𝕹𝖚𝖓𝖎𝔅𝔲𝔫𝔦

The mud squelched beneath your boots as the strike team moved into the shadow of the dense pine trees. The rain was steady, turning the cold air thick with mist and masking the quiet, lethal approach of the team.

“Comms check,” Fury’s voice rasped in your earpiece, low and static-laced. “Keep it tight. S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical units in Berlin and Bucharest are five minutes out from their breach windows. We move into position, but nobody engages the inner vault until I give the command. Is that clear?”

A chorus of quiet affirmative copy-backs echoed through the comms channel.

You checked your suit once more.

A custom designed by Nick Fury himself for the chaotic breach in Prague. The suit was engineered for one thing, survival against Clara and Apex.

Sleek and matte black material, tactical corset contoured tight against the torso like a reinforced armour, offering lightweight protection without sacrificing an inch of agility. The high, sharp collar frame gave it a lethal edge, while the open chest cut and thumbhole gauntlets provided the full range of motion you’d need when the explosives went off. As you adjusted the low-profile utility belt and took a breath, the suit felt less like outfit and more like armor built specifically to tear down doors, take down targets and ensure Apex and Clara didn’t walk out of Prague standing.

Steve gave a brief hand signal, dividing the team seamlessly.

Tony drifted silently upward, his iron suit’s thrusters muted to a quiet, low hum as he vanished into the gray cloud cover above the canopy.

Sam followed, flanking the facility’s western perimeter with Clint securing a high-ground vantage point in the treeline.

Bruce stayed back near the rally point with Hill, keeping his heart rate under tight control until heavy artillery was required.

Natasha and Wanda moved past you like shadows, their boots making no sound against the wet forest floor. As Natasha passed, her shoulder brushed yours as a subtle, grounding contact. Wanda gave you a single, lingering look, her dark eyes glowing with an unspoken promise before she vanished into the brush, heading toward the upper ventilation catwalks.

That left you, Clara and Bucky.

Clara checked her sidearm with practiced ease, looking at the magazine before snapping it back into place. The sickly sweet, synthetic lilac scent clung to her wet tactical gear, floating toward you in the damp air and making your stomach turn.

“You ready for this, Agent?” Clara asked, turning her head slightly toward you. Her voice was smooth, carrying that infuriatingly polished layer of condescension. “Just stay behind me and watch my six while I access the mainframe. Try not to get in the way.”

You forced your expression to remain stone cold, ignoring the throbbing ache in your ribs where Bucky had shoved you two nights ago. “Just open the door, Vane. I’ll make sure nothing sneaks up on you.”

Beside her, Bucky stood like a statue.

The rain ran down the metal plates of his left arm, pooling at his fingertips. His hair was damp and plastered against his forehead and his eyes, normally so sharp in a combat zone, were strangely unfocused and fixed on the heavy iron gates of the facility.

“Barnes,” Clara said softly, her voice dropping into that quiet domestic tone she used when manipulating him. She reached out, her gloved fingers resting lightly on his arm.

Even through the rain, you saw Bucky’s shoulders drop slightly, his posture relaxing into that unnatural docility as he inhaled the airy trigger.

“Stay close,” Clara murmured to him. “Cover the main corridor while we clear the vault.”

“Yeah,” Bucky rasped, his voice rough and hollow. He didn’t look at her, nor did he look at you. He just stared ahead, a soldier trapped in a waking fog. “I’m with you.”

You swallowed down the bitter lump in your throat, your knuckles tightening on the grip of your tactical rifle.

Just a few more minutes, you reminded yourself. Hold the line.

Steve gave the signal from the eastern treeline, shield raised.

Clara stepped forward, pulling a high-grade S.H.I.E.L.D. bypass drive from her vest, a drive you now knew was programmed to wipe Apex’s local tracks while uploading the stolen bio-bomb data directly to their off-site servers. She pressed it against the electronic keypad on the heavy iron gate.

The lock clicked green with a heavy, hydraulic hiss. The gates swung open into the dark, echoing maw of the underground complex.

“Moving in,” Clara reported into the comms, stepping over the threshold into the dimly lit, concrete corridor.

You felt into step right behind her, your eyes scanning the dark corners and your heart hammering against your ribs like a drumbeat counting down the seconds to an explosion. Bucky followed close behind, his boots heavy on the wet concrete, stepping between you and Clara like an unwitting human shield.

The heavy steel doors closed behind you with a loud and final thud, locking the three of you inside the dark heart of the facility.

The doors sealed shut, cutting off the rhythmic patter of the rain and trapping the three of you in the cold, echoing stillness of the subterranean corridor. The air inside was thick with damp concrete, rust and the oppressive, sweet haze of synthetic lilacs wafting off Clara.

“Keep moving,” Clara instructed in a low voice, her sidearm raised as she led the way down the dimly lit hallway. “Mainframe is two levels down. Watch the side passages.”

You gained your position. Your rifle raised, eyes sweeping the dark alcoves. Bucky walked a pace ahead of you, his massive frame shielding Clara’s flank. He moved like a ghost, silent and mechanical, his blue eyes staring blankly into the corridor ahead.

Four minutes, you thought, watching the timer ticking down on your tactical HUD inside your glove.

