks of you, fists his cock to images of those tits, imagines those lips around his tip. All the more reason to not fuck you, imagine if he did? You were a virgin, probably would lay there and not know how to do shit, you could barely kiss him back.

He'd have to be all gentle, not slam you down and bottom out like he could right now. She's moaning, too loud, he has to slam a hand on her mouth, lips against her ear.

“We're at work,” he reminds gently.

“Sorry Mr. Gojo. Mnh!” Satoru's big hands work her up and down, bottoming out as she cums, covering her own mouth as she screams out.

“Hah, so messy,” he taunts, she's squirting all over his Armani slacks, right when the door opens.

Fuck.

Did he not lock it?

He pauses, and its…

You.

You quickly shut the door and turn away, as his secretary gasps, panicking and lifting up. Satoru drags her back down, eyeing you.

“Wife,” he teases, you turn to look at him, lunchbox in your hands. “Didn't expect you at my work. Can I cum real quick, then we can talk?”

You say nothing, obedient little thing that you are, not an ounce of fire in you aside from a little smack. He supposes that's how you were raised, how boring really, but he shoves the woman down once more. Toying with her clit and making her moan in front of you, right as he busts in that condom, groaning softly.

“Fuck, there we go,” he taps her and she hops off, giggling when she tugs her skirt down, rushing past you.

“Mrs. Gojo.” she says, you just step back and nod.

“Hello.”

‘Hello’ is what you say, to the woman who'd been riding your husband's cock?

He tosses the condom in the trash under his desk, sighing and smirking over at you, when you turn and see him, still hard and covered in milky seed, turning back around again.

“I'm sorry.”

“You're sorry?” He demands, slipping his boxers up now. “I was fucking someone and you're sorry?”

“I should have called first,” you turn back again, as he zips up, cheeks tinged pink.

You look beautiful today.

He wouldn't tell you. But you do.

“I was just… I learned to make sushi? I was so bored lately. Then… they kind of look ugly? But they're um… yummy and-”

“Just stop, fuck,” you look at him, tears in your eyes, clenched fists at your side when he takes the bento box. “Stop trying so hard, it's not gonna happen.”

“Gojo-”

“Stop, don't hurt yourself more.”

“But why am I so… why would you never ever want me?” you whisper brokenly then. “I am not trying to be mean but her? She's not even… attractive!? I don't-”

He laughs at you again, shaking his head. “You are a spoiled rich girl, a mean little thing. Because she's not drop dead gorgeous I couldn't want her? Looks mean nothing really, little princess. It's just you who I don't want.”

Your breasts heave up and down, finally a glare on your otherwise sad little pretty face. “I am trying!”

“I don't want you to fucking try, constantly acting like the perfect wife. I don't want it. Don't want you, how clear can I fucking make it!?”

You step up to him then, tilting your head to look up at the tall, cruel man, lipstick on his fucking neck, smirking at you. “Well maybe I don't want YOU, but I fucking TRY.”

“Oh. You want me,” he tilts your chin up, grinning at you, feeling your skin hot to the touch. “Bet you're so desperate you'd lick her pussy off me. Wouldn't you? For a chance.”

“I would never,” you shake your head. “Fine, you win. I won't try anymore.”

“Good. It's for your own best interest,” he pats your cheek and smiles. “What's on your plans today, hmm little perfect wife?”

“Not making dinner.” he smirks at you again. “Not trying for you ever again.”

You rush out of the door, dejected, shoulders slumped, when you look back at him though?

That look.

Heartbroken, devastated, done for. Like you just lost all your goddamn will to live.

That one hurts.

Satoru was not cruel before you. Sure he was a dick, he played a lot, he was conceited, but to make you give up trying made him have to push you away. If even fucking in front of you didn't he had to push it further, and he thinks that's the moment you gave up on him.

It's for your own best interest to end this when he can, to be strangers.

Your eyes are burned in his brain as he opens your dumb bento box, and sees these pretty little Sushi. Shaped like little hearts with pink paper instead of the traditional.

He swallows down his guilt when he sees them laid out with a cup of soup, rice, a drink even. And a little note on pink paper.

He hates himself more when he opens it. 

Gojo, I know you don't want me, don't want this, but if we could just try… I think there could be something, truly. When we kissed I did feel it, somewhere buried under the surface. 

I know I'm not who you chose, or who you want, but I hope one day we could grow to like each other. I am trying my hardest and I just hope that it can be enough.

Have a great day at work, I will see you at home.

Tears slip onto the note, bleeding the ink through the paper, he looks at the shut door you'd walked out of, remembering your eyes..they'd always fucking haunt him. That look of defeat written all over them.

You were bringing him lunch and love notes when he was letting a secretary ride his cock.

“Mr. Gojo?” his assistant opens his door, and he pauses, looking up at her. “You have a two a clock.”

“Right…” He just stares at the sushi, at the note, before shutting his eyes, swiping off tears he hasn't cried since he was a little kid.

That night, no dinner is made by you. No it's the chefs as it should always be, but it's a sign, as is you not in that dining room waiting for him. He walks around the mansion, looking for you, for any sign that you're in his home.

Why does he care?

He hears your sobs from the room you are supposed to share, and rests his door on it.

Why did you have to try so hard, when he told you not to?

“He will never w-want me…” You're sobbing and hiccuping. “Never enough.”

He swallows down his own self loathing, resting his head on the door, wondering at just who he is. Is this Satoru Gojo, or is this Satoru Gojo trying to be anything else but what he's always been pushed into?

He walks off to his own room, shutting the door. He'd have to end this marriage soon as he can, in whatever way that meant – to get you the fuck away from him. You may hate him for it, but at least you'd have a little bit of a choice in your life.

*****

You

You come home from an event with Satoru, a press junket where you have to act like a happy newlywed. And you do just that, you play your role, giggling with his hand on your waist, the most contact you've had since that kiss – the one where he felt nothing for you. The one that you felt shaken from, suddenly fucking delusional, in spite of the fact of one thing.

Satoru Gojo made sure to let you know there was no chance, he didn’t mince words, didn’t lead you on, it was your own hope that made you keep trying that first month, that hope that even after seeing him with his dick inside a woman, maybe he’d feel anything. Fuck, he made sure to cum before she got off of him, didn’t even stop mid fuck.

That’s how unimportant you were.

Yet even then you tried, until he made that disgusting comment – licking another woman off him? Calling you pathetic?

Well, you were.

You were not going to be cruel to him despite the rage in your heart, however, you just no longer try, it’s quiet when you take off your heels at the door, and he slips off his dress shoes. You both say nothing, but you feel his eyes on you at times, as if he expects some word out of your mouth.

You no longer say good morning, good night, you just live your life with Satoru for another month like this, he’ll have a girl over in his room, but you keep to yourself, living so alone… yet, with him.

Your few friends you have get worried for you, every time you get to see them over the next couple months you look more tired, you don’t look like you’re eating, you have dark circles under your eyes, the eyes that don’t glimmer any longer. They share their concerns quietly, over a nice brunch, but you act like everything is just fine.

Tonight your mother had pulled you aside, making sure to dissect your looks to a fault, including said dark circles – As if you didn’t have enough insecurities just being married to Satoru Gojo, a man who’d fuck anyone but you.

“You have to keep yourself together, look he’s all over those women,” she whispers, you would laugh but you know better, the woman who beat submission into your head was right here. You just look down, nodding.

“He always is.”

“So you need to get his attention,” you sigh, wanting to explain how hard you tried, even in lieu of him fucking that secretary in front of you, but you merely nod once more. “Get yourself together, you look like you haven’t slept in a week, your hair is oily even. What’s wrong with you!?”

What’s wrong with you?

You peer over to your tall, white haired husband surrounded by women in the ridiculously extravagant event, glamorously dressed when you chose a thin silk number, not caring anymore. You didn’t do your makeup, what did that matter? It’s not as if he’d ever look at you anyway.

“You’ll make him look bad, make us all look bad, you must gather yourself together and try more. Have I not raised you to be the perfect wife?”

The perfect wife.

To a husband who hates you.

“You did indeed Mother,” you manage to say, clearing your throat that night, feeling the eyes of so many curiously flit between you both. “I shall try not to disappoint you and father.”

Yet you are done trying, as he asked you to be, walking up the stairs now with him slowly trailing behind, as if to make sure there was enough space between the both of you.

Try a gym!

Or a spa day?

You need self care babe!

Yeah, your friends advice about self care was not enough for what you’re going through, but they ring in your head, as you head to your room, and reach around to try to unzip your dress. You curse, moving your hand in every which way, you then try to tug it up off you, but it’s half stuck with the tight material.

Fuck, you’re gonna have to ask him.

“Gojo…” You say, standing by his door, he’s up typing away on the laptop, shirtless, his body cut and chisled, muscles moving as he sits up straighter, eyeing you carefully.

“You, coming to my room?” You flush furiously, looking down.

“Don’t worry, I’ll never, ever ask to be intimate again,” you whisper, the pain still piercing your heart, your soul. He just looks down. “I just really can’t get out of this dress, and I swear to god it’s not a hit on or seduction.”

“Ah,” he doesn’t gloat like usual, standing up now, his sweats falling down his hips, you wish he didn’t look so good like that, coming up to you carefully, everything flexing as he walks. “Zipper stuck?”

“I think so, and it won’t go up over my damn hips,” you grumble, when he comes closer. “I’m sorry.”

“You apologize constantly,” you just nod again. “Turn around.”

You do that, lifting your hair off the nape of your neck for him, two of his fingers grasp the metal zipper, slipping it down achingly slow, the noise loud in his quiet room, mixing with his own catch of breath. It’s quiet, a few tendrils falling against the nape of your neck, as the zipper jams just a bit, stuck in the middle.

“Hang on…” He mumbles, clearly irritated, holding the dress tight together and then grasping it, jerking you just a bit as he finally gets it down. “There.”

“Thank you, Gojo,” you say softly, as he looks at the smooth expanse of your back, and for a moment neither of you move, you turn to face him, still holding your hair up. “I didn’t mean to bug you.”

He doesn’t say anything, knuckles brushing down your spine lightly, enough to make you ache in your core, something you’ve never really felt before this moment. You swallow nervously, blushing and looking away, you can’t make a fucking fool out of yourself again.

You will not push something he clearly doesn’t want, it’s just not right – even in the name of ‘marriage’ it should be Satoru’s choice too, and he so clearly would never choose you, in any world. You turn now, straps slipping down your shoulders, his bright blue eyes get dark and lidded when his gaze hits your tits, the tops of them showcased with the little dress half off.

“I’ll let you um… sleep.” You say, he just blinks a moment, clearing his throat now.

“Yeah.”

You slowly walk out, wondering if it is just you looking for something, anything, the way you damn near begged him to notice you, to want you, it was as he said – pathetic. Even knowing he’s fucking women actively, that he doesn’t have the time of day for you at all, you still crave it, you still don’t retaliate.

His phone rings, and you hear him murmuring while you’re in the hallway – 

Hey sweets, hmm… I bet you do miss me.

You feel your feet get heavy, you’ve been barely eating because you’re just fucking miserable, but hearing that as his door shuts and you walk to your lonely room sinks in. The miserable realization that he doesn’t care about you, that even if he gave you a glance, it was nothing, you were nothing to him.

You slip that dress off when you’re in your bedroom, looking at yourself in the mirror, even just his proximity always put a blush to your cheeks, as if your body was betraying your mind. You remember what your friends told you the other day, their concerned gazes, and the way they tried to be supportive when they barely know the half of what you endure.

Having to hear your husband jerking it on the phone and talking another girl through it when he has never touched you?

You are tired of crying, so tired.

You look up gyms in the area, sure that’s not really going to help a damn thing, but it might be enough to keep you busy, considering you can’t even work as a Gojo wife, and you’re left alone too often in the quiet, thinking too much. You pick one and map it, while laying in your bed and snuggling, yawning a bit as sleep starts to drag you under.

“All right, let’s see if self care will help me at all,” you say to yourself quietly, drifting off into a dreamless sleep, as you have been.

What’s there to dream about anymore?

*****

Sukuna

His knuckles are aching from hitting the big heavy black bag, punching it over and over, his class is done but Sukuna always loves to blow some steam off, and the best way is to beat the bag to a pulp. His ruby eyes are locked on the target, exhaling and controlling his breathing.

One, two.

One, two, punch.

Cross, jab, hook.

It’s methodical, it’s easy, even as his muscles ache – that ache is sweet, it’s so perfect to feel, he grins as he imagines beating the fuck out of so many people then. Start with his shit father – his mother gets a pass only due to being a woman – and then, all the little pretentious shits he went to college with.

Sukuna was supposed to be training to become a CEO, to take over his father’s position, and be a nepo baby like the rest of those damn men he partied with at the frat in college. Yet, he never, ever wanted that, and he built something for himself – several gyms, he’s trained pro boxers, national champions.

This was what Sukuna wanted to do.

Mostly, he loved to box, he cared just a little bit enough not to join those matches himself – oh, what would that look like!? The Sukuna heir going into a boxing ring!? Yet, at the same time, he had dreams of it. Of being in a ring and knocking everyone out, pushing that ‘family disappointment’ name even further.

For now, however, there is peace in the quiet gym.

That is, until you walk in.

Tired and fucking beautiful, these dark circles that sit under your eyes, a shy little nervous smile, about five minutes before he closes. You stand at the door and look around, frowning then and staring at your phone, wearing some pretty little yoga outfit and a big sweater, like you were getting ready for pilates rather than kickboxing.

“I’m sorry, first off for coming so late, second… ugh I thought you were a regular gym! Where is my brain…” You smack your forehead, turning, when he literally runs up to you, stopping you before fully thinking of it.

Sukuna, running.

You really are that pretty, when he sees a giant rock on your finger he curses internally, sighing.

“I do other things here, a whole room of workout machinery,” he says then, his voice just a little gruff, when you turn and look up at him, so shy, you look right back down at your feet, hugging yourself a bit. “I can show you, just need to lock up.”

“You probably want to get home, god I’m sorry, I slept all day like a miserable… oh… so sorry.” You have said sorry again, rambling now, making Sukuna wonder.

Just who has you this down? This shy? This clearly hurt?

“I meant to come earlier,” you blink back tears, looking up again with them swimming in your pretty eyes, so pretty he can’t decide what color they are, but the way they look at him almost takes him out. “I set an alarm, and promised I would make myself do something, then I just… hit it over and over. And now I’m rambling.”

“And crying,” he smirks a bit, swiping off a tear. “Rambling, crying, coming in late too, huh?”

“I know I’m so-”

“I’m teasing,” he chuckles softly, shaking his head and tilting your chin up. “If you want to do any sport, you need eye contact. Even when they’re all red and bloodshot.”

“Well your eyes are red too! I mean, oh my god!?” You cover your mouth, he laughs again softer this time. “I’m sorry, I like their color, they’re beautiful. Not to say I am hitting on you! Oh dear god…”

“Will you take a breath?” You shut your eyes, nodding. “A deep one, in… there you go, and out.”

Your breasts rise and fall, the sweater slipping further off a shoulder, as he takes in the mess that’s come to his doorstep – a beautiful, tragically broken mess that does something he can’t explain. When you swipe your cheeks and try to give a tremulous smile, you break whatever heart Sukuna has in his chest.

Who fucking hurt you like this?

Damage recognizes damage, but this…

“Don’t apologize a fourth time, yeah?” You nod then, sniffling a bit and attempting a better smile.

