A blanket and hot cocoa for the clones

Someone who did notice, however, was Bucky, master of letting his demons sweep him away into the depths. It had taken him years to stop letting negative thoughts have their way with him. But the familiarity he felt, seeing you disappear into yourself, made him wonder how exactly he could help you.

Bucky noticed the change in you long before anyone else had. His gaze lingered on you longer than it used to, quiet calculation behind those winter-blue eyes, concern unspoken but ever-present. He recognized the rhythm of vanishing, of shrinking into your own gravity well, because he'd done it a thousand times himself. He saw the silences where your dry wit used to nest, saw the way your laugh didn't quite reach your eyes, how you flinched when someone called your name like you hoped that you didn't have one anymore, like you wanted to continue to fly under the radar.

You weren't necessarily avoiding people, not really. You still showed up where it mattered. But he knew you didn't want to be seen.

That morning, you'd come into HQ late. Not egregiously, not so late that anyone would have sounded the alarm bells. You slipped in, avoided the communal kitchen, took the back stairwell to the 4th floor where you knew traffic was thinner, no Avengers or agents to stop and make small talk. You were like vapor, formless, and invisible. The only person you hadn't accounted for was Bucky, who stood at the end of the hallway with a mug in his hand, leaning against the wall outside your office door like he'd been waiting all morning.

You froze mid-step.

He didn't speak right away. He just sipped his coffee, eyes on you, silent and still.

"You're gonna go and hide in there all day, huh?" he asked finally, voice low.

Your jaw twitched. "Not in the mood for company, Buck."

"Yeah," he said, "I know."

That should've been the end of it, but he followed you into your office anyway. You didn't stop him or tell him to leave. You shut the door and went to your desk, clicking your computer awake just to keep your hands busy. You felt his eyes on you like a he was seeing you through a scope.

"You're not yourself. You're worrying people." he said softly, no prelude to the statement.

You scoffed, without looking at him. "Bullshit."

"I mean it. Wanda asked me if you were mad at her. Nat asked if she said something to piss you off." He stepped in closer. You didn't move, allowing the intrusion for now. "You've gone quiet. Not just quiet—you're disappearing."

You spun your chair toward him. "Why do you care?"

Bucky didn't flinch. His expression didn't harden. Instead, he crossed over to the window and shut the blinds, bathing the room in dimness. Sunlight still peeked through the edges, but everything was awash in shades of gray.

"I don’t know if I do, not like them," he said, not sugarcoating the words. "But I recognize the way your hands are shaking when you don't think anyone's looking. The way you start breathing like you're trapped. I know that taste in your mouth. It's like you just ate something bitter, isn't it?"

You didn't answer, discomfort welling up under your skin.

He came around the desk and sat on the edge, right beside you, his knee brushing the arm of your chair.

"You're not fooling anyone. You're just making it harder for people to reach you."

"That's the point," you muttered.

Bucky laughed once, though the sound was devoid of happiness. "You think pushing everyone away s'gonna give you back some control? All it does is push it further away."

You looked at him, finally, and saw the storm behind his calm. The tiredness. The weight. And the unflinching patience beneath it all. "You're going to lecture me now?"

"No." He shook his head. "I'm gonna sit here until you stop looking like you want to break apart or jump out the window."

He let the silence stretch between you, a tightrope between pushing him away, out of your office, and letting him in, whatever that looked like.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't have to. But I'm not leaving."

"Even if I just sit here for an hour doing nothing?"

He leaned back on your desk with one hand, settling in. "Then I guess I'm sitting too."

You watched him. Something knotted in your chest, then slowly began to loosen. "You're annoying," you muttered, though you didn't say it with any sort of conviction.

"Yeah."

You looked at your lap, then leaned back in your chair, arms folded tight. You let the silence come again, to sit between the two of you. This time it wasn't so sharp.

"Thanks," you said, almost under your breath.

He didn't respond, only moving to tilt his coffee cup to his mouth. But he didn't leave. It seemed he was going to settle in, to weather the storm with you, even though it wasn't his rain to get stuck in. Even though the cloudy sky was all yours to stand under.

The first five minutes were the most difficult. It was inherently uncomfortable, sharing a space with someone who knew you were bothered. At least he wasn't hovering. He was simply a presence. If it had been Wanda, she would have been all fluttering hands and worried eyes and soft, prying questions, meaning well but entirely the wrong medicine for your ailment.

And Bucky stayed sitting there, a steadfast touchstone in a room that only ticked with the sound of the clock, with your own breath and heartbeat. You pushed back in your chair, extending your legs, letting them stretch, then covered your face with your hands, letting out a muffled groan. When you peeked over your fingers, Bucky was still there, exactly as you expected, not giving nor taking an inch, let alone a mile.

You still didn't want to talk about it. There was nothing to say, not really, just that you were feeling intense disquiet that you couldn't put a definition to. Just that you felt unrest. You pushed your chair forward, closer to the desk, your arm brushing against Bucky's leg. You put both your elbows on the wood, your chin in both hands, and huffed out a breath that was more akin to a sigh.

Bucky didn't interrupt your inner workings. He stayed true to his word, basking in your silence. Another five minutes of listening to the seconds tap by. You scrubbed a a hand over your face again, as if it would wipe away your feelings. It didn't.

That was when your shoulders slumped, like you were giving in, and you tipped sideways, your head coming to rest against Bucky's arm. You weren't one for physical contact, not usually—it was easier to hold people at arm's length than to let them in—but the press of his skin against your temple was grounding, like a tether to keep you to the physical plane instead of the mess in your mind.

Bucky didn't move when you leaned in. He didn't tense, or exhale in some smug triumph, or pat your head. He didn't say anything sappy or self-satisfied. He simply shifted his weight, just enough to accommodate your head resting against his arm, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You weren't crying. That would've been easier, maybe. A good cry tended to bring catharsis, a kind of rinse cycle for your soul. This? This was static. A thick, droning numbness under your skin, like grief without a name. It didn't stab, but it did bleed.

But there was something to be said for being allowed to sit in it, without being fixed, no tape or nails or glue for you to smother under. Bucky understood that, more than most. He didn't press a hand to your back, didn't whisper that it was going to be okay. That kind of assurance only came from people who needed to make themselves feel better.

Instead, he stayed still, like a solid thing in a world that wouldn't stop spinning.

"You don't have to explain it," he said eventually, voice quiet, just above a murmur. "You don't even have to name it."

You hummed, or tried to. It came out shaky, somewhere between agreement and resignation. Your eyes were still open, unfocused, fixed on nothing in particular.

"I used to hate this feeling," Bucky went on, not for himself, but for you. "Still do, but less now. When everything's loud inside and quiet outside. You wanna scream just to make the room match your head."

Your lip twitched. A small, rueful sound left you, breath laced with the edge of a laugh.

"Yeah," you said, barely audible, your voice little more than a scratch. "That's about right."

He tilted his head slightly to glance down at you. You didn't move, cheek still pressed to his bicep, gaze low and faraway. There was no tension in your limbs anymore, no bristling withdrawal. Just fatigue. That bone-deep weariness that had no physical cause, only weight. The kind of tired that made existing feel like labor.

"Have you ever gotten rid of it?" you asked after a long stretch of quiet.

"The weight?" he said.

You nodded.

He let out a breath through his nose. Not a sigh, just a thought made distinct.

"Sometimes it leaves on its own," he said. "Sometimes you've gotta claw it off piece by piece. Most times, it stays. But it gets lighter when someone else helps hold it for a while."

The words weren't meant to fix you. They weren't meant to provide a light bulb moment, a solution to all of your woes. They just existed, like he did. Said out into the open air, as easily as he sat beside you.

And somehow, that was what you needed.

You didn't lift your head, but your arm moved, just enough that your fingers brushed the skin of his forearm. A barely-there contact. Not asking for comfort, but acknowledging it.

He shifted slightly again, letting the graze of your fingertips rest against him with the softest pressure, just letting the point of contact happen.

You stopped listening to the tick of the clock. You focused instead on something organic. Something that could be predicted, but could change at a moment's notice, too. Bucky's breathing. You listened to his steady inhale, slow exhale. He seemed to be at peace, unlike you, not currently at war with inner demons. You wished you could enter the same peace talks with your own.

It was your own shame that you didn't know Bucky as well as you did some of the others on the team. It was because you didn't really know what to say to him. Didn't know what your common ground was, if you had any. It would be disappointing if this was all, the struggle to ease the voices in your head.

It was like he knew that you were thinking about him. He shifted first, just enough for you to lean away, breaking contact. The hesitant touch on your head, a glide through your hair, faint and then gone like a whisper from the wind, was what made you tilt your head up, to meet his eyes. "I can't fix whatever's wrong," he said plainly.

"I know." You agreed. You hadn't expected him to. The last thing you could picture was Bucky flipping open a notebook and jotting down all that was troubling you while you reclined on a couch, a cheap imitation of therapy.

The blue of his eyes was grounding. He made a sound in his throat, almost like he was frustrated, like he didn't know how else to explain what he wanted to say. You saw the quiver of his hand, where it rose in the air for a second, then stilled, hovering, then moved again, the other one doing the same. Your next exhale was one of surprise when those hands settled on your cheeks, keeping your face turned up, eyes locked on his, you in your chair, him sitting at the edge of your desk. An experimental brush of his thumb on your cheek was disarming enough to make you forget momentarily. To forget your distress. "I can't fix what's wrong, but I'm here." He said, voice quiet.