S.H.I.E.L.D.’s simultaneous raids in Berlin and Bucharest were reaching their breach window. Once those server farms dropped, Clara’s off-site fail-safes would be severed and Fury’s signal would come through.

As you descended the iron stairs to Level Two, Clara stopped at a heavy, reinforced security door marked VAULT 04. She pulled out the modified S.H.I.E.L.D. bypass drive and slotted it into the wall panel.

“Accessing the mainframe now,” Clara announced into her comms, though her real action was initiating the data-wipe sequence to erase Apex’s footprint while transferring the final bio-bomb telemetry to her personal drive. “Barnes, lock down the stairwell. Don’t let anyone down.”

“Copy,” Bucky rasped softly, stepping toward the foot of the stairs, turning his back on both of you.

You stood three paces behind Clara, taking a deep slow breath to steady your racing pulse. The silence in the room was suffocating. Clara’s fingers flew across the digital interface, a satisfied, smug smile playing on her lips in the blue glow of the screen.

Then, your earpiece crackled with a sharp double-click of static.

Fury’s voice came through, cold and absolute. “Servers blacked out in Berlin and Bucharest. Signal green. Take her down.”

Clara didn’t hear the comms ping, her receiver had been quietly isolated by Hill five minutes ago. But she felt the sudden shift in the room.

Before she could pull the drive from the terminal, you acted.

You brought the butt of your rifle up, slamming it hard into the back of Clara’s shoulder. The impact knocked her off balance, sending her sidearm clattering across the concrete floor. She spun around, her eyes widening in pure shock as she reached for her secondary blade, but you were already on her.

You pinned her against the wall panel, bringing your forearm hard against her throat.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Clara choked out, her face contorting with sudden, furious venom. “Barnes! Neutralize her!”

At the sound of the command, Bucky turned around.

The chemical trigger was still clouding his mind, his eyes dull as he registered Clara’s order. He took a heavy, deliberate step toward you, his vibranium arm raising, fingers curling into a fist as his Winter Soldier programming fought to comply with her voice.

“Bucky, no!” You yelled, keeping Clara pinned while turning your head toward him, your eyes locked onto his. “Look at me! It’s over! The servers are gone!”

Bucky hesitated, his boot frozen mid-step. The command in his head screamed to him to protect Clara but the sight of your face and the memory of your voice.

He brought his flesh hand to his temple, letting out a ragged, agonizing groan as his brain warred between the aerosolized trigger and his own consciousness.

Clara realized in an instant that the game was up. Her smile died, replaced by a cold, calculating rage. “You stupid, arrogant little rat,” she sneered, her voice dropping all pretense. “You think you won? I have a neural dampener. Your little witch friend can’t touch me and Barnes belongs to us!”

With a sudden burst of speed, Clara reached down to her belt, pulling a small detonator pin designed to trigger the local emergency fail-safe inside the facility.

Clara’s thumb slammed down onto the detonator switch.

A high pitched, deafening screech echoed through the concrete vault as the facility’s local emergency lockdown initiated. Magnetic locks slammed shut down the entire corridor behind you with heavy, metallic thuds, sealing the three of you in total isolation. Red emergency strobes flashed violently against the cold walls, painting the room in blood-colored light.

Before you could pull yourself up from the impact of her initial strike, Clara lunged. Her hand swept around, catching you hard across the jaw. Pain exploded behind your eyes and you fell backward onto the slick concrete, your rifle sliding out of reach into the shadows.

“Did you really think you could play me?” Clara hissed, stepping over you, her face twisted in a cold, triumphant sneer. “You think Fury and your little friends are going to burst through those blast doors in time? You’re on your own, Agent... and you’re completely out of your depth.”

You scrambled backward, your hands slipping on the wet floor, your breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. Your bruised ribs screamed in agony as you tried to push yourself up, but Clara was faster. She brought her tactical boot down heavily against your chest, pinning you flat against the ground. The pressure crushed the air straight out of your lungs, leaving you wheezing, tears of sheer physical pain pricking at the corners of your eyes.

“Barnes!” Clara’s voice barked out, sharp and absolute, ringing over the blaring alarm sirens. “Get over here! Finish her!”

Through the flashing red light and the rising panic in your chest, you looked toward the foot of the vault stairs.

Bucky took a step forward. His heavy combat boots hit the floor with a terrifying, deliberate rhythm. The synthetic lilac scent wafting off Clara’s gear was thick in the enclosed space, binding to his senses and feeding the chemical fog in his mind. His blue eyes were completely dead, hollow of any warmth or recognition. His vibranium arm caught the pulsing emergency light, gleaming with cold, lethal promise.

He didn’t hesitate. He was walking toward you like a soldier fulfilling a directive, a pawn completely under her control.

“Bucky… please,” you choked out, your voice a desperate, broken whisper as Clara pressed her boot harder against your sternum. “Bucky, look at me…”

He didn’t stop. He raised his left arm, the vibranium plates shifting with a soft, metallic clack as his fist clenched tightly.

“She tried to tear us apart, James,” Clara purred softly, her eyes locked on you with sickening delight as she watched your nightmare unfold. “She’s a threat to the mission. Eliminate her.”