“I really just want to… apparently I need self care, my friends say, and I thought a gym might… help. But I can’t box, or kickbox.”

“Why not? You've got a lot of pent up tension," his hands brush down your shoulders softly, feeling the tenseness. "Bet you’d kill it."

"Me!?" You giggled nervously but he was serious, a huge handsome man crossing his arms and raising a brow, leaned back a bit in the quietness of his gym. "Kickboxing, huh?"

"Think you can't?"

You shake your head, and he sees it all over your face –

You don’t think you can do anything.

“Why not? Husband wants you all girlie or something?” He addresses the ring with a glance, you laugh without humor, your face darkening then.

“He doesn’t give a shit what I do, no, we’re not,” you trail off, shaking your head. “I dumped enough trauma on you just walking in here. What’s your name?”

“Sukuna,” he takes your hand, feeling yours just a little sweaty in his grip. “What do you mean doesn’t give a shit?”

“He doesn’t like me.” He blinks at that. 

“Trouble in paradise?”

You laugh again, shaking your head. “Let’s say he’s done more with his secretary than me so far,” Sukuna frowns at that, raising a dark brow. “It’s okay, really don’t feel bad for me. I just need something to get my mind off it.”

Who the fuck wouldn’t want you?

He almost says it, but he holds back, nudging his head now. “Lemme show you around the gym.”

He locks the door behind you so no random people try to come after hours, and you follow him through, looking up at the ceiling – it’s high, wooden beams running across it, it was once an old factory before Sukuna bought it off the guy. The walls are all red and orange brick, some of it is painted white, with graffiti art.

“That’s so cool,” you murmur, walking up to it then, touching it gently. “What is all of this?”

“Some of the guys like to come tag it,” he says, there are all sorts of images scrawled, along with Sukuna’s name in big red letters, little demon horns over the U. “I think they’re callin’ me the devil.”

“No!” You laugh, the sound so foreign to your own ears, he can just tell when you sober up a bit, smiling gently now. “You, the devil?”

“Mmm, you don’t know shit about me yet,” you blush a bit at the insinuation. “You’d run out if you knew what I was thinking.”

“You don’t have to be so… nice to me, okay? Because you feel bad.”

Sukuna blinks his pink lashes. “Huh?”

“I can tell, you’re a really good person,” you walk up to him, touching his hand now, sucking in a breath at the contact, fingers tracing his calloused, beat up knuckles. “Thank you though.”

“You think I’m pretending to find you attractive?” He almost can’t take you serious, but your face says it all. “Yeah, no, I’m not that nice. Now follow me before I say something real fucking dumb.”

You’re a flustered mess, letting your hand fall and nodding.

“This is where you’d like to be,” he mentions, toward the room with all of the normal equipment – treadmills, ellipticals, rowing machines, all sleek and black. “So you can just do your normal little workouts. Yoga mats and all.”

“Oh! I see,” you’re just a step behind him, he can inhale that perfume, he doesn’t know what scent it is but it’s driving him insane, when he stops and you bump into him. “Ah!”

He catches you quickly, frowning a bit at how weak you seem, assessing you. “You eat anything today?”

You blink a bit.

How'd he notice?

“No.”

“It’s six?”

“Yeah, not for a couple days,” you mumble. Sukuna glares at you, far, far too attractive and you’re not even fucking eating.

“If you have some… problem, you gotta tell me if I’m gonna train you, yeah?”

“No, nothing like that, just can’t eat when I’m sad,” your words are soft, barely over a whisper, running your fingers along the arm of a treadmill. “It’s been a few days I guess.”

“A few days, the fuck?” What sort of husband lets his wife just not eat?

He supposes the kind that makes her an unconfident, sad girl that cries the moment she enters a gym. Sukuna knows damn well he shouldn’t get involved in the shit, but just looking at you hurts him, in a way he’s not sure he’s felt, recognizing a version of himself so long ago, when he was young, when he wanted that approval, when he craved it so badly.

But more than that.

“If you don’t eat tomorrow I’ll be shoving food in your mouth,” you laugh at that, covering your mouth again. “I’m serious, the fuck you mean days?”

“I will make myself eat before I come.”

“And you’ll come at a decent time, yeah? Not before I close. Do I need to set three alarms to get your bratty ass up?”

“Bratty!?” you laugh again, shaking your head, the sight so fucking cute it destroys him.

God he’d drop to his knees just to kiss up those thighs, fucking lick you right over those leggings, the ones just a little snug against your puffy lips. And he can tell when you’re close how excited you are, the way your pupils blow out, the way you bite down on that lower lip, the one already chapped from likely biting it to death.

“No one has ever called me bratty,” you muse softly. “The opposite, actually.”

“Well maybe they don’t see it buried all in there, under a cute little fucking yoga outfit,” he brushes your hair back. His mistake, his undoing, and not kissing you is maybe the hardest thing he’s done.

You’re married.

He’s trying to give a fuck about that.

“C’mon brat,” you giggle again. “Here is the ring.”

You pause, looking at the huge rectangular boxing ring, surrounded by mats, boxing bags hanging heavy and worn all over, red and black ropes surrounding it. “Is this where you all practice?”

“Mhm,” he leads you over to a bag, touching it, old and black and hanging, one of his big hands touching it now. “Tomorrow you’ll punch it, today you didn’t eat so you don’t get to.”

“Mean,” your lips twitch though, the color to your face just brighter, your eyes glittering. Fuck you’re pretty sad, and happy, he can only imagine more. “All right, I promise, full breakfast.”

“Eat some dinner, too, then I’ll let you kick it.”

“The bag?”

“No, me.”

“What!?” You laugh again, Sukuna snorts and rolls his ruby red eyes, those pink lashes fluttering. “You’re joking, oh!”

“Yeah, a joke,” he tugs on that pony tail your hair is thrown in. “Two pm, don’t be late.”

When you’re gone he’s locking up, watching you slip into some bmw, waving a bit before you back up, wondering what’s this feeling in his heart, in his gut.

Sukuna loves women, he loves being inside them, pleasuring them, but he’s never just enjoyed making someone smile that much. Knowing you’re married should be a hell of a deterrent, whether he’s clearly a dick or not, Sukuna can’t just swoop in and be with married women.

Right?

Yet when he’s in bed that night, he finds himself throbbing, thinking of seeing your pretty face in pleasure. And he knows damn well whatever ‘morals’ he should have about it aren’t going to help him not make you feel good, in just any fucking way you need him to.

*****

You

“Never seen you eat so much,” Satoru murmurs when he walks in, lipstick across his neck, you’re downing some soup, realizing just how starved you were. “Have the chefs make something.”

“I just haven’t eaten in a week,” you say softly, Satoru’s eyes widen, then narrow a bit, while you dab at your mouth with a napkin. “I guess I’m hungry.”

“A week? What nothing here good, they can order anything.”

“I was too depressed,” the honesty is something you’d usually hold in, but something about meeting Sukuna today…

Everything about him.

The way he looked at you, that smirk was teasing, not cruel – he listened to you, he seemed to care, him a stranger. You know it’s nonsense, a man trying to be kind to a crying woman, but it meant a lot, even if that’s all it was. You’d walked in with a smile you haven’t had since you married him.

Satoru Gojo.

“A week? You can die from that shit,” he glares now, and you laugh, but this time it’s a mean little sound. “You think you can’t?”

“Sure, but what would you care?” You take a sip of the wine you’d poured, Satoru’s finest vintage, letting it dance along your tongue. “Wouldn’t it make your life easier if I did?”

His lips part, brows drawing together. “I don’t want you to fucking die, okay? Fuck.”

“You wouldn’t care,” you swirl the wine around, leaning back in the seat, eyes locked with the man you’ve tried so hard to make like you. To just come near you, to give you a chance. “I’m nothing to you.”

He says nothing in the quiet of the dining room.

“You didn’t notice.”

“Well, no I don’t eye your every move, figured you eat before I get home or some shit,” he runs a hand through his silky white locks, eyeing you carefully. “Do you want them to order something specific? Just because me and you will never be anything, doesn’t mean I want you to starve in my fucking house.”

“Nah, I like everything they have here,” you finish the wine in a gulp, an unladylike one that makes Satoru raise his brows, standing then, sighing. “It’s hard to eat when you can’t stop crying, when you constantly feel sick to your stomach knowing the man you live with hates your existence.”

You walk up and he says your name, you pause and look back at him. “I never said don’t eat, yeah?”

“No, you didn’t. But her lipstick is all over your neck, and up on that collar,” he touches it then, looking at the crimson on his pale fingertips. You step up to him, so close you inhale that scent. “Can you buy your sluts some decent fucking perfume, aren’t you rich?”

“What the fuck!?” You smile, you’ve never cussed, but it feels amazing in that moment, seeing him sputter. “What are you going on about, and what’s got your ass so fucking peppy?”

“Their knock off perfume, it’s all over you, every night. Buy them some Chanel or something, yeah? Not like you have to buy me anything, I have my own money. The scent makes me nauseous,” you turn again, Satoru grips your wrist, making you pause for just a moment, shutting your eyes.

Nothing, he feels nothing.

“Thought you didn’t cuss?”

“You don’t know me and you don’t want to.”

He lets you go, no argument, just quiet.

“I’m starting training at the gym,” you mention quietly. “I’ll be going there tomorrow.”

“Some yoga class?”

“Boxing.”

Satoru blinks, you just smile, tugging your wrist out of his grip. “You? Boxing?”

“Mhm, good night Gojo.”

You head up the stairs to your room, falling back on the bed, shutting your eyes, feeling good for the first time since that engagement party, for the first time in months there was something brimming under the surface. Some sort of hope.

Tonight you don’t hear him moaning, or talking to his girls, it’s quiet, and you’re thankful, shutting your eyes and falling into a deep sleep.

You’re haunted by two sets of eyes, two sets of hands, blue ones that are glaring, red ones that are hungry, long thin fingers choking your neck, suffocating you, thick ones painted black freeing you. Torn between them, claustrophobic in the darkness, where all you can see are their eyes. 

You wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, holding your racing heart, thrumming against your palm, before you fall back asleep, and there is only one pair of eyes.

And they’re red.

Tysm AGAIN for 30k my loves <3 this will be a doozy

Your actual tweet really isn't that scathing, in your opinion:

“Not to be rude before 9 a.m., but Rep. James B. Barnes has the digital strategy of a man who thinks ‘radio silence’ is the same as ‘messaging control.’ Ghosting the press isn't mysterious, it's lazy. And the Instagram? Sir, it's giving retired uncle who discovered portrait mode last week. You're hot, sure—but public goodwill isn’t built on brooding black-and-white cat photos and the occasional quote that reads like it was ripped from a thirteen year old's diary. Hire literally anyone.”

You hit post, tuck your phone away, and move on with your morning, which includes trying not to scream during a client call where a fitness influencer earnestly asks if she should “lean into a divorce arc.”

By the time you check Twitter again, it’s… carnage. In the good way.

The notifications are stacked like an avalanche. A dozen quote tweets, then a hundred, then you stop counting because your phone is hot to the touch and your Slack has stopped functioning. You’re about to text your best friend when you see it:

@RepBarnes:

Noted. Would you like to try fixing it?

You stare. Blink. Blink again. Surely not.

Surely the Winter Soldier, now U.S. House Representative for New York’s 9th Congressional District, is not quote-tweeting you like this is a casual Tuesday.

Surely the man who once jumped off a highway overpass and punched a terrorist in the face is not lurking on Twitter Dot Com past midnight, scrolling his name like a sad girl with an ex-boyfriend playlist.

You reread it. 

Then again. And again. Your fingers are shaking a little, like you’ve had three too many shots of espresso, which—fine—you have.

You’re halfway through an existential crisis about how a minor PR manager can possibly be noticed by a former Avenger turned Congressman when your phone starts vibrating off the desk. Nina texts you first:

NINA

DUDE DUDE HE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE do you think he read your pinned tweet where you said you’d marry Thor in a Walgreens parking lot???

You don’t answer. You’re too busy spiraling. Because now your professional website is getting hits. And your LinkedIn. And, insult to injury, your ancient Tumblr blog from college, where you once posted a 2,000-word thinkpiece on how Steve Rogers is a metaphor for millennial burnout. You know this because someone found it and tagged you with a screenshot.

You’re spiraling when your phone pings again.

This time it’s not public.

@RepBarnes has sent you a direct message.

If you’re interested, I could use someone like you. NY/DC split. Health benefits included. Let me know.

You read it once. Then again. Then walk away from your desk, lie down on your kitchen floor, and stare at the ceiling like it might have answers. It does not. It has a water stain from your upstairs neighbor’s failed attempt at DIY plumbing. You feel that deeply.

You, who spent three years post-grad slowly circling the corporate America drain—clutching your Communications degree like it’s a winning lottery ticket while negotiating brand partnerships for YouTubers who think “millennial” means “anyone over 26”—have just been headhunted by Bucky Barnes.

You should probably be flattered. Or terrified. Or calling your mom. Instead, you fire off the only response that makes sense:

are u joking?

His reply comes five minutes later.

No. You’re good. And I’m very tired of people telling me to post more cat content.

You stare at your screen.

You should absolutely say no. This is clearly a trap. At best, a weird stunt. At worst, the kind of surreal pivot that leads to you being mentioned in Politico under “questionable staffing decisions.”

But also… your rent just went up. Again. Your clients are spiraling. You haven’t had health insurance that covers dental since 2021.

And Bucky Barnes wants to hire you?

You exhale. Then type,

i'll clear my schedule. when and where?

A beat.

Meet me in D.C. I’ll have coffee. You bring strategy.

You stare at that last part and—God help you—you start to grin.

You're pretty sure you’ve just accepted a job from the Winter Soldier.

.

Once upon a time, you had hopes.

Real, annoying ones. Back when you still believed in upward mobility and the promise of networking events with warm chardonnay. You were going to climb the ranks. Not to the top, necessarily—you were realistic, not delusional—but to a place with an actual title. "Director" maybe, or "Head of Strategy." Something crisp and important-sounding that could be printed on business cards without irony. You’d wear smart blazers and carry a leather tote that didn’t smell like stale granola bars. You’d have power lunches.

Instead, you’re three years out of grad school with an inbox full of “circling back”s, a calendar that reads like a sacrificial offering to the content gods, and a job that involves convincing lifestyle micro-influencers to stop posting QAnon-adjacent smoothie recipes.

You had dreams. Now you have bills.

Which is why the Bucky Barnes situation feels less like a win and more like a symptom. A brain glitch, maybe. You refresh your inbox. Again. You’ve been doing that for the last hour and a half. The DM is still there, as if it might disappear if you blink too hard.

You open a Google Doc. Title it “Project: Barnes?” with the tentative, quizzical punctuation of someone who is very much not okay. 

And then, like any self-respecting PR person who has just been contacted by a former war hero turned sitting U.S. Representative, you type the most professional research query you can think of:

bucky barnes political platform site:gov

Then:

bucky barnes cat

And then, after five minutes of increasingly weird search results, you cave:

bucky barnes shirtless

For research purposes, obviously. To understand the optics. You are nothing if not committed to analyzing the full spectrum of a person's public persona.

(Also, look. It’s not your fault that James Buchanan Barnes is stupidly, distractingly attractive in a way that should be a federal offense. The man has the bone structure of a war-weary marble statue. The jawline of a vintage cologne ad. And don’t even get started on the arm—the arm—because that’s a whole separate thesis.)