There was no offer to take away your pain or drag you out of the darkness. Just a steady, living truth—that he was here, that he wasn't going anywhere. That if you needed a place to fall, he could be that without asking for anything in return.

Your breath caught, your emotions morphing, for a second, your focus diverted from your sadness and instead concentrated on the fact that no one had ever touched you quite like this before. Not with care like this, quiet and unflinching. His hands on your cheeks weren't possessive or hesitant. They were anchoring. As if to say, if the wave drags you under, I'll dive in after you, and I'll make sure you come back to the surface.

Your eyes searched his, though you didn't know what you were looking for. Some kind of answer. Some kind of reassurance that he wouldn't vanish after this moment ended. That he wouldn't pull back and leave you alone if and when you got like this again.

He looked at you like someone watching a fragile sculpture wobble on the edge of a shelf, willing it not to fall but refusing to panic. So calm, so composed, like he did this for a living, held people together when they couldn't anymore.

Your hands rose, slowly. You touched his wrists, tentative at first, not to pull him away but to keep him steady, like all of a sudden you were afraid he'd let you go.

"Bucky," you said. Just his name. It came out raw.

He didn't smile, but something in his face softened. As though the sound of his name in your voice did something to him, a twist of a key you didn't know you held, placed in a lock he didn't realize could still be opened.

"I know what it's like," he said. "To want to burn it all down just to feel something. Or to stop feeling anything."

You swallowed. That particular ghost was familiar.

"But there's more to you than that," he went on. His thumbs brushed slow arcs over your skin. "You don't see it, but I do. I've been there. I still go there. But you don't have to go alone."

Something stung behind your eyes—not tears yet, but close, the familiar tightness a warning signal. You clenched your jaw in an attempt to hold it off.

"I don't know how to do this," you admitted. "To just let the feelings happen, and then to shed them and move on."

"Me neither," he said, just as quiet. "But I've done it before. And you will, too."

And then, he did something you didn’t expect.

He leaned in—not fast, not hesitant, but with a kind of earnestness that made your heart stop—and he pressed his forehead to yours. Just that. Just the warm touch of his skin against yours, the breath between you shared.

What you might have looked like, to anyone who happened to walk in, you didn't know. A soldier, hunched over a girl who was tired of emotion, her head tipped up to his like a flower seeking the sun. But no one walked in. Your eyes closed, just for a few seconds, just for long enough for your heartbeat to settle, your breath to even out.

When he pulled back, his hands stayed on your cheeks a moment longer. Then they dropped, slow and sure, returning to his lap like he'd said everything he needed to say, with those simple gestures more than with his words.

You nodded, faint but real. "Okay," you whispered.

You didn't know what to do with what he'd given you. It was like holding water in your hands, trying to keep it from slipping through your fingers. It helped, you thought, that he wasn't expecting anything from you. You could have reacted in any way, and he wouldn't have taken offense. He would have let it ride, whatever you needed to do to get through it, to parse through your feelings.

It was precisely that—that openness, that allowance—that almost made you feel panic when his hands left your face. It was like they had been silencers for your mind, like the press of his skin on yours had stopped your brain for a second, allowed it to sleep, reboot, hum back to life like it was supposed to, instead of circle the drain of desperation.

Your own hand moved, hesitant as a mouse, your finger scratching at the denim of Bucky's jeans, right above his knee. You'd turned your chair when you did it, avoiding his eyes, just focusing on the dark fabric, the unshakeable presence of the body underneath it. You didn't know how to ask for more comfort. You didn't know if that was even what you needed. Did you want to be held? Did you want to be pulled close, or would that feel like the air was being choked from your lungs, the need to run returning tenfold?

You were about to get your answer, because when your eyes flicked up again to Bucky's, your nail scratch-scratch-scratching on his jeans, he saw a glimmer, a flash of something there. He let out a sigh like he was world-weary, though it wasn't aimed at you. Then he was standing, forcing you to drop your hand, and murmuring, "Come here," extending both arms, leaving his body open for a blow or a bear hug, whatever you decided.

Your fingers were clutching at the fabric of his shirt before you'd even realized that you had stood from your chair, that you'd wound your arms around him, that you were holding on for dear life, like you were about to slip out of gravity's grasp and escape into space.

You collided with him like a wave, a force that crested only when it crashed. Your hands fisted into his shirt—worn cotton, soft from age and laundering, smelling faintly like coffee and soap and him—and you buried your face in the curve of his shoulder. There was no noise, no sob, no gasp. Just your body pressed tight to his, every muscle in you coiled like wire, clinging with the ferocity of someone finally letting themselves need.

And Bucky…

Bucky folded around you like he'd been built for it.

His arms locked around your back in a single motion, strong and grounding. You were a balloon and he was holding your string tightly. One hand splayed flat between your shoulder blades, the other settling low on your spine. All he did was hold you. Just hold, no squeeze or rocking or whispered words. As if he could absorb the ache through proximity, leech it out of your bones and banish it to his own.

You didn't realize how tight your grip was until he shifted slightly, the movement causing your fingers to bunch harder into the fabric at his back. It was instinct. Desperate preservation, like any tiny action might mean he was pulling away, and you needed him to shelter you for however long you could get away with.

"I'm not going anywhere," he murmured, breath warming the shell of your ear.

Your breath hitched. Still no tears. Still no sobs. But your head was pressed against him like he was the only object in the world sturdy enough to lean on. And he was, to you. There was no tremble in his stance. No falter in his grip. He wasn't made of steel—well, not entirely—but it didn't matter. He felt unbreakable in that moment, immovable, like if the building were to spontaneously collapse around you, he'd still be there holding onto you when the dust settled.

There were no words in any language to convey how you felt, so instead you stayed locked around him, your heart against his, listening now not just to his breath but to the beat of his pulse beneath his shirt, soothing you in its steady cadence.

And after a while, your own breath began to match his. Not perfectly, but it found a rhythm again, something outside the choking irregularity of your panic. That relentless tide of unnamed grief eased. Just slightly, just enough for you to notice that you were, in fact, still inside your own body.

His hand moved once, slow and sure, a glide up your back. A reminder that he was there, that he saw you, that he understood.

You loosened your grip gradually. Not because you were ready to let go, but because you realized you could. That you could, and he'd still be standing there, solid and quiet and ready for you if you needed him again, whether that would be in a second, or days from now.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you mumbled, voice rough from disuse and emotion, muffled by the crook of his neck.

"Neither do I," he said, without a hint of apology. "But it doesn't matter."

It was a very long time that you stood together, arms wrapped tight like bows on a gift. It was almost like you wanted it to hurt, wanted it to dig, to pull, to scoop out your feelings. But it was steady instead, a super soldier holding you softly as silk, not because you were breakable, or damaged goods, but because it was what you needed.

You knew that you would need to let go soon, to uncoil and dust yourself off, to return to normal. But you suddenly felt terrified of the loss of the weight of his arms, one flesh and bone, the other metal and wires, across your back. In an instant, Bucky Barnes had dissolved the line that had boxed him in as 'teammate' and had created a new one that labelled him 'irreplaceable'. As 'safety'. And now you wondered how you would ever be able to function without the grounding comfort of the Winter Soldier soothing your soul with few words and fewer actions.

Like a night light in the dark, you worried that if you tried facing your fears alone, a monster in the closet might appear. But how did you ask to be held, to be cradled and kept, when it wasn't his obligation? When it wasn't his responsibility, his burden? When you weren't a problem for him to solve? Ten more seconds, you told yourself. Ten more seconds of safety and warmth, and then you would let go, be a normal person, shove your melancholy down and put on a brave face. Ten seconds and you would step away, smooth your shirt, and thank him for his time with a brisk smile. Ten more seconds, you swore.

You counted them in your head slowly, like a child postponing bedtime. Ten, nine, eight.

You weren't ready for the world again, not yet, not when it was so loud and so expectant beyond the circle of his arms. His breath stirred the hair at your temple each time he exhaled, unhurried, like he had nowhere else he needed to be.

Seven, six. You tried to loosen your grip, but your fingers betrayed you, clutching again at the fabric, your brain unable to conjure up a valid reason to release him. The motion was small, involuntary, but he understood. His hand slid once down your spine, and the metal one that had moved to your waist gave a quiet mechanical sigh as its plates shifted. It was unspoken permission: stay as long as you need.

Your throat tightened. Five, four. He didn't fill the silence with reassurance. That was the mercy of him—he knew better than to make promises he couldn't keep. He'd never been one to spin fairytales. Instead, he tilted his chin, resting it against your hair.

Three. The air in the room had changed. It was no longer heavy, at least not to you. It was hushed, as though the walls themselves were waiting to see if you'd really make good on your countdown, your silent bargain with yourself. You realized you were breathing easier, chest rising without effort. Easier than you had in a few days. The panic hadn't disappeared, but it had lost its edges.