Bucky reached you in two long strides. He bent down, his flesh hand wrapping around your throat with crushing force, lifting your upper body clean off the ground. Your hands instinctively clawed at his wrist, your fingernails digging into his skin, but his grip was an immovable iron vise.

Air was cut off instantly. Spots danced across your vision as you stared up into the face of the man you loved.

The man who had held you in mission.

The man who had kissed your forehead in the quiet dark.

The man now looking down at you like you were nothing more than a target to be neutralized.

“Bucky…” you gasped, your voice barely a thread of sound, your strength rapidly failing as you looked straight into his clouded blue eyes. “It’s… me… please…”

Clara stood right beside him, leaning in close to his ear, her hand resting heavy on his shoulder as she let out a low, victorious laugh.

“He can’t hear you,” Clara mocked, her voice dripping with poison. “There’s nothing left in there for you.”

You felt your body going limp, your hands slipping from his wrist. You were losing. The facility was locked down, no one was coming through those doors, and the chemical conditioning had finally won.

As the darkness encroached on the edges of your vision, a single tear tracked down your temple, falling directly onto the back of Bucky’s flesh hand. For a fraction of a second, the crushing pressure on your throat didn’t increase.

Deep behind those clouded, unblinking blue eyes, something ruptured. The neuro chemical fog, the sickeningly sweet lilac haze that Clara had built around his mind splintered against the raw, visceral reality of your teardrop. The phantom memory of kissing your forehead in the dark, of hearing your broken sobs in the guest room, surged up like a tidal wave against his artificial docility.

Bucky’s breath hitched in a sharp, ragged gasp. His jaw clenched so tight the tendons in his neck strained.

“Barnes! What are you doing?!” Clara’s voice barked out, her smooth, manipulative purr instantly snapping into a sharp, panicked command. “I gave you an order! Kill her!”

Bucky’s flesh hand trembled violently around your neck. His vibranium arm twitched, the metal plates sliding and grinding together with a deafening, metallic shriek as his brain warred violently against itself. His chest heaved. He stared down at your pale, bruised face, watching you choke for air, and a sudden, terrifying flash of pure, unadulterated human horror broke through the haze.

He didn’t just let you go, he recoiled as if he had touched live voltage.

Bucky dropped you onto the floor, stumbling backward two paces, clutching his head with both hands. A low, gut-wrenching roar tore from his throat. It was a sound of pure agony and realization.

“No…” he gasped, his voice hoarse, raw, and entirely his own. He looked at his flesh hand, then at the bruised skin of your throat, his eyes wide with absolute horror. “No, no, no-”

“Barnes! Listen to me!” Clara shrieked, her voice dropping into a desperate, razor-sharp edge.

Before Bucky could pull himself entirely out of the spiral, Clara’s uninjured hand blurred with terrifying speed. She whipped a concealed, heavy duty aerosol canister from her inner tactical lining and sprayed a concentrated, sickly sweet cloud of dark crimson mist directly into his face.

It wasn’t the subtle, floral trigger from before.

Bucky gasped as the chemical hit his lungs, his eyes dilating instantly into total blackness. He froze mid-step, his body locking up as the sheer volume of the synthetic compound overwhelmed his nervous system, stripping away his focus and dropping him right back into an unmoving haze.

While he was paralyzed, trapped in the split-second delay, Clara lunged forward. She drove an already charged, military grade autoinjector directly into the exposed skin of his neck.

The pneumatic hiss of the syringe echoed loudly against the cold concrete walls.

“Sleep, Soldier,” Clara hissed through gritted teeth, her face contorted in vicious satisfaction.

Bucky’s breath caught in a sharp, dying gasp. The heavy neural sedative flooded his bloodstream instantly. The silver plates of his vibranium arm slackened, his knees buckled and his massive frame collapsed heavily onto the concrete floor with a dull, hollow thud, completely unconscious.

Clara stood over his unmoving body, tossing the spent syringe onto his chest, her eyes turning back to you with lethal intent.

“He was never yours to save,” she spat, drawing her secondary blade. “And now, neither are you.”

You didn’t hesitate. Fueled by raw adrenaline, pure hatred, and the sheer terror of what she had just done to Bucky, you ignored the blinding pain in your throat and ribs. As Clara lunged forward with the blade, you ducked under her arm, striking her broken wrist with everything you had.

Clara screamed in agony as the knife clattered to the floor. Before she could recover, you tackled her hard into the concrete, pinning her down. You ripped the secondary restraints from your tactical belt, binding her hands behind her back and slamming her face-first into the cold floor until she went completely limp.

Silence fell over the isolated vault, broken only by the pulsing red emergency lights and the steady, shallow sound of Bucky’s breathing.

Exhausted, trembling and internal bleeding from your throat, you scrambled back over to where Bucky lay motionless. You dropped to your knees at his side, your hands desperately cupping his pale face, brushing his damp hair away from his forehead.

“Bucky…” you whispered, your voice breaking as you rested your hand over his heart, feeling its slow, steady beat beneath his chest. “Bucky, wake up… please…”

He didn’t move, trapped deep within the chemical coma but he was breathing. You collapsed forward, resting your forehead against his uninjured shoulder, letting out a ragged sob into the silence of the locked vault as you waited alone in the dark for the rescue teams to cut through the doors.