It’s Wakandan tech, sleek and black with gold accents that catch the light like something out of myth. You’ve seen pictures of him at press conferences, sleeves pushed up, glinting like some kind of tactical Greek god. It is, objectively, an optics goldmine. Which makes it even more baffling that his current social strategy is “post like a cryptid and hope people like based on vibes.”

You learn that he’s been in Congress for just under six months. That he ran on a progressive platform with a heavy emphasis on veteran care, climate resilience, and “actually listening to the people,” which, yes, is vague—but less vague than the average politician, so that’s something. You find clips from a debate where he tells a super PAC-backed opponent, with all the calm menace of a man who once fought a Nazi on top of a train, “I didn’t survive a handful of wars to let people like you sell this country for parts.”

It’s not fair. He shouldn’t be allowed to be hot and principled and grumpy in a compelling way. That’s too many character traits. You’re fairly certain it violates some kind of congressional ethics code.

You click out of the tab. Open another. 

Watch a video of him dodging a question on CNN with a non-answer so blunt it circles back around to being honest. He has a dry, clipped delivery. A little awkward. A little old. Not in a cringey, old-man way—but like he hasn’t quite caught up with the TikTokification of discourse. 

You hate how much you want to fix it.

Your fingers twitch. You scroll through his feed. It’s mostly retweets of policy initiatives, local labor union updates, and cat pictures—grainy, candid shots of a very fluffy white feline with the disdainful elegance of old money and the personal boundaries of a cryptid. She’s usually perched somewhere she shouldn’t be: on top of his kitchen cabinets, wedged behind a stack of legislative binders, once half-asleep inside his empty duffel bag. Once in a while, he posts a weirdly poetic thought. Like:

Not all roads lead to war. But I remember the ones that did.

You stare at it.

It has thirty-two retweets, all from mutuals you know to be deeply online. One has responded “who’s running this account and do they need therapy.” Another has written simply: “sir.”

You breathe out a laugh.

You should be panicking. Or preparing. Or calling someone smarter than you. But instead you’re refreshing his feed and scrolling like a girl with a crush. 

Which—no. Nope. Absolutely not. This is research. Professional curiosity. Intellectual rigor.

You check your calendar. Nothing but a call at four with your client who wants to rebrand herself as an “edible wellness guru” and refuses to define what that means. You sigh. Close the tab.

Then reopen it. One more scroll for the road.

In one photo, his cat is curled up in Bucky’s lap, a fluffy white loaf of judgement and chaos, her paw resting on his vibranium arm like she owns both it and the man it’s attached to. The caption reads:

She snored through my security briefing. I wish I could too.

Jesus Christ, you think. I’m in trouble.

.

You spend the next forty-eight hours overthinking everything.

Your research doc is now twenty pages long. You’ve compiled notes on his legislative record, his key voting blocs, public sentiment analysis, and—because you are fundamentally broken—a list of his most viral thirst tweets. There’s one that simply reads “he could kill me and I’d say thank you.” You are not proud to admit it made you snort.

You board the train to D.C. with your headphones in, your anxiety clutched to your chest like a carry-on, and your very best business casual. You don’t even read on the train. You just sit there and wonder what the hell you’re doing.

By the time you arrive, you’re exhausted from spiraling.

The coffee shop is in Capitol Hill—of course it is. Quiet and wood-paneled, with the kind of soft lighting that makes everyone look like they’re about to confess something. 

You’re early. He’s not there yet. You order a black coffee and a croissant you won’t eat and choose the table in the back, where you can see the door.

Five minutes later, he walks in.

And yes, fine. It is a little cinematic.

James Buchanan Barnes in the flesh is not the brooding, hyper-composed figure from press photos. He’s rougher around the edges in person, like someone who never quite got used to peacetime. His hair is slicked back but starting to come undone at the edges. The navy suit jacket he’s wearing is slightly creased, like he’s been rolling up the sleeves and taking it off and putting it back on all morning. No tie. Just the white collar of his shirt open at the throat, exposing the soft brush of stubble across his neck and jaw.

God. This is so unfair.

His eyes land on you and something flickers—recognition, maybe, or skepticism. You can’t tell.

He walks over. You stand too quickly. Your chair makes a horrible screech.

“Hi,” you say, then—because you’re flustered and your brain is full of static—“I almost didn’t recognize you without the strategically vague tweets.”

His brow lifts, just slightly. The corner of his mouth pulls. Could be amusement. Could be confusion.

“You came,” he says, as if the possibility you wouldn’t had been very real.

“Of course,” you reply, forcing a half-smile. “I go where the digital crises call.”

He nods once, slowly. Watches you as you open your laptop and set your coffee down. It’s too quiet for a moment—the hum of the café, the hiss of the espresso machine, the clink of someone stirring sugar behind the counter. You pull up the notes you made at two in the morning while spiral-reading his press history, trying not to fidget.

“I figured,” you offer, “we’d start with a social audit. Clarify some core messaging, maybe put together a soft content strategy for the next two weeks. We’ll do a tone reset, pull the last six months of analytics, identify what’s actually landing—because no offense, but your engagement rates are being carried by your cat.”

A pause.

“I mean, I get it. She’s adorable. But still.”

He huffs something that could be a laugh, if it weren’t so dry. Then leans back slightly, the line between his brows easing as he studies you.

Then he says, slowly, like he’s still feeling out the words: “You actually know what you’re talking about.”

And you blink. “You thought I didn’t?”

He shrugs, glancing out the window for a beat before returning to you. “I kind of thought you were… just someone online. Making noise.”

You sip your coffee. “I mean. I am. But I also have a master’s in communication strategy and ten thousand hours of dealing with manchildren who think posting a thirst trap is a branding pivot.”

His mouth twitches. “Sounds promising.”

You smile. Tight. “So. What exactly do you really need help with?”

And just like that—you’re in it.

You expect him to start with a question. Or a joke. Or maybe something awkward and vaguely threatening, like “how do you know so much about me?” (You don’t. You just have Wi-Fi and a dangerous relationship with your search bar.)

But instead, Bucky leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and says, “It’s just not working.”

You blink. “You’ll have to be more specific. What’s not working?”

“My comms strategy. My messaging. All of it.”

He sounds vaguely exasperated, but not angry. Just tired. You get the sense that’s his baseline. He gestures with one hand, the movement sharp and utilitarian. “I’m supposed to be building a digital presence that connects with people. Makes them trust me. Instead I’m getting tagged in memes about how hot I am.”

You nod, solemn. “To be fair, you do look like that.”

He doesn’t laugh, but he quirks an eyebrow like he’s maybe a little impressed you said it. “Thanks.”

You swallow the lump in your throat with a sip of coffee. It’s going lukewarm. “So what was the issue? Your team too old school? Too hands-off?”

He gives you a look that’s equal parts apology and confession. “I don’t really have a team.”

You blink again. “You… don’t have a team.”

“One guy. Used to run PR for a congressman from Montana. Thought hiring someone low-profile would keep things clean.”

You squint. “You’re a former Avenger. There’s no such thing as clean.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Starting to notice that.”

You press your fingers to your temples. “Okay. So let me get this straight. You have no digital strategy lead, no content calendar, no brand consultant, and you’re navigating one of the most publicly scrutinized jobs in America with a guy whose last success story was getting a local paper to stop calling his boss ‘the Beef Tariff Czar.’”

He shifts. Slightly. Doesn’t deny it.

You put your coffee down. Carefully. Deliberately. Then say, as diplomatically as you can:

“With all due respect, Mr. Barnes—this is a disaster.”

He meets your eyes. Dead-on. “That’s why I messaged you.”

It’s almost… earnest. That quiet, unflinching way he says it. Like he knows just how far in over his head he is. Like he doesn’t enjoy asking for help, but he’s smart enough to do it anyway. 

That, more than anything, is what knocks you sideways.

Because the guy sitting across from you does not radiate “competent politician.” He’s stiff in the way people are when they’re always anticipating a fight. He looks like someone who’s only recently stopped treating doorknobs like potential traps. 

But he also looks at you like he’s listening. Like he wants to get this right, even if he doesn’t know how.

And you hate how that pulls at you.

You fold your hands. Steady your tone. “If I take this job, I’m not just managing your Twitter. I’ll need full access—messaging, public statements, policy framing. You’ll have to be okay with me pushing back. Hard.”

He nods. “Understood.”

“And I’ll need to redo everything your current guy’s done.”

“I was hoping you would.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Including the website that looks like it was designed in 2007?”

A ghost of a smirk. “I designed that one myself.”

“Of course you did.”

A beat. Then—quietly, without the usual edge. “I didn’t expect to win. When I ran. It wasn’t about the campaign. I just thought… if I could stand up, maybe someone else would too.”

It’s not a speech. It’s not even polished. But it hits.

You sit with it for a second. Then say, “That’s the part people need to hear.”

He frowns. “What, the not-expecting-to-win part?”

“No. The rest. The standing up.” You pause. “You want to help. And that’s rare. It’s worth something. We can build on that.”

There’s a shift then, subtle but real. He straightens a little. Like your words have landed somewhere deep. Like maybe—maybe—you’re the first person who’s said that in a while.

You don’t say anything else. Neither does he.

But something’s settled between you. A quiet, unspoken agreement.

You’re in. Actually.

God help you.

.

Your first day working for Congressman James Buchanan Barnes begins with a minor existential crisis and a yogurt you eat standing up.

Capitol Hill is less glamorous than it looks on TV. A lot more beige. A lot more linoleum. Everything smells like government-grade carpet and desperation. You get stopped at security twice. First because of your laptop. Then because you muttered “kill me” under your breath in line and a very serious-looking man with an earpiece asked if you were making a threat.

You’re not. But it’s touch and go.

Bucky’s office is on the third floor of the Cannon Building. It’s functional in the same way a DMV is functional—technically operating, but held together by anxiety and one overworked assistant. The plaque outside his door reads:

REP. JAMES BARNES

New York’s 9th District

Inside, it’s… chaos.

Not loud chaos. Weird chaos. Subtle. Like someone tried to copy a normal congressional office from memory but forgot a few key details. There’s a framed photo of Brooklyn from the ‘40s. A desk with approximately forty-nine paperweights—no papers, just the weights. A bowl of wrapped Werther’s Originals. You are immediately suspicious.

Before you can process that, Bucky appears in the doorway, sleeves rolled up, tie in hand like he hasn’t figured out if he’s putting it on or strangling it.

“You made it,” he says. Deadpan.

“No thanks to Homeland Security,” you mutter, stepping inside.

He gives you the tour, if you can call it that. 

There’s the bullpen (three desks, one of which has a sword leaning against it for reasons no one explains), a coffee station with a “don’t drink this, it’s poison” Post-it, and his actual office, which is larger than you expected and somehow still incredibly bare.

You spot a half-empty bookcase, a red file folder labeled “CRISIS?” and a punching bag tucked behind the door.

“Is that for stress relief or intimidation purposes?” you ask, pointing at the bag.

“Yes,” he replies.

The next hour is a whirlwind of introductions, vague directives, and increasingly unhinged email threads. His comms inbox is a minefield. 

You get a badge, a desk, and a monitor that still has a Post-it from your predecessor that just says, Good luck, you’re gonna need it. You also learn that the thermostat in the office only has two settings: Arctic Military Base and Surface of the Sun.

By the end of your first day, your inbox has refreshed for the fifth time and you’ve flagged three crisis-adjacent threads—one involving a scheduling mix-up, one involving a meme account, and one involving a conspiracy theory about cyborgs in Congress.

Maybe, just maybe, this job might be more than you bargained for.

The next week is only slightly less chaotic.

Your—well, his, technically—first press briefing is scheduled for 2 p.m. sharp, but by 1:17 you’re already mentally preparing the post-mortem. You’ve seen the rehearsal footage, such as it was—him standing in front of his desk, arms crossed like a bouncer, muttering responses like they physically pained him.

When you gently suggested he try smiling, he looked at you like you’d asked him to perform open-heart surgery with a spoon.

“It’ll be fine,” An intern chirps, shoving a protein bar in your hand as they breeze past. “He does better under pressure. Like a reverse soufflé.”

“What does that mean,” you whisper, but she’s already gone.

You’re standing behind the curtain in a room that smells like too many folding chairs and not enough trust in government when he walks in, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. No tie today. He says it feels like a leash. His sleeves are rolled with military precision, though. His hair’s slicked back. He looks more like a man going to war than one about to deliver a ten-minute statement on infrastructure funding.

“You ready?” you ask, clipboard clutched like a lifeline.

“No,” he says. “But I’ll do it anyway.”

You almost smile.

The press corps is already seated, eyes trained, pens poised. He walks out with the focus of someone trained to enter dangerous rooms. You can see the shift in him—quiet alertness, head high, every movement efficient. There’s still something a little stiff in the way he grips the podium, like he doesn’t fully trust it not to fall apart under his hands.

Then he starts to speak.

And damn.

Okay.

You hadn’t expected this.

It’s not polished. He stumbles over a couple phrases. Uses “ain’t” once. Drops a note card and mutters “shit” under his breath into a hot mic.

But he knows his stuff. Not just the numbers. Not just the bill. The context. The human angle. He tells a story about the neighborhood he grew up in, back when it still had corner shops and streetcar tracks. Talks about a single mom who wrote in last week about her building’s pipes freezing every winter. Doesn’t make promises—just outlines what he’s doing and what he won’t let happen again.

And it’s good.

It’s honest.

He doesn’t charm the press. He earns them.

You see it in the way pens pause halfway through notes. Phones lowered. Eyebrows raised. There’s a moment—a beat in the middle of a sentence—where he talks about reconstruction efforts in Red Hook and says, “We don’t need heroes. We need decent plumbing and warm classrooms,” and it lands like a punch.

You feel it, too.

By the end, they’re asking thoughtful questions. Real ones. He handles them with a dry kind of grace. Doesn’t deflect. Doesn’t lie. Says “I don’t know” more than once, but follows it with “I’ll find out.”

When it’s over, he steps backstage, exhales slowly, and immediately unbuttons the top of his shirt like it’s a reward.

You hand him a bottle of water.

He takes it with a nod and says, “Well?”

You blink. “You were… actually incredible?”

He raises an eyebrow. “That so shocking?”

“Yes!” you blurt, then soften. “I mean. A little. You’re not exactly a poster child for press-friendly vibes.”

He leans against the wall, sipping. “Yeah, well. I’m not a fan of the stage.”

“But you like the mission.”

He looks at you. And for once, doesn’t deflect.

“I like helping people. I like when things are fair. And if this is what I gotta do to make that happen…” He shrugs. “Then I do it.”

You file that away. Noted: Bucky Barnes does not enjoy politics, but he endures them for the sake of something bigger.

You offer, “You want to decompress? There’s a decent café two blocks away. You’ve earned, like, three cookies.”

He tilts his head. “You buying?”

“I work for the government now. I’m broke.”

“Fair,” he says. “I’ll buy the cookies.”

You walk the few blocks in relative silence, save for the traffic and your boots scuffing against the pavement. The café is small, warm, full of people with laptops and disillusionment. You order coffee. He orders a black Americano and two oatmeal raisin cookies, like a war crime.

“Don’t judge,” he says, catching your expression. “I like raisins.”

“Of course you do,” you mutter. “You probably eat Bran Flakes and think they’re spicy.”

He gives you a look over the rim of his cup. “Didn’t realize I hired a bully.”