Your hands, trembling but obedient, began to uncurl. You flattened your palms against his sides, the tiniest shuffle of your feet as you rearranged where your hands fit, where your arms belonged. Two. For a second you thought of saying something—anything—to make the moment make sense. Thank you, maybe. Or I’m sorry. Or don’t go. But none of those belonged. They were too small for what had happened, too fragile.

One.

You drew back, only an inch at first, then another. His arms didn't fall away immediately—they lingered, hovering in the space where your body had been, a hesitation that said only if you’re ready. And you were. Not healed, not fixed, but steady enough to stand.

When you finally looked up, his eyes were on you, the blue of them soft, like a watercolour sky. A question lived there, unspoken and kind: Do you need me?

You shook your head. It wasn't a lie, exactly. You didn't need him. Maybe if he had said something different with his eyes, something like, do you still want me? you would have had a different answer.

Bucky let out a breath, the faintest ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Then he stepped back, giving you space. The room felt colder instantly, the warmth of his body gone, but it felt lighter too, like the air after a thunderstorm. You smoothed your shirt, just to give your hands something to do. The instinct to fill the silence flared, but you strangled it, unwilling to break the quiet with a stupid quip.

"Thanks," you said finally. It was barely a whisper, and it wasn't enough, but he caught it.

He gave a small nod. "Anytime."

Then, as if afraid you might instantly return to your internal strife again, he added, "You don't have to wait 'til it gets bad to find me. Not anymore."

He was leaving the door open for you. An invitation to seek him out when you needed it, if you wanted to. To be in the presence of someone who understood. You managed a faint smile, but at least it was a real one. "Okay."

And that was that. He turned toward the doorway, moving with the quiet grace of someone trained to leave no trace. You stayed where you were, watching him go, feeling the echo of his arms like warmth after sunlight.

When the door clicked shut behind him, you sat back down, exhaling into the silence he'd left behind, nothing but the sound of the clock and its ticking.

And you wondered if Bucky might just be your cure.

It wasn't that you felt lighter, not really. It was more that you could breathe, like before you'd been inhaling water, and now it was air. You could stand to be in a room with other people for more than a minute. You were coming back to yourself, bit by bit. Bucky and you remained as you had before. Not really friends, but able to trust each other when it counted in missions, neither of you having to ask for assistance, because the other would already be moving into position. But sometimes you saw a flicker in his eyes, like he was reminding you he was there, like he was holding you up from a distance, without saying it. Without making it a big deal.

Perhaps it was that, the graceful distance, that helped. Sometimes you did feel a phantom itch to walk into the space his arms had carved out for you, to self-soothe by being embraced by a soldier who knew the worth of an immovable presence, but you refrained from doing so. It was a bad thing, to depend on someone else.

It was coincidence that you'd been in the hangar weeks later when Steve and Bucky had returned from a mission, sweat cooling on their skin. Whatever they'd set out to do, it had gone poorly, you knew that much. You'd heard enough murmured by the ground team that had approved the Quinjet's landing. Steve hadn't even noticed you by the wall, having just returned a set of tools to the on-site mechanics. He strode past, head down, hand rubbing at his jaw.

Bucky trailed behind, tension coiled tight. You could read it with hardly a glance, the way his jaw was clenched, hands in fists. There was a scratch on the side of his face. He stopped in the middle of the hangar like he'd been yanked by a hook. Like he just needed to be still or he'd erupt. Every inch of him screamed 'caution, vicious animal, do not approach', but you moved on autopilot, a fox wandering over a bear trap hidden by leaves.

Full speed ahead, you entered his space without a thought, your arms reaching out, one folding under his arm and coiling around his back, the other winding over his shoulder, your hand finding the back of his head and holding there. You were standing on your toes, your chin on his shoulder, enveloping him in a hug that you had no idea if he needed. He could have easily shoved you away, bared his teeth, told you to stay away. Bucky Barnes wasn't the kind of man who was held, who was comforted and soothed and squeezed by a much smaller body. That had been trained out of him.

But he didn't shove you away. He didn't bare his teeth. He didn't even blink.

For three seconds flat, Bucky Barnes was a marble statue—frozen under your touch, hard angles locked, breath caught somewhere deep in his chest where words were supposed to live. You could feel it, the rigidity in every muscle, the static charge of adrenaline still curling through his limbs like he was one wrong move away from detonating. Like he was a loaded gun, and it was anyone's guess as to if he'd release the trigger. And still you held him. Without hesitation. Without expectation. Like you'd found the crack in the armor and poured yourself in.

Your hand at the back of his head was steady, a cradle to rest his thoughts, your fingertips threading just barely into his hair. It was an intimate hold because it gave him no place to hide. Short of removing you from him, there was no way for him to deflect, to pretend he wasn't a live wire. Not when your chin was tucked to his shoulder, not when your chest pressed against his and your arms laced around him like you were shielding him from something.

And the most astonishing thing?

He let you.

He didn't lift his arms at first, still too caught off-guard to do so, but his fists loosened. That was the first sign. You felt it in the shift of his weight, the way his right arm lowered slightly, like he was trying to remember how to be held. Because even though this was a mirror to the hug you'd gotten from him, he'd been in a different headspace, then. He had been focused on comforting you, not the other way around. The metal arm was slower. You felt it rise, unsure, pausing mid-air as if waiting for permission. And you didn't give it, because you didn't need to. Staying was enough. That same stillness you had found in him once, you now offered in return.

Then, quietly, the tension broke.

Bucky exhaled, a slow, rough breath that seemed to scrape itself from the bottom of his lungs. You didn't hear it so much as feel it, the drop of his shoulders, the tremor across his back like something snapped and allowed for movement. That's when his arms came around you, sudden and strong.

His hold on you this time wasn't like before, no security and safety. This was desperation.

He pulled you in like he couldn't quite believe you were real. His head tilted slightly, forehead dropping to your shoulder, face turned in toward your neck. His grip was the kind that said I need this more than I want to admit. The kind that said I can’t speak or I’ll shatter.

Around you, the hangar kept buzzing, forklifts rolling and voices echoing across the wide concrete walls, but none of it pierced your moment. No one came close. It was just you and Bucky, a tangle of limbs and a silent spill of emotion, with him pouring it out into your waiting hands, the vessel in which you'd keep him safe.

Your hand stayed in his hair, unbothered that he was damp with sweat. You whispered nothing, no comforting words. You didn't need to. He wasn't a man who needed to coddle or coo or encourage. He needed presence, and you gave it freely, like breath, like blood.

Time ceased to matter, like it had once before. All that mattered was that you stayed. It was all that could matter.

Eventually, he pulled back, though not far, just enough to look at you. You wondered if he'd had to bargain with himself, too. If there'd been a countdown in his head. His eyes were stormy, and you could read the exhaustion, the anger, the restraint that lived there. That wildness was still there too, like barbed wire in his gut, but the sharpest edges had dulled. You'd taken the worst of the sting.

"You didn't have to do that," he said, voice rough as sandpaper.

You tilted your head, refusing to look away. "Neither did you."

He blinked, the faintest flicker of surprise in his eyes. Maybe he hadn't expected the answer. Maybe he'd brushed off that bad day you'd had, let it fall away to the back of his memories, something inconsequential, but something told you that wasn't it.

Bucky's mouth parted. He looked like he wanted to say something. Something careful, or grateful, or lost. But what came out instead, in a rasp of breath so soft you nearly missed it, was, "Thanks."

You stayed close, one hand still on his arm, acknowledgement unnecessary.

And when you stepped back, you did it slowly, giving him time, space, the same grace he had once offered you.

Neither of you said anything else, because you didn't need to.

The line between you had changed again, and this time, it wouldn't go back. Because it was one thing for you to let him comfort you. It was entirely another to be let in by him.

It was a strange thing, to know how to soothe someone. Stranger to know it was the same way in which you could be soothed. It made it simple, to not have to explain yourself and what you needed, at least. It still made for moments you didn't expect, though.

Late at night, alone in your room, your bed, your mind. Thoughts running wild, denying you sleep, insisting that you look, look at this, look at all the things you bury deep and dark. Eyes on the ceiling but not seeing the plaster. Sheets feeling claustrophobic, but every time they were kicked off, unease at the exposure. Hours spent like that, until you were too exhausted and unstable to stay still anymore. You were upright and out of your bed in a sluggish way, though you wanted to move like you were escaping a fire.

You were in the hallway moments later, stumbling a path to the lounge. Nothing would change there. New scenery wouldn't help. But you couldn't be in your room anymore, the place where you were supposed to find peace, because all you felt was destruction instead. Imagine your surprise, or lack thereof, when the figure already present on the couch turned its head towards you, and you saw the equally tired, haunted eyes that belonged to Bucky. It was without a second thought that his arm raised over the back of the couch, like a signal to you.

You were there within the minute, under his arm and tucked into his side, your legs folding over his lap like you'd done it a hundred times. His other hand found one of your knees, splayed there like he was making sure you were real and not an apparition. The two of you, electric currents, running from skeletons in your closets, but grounding each other in the same breath with no words exchanged, only the closeness that had been pulling at you like a chord that needed to be tuned.

It didn't even feel strange anymore, the way your bodies fit together. No click, no jolt, just a soft, inevitable joining, like gravity tugging a falling object to earth. Bucky didn't ask why you were there. He didn't look surprised, either. His hand on your knee stayed steady, thumb brushing once over the bone, like a priest tracing a ward against harm.