The high-pitched siren continued to wail overhead, flooding the concrete room in a sickening, rhythmic pulse of crimson light.

You knelt over Bucky, your tears blurring the sight of his still, pale face. Your fingers trembled against his chest, feeling the slow heavy thud of his heart. Relief and exhaustion washed over you so completely that you let your guard down for one fatal second.

You didn’t realize Clara was still conscious.

Behind you, a raspy and agonizing gasp cut through the alarm noise. Clara, her wrists still tightly bound behind her back with your tactical zip-ties, had rolled onto her side. Pain contorted her features, her broken limbs screaming in agony, but her eyes held a feral, unhinged venom.

Before you could turn around, Clara threw her weight forward.

She slammed her forehead directly into the side of your knee, sweeping your legs out from under you. You crashed hard onto the cold concrete, the air exploding from your lungs as your bruised ribs violently protested.

“If I’m going down…” Clara spat, her voice a wet, bloodied sneer right beside your ear, “…you’re coming with me.”

You scrambled to push her off, but Clara rolled her body onto your legs, pinning you down. With her teeth, she pulled open a small hidden compartment stitched into the seam of her tactical vest, popping out a second loaded auto-injector fron her shoulder.

Her gloved fingers, pinned behind her back, awkwardly maneuvered the syringe, blindly driving the sharp steel needle deep into the side of your neck. She spat the needle turning her head behind and let it falling into his tied hands. She slid up onto your body.

“No!” You choked out, your hand flying up to pull the syringe out but the heavy neural sedative was already flooding your bloodstream.

The effect was instantaneous and terrifying.

A wave of freezing, synthetic cold spiked through your veins, racing straight up into your brain. The screaming sirens instantly muffled, sounding like they were underwater. The flashing red lights blurred into soft, dragging smears of crimson.

Your limbs felt as heavy as lead. Your hand slipped off your neck, flopping uselessly against the cold floor.

“Sleep tight, Agent...” Clara whispered, her voice fading into a distant, metallic echo as she collapsed back onto the floor beside you, unable to move any further.

You forced your head to turn, your vision narrowing down to a tiny, dark tunnel. Inches away, Bucky lay motionless in the dark completely oblivious to what had just happened.

You stretched out your hand, your fingers twitching on the wet concrete, trying desperately to reach his flesh hand just to bridge the few inches between you. Your fingertips brushed his cold knuckles for a single, fleeting second.

Then, the darkness swallowed you whole, dropping you into the exact same deep chemical coma.

When the Avengers and the S.H.I.E.L.D. breaching charges finally blew the vault doors open ten minutes later, the rescue teams found three motionless bodies lying in the dark, silent room.

The heavy vault doors didn’t just open, and they erupted inward under violent force. A deafening shockwave shattered the surrounding concrete structure.

Iron bars snapped like brittle twigs, and the compromised ceiling directly above you gave way under the blast. A massive, jagged slab of reinforced concrete fell through the smoke, crashing directly onto the far side of the room where you lay paralyzed in the chemical dark.

The heavy stone pinned you beneath its weight, instantly burying you under a shower of dust, iron, and shattered masonry.

Through the dense cloud of debris, Steve, Tony, Natasha, Wanda, and Sam swept into the vault, weapons raised and eyes scanning the destruction.

“Movement on the left!” Sam yelled, spotting Bucky’s motionless body lying closer to the main entrance, just clear of the collapse.

Steve rushed forward, dropping his shield and dropping to his knees beside his friend. “Bucky! He’s breathing... but he’s totally non-responsive... he’s been sedated!” He said, noticing the slow breathe.

“Wanda, check his vitals!” Tony called out, his suit’s HUD scanning the room through the thick dust. “Where’s Y/N? Where’s Clara?”

Before anyone could answer, a bloodied, disheveled figure stumbled out from a side ventilation shaft near the outer breach, coughing violently into her sleeve.

It was Clara.

She had dragged her broken body through the shadows during the blast, using the precise moment of the breaching explosion to break her way toward the entrance. She clutched her shattered arm against her chest, tears streaming down her soot-stained face, her expression a masterclass in pure, terrified panic.

“Help!” Clara sobbed, staggering straight toward Steve and Natasha, her voice frantic, trembling, and utterly convincing. “Please! You have to help them!”

Natasha’s eyes narrowed, her shock sticks humming, but she held her ground as Clara collapsed onto her knees before them.

“What happened in here, Vane?!” Steve demanded, his voice hard as steel as he stood over Bucky.

“An Apex liquidation squad breached the lower level right after we locked down!” Clara lied through her teeth, weeping openly, pressing her hand over her bleeding shoulder. “They had something... bad! They injected Barnes first... I tried to pull him back... I tried to fight them off...but there were too many... they tied my hands but I escaped...” she cried in front of Steve, showing him her hands.

She looked up at Wanda and Natasha with wide, terrified eyes, pointing a trembling blood-stained finger toward the smoking collapsed section of the ceiling.

“They grabbed Y/N!” Clara cried out, her voice breaking in a desperate, pleading pitch. “They were trying to drag her out through the sub-level tunnels! I tried to stop them... but the ceiling caved in right on top of them! You have to dig her out! Please, hurry... I think she’s trapped under the rubble!”