You grin. “Not a bully. Just aggressively helpful.”

He snorts. And you sit there, in the quiet aftermath of his first real public win, watching him pull the napkin apart like it personally wronged him. There's something calming about it—like you’re both still wound a little tight, but not as tight as before. 

You let the silence stretch a beat longer before speaking. “Can I ask you something?”

He glances at you. Shrugs. “You’ve already asked me worse.”

You huff a soft laugh. “Fair.”

He waits.

You roll your cup between your palms. “Why’d you hire me?”

There’s a pause. Not the kind that makes you nervous—just one that feels like he’s actually going to answer. Eventually. When the words are ready.

When he does speak, his voice is low, deliberate. “You were honest.”

You blink. “About what?”

“That tweet,” he says. “About me ghosting the press. Most people either kiss my ass or assume I’m gonna punch them in the face. You didn’t do either.”

You snort. “I did call you hot, though.”

A small tug at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah. That, too.”

Then, quieter, “You said what everyone else was thinking. But you said it like it wasn’t personal. Just... necessary.”

You don’t speak. You’re not sure he’s done.

“I’ve had a lot of people tell me who I am. What I’m supposed to be. Some of them were wrong. Some weren’t. Doesn’t mean I liked hearing it.”

His fingers tap against the cup once. Twice. “But you were right. I didn’t have a handle on any of this. The job, the people watching, the way it all gets twisted. You called it out.”

“And that worked in my favor?” you ask, half-joking.

His gaze flickers to yours. “You didn’t lie to me. That means something.”

It lands heavier than expected.

You look down at your lap. Then, after a second: “I thought you were gonna say it was because I tweeted about your cat.”

He huffs. “That helped.”

You smile, and when you glance back up, he’s watching you. Not like he’s searching for something. More like he’s found something and isn’t sure what to do with it.

“I could tell that you'd keep me grounded,” he says.

It’s simple. Uncomplicated. But your chest goes tight anyway.

“Thanks,” you say softly.

“Don’t get used to the compliments,” he mutters, sipping from his long-cold coffee. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

You nudge his shoulder. “You mean the mysterious, broody one?”

He arches a brow. “Better than ex-assassin with a PR manager.”

“Hey,” you say, mock offended. “I'm rebranding you.”

And this time, his smile is small—but real. The kind that says you’re staying.

.

Briefings, memos, social strategy calls take up the next month. You update his official bio, overhaul his campaign site, start a new newsletter format that doesn’t look like it was designed in the throes of dial-up internet. You start drafting tweets in his voice, but you’re surprised at how often he wants to write them himself.

Sometimes he sends them to you first, via email, labeled “draft?” and rarely punctuated.

The kids who emailed about lunch debt were right. They shouldn’t have to be the ones fixing it.

You write back:

it’s missing caps and grammar and polish …it’s also perfect. i hate you a little

He replies ten minutes later:

Good. Keep hating me. Makes your edits stronger.

You start seeing him more. At first, it’s meetings. Then lunch breaks. Then you’re just… there. 

In his office while he sorts through constituent letters. Sitting across from him on the Capitol steps, scrolling through your phone while he mutters about zoning regulations and offers you the second half of whatever sandwich he’s picked up from the Hill café.

One Thursday, around 6:45 p.m., you’re still at the office. Your laptop’s overheating. Your shoulders ache from the stress of trying to politely tell a PAC liaison that no, Bucky will not be attending the “Patriots for Policy” fundraiser, and no, their “Star-Spangled Selfie Station” is not an appealing incentive.

You lean back in your chair, eyes closed, and say out loud, “If one more intern sends me a Google Doc titled ‘shitposts to own the opposition,’ I’m going to walk into traffic.”

“That bad, huh?” comes Bucky’s voice from the doorway.

You open one eye. He’s holding two cups of coffee. It’s late. His sleeves are rolled again—he does that a lot, like he’s always preparing to do something with his hands. He sets a cup on your desk.

“It’s decaf,” he says. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

You sit up. “Decaf? Wow. You are learning.”

He doesn’t smile, but the corners of his mouth twitch. “Baby steps.”

You sip. It’s good. And quiet stretches out between you. The lights overhead buzz faintly. Someone’s laughing two rooms over. The city is folding in on itself outside, another day’s worth of bad traffic and moral compromises settling over D.C. like a weighted blanket.

.

Another few months pass in a rhythm that starts to feel dangerously like routine.

He insists on responding to every constituent letter about veterans’ benefits himself, even the ones written in glitter gel pen. One morning you find him on the floor of his office, surrounded by stacks of envelopes, Alpine curled up on a pile marked “urgent.”

“Just scanning,” he says, gesturing vaguely at the chaos. “She likes the important stuff.”

You start to learn things about him. Little things, dropped like breadcrumbs.

He hates cilantro. Keeps a dog-eared copy of All the King’s Men on his desk. Organizes his paperwork with military precision but leaves mugs half-finished all over the office. He’s still learning to take a break during the day. Sometimes he doesn’t.

One evening, while you’re both trying to pick a header image for the new landing page (he hates stock photos, insists they feel like “hollow propaganda”), he mutters, “I used to think if I could just disappear, I’d stop hurting people.”

You freeze. “And now?”

He doesn’t look away from the screen. “Now I’m trying to build something instead.”

Your throat tightens. You change the subject. You always do.

The tension between you simmers. Unspoken, unnamed. He starts saying your name more often. You start noticing when he does.

He always says it like it matters.

One Friday, he brings you a donut. Doesn’t mention it. Just leaves it on your desk and walks away like a man who doesn’t realize small gestures are dangerous.

You stare at it for a full minute before a staffer walks by, clocks the look on your face, and mutters, “Oh, you’re gone-gone.”

You pretend not to hear her.

One night, you find yourselves outside a community rec center after a Q&A event, both of you too wired to go home. You walk a few blocks together, hands brushing once. Neither of you acknowledges it.

“You ever think about leaving?” you ask, staring up at the streetlight.

“Sometimes,” he says. “Then I remember I already ran for almost fifty years.”

You laugh. He looks over, soft.

And then, quietly, “Not sure I’d want to go anywhere without you anyway.”

You blink. “You mean… as staff?”

He hums, like he’s choosing not to answer that.

He looks at you too long sometimes. Like he’s memorizing you. You assume it’s habit—old instincts. Soldier’s reflex. You don’t let yourself think about what else it could be.

Because it can’t be. He’s your boss. You’re his PR handler. This is all fine. Normal. Entirely professional, except for when he looks at you like that.

Which is how it builds—slow, steady, suffocating.

Until one night he’s sitting too close. You’re laughing too hard. His hand brushes your knee, and he doesn’t move it. And you still don’t realize.

Not really.

.

It’s a Tuesday night.

Well—technically Wednesday. 1:12 a.m., according to your phone. Your apartment is dark except for the glow of your laptop and the soft blue from the streetlamp outside your window. You should be sleeping. Instead, you’re re-reading policy notes and trying not to think about the email from your landlord marked “urgent.”

The city is quiet, but your mind is loud.

Your phone buzzes.

BUCKY

Are you awake

No punctuation. Of course. You stare at it. It’s not like him to text unprompted—especially not at this hour. You wonder for a second if it’s a mistake. Or if something’s wrong.

You call him.

It only rings once.

“Hey,” he says, voice rough with sleep or something that isn’t quite.

“You okay?” you ask, softly.

A pause. “Yeah. Just… couldn’t sleep.”

You settle back against your pillows. “Bad dream?”

He doesn’t answer right away.

Then, quietly. “More like a bad memory.”

You let the silence stretch, but you don’t fill it. You’ve learned that about him—he’s not afraid of quiet. He just doesn’t always know what to do with it. You hear a faint rustle, like he’s sitting down, maybe at his kitchen table. Maybe the couch. Maybe the floor. He’s the kind of guy who sits on the floor without thinking about it.

“You want to talk about it?” you ask.

“Not really.”

You nod, even though he can’t see it. “Okay.”

A breath. Then, with a strange kind of gentleness: “You ever feel like you’re… still in the middle of something, but everyone else thinks you’re past it?”

You exhale, slow. “Yeah. All the time.”

Another pause. And then: “I thought when the shield went to Sam, that was it. That was my end point. Like I’d done my part and now I could just… blend into the wallpaper. Fix things. Be useful. Pay back some debt I can’t ever really name.”

He exhales.

“But I still wake up and feel like I’m waiting for orders.”

Your throat tightens.

“I’m not a soldier anymore,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. “I know that. But sometimes it feels like I lost the war and no one told me.”

You sit with that. It’s a kind of grief, what he’s saying. The loss of purpose. Of identity. You think about what it means to carry history in your body. To be made of violence and guilt and memory, and still try to build something from it.

“You’re not wallpaper,” you say. “And you’re not a soldier. Not unless you decide to be.”

A faint, surprised sound. “You think I can just choose who I am now?”

“I think that’s what healing is,” you say. “It’s not forgetting. It’s choosing who you are in spite of it.”

It’s quiet again. But softer, this time.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

There’s a beat.

Then he says, “You want to come over?”

Your heart stumbles. “Now?”

“I just…” he trails off. “I don’t want to be alone.”

You hesitate. Not because you don’t want to. You do. Too much, maybe.

“I’m in sweatpants,” you warn.

“I don’t care,” he says. “I’m in worse.”

.

Which is—not fair.

He’s in flannel pants and a faded Brooklyn Public Library tee, hair damp like he just stepped out of a shower, like this isn’t his worst week in office or the worst day in months. He looks too human. Too close. Not like Congressman Barnes, not like the Winter Soldier—just like a man who lives here. Alone.

“Hi,” you say, because you’re a coward with a communication degree.

“Hey,” he replies, voice low.

He steps back. You step in.

You move past him. He doesn’t touch you, but he lingers close as you settle onto his couch. There’s a record playing low in the background—something instrumental. Maybe jazz. Maybe something older. He sits next to you. Not quite touching, but near enough that you feel it.

Neither of you says much at first.

You sip the tea he makes you. Let your shoulders drop. And after a while, you’re both leaning back, side by side, staring at the ceiling like maybe it’ll explain something.

“I don’t let people in here much,” he says, out of nowhere.

You glance at him. “Why not?”

He shrugs. “Used to be a habit. Kept things safe. Controlled.”

“And now?”

He looks at you. Really looks. Like he’s cataloguing something important.

“I trust you."

The silence sharpens.

You feel it—somewhere between your chest and your breath and the skin of your palms, warm where they rest against your knees.

He turns toward you, like he’s going to say something. His thigh brushes yours. Your heart skips.

You say his name. Soft.

“Bucky.”

He leans in. Slow. So slow it hurts. His eyes flicker to your mouth.

And then—

He stops.

You’re close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.

Close enough to break.

But he doesn’t kiss you.

He just sits there, tension in his jaw, fingers curling against his leg like he’s holding himself back.

“I don’t want to mess this up,” he says, barely a whisper.

You nod. You understand.

.

You don’t sleep well that night. You don't even know how you got home.

Not because anything happened—and maybe that’s the problem. Something almost did. Something close enough to taste. But close doesn’t keep you up at night. Hope does. Ambiguity. The memory of his breath near your cheek, the exact second he pulled away, and the way your name sounded in his mouth just before it.

You wake up tangled in sheets that smell like lavender detergent and stress. Your shoulder aches from the way you curled in on yourself, as if pretending sleep would solve the question of him.

It hasn’t.

So you do what you always do: you compartmentalize. Ruthlessly. Viciously. Like a goddamn professional.

You slap concealer under your eyes, burn your tongue on gas station coffee, and tell yourself that you’re not thinking about Bucky Barnes. You are not thinking about how he almost kissed you. How his hand hovered at your knee like a promise he wasn’t ready to make. How you wanted him to make it.

No. You’re thinking about agenda items. Press follow-ups. Intern drama. Your inbox, which has gone feral overnight.

You’re halfway through drafting a media roundup from your phone when your car buzzes with an intern's name.

You answer on instinct. “Hey. Yeah, I’m on my way in—”

“Have you seen the op-ed?” they cuts in.

Your fingers still on the steering wheel.

“I—what?”

They don't wait. “I’m sending it now. Check your messages.”

You pull into a spot on the shoulder, the coffee cup sloshing as you brake. Your phone dings.

The link stares back at you. Your thumb hovers.

You already know it’s going to be bad. You can feel it in their voice. In the silence after their breath. You tap anyway.

And there it is.

Is the Winter Soldier Still Lurking Beneath Congressman Barnes?

It’s from a major outlet. Not a fringe blog, not some anonymous account online. It’s written by a seasoned journalist, someone who’s covered politics for two decades. The tone is surgically polite. It doesn’t outright accuse him of anything, but the subtext is razor-sharp: can a man with his past truly be trusted with power?

There’s a pull quote in bold, center-page:

“A reformed weapon is still a weapon. No amount of legislation can erase that history.”

The rest of the article is worse.

It dredges everything. Not just his Hydra years, but the killings. The photo evidence. The old footage. The Wakandan reprogramming is mentioned—briefly, half a paragraph, like it’s a footnote in a larger narrative of violence.

The author's polite language makes it more brutal. Less a hit piece and more… a thesis. Something cold. Inarguable.

You call him. He doesn’t answer.

You call again. Still nothing.

So you go to his apartment.

Bucky answers the door in that old gray sweatshirt and a pair of worn sweatpants that could belong to any decade. His hair’s half-tied, his mouth set. No smile, but no walls up either. His eyes are dark. Tired in a way that goes bone-deep.

He steps aside and lets you in. You don’t say anything about how he looks. You just take off your coat, make yourself at home, and sit down at the kitchen table.

The place is clean, quiet. Too quiet. Alpine is curled on the armrest of the couch like she’s keeping watch. 

“I didn’t read it,” he says eventually. “Didn’t need to.”

“It’s bad.”

He nods.

He doesn’t sit. Just stands there, arms crossed, head bowed like he’s waiting for a verdict.

“You’ve been through worse,” you say. “This is—politics. It’s dirty.”

“It’s not about politics,” he replies, voice flat. “It’s about who I used to be.”

He says it like a fact. Not even bitter—just exhausted.

“I spent so long trying to fix things,” he continues. “Make it right. Every day, I get up and try to be something new. Someone new. And it doesn’t matter. All it takes is one article, one photo, and suddenly I’m the fucking Winter Soldier again.”

His fists are clenched now. You can see the tension in his frame, the way he’s holding himself together like it’s a full-time job.

“They didn’t say anything that isn’t true,” he adds. “That’s the worst part.”

You stand. Cross to him slowly. Carefully. He watches you with that guarded look he gets when he’s bracing for a hit that’s already landed.

“They used the truth to tell a lie,” you say. “You’re not that person anymore.”

“Then why does everyone keep seeing him?” His voice cracks on the last word. It shatters something in you.

You don’t know what to say. Not right away. Because it’s not your job to fix what was done to him.

But maybe it’s your job to remind him what’s changed.

So you touch his arm. The metal one. He flinches—but only for a second.

“You said you didn’t read it,” you say gently. “So you didn’t see the comments.”

His brow furrows.

“Thousands of people,” you say. “Calling it a smear job. Defending you. Saying they trust you more than half the people in office. Veterans. Civilians. Kids who look up to you. People who believe in second chances because of you.”

You feel the shift before you see it. His shoulders slacken, just slightly.

“You’re allowed to be upset,” you add. “You’re allowed to be angry. But you’re not alone in this.”