You leaned your temple against his jaw, and he shifted to accommodate, angling slightly to let you nestle closer, his arm a warm presence at your back. There was no tension in his muscles, just acceptance. Familiarity. Maybe even expectation. Like he'd known deep down that you'd come, like clockwork. Like he'd been waiting.

The room was dim, barely lit by the pale blue glow of the TV and the weak yellow of the lamp in the corner. It was late enough that the world blurred between dream and memory, when secrets slipped easier into the air, but neither of you spoke. This wasn't a slumber party. Moreover, speech wasn't necessary. You were tuned into each other enough that you could both predict what the other was mulling over.

Bucky's breathing was steady, but you could feel the catch in it every now and then. He was just as wrecked as you, but he quieter about it, better at hiding it. You'd learned to recognize the signs: the slight tick in his jaw when his thoughts turned dark, the subtle flex of his left hand when memories floated too close to the surface. Tonight, they were all there.

Yet still, he held you.

And you held him, too, even if it didn't look like it. Your weight against him wasn't something that felt like you were trespassing. It was an answer. It was an echo. It was a reflection. You could tell by the way he leaned back further into the cushions, as if your being there gave him permission to collapse, even just a bit, for a little while.

You tilted your face up slightly, cheek brushing the stubble along his jaw. "Couldn't sleep," you finally murmured. The words came out flat, an offering more than an explanation.

"I know," he replied, just as soft, not because he'd heard you tossing and turning, and not even because it was obvious, but because he felt it. You were two magnets spun on the same axis. Whenever one tipped, the other did too. You had begun to sync up, lately. It was uncanny, how you showed up for each other before the need even made itself known.

A long silence followed, but it wasn't awkward. It was welcome, neither of you moving to fill the silence, to offer up anything more than you needed to. All it was was the occasional creak of the couch beneath you, the faint buzz of the TV, muted on what looked to be a slew of infomercials. You watched your fingers toy absently with the hem of your sweatshirt, tugging at a loose thread.

"I wish it would all just…stop. Don't you?" you asked eventually, your voice tired, the words like smoke.

"Yeah," he said. No hesitation. "Every day."

That should have hurt to hear. That should have made things worse, the realization that sometimes, life sucked, and everyone knew it, and no one could fix it. But it didn't. It was the honesty of the admission. The lack of shame. The absence of judgment. You hadn't even realized you'd needed to hear someone else say it until he did.

"But it doesn’t stop," you said.

"No." His hand squeezed your knee gently. "Sometimes it slows down, though. Just enough to breathe."

You turned your face into his chest, inhaling slowly, letting his scent fill your lungs. He was made up of worn cotton, detergent and aftershave. And beneath that, steel and silence, the memory of cold. And yet, he was warm—the warmest thing you had ever felt.

You wondered when you had started needing this. Not just someone, but him. The particular shape of his quiet. The specific weight of his presence.

His hand lifted, brushing your hair back over your ear, as if it was instinctual. That's touching each other had become: reflex. To care for each other in small, wordless ways, because it meant more than a comforting phrase.

"I don't want to be a burden. Tell me if you want me to go." you murmured into his shirt.

"You're not a burden."

"You say that so fast."

"Because it's true."

You let out a breath, before saying something that felt dangerous to admit. "I feel like if I stop touching you, I'll fall apart."

"You won't," he said, calm and sure. Then, a pause. "But if you do, I'll be here to catch you."

You didn't say anything after that. You simply curled closer, your legs tightening over his, your hand sliding beneath his sweatshirt to rest at his side, palm to warm skin, like you'd done it your whole life.

He let you, relaxing further into the couch, like it was all he'd been waiting for.

And in the quiet hours of the night, with nothing but darkness outside the windows and a thundercloud behind your eyes, you drifted not into sleep, but into stillness, something shared, a place where you could rest together.

There were a few times like that, bleeding from one moment to the next, over the following months. Sleepless nights where you seemed to beckon to each other. Moments where you withdrew, or he did. Moments where one of you needed to hold, the other to be held, but there was no tally, no score card. Only understanding was carved under your skin.

You drifted together in times of distress, though you never said it out loud. It was unspoken, one soul calling to another, asking a question and receiving a response.

You had learned that your best medicine, your best pain relief, was the feeling of Bucky's arms, the sound of his breathing, the scent of his skin. A dangerous thing, to rely on someone so heavily. Perhaps you would have felt more alarm if you didn't know that you were the same band-aid to him, too.

It was instinct now, habit to seek each other out when it all became too much. As ingrained in you as brushing your teeth, as checking the street before crossing it. But you were bound to slip up, to count on the safety of his arms to reel you in.

It was like a steady pulse in your bones. You had been having many good days. So had he. The need to fall into each other hadn't come about. This was great, for both of you, truly. And yet...

He was leaned against the wall of the weapons room, talking to Sam. Whatever was being said was lost on you. You were supposed to be fixing the wiring on your comms set. You were making a good show of doing so, but you were distracted by the thumping in your head, the sound that told you what you were craving. Sam wrapped up the conversation, saying goodbye to Bucky, and calling out the same thing to you. Your response was faint, a beat late, like you really had been absorbed in your work. Bucky lingered in that same spot by the wall. He was supposed to be cataloguing his own gear, anyway, he just hadn't started yet.

You were up and moving, stepping into his space, your feet between his, your arms tight, tighter, around his ribs, forehead meeting neck, your breath soft against his shirt. His first instinct was alarm—he hadn't caught on to any sadness, any despair from you. He wasn't the type to ask, but he felt the question lingering on his tongue. "I'm okay," you said quickly, your voice a hushed sound. "I just wanted to feel you."

The admission felt like it should have cost something. Perhaps it should have, but it didn't.

Bucky didn't say anything, at least not right away.

Your body against his was hot, not with fever or grief or any obvious pain, but with something more vulnerable: need. Not panic, not desperation. Just the very human ache for closeness. For connection. And that was almost worse, wasn't it? Because grief at least had sharp edges. This didn't. This was soft. Honest. Raw in its simplicity.

Your words hung in the air, quiet but full. I just wanted to feel you.

He breathed in through his nose, slow, steady. You could feel the motion, the way his chest expanded against yours, the slow stretch of his ribs beneath the arms you'd clamped around him. One of his hands came to your back, then the other, firm and sure, holding you like you deserved it. Like your honesty deserved a reward.

"I thought I was the only one going crazy," he said after a moment, like it was a relief to finally be honest.

You let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh, but it was close. "You're not. Not unless we're experiencing a joint psychosis."

"I keep waiting for something to fall apart," he continued, his voice a rumble. "Things get quiet, and I think... maybe it's over. Maybe I don't need this anymore."

You snuggled closer, even though there was no extra space.

"And then I see you," he said, and you felt the weight of the words as much as you heard them, "and I realize I still do."

You'd never felt small, exactly, not really. But here, with him? You did, and you found that you didn't mind it. You didn't mind pressing your weight against someone stronger who didn't see your need as a flaw. Someone who asked for nothing in return except the chance to hold you like this, to pull you closer, to share your breath.

"I'm not sad," you said, still wanting to explain. "I'm not even stressed. I just…"

"You missed me," he finished, soft and certain.

You pulled your face back slightly to glance up at him. "Yeah."

He smiled, a real one, a knowing one. Instead of replying, he adjusted his stance, moving his feet so they bracketed yours more securely. His metal hand slid up to the base of your neck, warmed from your body rather than chilled steel, his touch like a lighthouse—solid, guiding. His fingers threaded into your hair and kept you there.

You didn't realize you'd sighed until you felt it reverberate in your chest, melting into his.

"This can't be normal, right?" you whispered, not because it scared you, but because it didn't. Because not being scared was what scared you more.

"No," he said. "It's not."

"But it feels…"

"Like it is," he offered.

You nodded, and Bucky's voice dropped lower, just for you to hear, not loud enough to be picked up by any nosy security cameras. "You can ask for it whenever you want. You don't have to be falling apart for me to come to you. For me to want to hold you."

He meant it. You could feel it in his arms, in the way his hands didn't fidget, in the steadiness of his breath against your temple. This wasn't a transaction. It wasn't indulgence for the girl who needed comfort. It was an offering, and you had accepted it.

Your hands tightened in his shirt, like if you remained inflexible and sturdy, you'd be able to leave an imprint. You wanted him to know: Me too. You don’t need to be bleeding for me to want you to be close. I just do.

There were boots passing in the hall, chatter from further down the corridor, and the whirr of the room's controlled cooling system to remind you where you were, but this was your bubble. Nothing else of importance existed here but his arms and your breath and the quiet, sacred space you'd made between two tired bodies with thoughts that ran wild.

Eventually, you did pull away, because you'd come into this room with more in mind than wrapping yourself around a super soldier. You had comms to fix, and he had gear to catalogue. His hand fell back to your waist, keeping you in his space for a moment longer.

"We have actual things to do," you said, a slight curve to your mouth.

He looked down at you. "I was about to start. You interrupted."

"I guess I did."

"I'm not mad. That's probably going to be the highlight of my day."