It was a brilliant, sociopathic ploy.

By faking the panic, blaming an imaginary strike team, and pointing them toward the deadly cave-in, Clara had given herself the ultimate cover to slip away while the Avengers scrambled to save you and Bucky.

“Tony, Sam... get that concrete off the back sector now!” Steve barked into the comms, instantly falling for the urgency of her distraction.

As Tony’s thrusters flared and Wanda rushed to use her telekinesis to shift the massive slabs of fallen stone over your unconscious body, Clara slowly backed away into the lingering smoke of the corridor, a cold, invisible smile threatening to break through her tears.

The dust hung in the air like a thick, choking veil, turned a violent shade of crimson by the emergency strobes still flashing against the ruined walls.

“Y/N!” Steve shouted, his voice echoing off the scorched concrete as he and Tony hauled at the jagged edges of the collapsed ceiling.

Wanda threw her hands forward, her eyes blazing red as her magic wrapped around a massive, multi-ton slab of reinforced stone. She pulled with everything she had, her teeth grit and her veins standing out on her neck. The slab groaned, lifting a few agonizing inches off the floor, but the entire structural framework of the underground vault gave a sickening CRACK.

A second violent cave in rained down straight over the same spot.

Tons of dirt, iron bars and concrete fell with the roar of a thunderclap, completely burying the pocket where your body lay.

“NOOO!” Wanda screamed, her voice breaking as the kinetic feedback slammed into her chest, throwing her backward onto the wet floor.

Tony fired his repoulsors at the mountain of debris, trying to disintegrate the upper layers, but his suit’s display immediately flashed a barrage of critical warnings.

“Sensors reading zero structural stability, Boss,” FRIDAY's automated voice echoed inside his helmet, flat and cold. “Further kinetic disruption will cause a full collapse of the bedrock. Vital signs in the lower quadrant are… zero.”

Tony froze, the blue light of his arc reactor reflecting off the settle of fine grey dust. He lowered his repoulsors slowly, his jaw set so tight the metal of his faceplate vibrated. “Steve… stop. Steve, back off.”

“No! She’s down there!” Steve yelled still digging, his gloves caked in dust and blood as he tried to lift a slab by hand. “Sam, get in here!”

“Cap, look at the scanning feed!” Sam grabbed Steve by the shoulder, hauling him back as another heavy chunk of rock dropped from the ruined ceiling. “It’s gone! The whole sub-floor gave out!”

Across the room, Bucky lay completely still on a gurney. The heavy paralytic sedative Clara had shoved into his neck kept him locked deep within a silent, catatonic dark.

He couldn’t open his eyes.

He couldn’t feel the cold dust falling over his wet jacket.

He had no idea that just thirty feet away, under a mountain of iron and stone, the person who had just pulled him back from the edge of his own nightmare was gone.

Natasha stood completely frozen at the edge of the rubble. Her sidearms were lowered at her legs, her breathing shallow and her green eyes fixed on the exact spot where your hand had been reaching out moments before the roof fell.

Director Nick Fury stepped through the breached outer blast doors, flanked by Agent Hill and a squad of armed S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical agents.

Hill took one look at the completely obliterated back sector of the vault, her breath hitching in her throat. She looked at Fury, her hands shaking slightly as she checked her encrypted tablet, waiting for him to step forward. Waiting for him to drop the veil, call out Clara’s lie and tell the Avengers what had really been happening over the last forty-eight hours.

Instead, Nick Fury stood like a statue in the eye of the storm.

His single eye was wide, unblinking, fixed on the smoldering mound of concrete. For the first time in his life, the legendary Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., the man who always had five backup plans and who calculated every move ten steps ahead, was completely and utterly paralyzed by the shock.

The silence in his chest was deafening.

He had sent you into that vault as the bait.

He had told you to hold the line.

He had trusted that Natasha and Wanda would be the safety net but the unexpected local detonation had rewritten the script in a fraction of a second.

“Director…” Hill whispered, stepping up right to his shoulder, her voice desperate. “Nick. We have to speak up. Vane is right there-”

Fury’s jaw flexed.

A cold, hollow numbness washed over his face, masking the sheer horror clawing at his gut. If he revealed the truth right now, if he exposed Clara in front of an emotionally destroyed, unstable team without the Apex server network fully confirmed destroyed, the entire compound would turn into a slaughterhouse.

He stayed silent. He let the lie hang in the cold, dusty air.

“Get Barnes to the medical transport,” Fury finally rasped, his voice unnaturally flat, devoid of its usual booming authority. “Secure the perimeter.”

“What about Y/N?!” Steve demanded, stepping right up to Fury, his face covered in gray soot, His eyes burning with a mix of grief and rage. “We can’t just leave her under there, Nick! We need heavy equipment! We need to dig!”

Fury looked Steve dead in the eye, his own expression an unreadable mask hiding a brutal, internal agony. “There is nothing left to dig for, Rogers...” Fury said quietly.

Wanda let out a choked, broken sob collapsing against Natasha’s shoulder.

Natasha didn’t say a word, she just wrapped an arm around Wanda. Her jaw clenched tight as she stared at the pile of stone, her knuckles white around her batons.