He looks at you then. Really looks. And whatever wall he was holding up—whatever mask he puts on for C-SPAN and strategy meetings—it drops.

His voice is rough when he finally says, “Can you stay?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Of course."

You stay right where you are—your hand still resting on metal that hums faintly beneath your fingers, warm from him. He’s quiet, but not calm. Not really. There’s tension in the way he breathes, in the slight tremor running down his arm. Like his body still remembers how to brace for impact, even when it’s just words.

Minutes pass like that. Long enough for the quiet to settle around you. For Alpine to leap silently onto the sill and stare out like she’s keeping watch for both of you.

Then he shifts—just slightly—and the couch creaks under the movement. He leans forward, elbows on knees, head bowed. The line of his spine curved like it’s bearing more than just his weight.

“Bucky,” you say, tone softening. “Talk to me.”

He’s not looking at you. His gaze is on the floor. Like if he meets your eyes, it’ll all unravel.

“I say or do one wrong thing,” he says, “and suddenly I’m a threat again.”

That last part is barely above a whisper.

You pause. Let the silence stretch.

“Hey,” you say, carefully. “You’re not a threat. You’re a congressman.”

He lets out a dry laugh. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“I don’t know how to do this without screwing it up,” he says.

“Then let me help,” you say. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, Bucky. Every day.”

That’s when his eyes meet yours—really meet them.

“You always come when I need you,” he says.

It’s a simple sentence.

But it lands like a match dropped in a dry field.

You stare at him. His face. The way his hair’s falling loose at the front. The soft curve of his mouth, the line between his brows, the glow of his vibranium arm in the lamplight—gold against black against skin.

You stand, like you’re going to fetch water or pace or do something, but you don’t make it far. You’re near his bookshelf—he’s got a handful of novels, mostly well-worn, a few classics. One spine is cracked down the middle. Another’s bent in half. You reach for one, just to touch something, ground yourself.

“You read a lot,” you say, just to fill the space. Just to breathe.

“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, and the sound of his voice—that low rasp, Brooklyn tugging at the edges—rakes down your spine. “Helps. When my head’s loud.”

“What’s your favorite?”

There’s a pause.

Then, quietly: “You.”

You blink.

“You,” he says slowly, “you walk into my life and it’s like someone hit the off switch on the noise. Like there’s finally room to think again. To want things.”

Your throat goes tight.

He swallows. You hear it. Feel it.

“I didn’t mean to—” he stops, drags a hand through his hair, fingers brushing over the back of his neck. “I didn’t plan on hiring you. Thought if I kept it distant, maybe I wouldn’t…”

You glance over your shoulder. He’s watching the floor like it holds answers. His jaw is tight, that line above his brow catching the lamplight. He’s flushed high on the cheeks. His hair is curling a little from the heat of the day. It softens him.

You can’t stop looking.

“Wouldn’t what?” you ask.

“Wouldn’t get attached.”

The words fall out of him, too quick, too raw. His accent thickens when he’s like this—unguarded, unraveling.

He looks up at you then. And you swear—swear—you’ve never seen anyone look more exposed.

“I think about you,” he says, voice hoarse. “All the damn time. Your voice. The way you talk when you’re excited. The way you wrinkle your nose when you read something stupid. And I try—believe me, I try—not to want any of it. Because you work with me. And you’re good. And I don’t want to drag you down with my shit.”

“Bucky—” you start, but it breaks apart in your throat.

“But you just kept coming. And you’re kind. And smart. And funny in a way that makes me feel like I’ve been asleep for years. And now I sit in meetings half-listening because I’m wondering if you’re cold. Or if you ate. Or if you still think I’m some idiot with a shiny arm and bad instincts.”

You’re already turning. Reaching for him.

His eyes are so blue. Tired. Beautiful. Like storm glass worn smooth.

And his mouth—God, his mouth—is parted, breathing shallow, like he’s already halfway to ruin.

“I don’t know how to stop,” he whispers.

You don’t want him to.

So you close the space, press your mouth to his like it’s the only thing that makes sense anymore.

He answers in kind. Gentle at first—so careful—but then hungrier, hands finally finding you, clutching like maybe you’re real after all. Like maybe he gets to keep you.

His hands find your waist, one warm, one cool. He breathes you in like it’s the first breath after surfacing. You hold onto him, to the solidness of him, to the truth in everything he just said.

When you part, you rest your forehead against his, breathless.

“I didn’t plan on you either,” you murmur. “But I want this too.”

He opens his eyes. And there’s something there—tentative, but real. Hope, maybe.

You kiss him again, slow and sure, and this time, you don’t stop.

The kiss deepens, and you feel it — the tension of months unspooling all at once. The press briefings, the late-night calls, the shared silences. It’s in the way his mouth moves against yours, all reverence and restraint barely holding.

Then restraint snaps.

​​He groans into your mouth, low and rough, the sound vibrating through your chest. One hand slides to your waist, the other cradling the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair with a kind of reverence that borders on desperate. You gasp when your back hits the edge of the bookshelf, books shifting and thudding behind you. His body presses close, firm and solid, muscle molded to muscle.

You don’t breathe. You inhale him—his scent, his heat, the way his tongue strokes into your mouth like he’s trying to stake a claim.

Your hands are greedy, curled into the soft cotton of his shirt before they slip under, dragging over warm skin and the defined ridges of his back. He shudders, hips pressing forward, and the answering moan that slips from your mouth is embarrassingly loud.

His mouth moves to your throat, hot and open, tongue dragging over the place your pulse stutters wildly. He kisses there once, then again, a third time just to hear the way your breath catches.

The shelves dig into your back, but you don’t care. His mouth is on your throat now, slow, deliberate, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your pulse.

“Bucky,” you whisper.

His breath stutters. His forehead rests against your jaw for a second, and his voice is rough when he speaks.

“You have no idea,” he murmurs, lips brushing your skin. “How long I’ve wanted this.”

Your breath catches. Your hands grip his hoodie like you’re afraid the floor might drop out. There’s a pause—something delicate in the air—and then you say, just to ground yourself:

“Wow. That almost sounded like a line.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you. Eyes dark, lips kiss-bruised. And then—finally—a real smile. Crooked. Devastating.

“You think I say that to everyone I push against my bookshelf?”

You grin. “I don’t know, Barnes. You’ve got a lot of books. Could be a whole system.”

He laughs. Really laughs. And then kisses you again, harder this time, a groan low in his throat when your hands slip under the hem of his sweatshirt. Skin meets skin and he makes a sound that short-circuits your brain.

Somehow, you make it upstairs.

It’s clumsy and desperate in the best way. A trail of clothing, soft gasps, hands mapping territory that’s been off-limits for far too long. He kisses you like you’re something precious and half-forbidden, and you can feel it in every press of his mouth, every whispered praise against your skin.

"Sweetheart, you're killing me," he groans while pressing those lips, those fucking lips, against your collarbone. "Need you to tell me this isn’t a dream.”

By the time you hit the bedroom, you’re breathless. Dizzy. Grinning like an idiot.

And Bucky?

He’s looking at you like he’s just figured out the world’s best-kept secret.

You barely hit the mattress before he’s on you again, mouth dragging down your neck, hands urgent but careful. Like he’s cataloguing every inch of you, filing it away somewhere behind all the noise. His vibranium hand slips beneath your shirt, cool at first but quick to warm against your skin, gliding up your ribcage with reverence that makes you shiver.

“You okay?” he murmurs, breath warm against your cheek.

You nod, maybe too fast. “Yeah. Just—processing.”

He freezes. “Processing what?”

“That I used to mock your social media presence,” you whisper, grinning up at him. “And now I’m about to get railed by the human embodiment of a Roman statue.”

His laugh is choked and surprised. “Jesus.”

“What? You set yourself up for that.”

He drops a kiss to the hinge of your jaw, then your neck, then lower—his stubble scraping just enough to make your breath catch. “Remind me to fire you later.”

“You can’t afford me.”

“Not true,” he says, one hand sliding up the back of your thigh, warm and sure. “You’re already here.”

You open your mouth for a reply, but then his mouth is on you again—tongue tracing a line down your collarbone, fingers tugging at your waistband like he’s been waiting forever.

“Tell me if anything’s too much,” he says, voice low and serious at your ear. “Or if I—”

“You’re not,” you breathe. “You’re perfect.”

That earns you another groan, and then he’s kissing you again, deeper, tongue sliding against yours with filthy precision. You feel him smile against your mouth when you gasp, hands tangling in his hair, thighs bracketing his hips like you were built for this. Built for him.

Clothes disappear in pieces. His sweatshirt, your shirt, the rest in a tangle neither of you cares enough to untangle. And then it’s just skin. Heat. The stretch of him over you, under you, hands braced, mouth hot on your jaw, your throat, your chest. He takes his time. 

"Bucky," You whisper, searching for the right words. "I want you inside me. Please."

He pushes out a sound akin to pain between his teeth. "Getting there." So impatient, goes unsaid.

The moment his hand falls in between your legs, digging past soft cotton and lace, where you're dripping and soft and needy for him, you don't think you'll ever, ever have enough of him. He's slow, at first, just bordering on exploratory. Stroking the pads of his fingers through your wetness until he finds your clit—oh, fuck—and goes to town, making you moan and clench around nothing.

"There you go. That's it," He coos. "You're doing so good."

You close your eyes, his hand pressing in deeper, harder, finding just the right rhythm to drive you insane, switching between your clit and your entrance until you're going mad. Then you hear him spit, the sound obscene and dripping against your skin—then, a slap. "Oh my god," You murmur. "Oh, fuck."

"You're so wet," His brows furrow, like he can hardly believe it. Acting like he's not sinking his fingers inside of you, stretching you open with one, two fingers.  "Soaked. Like I knew you would be, god. You're so tight and I—I bet you'd feel better around my—"

He hits a spot that makes you keen, fast and rough and fucking you open. "Yes, yes, oh my god, please—"

"There?" His breath fans across your cheek. "Right there, huh?"

You nod, delirious and breathless and you black out the rest of the world, lost in the way he looks at you like you're the best damn thing in the world. You clench once, twice around his fingers until you're at the brink and—

Come on my fingers, come on, sweetheart.

And who were you to resist?

For a moment, you just lay in the aftershocks, his fingers granting you enough mercy to slip out. You think that maybe he'll give you a break, maybe just for once second, but then his whole body shifts downwards, momentarily leaving you confused, and then his breath fans across your thighs—"Just want a taste."

Those four words cause something in you to snap.

His mouth is sloppy and hot and wet, more focused on cleaning you up and licking up the remnants of your orgasm, leaving your clit sorely, sorely alone in a way that's too purposeful. In a way that has you bucking against the soft stubble of his face, desperate for any kind of stimulation. 

It doesn't even seem like he's doing it for you, it's like he's doing it for himself. But then you beg and whine, the words reverberating in your throat, "Bucky, please—higher, please, baby, I need you—"

A graze of his teeth and a sharp, tugging suck around your clit then and you cum again. Shaking and sighing and falling apart in his mouth.

When you look down, you can see just how much of a mess you've made, his face glistening with you, even in the dark. And he's looking at you so earnestly, so sweetly, like you've just given him the whole entire world.

"Do you—do you think you can take more?" His eyes look at you, filled with concern, and that's all you need for your legs to start waking up again. "I didn't—I dind't bring a condom and I—"

"I'm clean and I'm on the pill," You smile, lopsided and silly until he's mirroring yours, like he didn't just wrench the two best orgasms of your life out of you. Like he's not about to do it again. Just the way you like it. "And I want you to cum inside me. I wanna feel it. Shut up and get over here."

Bucky clucks his tongue, ever the dutiful man. "Yes, ma'am."

There's a moment—and then he's slotting the head of his cock into your entrance and you try not to be overwhelmed. He's hard and heavy and thick in a way you've never really experienced before, and for a minute, your brain short-circuits, in disbelief. You're doing this. You're really doing this. And suddenly, his cock goes all the way inside you with a pained groan.

His first thrust against you is messy, his hands having to spread your legs wide until you're arching against him. "Jesus, you're so—tight."

Then he's thrusting back in, his hands solid and heavy against your hips, not necessarily like a hammer, but in a way that makes your eyes roll back, slow and steady that you can feel every vein on his cock, lighting you up and finding places that not even your vibrator's been able to reach before. It's mind-numbing, it's relentless, it's perfect.

"Good girl," He whispers, pressing kisses up your neck to soothe the pressure of him inside you. "Taking me so well."

And then, like a reward, his vibranium hand leaves its place on your hip and starts caressing your clit, large fingers made impossibly gentle and finding a rhythm that parallels the way he ruts inside you.

"You're so good to me, so sweet," His words land like a sucker punch, and it makes you clench tighter, his pace faltering just the slightest bit. But he keeps going. "Always looking at me like that, don't know what you do to me, don't know how I can go without this. So much better than my dreams. Fuck."

"Can you come again for me? Pretty baby, can you do it again?"

It takes a harsh, rough swipe against your clit until you arch off the bed, eyes clenched shut and mouth wrenched open in a whine, and you bear down, coming for the third time that night.

And he's right there behind you, it doesn't take long before he speeds up, getting more frantic and desperate, and oh—he's shoving himself inside you as deep as he can go and you can feel him pulse, aching—"God, I love you. I love you so much, take it all for me."

You collapse underneath him, spent and so, so full. So perfect.

.

You go viral again.

Not for a tweet this time, but for a thirty-second clip someone posted from a town hall two weeks later—Bucky leaning in to answer a kid’s question about public transit, earnest as ever, saying something about “freedom meaning more than just car ownership,” with Alpine meowing in the background because she’d escaped her carrier under the table.

The quote is fine. Thoughtful, even. But it’s the look he gives you afterward—off-camera, off-script, soft in a way that has no business being soft—that turns the internet into a firestorm.

The caption?

sir. control yourself. your pr manager is right there.

You wake up to three missed calls, four texts from Nina (two of which are just screaming emojis), and one from your mom:

call me when you’re up

You do. Because you are a good daughter, even when half-asleep and mostly buried in a man’s too-soft duvet that smells like cedar and coffee and very recent sex.

“Morning,” your mom says, casual, like she didn’t text you three times in a row at 6:13 a.m. “How’s the job?”

You blink. “The—job?”

“Yes, the job,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “The one you got after insulting a congressman on the internet.”

You glance over at said congressman, currently shuffling out of the bathroom shirtless and towel-damp, rubbing his head with one hand while Alpine chirps at his feet like she owns him. Which she does.

“Uh,” you say, eloquently. “It’s going… well.”

“Good,” your mom replies. “You should call your aunt. She saw him on TV and keeps asking if he’s single.”

“Mom.”

In the background, a faint beeping. “Gotta go. Someone’s coding. Love you!”

The line goes dead.

You flop back into the pillows, groaning into Bucky’s comforter like it can absorb your entire soul.

“Everything okay?” he asks, voice still rough with sleep.

“Yeah. My mom thinks we’re married now.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We’re not?”

You shoot him a look. He grins.

Then, like it’s nothing: “What are you up to today?”

Technically, he’s your boss. A sitting congressman. You manage his image, his agenda, his occasional tendency to go off-script and say things like “burn it all down and start over” to a room full of journalists.

But now he’s shirtless in grey sweatpants, handing you coffee with Alpine perched on his shoulder like a parrot, and asking you to stay.

Not just for breakfast. For the day. Maybe longer. Maybe always.

It shouldn’t hit you like it does. But it does.