You blinked, held his gaze for a moment longer, then stepped back fully, fingers brushing down the fabric of his shirt like you were brushing off dust, even though there was none.

"Back to work?" you asked, reluctance bleeding into your tone.

Bucky gave the faintest shrug. "Yeah. But… if you need another hit later, you know where to find me."

You grinned at that, stifling the laugh that wanted to follow. "You're bad for me."

"Probably." He picked up his rifle from the table. "But I'm also effective."

You tried to be choosy about when you came to him. Like you had a limited allowance and had to decide carefully on how to spend it. You didn't want to seem too much like a puppy seeking its master. He'd told you it was fine, and you believed him, but you didn't want to be too much. Didn't want to make it weird. But you sometimes craved the feeling of him like you craved water or air.

A late night in the kitchen where he was the only one present seemed as good a time as any, to cash in for your prize, no eyes on you except for his, steady and expectant, like he knew you'd been waiting. You'd only sought him out like this, with no bad feelings to banish, a handful of times. But he still greeted you with open arms and a gentle sigh, akin to the kind someone would make sinking into their favourite chair after a long day.

You didn't know if the brush of his lips on your forehead, stubble tickling your skin, was intentional or not, too busy sinking into the comfort of his body, your dose of serenity.

It wasn't until the warmth had already soaked into your bones, until your arms were looped around his waist and your cheek pressed against his chest, that you registered really it, that faint, whisper-soft graze of his lips near your hairline. It had just been a press, there and gone before your mind could decide what to do with it, but it lingered.

Not on your skin—though there was a phantom impression there, sure, like a seal stamped into wax—but deeper. Something that hummed behind your ribs. Something that made the next breath you took slightly shallower. Your mind was beginning to tug on a thread that you'd kept spooled tight and hidden away for months.

You didn't lift your head or draw attention with words, and he didn't apologize, no "oh, my mistake" to be had. His hands just stayed where they were, one braced lightly against your upper back, the other sliding to your side, knuckles brushing beneath the hem of your sweatshirt as he tucked his fingers into the curve of your waist, as if they had been seeking the home they'd claimed without either of you knowing. His thumb moved in slow arcs, a silent rhythm, like he was marking time on your body.

"I was hoping you'd come in," Bucky murmured, just quiet enough for the refrigerator's soft hum to hide it from anyone else who might have passed by the kitchen door. "Didn't want to crowd you."

It was something he was careful with, mindful about your general aversion to physical touch, though he was the exception to the rule. No one crowded you because they knew you didn't like it, but he could have. He always could have. You would have let him, too. That was the scary part.

"I wasn't sure if I should," you admitted, barely a whisper. Your voice betrayed your sleepiness, a yawn breaking up the last word, but you felt like you wouldn't have been able to rest if you didn't find him first.

He shifted slightly, not moving you away, just adjusting so he could rest his chin lightly atop your head. "Why not?"

"Didn't want to be greedy."

It was true—you didn't want to bombard him with affection, to increase your contact to the point that it was as routine as getting dressed in the morning. And you felt greedy. Like you were hoarding every good feeling, every embrace, keeping it like it was wealth and riches, and all you wanted was more.

The silence that followed was long, but not uncomfortable. It was made up of Bucky hearing all the things you weren't saying, and all the things he already knew.

"You ever think maybe I want you to be?" he asked softly. "Greedy, I mean."

Your heart gave a kick, the question a drop in a very full bucket, one that you thought might spill, given the right nudge. You didn't reply, but your hand at his back tightened.

"You're not taking anything I'm not giving," he said next, his voice thicker now, like he was speaking past some hitch in his chest. "And even if you were... I'd let you. I'd always let you. I think you know that."

Another press of silence, this one stretched like taffy between your ribs and his.

You finally leaned back to look at him, though not all the way. Just far enough to catch his expression. His face was open, unguarded, in a way you'd come to know meant that he trusted you. It was intentional. Grounded. He wasn't offering you something he hadn't already turned over a thousand times in his head.

"I don't want this to change," you said, meaning the closeness, the ease, the instinctive pull. "I don't want to ruin it."

"You won't," he said, simple, solid, like it was a truth he'd always known. "We make the rules. Just you and me."

Your head had strayed from its safe distance, tilting up, tilting closer. Close enough to see the fine grain of stubble that had grown in over the course of the day, the tension in the muscle at the edge of his jaw. His breath smelled faintly like cinnamon, and if you had to guess, he'd stolen some of Wanda's favourite tea blend.

"I didn't think you'd want…"

He dipped his head, slow, measured, altogether on purpose. No brush of accident. No ambiguity.

This kiss was still not quite a kiss, but this time, when his lips found your forehead, they stayed. Just long enough for your breath to stop, catch, then start again, a hum under your skin forming in an instant.

"I want," he said into your skin, so quiet you almost doubted you heard it.

You buried your face against his chest again, and for a while, you just stood there. You could have stayed like that until morning. You would have, if the moment allowed it. If time bent for things like need. His arms stayed around you, and your hands made it under his hoodie, a soft, involuntary curl of your fingers at his back. His thumb still moved on your waist.

You didn't have to run from yourself here, and you certainly didn't have to run from him.

And even if you'd never meant to ask for more… it was beginning to dawn on you, like sunrise through clouds: you hadn’t been the only one craving.

Want.

Bucky wanted. Wanted you? Wanted to be close to you, more than for fleeting comforts? You didn't know when those feelings had dawned for him. Didn't know when they had dawned for you, either. Had they been creeping around in your brain the entire time, or were they recent? What did you do with them?

Your heart jumped, though your body was settled. He wanted you to be... greedy. You'd thought that you had been. You thought you'd been taking and taking. But to him, you hadn't been. You'd been nowhere close. What did greedy look like, to him? Gluttony? You felt like the mark of his kiss on your forehead was tattooed on your skin, like you could still feel the press of his mouth, careful, precise. When had he gotten so comfortable with his hands under the hem of your shirt, on your bare skin? When had you?

A tide was turning, but you didn't know in which direction, whether you were going to ride it or be sucked under. It should have scared you. It didn't.

But what was want, compared to need? Compared to the feeling in your bones? Compared to each pump of your blood, each breath from your lungs?

Want was hunger.

Need was survival.

And you were beginning to suspect that whatever existed between you and Bucky Barnes had long since crossed the border between the two, so quietly, so naturally, that neither of you had noticed until you were standing in the wreckage of restraint, holding each other like the world would stop spinning otherwise.

Because want could be controlled. Contained. Laughed off or tucked away, only looked at when you were alone in the dark.

But need lived in the marrow. It shaped your days and haunted your nights. It was the reason your footsteps always took you toward him, even when you told yourself you were just walking. It was the reason your skin calmed under his touch, why the buzz in your head dulled when his arms circled you like you were the center of something important.

It was why he'd kissed your forehead like that. Not to ignite you, but to reassure himself you were real.

He hadn't moved. His hand still rested on your waist, fingers warm on your bare skin, casual only in theory. In practice, it was intimate. Insistent. Like a bookmark slipped between the pages of a book you hadn't known you'd been reading together.

You shifted slightly in his embrace, pressing your nose closer to the curve of his throat. You could feel the flutter of his pulse there, faint, but not faint enough. He was calm, but not untouched. His body was listening to yours, and yours was humming with the quiet violence of realization.

You wanted. You needed.

You didn't know where the line was anymore.

And when his voice broke the silence again, it was hoarse at the edges, like admitting to wanting had pulled everything out of him.

"You don't have to hold back with me."

The words shouldn't have been a revelation, but they were all the same.

You'd been so careful. So measured. Your hands knew where to rest, your hugs always just shy of desperate, your breath always steady when your head was tucked beneath his jaw. But now that you were thinking about it—really thinking about it—you realized you'd been starving yourself, feeding only on sips and scraps of closeness, pretending it was enough.

And he knew. He'd known for longer than you had.

You tilted your head back, just enough to see him. His eyes found yours instantly, the blue of them warm, like a lake in the summer. There was nothing guarded in them, no smugness, only clarity. He'd been watching the same tide shift and had already accepted being swept up in it.

"What does not holding back look like?" you asked. Your voice was barely there. A thread of sound, all you could muster.

He didn't smile, exactly, but the corners of his mouth curled, like he was already imagining the answer.

"It looks like this," he said.

And his hand slid further under your shirt, curling around your waist with intention. He leaned in until your foreheads touched again, something you'd done often enough now, but the air between your mouths simmered.

"It looks like you asking for what you want. Taking it."

"I don't want to break this," you whispered, your last warning, though the caution sign you'd been holding up had been all but run over by now.

"Nothing's gonna break, it's just gonna change," he said, without doubt. "We're not going back, just forward."

The certainty made you shiver. You'd touched each other so many times. Hands. Arms. Hugs like lifelines. Breath shared. This was different. This was the moment the storm shifted from rain to fire.

"You want me," you said, not a question, the statement plain.

He nodded once. "More than I should. More than anything."

That was what decided it, for you. It was more than him wanting you for your body. He wanted you for more than that. He saw you. That he'd always seen you. He'd held you, comforted you, let his walls down so that you could do the same. And that he was done pretending it didn't mean something.