Near the exit ramp, Clara was being helped onto a stretcher by two S.H.I.E.L.D. medics. She kept her head down, clutching her broken arm, letting out soft shivering faked sobs as they strapped her in but beneath the dirt on her face her lips twitched into a subtle, sickening triumph.

She had wiped you out.

She had silenced the only threat.

As the Avengers loaded Bucky’s unconscious body into the jet beside her, she realized she had walked out of the wreckage completely clean.

The hum of the stealth jet's engines was the only sound cutting through the suffocating silence on the flight back to New York.

Nobody spoke.

Nobody moved.

When the jet finally touched down on the Avengers Tower helipad, the heavy ramp lowered into the dark rainy night.

A medical team rushed forward immediately, wheeling Bucky out on a gurney toward the compound’s ICU to flush the heavy Apex synthetic inihibitor from his system.

His eyes were still closed, his breathing deep and artificial completely oblivious to the tragedy that had unfolded around him.

Right behind him, medics escorted Clara, who kept up her pitiful act slumped in a wheelchair with her broken arm tightly bound, whimpering softly and dabbing at fake tears as she was rolled toward the trauma bay.

Steve, Tony, Natasha, Wanda, Sam, and Clint walked down the ramp like hollow ghosts, their boots leaving wet, muddy prints across the polished steel of the hangar floor. Bruce was already in the med bay hearing from Tony on the jet.

The main common room of the Tower felt vast, freezing and sickeningly empty.

Steve unstrapped his shield and placed it on the wooden table with a heavy, dull thud. He didn’t take off his helmet. He just stood there, staring blankly at the glass walls overlooking the glowing city skyline, his shoulders bowed under a crushing weight.

Wanda collapsed onto the leather sofa, burying her face in her hands. Silent, violent sobs shook her shoulders.

Natasha stood right behind her, her hand resting firmly on Wanda’s back. Her face was an unreadable, and icy mask, but the white knuckled grip she had on the edge of the couch betrayed the cold, bleeding rage inside her.

Tony walked over to the bar, his hands trembling as he poured a glass of scotch. He didn’t even drink it. He just stared into the amber liquid, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched repeatedly in his cheek.

“FRIDAY,” Tony said, his voice quiet, raspy, and stripped of all its usual bravado. “Run another orbital scan over the Prague site coordinates. Cross-reference thermal signatures.”

“I have already run twelve full-spectrum scans, Boss,” FRIDAY's soft voice resonated through the room, solemn and heavy. “The collapse of the sub-vault resulted in a total structural implosion. There are no thermal or biological signatures detected.”

The words hung in the air like a death sentence.

“We shouldn’t have left her,” Sam muttered, leaning against the doorframe, staring down at the floor. “We should have brought heavy excavators. We shouldn’t have walked away.”

“The whole bedrock was falling apart, Sam!” Tony snapped, his voice cracking with a sudden, volatile burst of grief. He slammed the glass down on the counter, shattering it into pieces. “If we stayed down there another thirty seconds, we’d all be buried under five hundred tons of rock right next to her!”

“Tony,” Steve said quietly, his voice dangerously low, though he didn’t turn around. “Don’t.”

Before the tension could boil over, the glass doors opened. Director Nick Fury and Maria Hill stepped into the common room.

Fury’s long leather coat was damp from the rain outside. His face swept over the broken room with the grieving heroes who looked to him for answers, for leadership, for anything.

Next door, through the glass observation window of the medical bay, Clara was sitting on a bed while a doctor bandaged her arm. She caught Fury’s eye through the glass, quickly lowering her head and putting on a fragile, trembling display of grief for the S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel around her.

Hill looked at Fury, her jaw tight, silently begging him with her eyes to break the silence and to tell the Avengers that Clara was an Apex operative, that she had manipulated Bucky, that she was the monster responsible for everything.

But Fury remained stoic, a terrifying vault of kept secrets.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical units have secured the perimeter of the Prague facility,” Fury announced, his voice flat, heavy, and completely stripped of emotion. “The site is being classified as an asset loss. Official casualty reports are being drafted.”

Steve finally turned around, his eyes red-rimmed and fierce. “Casualty report? That’s all you have to say, Nick? She was one of ours! She died executing your extraction plan!”

“I am aware of who she was, Captain,” Fury replied coldly, though deep beneath his hardened exterior, a dark and bitter knot of guilt burned in his gut. “And her sacrifice gave us the intel needed to dismantle the rest of this black-market network. Her family will be notified.”

“She didn’t have a family,” Natasha said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, razor-thin whisper that cut through the room like a blade. She looked directly into Fury’s eye, her gaze piercing right through his operational facade. “We were her family.”

Fury didn’t blink. He couldn’t afford to. “Get some rest. All of you. That’s an order.”

He turned on his heel and walked back toward the elevator, Hill following half a step behind him, leaving the Avengers drowning in the suffocating silence of their loss completely unaware that down the hall in the ICU, Bucky was slowly beginning to stir from his chemical sleep, and the nightmare was far from over.

The fluorescent lights of the compound’s medical bay hummed with a low, relentless vibration. The air was sterile, sharp with the sting of antiseptic and rubbing alcohol but to Bucky, as his consciousness slowly drifted up from the depths of the dark, it felt like drowning in thick glass.