“You’re assuming I can concentrate,” you say, taking the mug like it’s a peace offering. “In your bed. With you. Shirtless. Existing.”

He smiles—that rare, lopsided thing he gives you when he’s caught somewhere between amusement and something gentler. “You’ve worked through worse.”

“True,” you mutter. “Once wrote an op-ed from a TikTok house while one of my clients sobbed over a brand deal and a frat boy tried to deep-fry a toaster.”

“See?” He leans down, presses a kiss to your temple like it’s just another part of your morning routine. “You’ll be fine.”

You look at him. At the man with a metal arm, a rescue cat, and a city full of people who expect him to change the world.

And he’s looking at you like you’re the thing that matters.

You exhale. “You’re lucky I believe in workplace flexibility.”

“Is that what this is?” he says, already walking toward the kitchen, voice full of barely contained laughter. “Workplace flexibility?”

You grin into your mug.

God help you, you’re in so deep.

It sounded too good to be true. It offered full medical license activation and triple the usual pay. Off-books, but government-sanctioned, they claimed. You’d be working with elite personnel in a high-clearance, undisclosed location. It was a matter of national security, they said. 

When you made contact, they brought you to a warehouse and made you read non-disclosure agreements—dozens of them. They didn’t let you take them home to review. You signed everything in a windowless room with a clock that ticked too fast, and signed up to the project.

Your official title was “Classified field medic for enhanced personnel. Clearance Level 6 required.” It sounded impressive, official. You told your parents it was part of a DOD black ops program and that you weren’t allowed to say more.

You were happy you could finally help— 

 they had far too much medical debt to ever dig their way out.

And… They were proud.

If only they knew.

You were told you’d be assigned to “classified subjects.”

When they finally gave you the details of the work, you noticed the facility wasn’t listed on any public records. The address they gave you wasn’t on any GPS. The car that picked you up had no license plates. You were blindfolded before arriving.

You should have run then. But you didn’t, because they paid in advance.

You paid off your loans in one go and gave the rest to your family, promising you’d be earning more over the next couple of years. 

The facility you were assigned to didn’t have windows. The lights never changed. Days bled into each other until even your internal clock began to fail you. The air was too clean, the silence too dense—like the walls were swallowing sound. They injected you with yellow liquid when you arrived, and you weren't allowed to ask for details. Cameras were in the corners, always watching. 

You weren’t allowed to ask names. You weren’t given files.

You weren’t allowed your phone. No clocks. No outside contact unless you had prior clearance.

They never called it a hospital, because it wasn’t.

It was a slab of steel buried deep underground in Siberia, and you worked under it like a cog in the coldest machine you’d ever known. The men you reported to didn’t wear name tags or rank insignias. They all looked the same— pale-faced, dressed in black. You didn’t know their names, and you have never heard them use yours, either.

At first, you told yourself it was temporary. Just for a year. Just until you paid off your loans. Just until you figured out where you really belonged.

But then you saw the red flags. You folded them neatly and tucked them away with your conscience.

See, they knew the kind of people to look for— desperate ones. They recruit smart people who were overworked, drowning in debt or grief or fear. The ones who couldn’t afford to ask where the money came from. 

And by the time you realised who you were really working for, it was too late. Because no one leaves that facility unless it was in a body bag. 

Hydra was predatory like that.

—

You had been patching up STRIKE team operatives for almost a year. You were good—efficient, clean, and silent. You didn’t pry, and what made you valuable.

You never asked where the injuries came from. Bullet wounds, knife gashes, torn ligaments, crushed bones—you treated them all. You developed antiseptics that worked faster than standard-issue cream and learned how to seal a shrapnel wound in under ten minutes. You fixed what needed fixing, and you didn’t get in the way of the mission.

One morning, you were pulled from your bed at 0400 hours without an explanation. Two men in black shook you awake by the arm and took you to an elevator that descended farther than you knew the facility even went. There was a change in the air the deeper you went—thicker, colder. Like the walls were full of ghosts.

They didn’t tell you what your new assignment was, not until you stepped into the white-lit room and saw him.

He was on a reinforced chair, with blood crusted over his ribs and soaked through his cargo pants. The metal arm was twitching with little sparks, the seams dripping oil and blood in equal parts. His right eye was swollen shut and his lip was split.

And still— he didn’t look away.

You’d heard whispers about him before— the Asset.

They called him It.

Not a name. Not a person. A living weapon— built, not born.

You expected more people guarding the cell, but the only other man in the room was his handler— Colonel Vasily Karpov. You’d met men like him before, but none who looked so openly afraid of the thing they commanded.

"The previous doctor had been terminated due to noncompliance,” Karpov said, which was Hydra-speak for the Asset snapped his spine in two like a breadstick.

Your mouth went dry. "And I’m next in line?"

“You’re competent,” he said. “And replaceable.”

He walked out before you could respond.

The door shut behind him with a final hiss, like a coffin sealing.

And then there was just you— and him.

You took a step closer. He tracked your movement with his blue, calculating eyes. You could tell he didn’t know what you were—but knew how to kill you if you got close.

You didn’t speak at first. You just moved slowly, methodically. 

Eventually, you became brave enough to clean the blood. You assessed the damage. His injuries were extensive— fractured ribs, dislocated shoulder, deep lacerations across his abdomen. Most people would’ve gone into shock hours ago.

But he sat there, still breathing like a machine.

He didn’t flinch when you treated him.

Not even when you pulled a broken tooth from the inside of his right bicep.

He winced, though, when you put a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. And later, when your gloved hand rested gently on his chest, while rubbing small circles to calm him down, his eyes flicked to your face.

It was the first time he looked at you. 

Afterward, you logged the treatment. You followed the protocol. You filed the injury report.

In the official files, they referred to him as an it. But in your private notes, you called him he.

—

Over the next year or so, you were his doctor. 

And apparently, you were the only doctor who survived more than eight months.

You’d fix up his ribs when they were fractured. You cleaned bullet wounds from his side, his shoulder, the meat of his thigh. You iced swollen knuckles and stitched torn flesh, always so amazed how quickly his body healed. 

But still, they used him until he broke. They froze him from time to time, but after he was out, they dragged him back and told him to put the pieces together.

You worked in silence. He sat in silence.

Most days, his eyes were washed-out and programmed.

But sometimes, during the worst of the injuries—when your hands pressed into open wounds, when you whispered sorry— his eyebrows softened.

At this point, you had memorised his injuries, and the places his enemies targeted again and again. You started pre-packing supplies before he even arrived. 

The handlers noticed.

You began modifying your ointments—adding subtle numbing agents, to match his supersoldier metabolism. 

You weren’t supposed to. They wanted him in pain. 

But you did it anyway.

Once, they brought him in half-conscious, his metal arm sparking at the joint, blood soaked through the tactical gear. There was a knife wound under his ribs— and it was too deep. 

He grunted when you pressed gauze to it.

It was not a reaction to pain. It was a warning. His eyes met yours, and they were clearer than usual— as if he was fighting something.

And then, for the first time, you realised: He knew what was happening to him.

Maybe not always. Maybe not fully.

But there was a man inside the machine, and today was awake just long enough to hate it.

That night, they froze him and drilled the trigger words into his brain again. 

—

Tonight, he came back worse than usual.

Bruised. Bloodied. Shot in seven different places. His face was partially swollen, split lip crusted with dried blood, a jagged tear across his side soaking his uniform black-red. His metal arm twitched violently, fingers clenching and unclenching with a mechanical rhythm— as if the programming inside him was short-circuiting.

He was strapped into the chair again, the restraints digging into his wrists deep enough to turn the skin purple. Four guards had hauled him in like he was an animal— one of them nursing a broken arm. 

They left you alone with him and chuckled, “good luck.” 

The Asset’s head was bowed low, hair falling like a curtain over his eyes. The tension in his shoulders was wrong. Too rigid, too coiled, like a wire stretched too tight and ready to snap.

You stepped closer, and he jerked suddenly against the restraints—and his metal hand nearly caught your arm.

You froze.

In your peripheral vision, the guards laughed behind the glass.

He didn’t look at you.

He was breathing hard and shaking violently, as if was trying to stay in his body.

You looked at the camera in the corner, swallowing back a panic and anger.

“I can’t treat him like this,” you said. If he didn’t calm down enough for you to stitch him up soon, he was going to bleed out.

Your voice was sharper than you meant it to be. It was… unprofessional. 

A few seconds passed before the speaker crackled.

“That’s too bad,” said Karpov’s cold, detached voice. “It is your job.”

You stared at the glass behind which they watched— always watched.

Then you turned back to him.

You tried, as always, to be gentle. To be careful. You knelt to clean the gash under his ribs. You threaded your needle, soaked the wound with antiseptic.

But his body thrashed again.

You dropped the needle.

His metal arm lunged forward, nearly catching your throat before the restraints snapped him back into place.

He didn’t mean to, you reminded yourself.

But the part of him that killed without asking questions was surfacing, and you were too close.

Your hands shook.

He turned his head away from you as if ashamed. Or furious. 

Fuck.

You were losing him.

So you did the only irrational, human thing that came to mind.

You… sang.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool…”

Your voice cracked on the first line. It had been years— you hadn’t sung it since you were small— curled up on your mother’s lap while she ran her fingers through your hair and kept the nightmares away.

You saw his breathing slow down, just slightly. 

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full…”

He…  didn’t flinch again.

You kept singing while you threaded the needle and stitched the worst of the gash along his side. His trembling eased.

You spoke without really meaning to, your voice almost a whisper.

“My mother used to sing it to me,” you lulled. “I only realised later what it meant,” you continued. “‘One for the master, one for the dame…’”

You wiped sweat from your forehead, working on a deeper wound now.

“Servitude, right? ‘One for the little boy who lived down the lane.’ Maybe lullabies sung to entertain children. Maybe they’re for making people… obedient,”

You paused, still stitching, thankful he calmed down. 

“Because I think…,” you said, tilting your head as you managed to fish a bullet out of his side. “Obedience it taught. Not born.”

And then, like the thought slipped out of your mouth without permission, “Were you taught well?”

You didn’t expect a response. 

But this time, his head turned and he looked at you.

His voice came out rough, underused, gravel dragged across rusted metal. But these sounds were not growled nor screamed.

“It was the only thing I remember learning,” he whispered. 

You froze.

It was the first time you had ever heard him speak.

The needle slipped from your hand, fell into the tray with a clink. You were stunned. 

Through all that, he watched you. 

You knelt beside him, picked up the needle again with shaking hands.

His eyes followed you as you resumed treating him. He was silent the rest of the session. 

But something had changed.

—

The first time he leaned into your touch was a couple of months later. 

You were bandaging a wound just beneath his collarbone in tight, methodical loops when your fingers brushed the skin of his neck. He let out a deep breath and tilted his head just slightly toward your hand.

He… made a conscious choice. 

You didn’t say anything, and neither did he. But your hands lingered a little longer than usual.

Sometimes, when he was lucid, he’d look at your hands while you worked— following their motion like they were the only real thing in the room. You weren’t sure what he was seeing. 

Then… you started narrating aloud. It was partly for him, partly for you. “This’ll sting a little,” you’d say, cleaning a wound.

“Pressure here—sorry, hold on…”

He never answered at first. 

Then one day, he did.

You were stitching a deep tear in his thigh when your thread caught. “Sorry,” you said under your breath.

“You always say that.”

You looked up, needle halfway through the thread. “Say what?”

“‘Sorry,’” he managed, “it’s not your fault.”

“Sorry,” you mentioned sheepishly. “I’ll stop saying it.”

Then, you resumed your work.

The next time he came in, he was limping badly, and for once, the restraints weren’t used. Maybe they knew he couldn’t stand. Maybe they didn’t care if he bled out.

And he didn’t even make it to the chair. He sat on the floor instead.

When you knelt beside him, your knees touching his, he didn’t pull away. He let you cut the fabric from yet another ruined suit— fifth one this month— or year? You have long lost track of time in this Siberian bunker. 

Still, he let you clean the blood from his temple.

“Don’t they ever give you a break?” you asked, not expecting an answer.

“No,” he said simply. 

You frowned. 

Still, your hands were steady.

You started humming when he came in—low, quiet melodies under your breath. Sometimes lullabies. Sometimes nothing at all—just sounds, like a lifeline tossed into water. He never asked you to stop.

One night, after they’d brought him in burned—his arm singed, the edge of his jaw blistered—you held an ice pack against his skin and whispered, “You shouldn’t be alive after half of this.”

He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, after careful consideration, he said, “Sometimes I think I’m not.”

Eventually, he started helping you—lifting an arm for treatment, shifting his weight when he knew it would help you work faster. He never said much. Never more than a sentence or two. But the words, when they came, were clear. 

“Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

One night, he asked for your name.

You told him. But when you asked him what his was, he only said, “I don’t know.”

But for the first time in a very long time, The Asset smiled. 

Because it was the first time anyone ever cared to ask.

—

When he wasn’t in cryofreeze, they kept him in a reinforced room that wasn’t technically a cell, but wasn’t anything else either. It had a cot, a chair, and a toilet.

You called it the holding room.

They called it the kennel.

You’d come in for treatment checks once or twice a week between missions— tended his joints, monitored the fluid viscosity in his metal arm, checked for infection. 

But the guards watched him too. Always. From the control room, behind the glass, hands on the mic.

They joked about him.

At first, it was petty things— how much blood he could lose before he passed out, how many bones had healed crooked.

But it got worse.

Much worse.

They joked about his body when he was in heat. How he “rutted in his sleep sometimes.” How they’d seen the security feed catch him grinding against the mattress, the cot, the restraints, whatever he could in his animal state after missions.

“He’s always desperate after a kill,” one of them said once, laughing. “Bet he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Fucking the pillow like a mutt.”

You had frozen when you heard it. But today—today, it went further.

“Bets?” one of them said. “Ten rubles on the mattress tonight. Twenty on the wall.”

All three of the guards stationed to watch that night laughed. 

“Stop,” you said, through gritted teeth. “What you’re doing is disgusting. Watching him like that—mocking him— when his agency’s being taken from him? He’s a fucking person and you need to grow up.”

What followed was the longest ten seconds of silence in your life. 

And then one of them leaned forward in his chair and sneered. “If you think he’s a person, why don’t you go in there?”

You blinked. “What?"

“Go on,” The other guard grinned and got up from his seat. “If you think he’s man and not machine, let’s test it.”

You stepped back, realising what their plan was. “Don’t touch me.”

“Too late.”

Their hands grabbed your arms.

You fought—kicked, screamed, bit one of them hard enough to draw blood—but there were three of them, and you were half their size. One of them slammed your head into the wall hard enough to daze you. 

You didn’t know where the pain began — your scalp where they’d yanked your hair? The side of your jaw where a fist had struck you clean across the face? 

Still, you fought. You slammed your elbow into one guard’s windpipe hard enough to make him choke. You thrashed and tried everything, but they were stronger. 

And they enjoyed it.

You’d never seen teeth like that — bared in joy at suffering. One of them— Maksimov had blood on his knuckles and another— Yuri had both hands up your shirt before you bit him hard enough to draw blood.

You screamed, “He—we— a person!” not knowing whether you meant yourself or the Winter Soldier.

But they didn’t care.

One of them tore at the buttons of your shirt while another held your arms behind you. The fabric split as your bra snapped and air hit your chest and you curled inward, shaking, humiliated, trying to hide your body with trembling hands.