You leaned in, and he let you close the distance. His lips met yours like they already recognized the shape of you. Like he'd been waiting for you to realize what you already were to each other, and now you were finally closing the gap. A brush of mouths, a press that secured every thought you'd banished, dragged them out into the open, like art on display. And in it, all your questions folded like paper: what is want, what is need, what is too much?

There was a clear answer. If it was for you, the words 'too much' didn't exist. Want and need blended into one thing, found in the weight of Bucky's hands on your waist, his breath mixing with yours, the sound of satisfaction that caught in his throat like a purr.

Your lips on his felt like releasing a dove from your hands and watching it fly into the sky, like seeing something return to its natural habitat, where it was supposed to be all along. It was in the sigh he let out, the one you swallowed on an inhale. It was in the tilt of his head, and then yours, the adjustment of angles, the scrape of teeth. The surety in which he held you, like he always had, like you'd been there the whole time, an extension of him.

You were drinking each other in like nectar. One of his hands pressed to the column of your throat, the touch light but certain, his skin hot, but welcome.

You no longer knew what it had been like to ever not be kissing Bucky. To have lived in a time where you didn't know how he tasted, how his body reacted to yours. To have had a semblance of a life where he hadn't murmured your name like it was his favourite line in the bible. It was like viewing two parallels from a distance, the before and after weighed on a scale. The before was found to be sorely lacking.

There was no going back.

You knew it with the same bone-deep certainty with which you knew your own name, the same involuntary recognition that bloomed in the part of your chest that had long gone quiet. Your fingers wound into the fabric at his waist, fisting the soft cotton like it was a lifeline. He tilted his head again and the kiss deepened, opened, told. There was no practiced choreography. It was clumsy in places, and real, and devastating. You gasped when his tongue met yours, and he inhaled it, humming deep in his chest like it soothed something inside him better than any hot bath or cup of tea could.

You were drowning, but the water was warm. The water was him.

Bucky shifted slightly, pressing you back a step toward the kitchen counter, his hips following yours. His hand left your throat, gliding down your spine with aching slowness, like he wanted to trace every vertebrae until he'd be able to recall exactly where they were through memory alone. When he stopped at the small of your back, he gripped you tightly, pulling you into him like a tide, and your body responded without thought, your stomach fluttering like you were tilting on a roller coaster.

When you broke apart, it was only for to gasp for breath. Your eyes opened to find his already watching you, close and dark and undone in ways you'd never seen, but you'd imagined. His pupils were blown, his lips kiss-bruised. He looked like a man at the edge of the world and completely at peace with the view.

"You sure?" he asked, voice gone gravelly.

Your answer was your thumb brushing over his jaw, your lips ghosting over the corner of his mouth, and the quiet confession that followed, "I've never been so sure of anything.”

Bucky let out a breath that seemed to tremble—his only tells were small, but this one shook him slightly, his head dropping to yours, your noses brushing. "I didn't think I'd get to have this, with anyone, let alone you," he murmured, barely a whisper.

Your hands came up, cradling his face, fingers tracing the edge of his hairline, the slope of his cheek. "You do," you said. "You do."

He kissed you again, closing the distance this time like he was diving headlong into a pool. It was like he needed to prove it, that he could have you and keep you, like he could brand the words into you both with his mouth. His hand curled around your hip, tugging you flush against him, and the way your body melted into his was like pouring molten, liquid metal into a mould, forging something in the flame necessity, and it was about to overflow.

The kisses slowed over the minutes, each one growing more languid, lazily seeking you out and knowing you'd be there every time. Bucky's nose nudged at yours, and your fingers curled instinctively against his shoulders, every shift he made a thrill through your bones. He started trailing kisses from the corner of your mouth to your jaw, tugging lightly at the ends of your hair to tilt your head just so. His other hand found one of yours, interlacing your fingers together, palms flat against each other. That was when he pulled back, his eyes half-lidded, but his expression pleased, content, triumphant.

No words were exchanged when he stepped out of your space, pulling you along by the hand out of the kitchen. You didn't know if you were being guided towards sleep or something more. You found you were agreeable to each option. For both, for either, the hum in your skin settled to a purr, a satisfied cat.

You followed with no resistance, no second thought, the only thing that you were certain of was that you were in the right place, and that was wherever he was. Your fingers stayed laced with his like that was their natural state, like they'd been made to fill the spaces in his. And Bucky walked slowly, deliberately, leading you not with urgency but with intent. Each step was a word in a language you both now understood fluently, a quiet statement: This way. With me. Still here. Always here.

The halls were dim, the hour late enough that most of your team would be asleep by now. Your feet made little sound against the cool floor, each step echoing his. His thumb swept in steady strokes along the back of your hand, and he never once looked back to make sure you were still coming, to check and see if there was any hesitance from you.

You realized you didn't care where you were going. It didn't matter, as long as his hand stayed in yours.

When he opened the door to his room, the lights stayed off, with only the silver-gray wash of moonlight slipping in through the blinds to illuminate the space. It kissed the broad lines of his shoulders, the slope of his back as he tugged you close again, as if he'd missed you in the ten seconds you'd spent half a foot apart.

Another kiss, sweet, so sweet it made your teeth ache. A confirmation that you still wanted, still needed, still chose him. The kind that said: Yes. Still yes. Always yes.

Bucky let go of your hand only to lift it, bringing your knuckles to his lips, kissing them one by one like they were the only holy thing left in the world. Then he rested your hand over his heart.

"You feel that?" he whispered, low and quiet, eyes on yours. "That’s yours."

You didn't need to answer. You just reached up and touched his face again, like now that you could, you would never stop, your fingertips moving across his skin like you could memorize every shadow and every freckle.

He walked you backward slowly, fingers never straying far from you, until you felt the edge of his bed against your legs. He let you settle first, and you sank into the mattress, limbs loose and easy, as this was where you always slept, where you'd laid a million times, like the sheets were familiar. He followed like he was tethered to you, coming to rest beside you. One of his arms slid beneath your head, the other wrapping around your waist, pulling you close. Your hand laid flat on his chest, still right over the bull's eye, the steady thump of his heart. Still, he didn't rush. He wanted to take his time to learn you, to memorize you. He pressed a kiss to your temple, then to your shoulder, through the fabric of your shirt. Then another. All you could do was curl closer, like a cat in its favourite patch of sunlight.

What a thing, to let someone see all of your ugly edges, to have them know your worst thoughts without having to say them out loud. What a thing to be wanted anyway, in spite of it, because of it.

What a thing, to know that the next time you were lost at sea, your lighthouse would be waiting for you on the shore, with winter-blue eyes and a steady hand, with lips that would kiss it better and arms that would shelter you from the storm, and all you had to do was let him.

You’re sad to give up your apartment. It’s been your sanctuary ever since you first peeled yourself away from your parents’ house. A quiet reprieve from the bustling gray city sidewalks outside your stoop. But when your super soldier boyfriend asks you to move to a Brooklyn apartment with a view of the bridge and a private patio, you don’t really argue.

Not until you’re standing in the middle of your living room, realizing what an impossible, Herculean task it is to move your entire library and everything else you’ve collected that makes up your life. Not to mention the boxes of “necessities” piling up in the hallway, multiplying when you’re not looking.

“Bucky, it’s too much…” you sigh, hands on your hips as you watch him nimbly dodge towers of cardboard and chaos. The boxes are labeled in your own frantic script: idk what this is but can’t throw away, memories I need to hold onto. The closer you got to moving day, the more you just began to either throw things away or shoved into boxes hurriedly. 

You can feel your thoughts starting to spiral, quick and mean, jabbing at the soft spots you thought you’d kept protected. He’s going to think you’re too much. There isn’t space for you in his life. Not really.

Bucky just shakes his head, unfazed. “Nope, it’s not, sweetheart. I even went to IKEA and got those bookshelves you wanted. Put ’em together last night and everything. All that’s missing is for you to come make it a home.”

Some of the tension in your shoulders loosens. Not all the way. Not even when he presses a kiss to your temple and hoists the first box into the moving truck with the ease only someone with super soldier serum in their veins could. You have always, always been deemed too much in relationships.

Too clingy. Too soft. Too needy.

There are so many ways to leave, you’ve learned. Sometimes with slammed doors, sometimes with silence. Sometimes it’s just a gentle drifting, a slow untangling until everything falls apart at the seams. You spent years convincing yourself it was safer to stay small, to never hope for more. After all, hope is a dangerous thing to want when you’d always been braced  for disappointment. Yet here you are. Your whole life packed into boxes, standing at the edge of trusting someone not to get tired of you.

When everything is packed, you pause at the doorway, keys heavy in your palm. Your apartment looks wrong, stripped bare. The window to the fire escape where you read all your best books in the warmth of late-afternoon sun is empty now. The shelves are hollow. The ceiling looks lower, the walls…were they always this sad, tired shade of beige?

Bucky slips his arm around your waist, steady and solid. His other hand brushes your hair to one side, lips pressing to that soft spot behind your ear that always makes you shiver. His voice is a warm weight at your back. “They’re just walls, sweetheart. You’re what makes a place a home. We should go before we hit traffic, but take all the time you need.”

He steps back to give you space, but keeps his fingers loosely tangled with yours—a quiet promise that he’s not rushing you, that he understands this is harder than just moving boxes. The choice is always yours. But he never lets you forget where he stands.