His eyelids fluttered, impossibly heavy. His heart monitor tapped out a slow, sluggish rhythm.

beep… beep… beep…

His brain felt wrapped in layers of damp wool. The world came back to him not in crisp memories, but in disjointed, sensory fragments.

The taste of iron on his tongue.

The cold pressure of an IV line taped to the back of his hand.

The lingering phantom sensation on the skin of his left wrist.

He didn’t remember the sweet, suffocating cloud of crimson mist that Clara had sprayed directly into his face.

He didn’t remember the sharp, violent bite of the auto-injector tearing into the side of his neck, or the way his knees had buckled as the heavy neural inhibitor flooded his system.

The chemical compound had scorched through his short term memory pathways, wiping the final chaotic minutes in Vault 04 into an empty, pitch-black void.

All he knew, with a sudden, suffocating surge of instinct as he opened his eyes, was that someone was missing.

“Y/N…” he rasped, the word tearing out of his dry, parched throat like broken glass.

His vision was blurred, as the white ceiling panels swimming above him. He tried to sit up, but his motor functions refused to obey. The synthetic paralytic was still dragging through his bloodstream, leaving his heavy muscles useless and leaden.

He couldn’t feel his legs.

Even his vibranium arm lay completely inert at his side, a heavy and cold weight anchored to the mattress.

“Y/N…” he tried again, louder this time, his breath hitching in his chest.

Panic, cold and sharp, began to slice through the lingering chemical haze.

The heavy glass door of the ICU slid open.

Steve and Sam stepped into the room. They looked terrible.

Steve’s uniform was torn at the shoulder, caked in thick gray concrete dust and dried mud. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed and hollowed out by a grief he was visibly struggling to contain.

Sam walked half a step behind him, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, staring down at the linoleum floor as if he couldn’t bring himself to look Bucky in the eye.

“Bucky,” Steve said softly, his voice thick and raspy. He moved to the side of the bed, reaching out to rest a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Hey... easy... don’t try to move yet. The doctors flushed the sedative, but your nervous system is still coming back online.”

Bucky didn’t care about the sedative. He didn’t care about the IVs or the monitor screaming as his heart rate began to spike. He grabbed Steve’s wrist with his flesh hand. His grip weak, trembling, but desperate.

“Where is she, Steve?” Bucky demanded, his blue eyes searching his best friend’s face with a terrified, wild intensity. “Where’s Y/N? Is she in recovery? Did… did she get hurt?”

Steve swallowed hard, his jaw working as his throat closed up. He couldn’t speak. He looked away, his breath hitching in his chest, unable to hold Bucky’s desperate, hopeful gaze.

The silence that settled over the medical bay was worse than any weapon Bucky had ever faced. It was heavy, suffocating, and terrifying.

“Steve,” Bucky choked out, his voice dropping into a frantic, breaking whisper. “Talk to me. Where is she? Tell me she’s okay... please.”

Sam took a slow step forward, rubbing a hand over his mouth before letting out a long, shuddering breath. “Bucky… the facility... the sub-vault collapsed.”

Bucky’s heart monitor began to beep faster, a frantic, high-pitched alarm filling the quiet room.

beep...beep...beep...beep...

“What?” Bucky whispered, his head shaking back and forth against the pillow in flat refusal. “No... no... we… we breached the vault. Clara was pulling the data...”

“Clara made it out,” Steve cut in, his voice cracking down the middle, the agony finally breaking through his stoic composure. “She got out through a vent right as the breaching charges blew. But the sub-floor… the bedrock gave way, Buck. Tons of concrete fell straight through the primary quadrant.”

Bucky froze. The blood drained completely from his face, leaving him deathly pale. “No…”

“We tried to dig,” Sam added, his eyes shimmering with unshed tears, his voice raw. “Wanda tried to hold the ceiling up, Tony used everything his suit had but the whole sector imploded. There was… there was nothing left, Bucky. Scanning feeds showed zero vitals. She’s gone.”

Gone.

The word exploded in Bucky’s brain like a grenade.

“No!” Bucky roared.

A surge of wild, unadulterated agony ripped through his heavy limbs. Ignoring the doctors’ orders, ignoring the searing pain in his muscles, he threw his weight sideways, desperately trying to launch himself off the hospital bed.

He had to go back.

He had to tear that concrete apart with his bare hands.

He had to dig her out.

“Bucky, no! Stop!” Steve yelled, reaching out to catch him, but Bucky was already over the edge.

Because his legs were still completely paralyzed by the lingering nerve agent, they offered zero support. The moment his feet touched the slick tile, his knees buckled instantly.

Bucky crashed heavily onto the hard floor.

The IV line ripped clean out of his hand, leaving a thin trail of blood splattered across the white tile. The heart monitor leads snapped off his chest, setting off a continuous, blaring flatline alarm throughout the ICU. His massive frame hit the ground with a sickening, hollow thud, his vibranium arm clattering uselessly against the floor.

“Bucky!” Sam rushed forward, grabbing him under his arms to try and lift him back up but Bucky fought them off with desperate, weak thrashing.

He couldn’t stand.

He couldn’t move his legs.

He was completely trapped in his own useless body, pinned to the cold floor right beside the bed.