“He’ll definitely go for her pussy,” one of them muttered like it was a bet at a bar.

“I’d go for the ass first,” another chuckled. “Tighter.”

Then came the worst line.

“I bet the dumb beast doesn’t know the difference and finish in her mouth in under three minutes.”

The laughter didn’t stop.

Your legs gave out once they dragged you through the hallway to the lower levels. You stumbled, bleeding from your lip, your breasts half-exposed, nails broken from the fight. They hauled you back up and slammed your back into the steel door before keying it open.

You saw the inside of the room for only a second before they shoved you in and locked the door behind you with a clang.

“Have fun, soldat!” A guard, Anton, said.

You fell, and started trembling.

Everything hurt.

And then you looked up.

He was there.

The Asset — him. The Winter Soldier.

He was standing in the center of the room. He wasn’t strapped down this time, his long hair damp and clinging to his cheeks. His chest was bare, streaked with drying blood and oil. His eyes locked onto you the moment you hit the floor.

You froze.

Your arms flew across your body, trying to cover yourself as you backed yourself into the wall.  You curled in on yourself, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the rush of blood in your ears.

He’ll fuck you, they had said. He’ll take the choice away from you. He’ll use you as a way to satisfy himself.

You believed it for a second.

You’d seen what he could do — seen the machine they’d made him into. You’d see the bloodlust in his eyes when he came back from missions. 

You were terrified.

You curled tighter.

He took one step forward.

And… stopped.

You took a chance and looked at your face.

He wasn’t looking at your chest. He wasn’t leering. His pupils weren’t blown wide with mindless hunger. He wasn’t hard, or panting, or unchained from reality.

He was staring at your injuries.

At the torn fabric, at the swelling in your cheek. The handprint rising red on your arm. And the grip marks on your breaks. The blood at your lip. His brow furrowed.

And his whole body… melted.

The heat was gone, almost instantly. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.

“Who…” he rasped, “did this to you?”

His voice was hoarse, barely there. But there was no mistaking the rage that had formed underneath it — nothing like the lust the guards had imagined.

He handed you his only blanket, and you clutched it. He let you wrap yourself in it, and when you couldn’t stand, he helped you sit up, not touching your skin unless he had to.

“Maksimov, Yuri, and Anton,” you whispered, lip trembling.

His teeth clenched.

He reached out slowly — slow enough that you could move away, slow enough that you knew it wasn’t force — and brushed the blanket more tightly around your shoulders, like he was covering you from the world, from the camera, from the three guards he knew were watching.  

You were still crying. You didn’t realise it until his human thumb brushed away a tear from your cheek.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

He just sat there, at your level, holding the blanket closed with one hand, eyes locked on yours. Not on your body. Not on your skin. 

You folded into his chest, not because he demanded it, but because it was safe. 

He wrapped his arms around you like he’d never learned how to hold a person without breaking them. And still — he didn’t break you.

He just held you, shivering, until your breathing slowed.

And in the silence, you heard the quietest thing of all. “I won’t hurt you.”

Once again, The Asset had made a choice. 

A human one.

—

Hours passed.

The two of you stayed curled together on the concrete. You had stopped crying eventually, but your body still trembled now and then— from shock, from adrenaline.

You still felt his arm around your shoulders—gentle, not possessive.

The guards who had been watching were probably bored. You thought maybe—maybe—you’d be left alone. Maybe they’d gotten the message. Maybe they wouldn’t push again.

You were proven wrong when the heavy steel door hissed open.

You barely had time to pull the blanket tighter.

The same three guards entered and they were prepared. They carried sleek, matte black rifles. Loaded, to deal with The Asset should he go rogue. 

And then you heard the voice.

“Что с тобой, солдат?” — What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldat?

Yuri stepped forward, gun dangling casually in his hands, eyes not even on The Asset— but on you.

“Мы дали тебе дырку, и ты даже не воспользовался ею?” — We gave you a hole and you didn’t even use it?

You flinched so hard your head hit the metal wall behind you.

The Asset stood up and stepped directly in front of you, body between yours and theirs, fists clenched. He was…shielding you.

The guards exchanged glances, laughing now. One of them cocked his gun and slung it over his shoulder like a prop in a theatre.

“Ладно. Тогда мы сами её трахнем,” —Fine. Then we’ll use her ourselves. Maksimov said, smiling.

And then Yuri moved fast. He reached out and grabbed your ankle, hard, yanking you out of the blanket.

You screamed.

And The Asset snapped.

No hesitation, No programming.

Just rage.

The Asset’s metal fist punched Yuri square in the chest and launched him into the far wall. The impact was loud enough that you heard a crack—maybe the wall, but most likely Yuri’s spine.

Before anyone else could react, he twisted and ripped the rifle from Anton’s hands. Without really aiming, he pulled the trigger and shot Maksimov in the throat.

Blood sprayed the walls, and Maksimov gurgled once before slumping to the ground.

Anton raised his hands to surrender.

Too late.

Bucky pivoted, metal arm slamming the barrel of the rifle into Anton’s face with brutal force, then fired— one shot, clean through the eye.

He dropped the gun.

It clattered to the floor, ringing louder than the gunshots had.

He turned back toward you, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath.

He knelt. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You blinked, still clutching the blanket, hands shaking.

—

Within minutes of the bodies hitting the ground, you heard the sound of heavy boots walking in.

Karpov entered the cell like he owned the air in it.

He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t look at the corpses.

He only looked at The Asset who was still crouched in front of you, body curled like a shield.

Karpov simply pressed a switch on a small black device he held in his gloved hand.

There was a crack of electricity, and The Asset screamed.

You jolted, reaching for him—but it was no use.

His body seized up as the taser pulse ran through his spine, his metal arm locking tight against the floor, 

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even try.

When he collapsed unconscious beside the cot, Karpov turned to you without missing a beat.

“Come.”

You shook your head. “He—he was protecting me—he saved me—”

“You’ll have time for your little report later,” he snapped, throwing you some clothes to put on. “For now, come.”

—

The interrogation room was cold. 

Karpov stood across the table from you, arms folded.

“You will explain,” he said coldly.

Your eyebrows furrowed, still half in shock. “Explain what?”

He tilted his head. “You calmed him down.”

Your mouth opened, then shut.

"You do understand," he said in his frigid Russian-laced English, “that he should have either killed you, or fucked you.”

You froze.

He watched your reaction like a scalpel watches skin.

“That’s what the programming was designed to do,” he continued. “You are aware of his conditioning, yes?”

You nodded slowly, not trusting your voice.

“Then you know what heat was for.”

You have heard of why it was drilled in his brain— but you didn’t answer.

Karpov did not wait for permission to continue.

“It was an instinct trigger. Embedded in his biological and neural mapping through synthetic hormonal injections and psychosexual conditioning. During these ‘heat’ cycles, he was supposed to be motivated—” He paused, eyes narrow, “—it was supposed to encourage mating.”

Your throat closed. Did he really not care about the dead guards? Was the project really his main concern?

“The Soldier’s DNA is nearly perfect.” he said, as if it was. “Hydra wanted progeny. Super soldiers born, not built.”

He leaned in then, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth.

“But every woman they introduced… didn’t survive long enough to be useful. He tore through them out of instinct. So the project was abandoned years ago. The heat was too unstable, and he had no control.” He sat down across from you. “Until you.”

Your stomach lurched.

“You,” Karpov said slowly, “calmed him down.”

“I—I didn’t do anything,” you whispered. 

“You must have!” he snapped. 

You flinched. 

“I’ve studied his tapes for years! I've watched him crush skulls with his bare hands, tear out throats. Rip people in half when the words are spoken. But you—” Karpov stood, circling the table again. “—you knelt half-naked in front of him while he was in heat—and instead of fucking you to death, he held you.”

“I don’t know,” you said hoarsely. 

Karpov stared at you for a long moment, then sighed. He picked up the file from the table and turned to leave.

At the door, without turning back, he said, “You’re being reassigned.”

—

When you went back to your quarters. Your bunk was gone.

Your locker was cleared and stuffed neatly into a duffel bag. 

On the floor was a folded piece of paper.

REASSIGNED TO: THE KENNEL Effective Immediately. Observation: Subject Winter Soldier Objective: Behavioral stabilization Note: Subject's physiological response indicates reduced volatility in your presence. Further utility assessment pending.

You sank onto the cot.

Now, to Hydra, you weren’t just a doctor. You were a leash.

—

The cot wasn’t meant for two.

It was military-issue— narrow, hard-edged, bolted to the floor like everything else in the kennel. At first, you didn’t even sit on it when he was there. You’d sleep on the floor with your back to the cold steel wall, too awkward to mention what happened that day. The blanket was wrapped tight, pretending it wasn’t humiliating, pretending you weren’t always cold.

At first, he’d just watch, afraid of crossing a line— especially after what had happened to you. 

Then, after a week, he motioned for you to sit beside him on the cot when you changed bandages or administered injections.

Then, a month in, after a mission where he came back with his knuckles broken and a gunshot wound near his ribs, you were too exhausted to curl back up on the floor. You’d been crying silently that night, your hands trembling as you stitched him, your eyes stinging, wondering where everything had gone wrong. 

When you’d finished, he looked at you. “…You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Your eyes flicked up.

“What?”

He shifted to make room. One side of the cot opened up to you.

You hesitated. Then nodded.

That night, you lay stiff as a board beside him, back to back, flinching to touch. You barely slept, afraid to breathe too loud.

But the next night, when you came back from the showers and the lights dimmed for sleep, he scooted over before you even asked.

By the second month, your backs were pressed together at night. 

By the third, you’d curl inward, and he’d curl, too. One of your legs would brush his. Your forehead might graze his chest. His arm, the flesh one, sometimes draped around your side in the middle of sleep and didn’t pull away when you shifted closer.

—

When his heat cycles came—and they always came—you prepared.

You stayed calm and gave him space. 

You… would sing to him. Lullabies, mostly— songs meant for children too small to understand how cruel the world could be.

He never moved toward you during those nights. He never touched you without invitation. He’d sit on the cot, the muscles in his neck pulled tight.

Sometimes he’d whisper things to himself, half-delirious.

"No. Not her. Not her."

—

When he was frozen, you stayed in the kennel alone.

You didn’t think you’d miss him, but you did.

You’d find yourself sitting on the floor beside his cot, staring at the sealed cryo-chamber, singing to yourself just to fill the space.

And when they unfroze and reset him, you were still his doctor.

You still iced his knuckles. You still placed his dislocated shoulder back. You still pulled bullets from his flesh and closed the wounds with care no one else gave him.

But after the first few months, he started looking at you differently.

Like he knew you. Even after resets. Even after ice.

—

One day, after a mission that had stretched on far longer than any of the others—he came back. He was quiet when he entered. He did not say a word. 

But after two hours of working on his wound, he whispered, “Bucky.”

You tilted your head, confused. You weren’t sure you’d heard right. 

Then he said it again, firmer this time. “My name is Bucky.”

What?

Your mouth opened slowly, your breath finally catching up. 

He… remembered?

“…Okay, Bucky,” you said, voice quieter than you meant it to be— because anything louder might shatter whatever this was—perhaps a glimpse of the man buried beneath all the programming and pain. “Can you please lift your arm for me?”

He did.

And for the first time, he looked… not just present. Not just there.

He looked real.

—

You were still asleep when the cold hands tore the blanket from your body.

Two Hydra agents stormed into the kennel, and before you could even sit up, they had you by the hair, dragging you off the cot like a rag doll.

Bucky shifted awake next to you, but the third guard tased him before he could fully even register what was happening.

“What—what are you doing—?!”

They didn’t answer. They just manhandled you down the corridor, your bare feet scraping along concrete, your heart still stuck between dreams and dread.

In the interrogation room, one of them shoved you into the metal chair so hard the back of your skull smacked against steel. A hand grabbed your chin, wrenching your face toward him. The other paced behind, a cattle prod crackling ominously in his grip.

You recognised the person in front of you as Karpov. “What did he tell you?”

You blinked. Your ears rang. You were still half-asleep, disoriented. 

Then you realised: 

Oh. 

Someone saw the footage.

Someone saw what happened last night. Someone heard Bucky say his name.

Your mouth opened, before shutting again. You weren’t even sure what to say. He didn’t tell you anything else, but if you said so, would they even believe you?

But Karpov demanded more.

“Did he say his designation?”

“Did he say anything else? Was there a code?”

“What did he tell you, girl?”

The prod surged forward with a snap of electricity, kissing your side. You screamed—more from shock than pain—but the heat seared like fire across your ribs. You convulsed in the chair, gasping, trying to curl away, but the restraints held you firm.

And then—through your haze—you saw a flicker in the hall.

You heard a grunt. A thud.

And suddenly—he was there.

The Winter Soldier. No—Bucky.

His body still shook from the effects of the tasers, but his eyes were burning. 

One of the agents turned in time to catch a brutal kick to the gut that sent him sprawling. The other barely got a hand to his weapon before Bucky lunged, using the full weight of his body to knock him back. You saw blood and heard bone crack.

In seconds, it was over. Even Karpov was hauled away to safety. 

Bucky was at your side, kneeling, his trembling fingers working clumsily at the restraints. 

“Bucky—” your voice cracked. “You’re hurt—your face—”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes didn’t meet yours.

The cuffs snapped off.

You sagged forward, into his arms before you even realised you were doing it. You felt the thrum of his chest, the rise and fall of ragged breathing. 

He cupped your face with his human hand, and for a second you thought he might kiss you — but no. He pulled back.

Because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t have the strength to lose you.

“You need to go.”

You froze. “What?”

“There’s a tunnel—service corridor—they don’t watch it after hours. It connects to the south barracks. You can get outside the perimeter.”

“Bucky—no,” you said through gritted teeth, “I’m not leaving you.”

He clenched his teeth. 

“You have to,” he said. “I can’t protect you here.”

“I don’t care—”

“I do.”

That stopped you cold.

His voice cracked on those words. He looked away, just for a second, as if ashamed of how much he meant them. “I— I’m starting to know things I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “I need you to go. If I don’t… if I’m not… If they wiped me…”

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

“I need you to promise me,” he said, almost begging now. “Don’t come back for me.”

“I—please—”

His lips brushed your forehead, right before he shoved you gently but firmly toward the hall.

“Go.”

So you did.

—

Thirty Years Later.

The world had changed. 

Until yesterday, James Buchanan Barnes was a congressman. He didn’t go looking for redemption anymore. And he certainly didn’t go looking for you.

What would be the point?

You were probably… what? In your sixties? Seventies? If you’d survived at all— and Hydra said you hadn’t, that they’d caught you in one of the tunnels and killed you— he could only hope you’d built a life—married someone kind, had children, found a place where the past couldn’t follow you. If you had managed to find peace, he wasn’t going to rip it open like an old scar just to ask, Do you remember me?

So he never tried.

But he never loved again either.

Because even if he never said it out loud, Bucky Barnes had once loved you in a place where love wasn't supposed to exist. 

He still did.

That kind of love didn’t fade. It just lay quiet beneath the skin, like a healed-over wound that never quite stopped aching.

It wasn’t something he talked about. Not to Sam. Not to Steve, before he left. 

Until...

—

New York. Post-Void.

The sky was still clearing after the void had swallowed New York City whole

The Thunderbolts were scattered across the debris-littered street, dragging survivors from the wreckage after Valentina smirked smugly from successfully introducing them to the world as the New Avengers.

Bucky was scanning for movement in the fallen concrete.