—

A couple hours later, you stood in a sea of boxes in Bucky’s apartment, trying to push the panic down that was clawing at your chest. His normally tidy apartment was about to be overtaken by something you knew he didn’t care for: clutter. So when was it going to be that he stopped caring for you?

Meanwhile, Bucky moved around the stacks with ease. Whistling something low as he carried boxes to their respective spots. You wished you could feel the same nonchalance as you began tearing open the tape, testing the waters to see if you could bring yourself to take up space. Despite there being more than enough room in the closet for your clothes, empty shelves for your books, and more than half the bathroom cabinets ready for you, you hesitated. Each box felt like a gamble, a risk that one day he’d change his mind.

Still, you reached for a box labeled ‘fiction – comfort reads’. That seemed safe enough, Bucky said he bought the shelves for you, and they were assembled on a previously empty wall. And still, your fingers trembled as you slid it open. The smell of paper and home wafted up to greet you, grounding you just enough to push the first few novels onto the nearest shelf. Your movements were careful, a little shy, as if the books themselves might make too much noise in this new space. 

You were halfway through arranging a now full bookshelf, thoroughly debating on how you wanted to categorize them, when Bucky wandered over, a stack of your sweaters in his arms. “Where did you want these, sweetheart? Closet or drawer?”

Standing, a few books in hand, you made your way toward him. Before you could answer, something slipped free from between the pages—a crumpled receipt, landing on the hardwood with a soft, papery thwip.

Bucky stooped to pick it up, curiosity bright in his eyes. Your heart dropped, panic tightening your chest as you realized exactly what it was. He smoothed the slip between his fingers, brow furrowing as he read your handwriting scribbled on the back.

“What’s this?” he asked, voice gentle, but your pulse thrummed with dread all the same.

Of course. When you were already worried about being too much, your sentimental hoarding tendencies were about to be exposed.

You cleared your throat, putting the books down on an end table. You felt the heat rising to your neck and cheeks. “It's…uh, the receipt from the first time I paid for dinner. At that Italian place when you forgot your wallet.”

Your voice was small as you braced for the fallout. You waited for him to laugh, or look at you like you were unhinged, like every ex before had. 

But Bucky just groaned, a big grin on his face as he turned it over in his hands. “Can’t believe you kept this. That was what, our fifth or sixth date? I felt like such a putz…my ma would’ve given me a smack for that one. Forgettin’ my wallet.”

“You made such a show of paying on the first few dates,” you said, smiling despite the storm of unease swirling in the pit of your stomach. “And I knew you were old-fashioned…just felt like something worth keeping. I like remembering things like that.” It came out small, almost apologetic. 

Instead of recoiling, like so many before him, Bucky dropped onto the couch and tucked the receipt gently back into the book. He looked up at you with a soft smile like you’d hung the moon. “So, what else have you got hidden away in these boxes, huh? Anything as embarrassing as my wallet slip?”

You let out a small laugh, some of the tension in your chest easing. Your gaze drops to the box labeled ‘memories to not let go of’. “No, not embarrassing. Just…the little things that remind me of us.”

“Well, let’s see,” he said, patting the cushion next to him. “I’d like to see what you thought was worth remembering.”

You nudged the box closer and settle beside him, knees just barely brushing. For the first time all day, you can actually feel yourself beginning to relax. 

With Bucky beside you, you flip open the box and pull out the first treasure. A clear glass box with an assortment of pressed flowers. 

He takes it gently, thumb tracing along the edges of the box as he examines it from all angles. “Are these from the first bouquet I got you?”

You nod, smiling. “It was the cutest little assortment of flowers…and no one had really ever gotten me flowers on a first date before.”

He grins, placing it gently on the coffee table with a soft click. “Guess I did something right.”

Next, you hand him a small shirt button, navy blue with thread still attached. He laughs, looking it over. “From the time you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself. Found it under my bed.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re never letting me live that down are you? It’s not my fault, it was that dress you wore.”

“Sure, blame me,” you tease back, feeling lighter with every confession.

With every confession, the air grows lighter. The two of you settle into a rhythm. Him pulling out a memento, you sharing the story. Coffee sleeves with his doodles, a napkin scribbled with an inside joke about waffles, movie stubs, faded love notes, a visitor’s pass from the first time you’d visited him at the Avengers compound. Each item is its own little universe, its own proof of the love that grew between you.

The box empties, and the coffee table fills. Scattered with pieces of your life together, a messy constellation of memories. You find yourself drifting closer to Bucky the more you share, your shoulder pressed to his, his arm draped lazily against your body, fingers tracing slow circles against your bicep. For the first time all day, the apartment feels less like a minefield and more like home.

“You know,” Bucky murmurs, pulling out the last item. A takeout menu from your favorite Chinese place, complete with a sticky note with his favorite order that reads ‘The Bucky Special’. “We don’t have to unpack everything tonight.”

You glance around at the chaos, boxes still piled high and half unpacked. “Are…you sure you don’t mind? Isn’t it overwhelming, having all this clutter around?”

He leans down, pressing his lips to the top of your head. “Not even close. You’re not too much. I want all of this. Someone who cares enough to save the small things. Every memory, every box…every bit of you. And tomorrow, we can tackle the rest. Tonight, I just want to eat greasy noodles and egg rolls with you, fall asleep in our place, and wake up wrapped in each other.”

The reassurance settles over you like a weighted blanket, gentling the nerves you’d carried with you all day. You breathe in, heart full to the brim, and meet his gaze, finally, truly at peace.

“Yeah,” you whisper, smiling up at him for real. “That sounds perfect.”

But then his voice breaks through the kitchen hum. “Sweetheart?”

You stiffen. “Hey,” you manage, too bright. “Did I wake you?”

Bucky steps into the doorway, hair mussed, grey t-shirt creased like he’s been tossing around in bed. The sight alone makes your throat go soft. He’s so careful in moments like this—like he can feel the air bending around your pain.

“You’re up early,” he says quietly, eyes narrowing in that way that means he’s already noticed the tremor in your hand. “Everything okay?”

You nod. Too fast.

He doesn’t call you on it right away. Instead, he pads across the tile, the faint drag of his socked feet steadying somehow, and stops beside you. His metal fingers curl against the counter edge, not touching yet, just there.

“Bad morning?” he asks.

You swallow hard. “Just stiff.”

“Stiff how?”

“Bucky.”

He hums, the sound low and patient. “Just trying to figure out if we’re talking ‘stretch it out’ stiff or ‘I’m gonna carry you back to bed’ stiff.”

You almost laugh, except it hurts to breathe too deep. “Somewhere in between.”

He finally touches you—warm flesh hand resting light against your hip, thumb stroking small, grounding circles. The kind of touch that doesn’t demand anything, just says I’m here.

You whisper, “It’s one of those days.”

He nods. “Okay.” No dramatics, no sighing sympathy, just acceptance. You love him for that.

He moves around you, turns the kettle back on, grabs the tea you like when you’re flaring. The chamomile-lavender one you keep for nights you can’t sleep. You watch him, shoulders heavy, the domestic quiet wrapping around both of you.

“I can do it,” you mumble, guilt curling in your chest.

“I know you can,” he says, soft but firm. “But I want to.”

And that’s the thing—he never makes you feel weak for letting him help. He still sees the whole of you. The capable, clever, stubborn you. The you who sometimes can’t lift her arms high enough to wash her own hair. He sees it all and doesn’t flinch.

He pours the tea, sets it on the counter, then holds out his hand. “Come on.”

You hesitate, looking down at your mismatched socks, the ache pooling behind your knees. “If I move, I might cry.”

He offers a crooked smile. “Then I’ll catch the tears.”

You groan. “That’s not even charming.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.” His eyes soften. “C’mon, doll.”

So you let him help. You slide your hand into his—flesh against flesh, metal curled gentle at your back—and he guides you to the couch like he’s learned the choreography by heart. Blanket waiting, heating pad already plugged in, your favorite show queued up. He must’ve seen this coming before you did.

You settle slowly, curling into the soft warmth, and he kneels beside the couch to tuck the pad under your spine. His metal palm smooths your hair back, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

“There we go,” he murmurs. “You don’t gotta do anything today.”

“I had plans,” you protest weakly.

“I know.” His voice turns softer still. “And I promise the world won’t end if you take a day to rest.”

You exhale shakily, the fight bleeding out of you. “You’re too good at this.”

He shrugs. “Guess I’ve had practice.”

It’s true. He’s lived with pain too—the kind that never really leaves, just shifts. Phantom limb. Metal prosthesis that hums too loud in the rain. Sleepless nights where the ache of what was lost gets tangled up in the ache of what remains. You both know what it’s like to live in a body that betrays you.

He stretches out beside you, half-sitting, half-reclined, his body a fortress of warmth. When he lifts your hand, his thumb traces the tiny scars at your knuckles, the faint tremor that never fully goes away. His metal fingers slide under your shirt hem, not to be bold but to spread heat from the pad more evenly across your lower back. The cool vibranium and warm skin combination makes your breath hitch.

“Better?” he asks.

“Yeah.” You lean into his chest, voice muffled against cotton. “Just… tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“I’ll get behind on—”

“Sweetheart.” The way he says it stops everything. Low, certain. “You don’t owe the world anything today.”