That’s when he heard it.

It was faint, like madness like a lullaby from another life.

“Baa baa, black sheep… have you any wool…”

His whole body went still. 

He whipped around, scanning the dust and rubble, and—

There.

You were kneeling beside a crying girl on a broken stoop, blood smeared down her shin, and she had a sprained ankle— maybe. Nothing fatal—but you held her like she was made of glass, one hand gently pressing a bandage against her knee, the other stroking her curls as you sang.

And you… you hadn’t changed.

There was not a wrinkle on your skin, not a gray hair on your head. You didn’t look a day older than the last time he saw you, thirty years ago.

He was so stunned, he forgot how to breathe. 

“You know her?” Yelena asked, stepping beside him, flicking blood from her forehead.

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”

You calmed the little girl down when she started sobbing, making sure you were gentle with her injuries. 

Bucky didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His lips parted like he might say yes, but no sound came out. 

“One for the master, one for the dame,” you sang as the girl sniffled, “and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

It was like his lungs had forgotten air. His heart beat painfully inside his ribs—too much, too fast, too sudden.

And then—

You looked up.

Saw him.

And smiled.

—

You walked over to him like you were in a dream—like every step was an act of defiance to everything that had broken you, bent you, tried to erase you. 

He was now sitting on the ground, legs sprawled like they couldn’t quite hold him up anymore. Blood streaked across his jaw, already drying in cracked lines. His chest rose and fell like he’d just come back from drowning.

Your boots crunched over broken glass and gravel as you closed in. You didn’t speak at first. You didn’t know if he could handle words yet—not until your presence fully registered. 

You crouched down, and he flinched when you touched his face—not because it hurt, but because he didn’t trust that any of this was real.

“You’re hurt,” you finally said. “Let me help.”

You pulled out the antiseptic, your hands shaking slightly. You dabbed the cotton gently along the edges of a deep cut above his brow. The moment the liquid touched skin, he shuddered.

And then he started shaking.

The tremble that began in his hands and spread to his shoulders, his chest, his teeth. His mouth parted like he wanted to speak, to ask something, but the words got lost 

Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them. His breath hitched before the first choked sob, clawing its way up his throat.

And maybe it had been.

Because it wasn’t just about seeing you. It was about seeing you alive.

Alive.

Not a hallucination. Not a memory. Not like he saw you, in the void. 

Alive. With breath in your lungs and heat in your veins and the same look in your eyes that once held him when he was in pain. 

His lips moved—silent at first. Then the words came out shaky. “Do you… remember me?”

You froze for half a second, eyes softening in a way that shattered him all over again.

“Of course I do,” you whispered, brushing a stray hair away from his forehead. “I could never forget the love of my life.”

Was that what he was to you?

After all this time, he still meant the same thing that you did to him? 

He turned his face away like it might somehow spare him some tears, but it didn’t. The sob that followed ripped from the deepest part of his heart, almost primitive. Not the kind you cry when you’re sad, but the kind you cry when you realise your heart’s still beating after being convinced it was gone.

He collapsed into himself, shoulders hitching, breath stuttering out in ragged gasps. His metal hand clawed blindly at the ground like he needed something solid to hold onto before he slipped under.

You didn’t say anything else. You just moved closer, wrapping an arm gently around his shoulders, resting your forehead to his temple as he wept.

Yelena had wandered off a while ago—probably in search of someone else to pester— most likely her father. 

She hadn’t even looked back. She probably knew that this moment didn’t belong to her.

It belonged to him. And you.

He tried to say something else—an apology, maybe, or a confession—but all that came out was, “I—I…” he swallowed, “I— I…”

“Bucky…” You hushed him gently, thumb brushing the tears from his cheek. “We’ll talk somewhere private, yeah?”

He barely nodded. 

Because right now, language was too small a thing. All he could do was hold onto you. And all his mind could think was the way your hand fit in his like it always had.

—

You walked ahead of him, leading him down the cracked sidewalk with a hand hovering just near his arm in case he stumbled again.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

Every so often, Bucky would glance sideways at you—like if he looked away for too long, you might vanish. His eyes were still red, his fists clenched like it hurt to hold himself together. Still, he followed.

It wasn’t far—just a few blocks. Somewhere between tourist traps and bodegas. 

The sign above the trauma clinic was clean and professional. Your name etched in utilitarian serif, easily overlooked.

You didn’t take him through the front. Instead, you circled to the alley behind the building and paused before a rusted steel door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. But then—you looked directly at a small, seamless panel embedded beside the frame.

A red light swept across your retina, and when it recognised you— the lock hissed open with a pneumatic sigh.

“Come on,” you murmured as the door swung inward.

You descended a narrow staircase, the lights flickering on ahead of you one by one—clean, white fluorescence bathing the walls. At the bottom, it opened into a wide, reinforced corridor. 

And then you turned the final corner.

Oh.

That was all his mind could manage.

This was not a secret lab. Not some grim Hydra hellhole or impersonal bunker. 

No. This place was…

It was your life. A shrine. A sanctum buried beneath the city.

It was a sterile medical bay with sleek counters, an exam table and chair, sealed cabinets filled with trauma kits and gauze and every instrument a trauma doctor could need—but the walls told a different story.

To his right: a newspaper framed in glass. “Harlem Disaster Narrowly Avoided: Doctor Treats Over Fifty Civilians After Abomination Rampage.” Your name was in the byline. There was even a photo—blurry, taken on someone’s flip phone, of you, sleeves rolled up, arms smeared with blood as you performed a field tourniquet on a screaming man.

Then, “Unsung Hero of New York: Trauma Doctor Saves Dozens in Battle of Midtown.”

He kept turning. The memorabilia… evolved.

A cracked Daredevil helmet, dark red and scuffed.

A display case holding a single 9mm bullet, etched with the faint white skull of the Punisher— etched on it. 

A shattered web cartridge, unmistakably Spidey’s, with a bit of dried synthetic fluid still crusted at the nozzle.

Even a shelf with a glittery Ms. Marvel Funko Pop, clearly out of place, sitting cheerfully among medical books and gauze rolls.

Bucky’s voice, when it came, was nothing more than a breath. “What is this?”

You stepped beside him, your fingers trailing the little bobblehead. “Gifts from… friends.”

He turned to you. “Friends?”

You gave him a tired smile and joked, “Is it so unbelievable for me to have friends, Bucky?”

He blinked, startled by the levity. You gently nudged him to sit on the exam table, and he obeyed without protest as you cleaned his wounds. 

“I just…” he said, voice thin. “I don’t know how you’re still alive. Or how you still look so…” His eyes lingered. “…young.”

You didn't meet his gaze. “Thank Hydra.”

Bucky swallowed, but you continued. 

“When I got recruited, they injected me with something— they said it was just a stimulant— to keep me going longer, help me work longer hours.”

He went still.

“Later, I learned that it was something called the Infinity Formula. Not exactly a Super Soldier Serum, but it… slowed my aging significantly. I guess they didn't want to have to train more people.”

You kept working on the cuts on his face. 

“When you got me out… I didn’t know how to be in the world anymore. So I built this practice. I wanted to be… useful”

Your fingers paused briefly, then continued.

“But then, vigilantes started showing up. People who couldn’t go to hospitals— people who were bleeding, hunted, scared. It was a small community, so word spread.”

Bucky winced as you moved on to the next cut.

“I patched them up.” You nodded toward the artifacts on the walls. “No questions. Just… tried to keep them breathing long enough to get back out there. It became my life.”

Every artifact had a story, and you were the invisible thread stitching it together.

“A couple months ago, Fisk outlawed masked vigilantes and made everything worse. Not a lot come round anymore, but I still help. How could I not?” You looked up at him.“They show up half-dead, still trying to save people. They just need someone to believe they’re worth saving too.”

Bucky's hands curled into trembling fists at his sides.

You pulled the final stitch and wrapped the wound. “There,” you whispered. “You’re good.”

But Bucky didn’t move. He was staring again. Not at the artifacts, not at the walls. But… at you.

“You…” His voice cracked. “You never stopped.”

There was no more Hydra. No more handlers. No more needles.

And yet you continued doing what you do best. 

Back then, he'd thought he'd imagined it. That flicker of you— the only good thing in that place built to destroy anything good.

But now…

Now, here you were. Standing in front of him. Still real. Still breathing. Still looking at him like he was a man, not a weapon.

His voice, when it came, was hoarse and hesitant, like it hurt to say.

“Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He looked at you, struggling to find his voice. “Can I touch you?”

You didn’t move for a heartbeat. But then you nodded.

And that was all he needed.

He pulled you ever closer, barely daring to breathe. He lifted his metal arm so gently, like you might vanish if he pressed too hard— he cupped your cheek.

His thumb brushed along your skin, just once.

It was real. 

His other hand followed, cradling your face between his palms. His calloused fingers trembled against you, his lips parting. A man who had faced death a thousand times over… and was now utterly undone by the fact that you were standing in front of him, alive.

Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, and the first sob slipped out of him like a wound opening in real time. His whole body curled inward, as if trying to shield you and collapse into you at the same time.

Your hands came up slowly, mirroring his motion like magnets finding their way to each other after centuries apart, holding him just as gently. “I missed you, Bucky.”

His eyes, that haunted blue, searched your face. “Why didn’t you come for me?” he asked, pain buried deep in his voice. You must’ve seen him in the news— during the Sokovia Accords, the ordeal with the Flag Smashers, or when he became a congressman. You simply have had to have seen him.

You swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden sting in your eyes. “I didn’t think…,” you admitted, “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

His brows furrowed. “Of course I remembered you,” he said, a little broken, a little desperate. His thumb moved again, tracing circles against your skin. “But Hydra told me you were dead— I never believed them. But after everything, I thought maybe you’d moved on. That you were gone for good, one way or another.”

Tears welled in your eyes now, hot and brimming over, and you let them fall. “After what we’ve been through?” you asked, your voice trembling as a sad smile curled your lips. “How could I ever move on from you?”

He let out a sharp breath, like your words were a punch to the chest. Gently, as if giving you the chance to pull away,  he pulled you closer — chest to chest, heart to heart — until he helped you up and you were straddling his lap, your hands finding a perch on his shoulders, his arms caging you in like you were the most precious thing he’d ever held.

His forehead rested against yours again, breaths mingling, warm and shallow. 

“God, Bucky…After all this time,” you whispered in amazement, “what are we?”

He didn’t answer right away. 

Then, finally, with certainty, he said, “A choice.”

Your breath hitched.

“A choice,” he repeated, eyes locked with yours, his grip tightening slightly on your hips. “The first real choice I made after having my mind taken from me. The first person I cared for that were not orders, not missions.”

Oh.

You let your fingers trail up into his hair, letting yourself touch him like you’d dreamed about for so long. He leaned into it, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat.

You swallowed again, sighed when he leaned into your touch. 

“I…” you started, but  pulled back just slightly so you could see his face, your eyes meeting his. “Can I kiss you?”

He looked at you like you were the only person in the world that made any sense.

He could only nod. 

And you kissed him.

It was cautious at first, tentative, like a secret being unravelled — but the second he hummed, the world disappeared. His hand slid to the back of your neck, the other anchoring you to him as he kissed you like he’d been holding his breath for years. You melted into him, your mouths moving together like you’d done this a thousand times in your dreams.

When you finally pulled back, your forehead pressed to his again, both of you smiling like teenagers.

You let out a small laugh, “I’ve always wondered what your lips tasted like.”

He chuckled too, that low, boyish sound you hadn’t heard… ever. “Yeah?” he asked, fingers still tracing lazy lines along your spine. “Was it everything you imagined?”

You grinned, eyes still closed. “Better.”

He kissed your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth and whispered, “I missed you, too.”

—

You and Bucky had taken it slow.

After those first intense days together, you both decided to learn about each other outside of Hydra. Just to see who you were now. 

You went on actual dates— coffee that turned into late dinners, morning hikes, lazy afternoons in museums, cooking together and arguing over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. 

Turns out, outside the cold walls of bunkers and laboratories and hidden bases, you and Bucky were more compatible than you'd even dared hope. He liked vinyl records and peaceful mornings. You liked stargazing and stealing his sweaters. You both loved old noir films, loved sushi, and had developed a strangely passionate shared hobby for urban beekeeping.

You laughed more. He smiled more. It was like discovering each other for the first time all over again.

You’d kept your medical practice open, still offering your services to non-traditional patients. But when the Watchtower was done and the New Avengers moved in, they asked you to help the team.

Your official title was Medical Liaison and Trauma Consultant, but mostly you patched up a rotating cast of stubborn supersoldiers and spies who swore they “healed fast” and then passed out on your med bay floor.

But today, the med bay was calm — just a light checkup for Alexei, a bruised rib for Yelena, and a lot of banter.

Everyone knew you and Bucky were dating, but no one had the guts (or stupidity) to ask questions. 

Until now.

You were cleaning up your tray of instruments when Bob leaned back in his chair and asked casually, “So… how did you guys meet again?”

You paused.

Bucky, seated on the edge of the exam table with his shirt half-buttoned, glanced at you.

“Oh, you know,” you blinked, “Mutual enemies.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What does that even mean?” Walker asked, clearly disappointed. 

You smiled sweetly. “It means you don’t want to know.”

Yelena squinted at you from the other bed. “It means the real story is either classified or deeply traumatic.”

“Or both,” Alexei said.

You laughed — a little too brightly for the topic — and handed Yelena her discharge form. “Exactly. Now who’s next for bloodwork?”

Bucky slid off the table, kissing your cheek quickly as he passed. Ava rolled her eyes so hard you could practically hear it.

Mutual enemies? Yeah, right. 

The more accurate term would be: the best thing Hydra never meant to happen. 

– end.

General Bucky taglist:

@hotlinepanda @snflwr-vol6 @ruexj283 @2honeybees @read-just-cant

 @shanksstrawhat @mystictf @globetrotter28 @thebuckybarnesvault @average-vibe

@winchestert101 @mystictf @globetrotter28 @boy--wonder--187 @scariusaquarius

@reckless007 @hextech-bros @daydreamgoddess14 @96jnie @pono-pura-vida

@buckyslove1917 @notsostrangerthing @flow33didontsmoke @qvynrand @blackbirdwitch22

@torntaltos @seventeen-x @ren-ni @iilsenewman @slayerofthevampire

@hiphip-horray @jbbucketlist @melotyy @ethereal-witch24 @samfunko

@lilteef @hi172826 @pklol @average-vibe @shanksstrawhat

@shower-me-with-roses @athenabarnes @scarwidow @thriving-n-jiving @dilfsaresohot

@helloxgoodbi @undf-stuff @sapphirebarnes @hzdhrtss @softhornymess

@samfunko @wh1sp @anonymousreader4d7 @mathcat345 @escapefromrealitylol

@imjusthere1161 @sleepysongbirdsings @fuckybarnes @yn-stories-are-my-life @rIphunter

@cjand10 @nerdreader @am-3-thyst @wingstoyourdreams @lori19

@goldengubs @maryevm @helen-2003 @maryssong23 @fan4astic

@yesshewrites1 @thewiselionessss @sangsterizada @jaderabbitt @softpia 

@hopeofwinter @nevereclipse @tellybearryyyy @buckybarneswife125 @buckybarneswife125

@imaginecrushes @phoenixes-and-wizards @rowanthomasknapp @daystarpoet @thefandomplace

@biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @herejustforbuckybarnes @kitasownworld @shortandb1tchy @roxyym