Something in you cracks. A single tear leaks down your temple before you can stop it.

He catches it with a kiss.

You whisper, “I hate feeling like this.”

“I know.” His fingers tighten slightly. “But you’re not broken. Just tired. And I got enough strength for both of us today, okay?”

You nod, barely.

He stays that way for hours. Occasionally shifting the heating pad when the warmth fades, fetching water when you need to take something, rubbing small circles into your palm just to keep you anchored. When you drift, you dream of steady heartbeats and the faint hum of his arm—your favorite lullaby.

When you wake, sunlight’s lower on the wall and the tea’s gone cold. He’s still there, book balanced on his knee, glasses sliding down his nose.

You whisper, “You stayed.”

He looks up, smiling. “Course I did. Someone’s gotta make sure you don’t steal the blanket.”

You laugh softly, voice raw but real. “You could’ve gone out. Done something.”

“I am doing something,” he says simply. “I’m loving you.”

It shouldn’t hit as hard as it does, but it does. The ease of it. The way he never treats your body like a burden.

You reach up, brushing your thumb over his jaw. “You make it easier to live with this.”

He catches your wrist, presses his lips to your pulse. “That’s the goal, doll. Not to fix it. Just to make it softer around the edges.”

Later, when you manage to sit upright, he helps you stretch. Slow, guided movements—his voice quiet in your ear. When the pain spikes, he breathes with you. When it eases, he smiles like it’s a small victory you both earned.

Dinner’s simple—soup from a can, grilled cheese he insists on cutting into little triangles because “presentation matters.” You sit side by side on the counter while the world outside fades to night. The ache’s still there, but dulled. Manageable. Held.

You murmur, “What did I do to deserve you?”

He grins, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “Saved my ass a few times, if I remember right. Guess we’re even.”

You roll your eyes. “You’re impossible.”

He leans in, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Nah. Just in love.”

And maybe the pain never fully leaves. Maybe it flares again tomorrow, or next week, or next year. But for now—wrapped in the warmth of his hand, the hum of his arm, the gentle pulse of two hearts syncing—you believe him when he says you’re not alone.

He knew pain. It was familiar. That ache, or the warm hand that strangled you, the knife between your ribs. But that had a cause. That had a purpose. This was senseless. His arm screaming when it no longer exists. Those ghosts of Azzano. Hands that he'd never shake that grasped at him. His own nails tearing at his shoulder. But he had been trained to cope. To shove it all down. The serum in his veins meant he could endure inhuman amounts of it. His mind? Well, not much left there to break... but at least he was coming home to the one person who could soothe that pain.

The day had been hell. He'd been up all night in some stupid warehouse, got the snot kicked out of him for a yellow vial, and then had to sit through congressional functions about how enhanced individuals should be taught about in public schools. Apparently, the optics of being the leader of the New Avengers were so good that he wasn't allowed to resign... at least he got to punch people legally now.

He pulls his suit jacket off and throws his tie onto the sofa, stripping his shirt off down to the vest underneath, finally relaxing and inhaling deeply - ginger and cherry. His eyes rake across the counter; a glass of water and painkillers abandoned, a cold ginger tea bag in a waterlined mug, her cherry CBD...

It was one of them days for both of them.

But seeing her, the soft body that brings him so much solace kneeling over their bed. Panting in the pain, fingers gripping the sheets. Trying not to pass out with the pain. Her eyes are shut as she slowly tries to bring her breathing under control. He doesn't need to speak. Their care for each other is a shorthand. It's a given. His panic leans into her touch and heartbeat. Her pain will lean into his care and arms.

He kneels behind her, wraps his metal arm around her thick waist and holds her weight with ease, his flesh hand running up her arm.

"I got you baby... can you swallow pills?"

She shakes her head, her body slackening in his arms slightly. He can't take the pain, she can't take his panic, or his past. But they can hold each other. A scruffy cheek slides against hers and their fingers interlock. His heart slows and he can hear hers stop pounding. They sway together softly, discharging their joints with a little gentle movement, hips and spines opening and aligning - not that it's doing much for his broken rib. Her breathing exercises draw him in - his own panic abating, grounded by her warmth and scent and- oh her scent... He drops his face for a moment to the crook of her neck to inhale. Slowly. Once. Twice. Three times before he lifts his cheek back to rest against hers.

She struggles, her jaw made of lead, her tongue swollen in her mouth, but her lips form the words to whisper.

"How did it go?"

He chuckles and doesn't answer immediately. There's no rush. Not with her. His mind slowly knits itself back into some form of pattern, letting the shredded thoughts form a coherent tapestry.

"We secured the bioweapon. I broke a rib. And apparently I'm a war hero, the longest serving POW and an earthquake of a travesty that must not be taught in schools." They'd not come to a conclusion yet, Congress still debating the 'Heroes Education Bill' and whether the truth comes out with so much red in so many Avengers ledgers.

She hums, her thumb caressing the back of his hand comfortingly as they sway. He learnt long ago not to lie. Not to cover up the wounds that will be gone in days. She likes fussing over him, comforting him. Makes things 'feel more equitable'. Bucky thinks it's just a clever way to get him to let her take care of him when he's hurt. She knows it helps silence the voice in her head that says she's a burden. They both know he'd be underwater without her.

"You are a war hero, Sarge. And the longest serving POW."

"And an earthquake of a travesty?"

"I'm not gracing that with a reply..."

He laughs and pulls her tighter against his chest.

"Are your knees numb yet, Doll?"

"Don't care."

His frown line deepens at that. She's in serious pain. This is more than just a flare. This'll take days, if not weeks to come out of. The work project. She's overdone it.

"Baby-"

"Don't Barnes. You went to Congress with a broken rib."

He opens his mouth to argue then chuckles. She manages a weak giggle too. He squeezes her chubby belly in retaliation, soft flesh against vibranium.

"Can I pick you up and put you in bed, Doll?"

The floor might be more comfortable. He isn't about to tell her how to handle her pain. It's too intense for a bath. He knows that much. She feels too nauseous for tablets. She's had tea. She drank water. Now they have to ride it out.

"I think I'm not- i think I won't throw up now if I lie down..."

His heart twists. She's more vulnerable than normal. More needy. Softer. He can smell the tears welling in her eyes.

"Oh my poor love... you want to be babied or just held?" Her lip trembles and he can feel her cheek wobble as she nods against his beard. Strong arms cradle her as he lifts her, ignoring his broken rib long enough to tuck them both into bed. They settle against the pillows, his arms encasing her defensively. He shifts on his side, not putting weight on his broken rib. If he didn't have the supersoldier serum, he'd swear her warmth alone was stitching the bone back together. "I'm here babydoll... I'm here... we're both gon' rest 'kay?" His Brooklyn drawl dribbles out more now he's tired and cuddling her and in bed and his whole body is screaming 'Safe, Safe, Safe, Safe, Safe...'

"James it hurts..." She whines, letting herself feel it for the rare occasion. Usually, she hates being 'babied' as she calls it, masking and covering it, not wanting to show weakness, not to let the pain win, driving herself to higher and higher standards of attainment, feeling like she has to excel to 'compensate' for the days she can't move. She said she didn't want to complain. That he'd been through far worse. That others were going through far worse. She'd tell him to read a book to her or lie with her or plain go away, not wanting to admit that sometimes she just wants to be treated like the most precious thing on Earth - even if he was very willing to cradle and kiss her and whisper sweet nothings.

It took him months to get past that mask. To kiss and rub shaking fingers as the pain climbed. To hold her as she rode out the agony. He can't talk. It took him about the same time to stop pushing her away because he was 'too broken'. It took months to let her love him. It took years to admit that maybe she needed him as much as he needed her. Maybe she could want him too. That he could be loved. That she wouldn't leave him like Steve had. Guess their broken shards matched...

"I'm here babydoll... you're being so brave... I'm here... I love you so much..."

He'd never shush her. She never shushed him after all. No matter the tears that wove his own noose, the nightmare that choked him from sleep and sent him screaming into their sanctuary. Just a gentle hand on the shoulder - maybe a soft kiss there too - and her other hand in his metal hand. A listening ear, soft promises of love whispered in his ear. A mantra to replace those screams and trigger words, reminding him of his name, his home, his goodness, his heart, his kindness, his love. His head on that pillowy chest, her heartbeat the metromone for the lullaby she sings... She would sit under the undertow with him. He would happily lie with her now. He'd use rock bottom as a duvet if it would comfort her. If she needed to cry, he'd kiss each tear away. If she needed to rage about the injustice of it all, he'd validate it. If she needed to be caressed and held, well that was his joy.

"You don't need to be productive for me to love you. You just need to be here, in my arms. I'm here."

Hands that ripped people apart now caress her back tenderly, card through her soft hair, stroke her cheeks as she snuggles into his chest. The rain begins. Patter at the window. He simply draws the covers closer, the sheets soft against her skin and that pain in his side softens as his own body relaxes. She is his home... he can feel his blood pressure lowering. He can feel her little huffs of breath on his collarbones stitching his humanity back together. This angel. This perfect woman... his woman... his-

"I love you James..."

Oh. Oh those words-

"I love you too, sweet girl."