He dragged himself an inch forward with his flesh hand, his fingernails scraping uselessly against the polished linoleum, trying to crawl toward the door.

Toward the hallway.

Toward the jet.

Toward her.

“Let me go!” Bucky sobbed, a sound so broken and so raw and agonizing that Steve froze, tears finally spilling over his eyelashes and tracking down his dust stained cheeks. “Let me go! I have to go back! I have to get her!”

“Bucky, please, there’s nothing there!” Steve choked out, dropping to his knees on the floor beside his friend, putting his strong arms around Bucky’s shaking shoulders to keep him from tearing his own skin apart on the tile. “It’s over, Buck. She’s gone. She’s gone…”

“No… no, no, no…” Bucky wept, his head dropping forward until his forehead pressed hard against the freezing floorboards.

The powerful and terrifying Winter Soldier, the man who had survived decades of torture and war, falling from trains and losing his own soul, was completely crushed. Trembling violent sobs wracked his heavy shoulders, tearing out of his chest in ragged, desperate gasps. He pressed his palms into his eyes, trying to block out the harsh fluorescent light, trying to wake up from a nightmare that refused to end.

He didn’t remember Clara spraying him.

He didn’t remember the syringe in his neck.

He didn’t remember the terrible, sickening truth of what had happened inside that locked room before the roof came down.

All he knew was that the only person who had looked at him like he was a human being instead of a weapon had been buried beneath five hundred tons of stone.

Steve pulled Bucky’s shaking frame into a tight, desperate embrace on the floor, holding his brother as Bucky buried his face into Steve’s shoulder, weeping uncontrollably in the middle of the cold, screaming room.

The darkness beneath the rubble was absolute.

A crushing, suffocating vault of dust, iron, and shattered stone.

The Apex inhibitor had frozen your muscles, locking your body into a catatonic state just before the ceiling collapsed. By all laws of physics and biology, the heavy slab of reinforced concrete that caved in should have crushed your spine, flattened your chest and put an end to your story right there in the dark and rainy building.

Your heart had stopped and the air had been squeezed from your lungs.

For several agonizing minutes, you lay clinically dead beneath the rubble while the Avengers grieved on the surface, leaving you behind in the smoking ruins.

Then, something impossible awoke in the dark.

It didn’t come from the compound.

It didn’t come from Apex or S.H.I.E.L.D.

It tore into reality from somewhere vast, primordial, and cosmic. A sudden blinding surge of fiery, celestial energy that pierced through the earth, striking straight into the center of your lifeless chest.

THUMP.

Your heart violently restarted, beating like a war drum.

An electric, molten heat flooded your veins burning away the synthetic Apex poison in a single, devastating flash.

The skin on your neck, where Clara’s syringe had pierced your skin, knit itself back together in a fraction of a second leaving smooth and unblemished skin behind. The broken ribs snapped back into alignment with rapid, audible clicks.

All the damaged tissue, torn muscle and fractured bone reformed at impossible speeds infused with a terrifying, limitless vitality that made your previous human limits feel like a distant memory.

Your eyes snapped open in the pitch black.

They weren’t just seeing, they were glowing with a fierce brilliant gold and crimson light that pierced straight through the thick, choking dust.

You could feel everything.

Your senses exploded outward in concentric rings.

You could feel the microscopic cellular structure of the concrete above you.

You could track the precise frequency of the trapped air molecules in the pocket around your head.

High above the cloud cover, solar radiation hummed through the atmosphere, drawing toward your body like iron filings to a magnet, feeding into your cells with the density of a miniature nuclear reactor.

Beneath your skin, an ancient force surged like a fiery and immortal phoenix awakening from the ashes of your mortality.

You took your first real breath.

The toxic dust didn’t catch in your throat instead, your lungs expanded with incredible, superhuman pressure.

Deep within your vocal cords, a kinetic and acoustic vibration hummed. It was a raw, dangerous frequency capable of shattering steel and tearing the sky open with a single scream.

You brought your hands up. The multi ton slab of concrete pressing down on your torso felt as light as a sheet of paper.

With a slow, effortless push, you shoved the massive boulder upward. It didn’t just move, it disintegrated shattering into fine sand under the sheer, solar-fueled strength surging through your muscles.

You sat up in the ruined crater, a halo of red and gold energy dancing across your skin like solar flares. Gravity lost its grip on you. Your boots hovered an inch off the cold concrete floor as your body absorbed the ambient energy of the earth around you.

Your hearing sharpened, cutting through miles of distance.

You heard the soft patter of rain on the pine leaves a mile away.

You heard the distant, muffled hum of the jet's engines as it carried Bucky and the Avengers back to New York. You could even hear Bucky’s frantic, agonizing heart rate spiking in the distance, his grief echoing through the quiet night.

They are leaving me here, you thought.

Apex had tried to break you.

Clara had used you, lied to your friends, injected you and left you to rot beneath tons of stone.

They thought you were dead.

They thought the story ended in Vault 04.

You stood upright in the middle of the smoking crater, your hair fanning out around you as golden light poured from your palms and fiery crimson sparks trailed from your fingertips. You noticed how your ends were now white.

A quiet, deadly smile touched your lips as the power within you hummed in perfect harmony with your unbreakable will.

You weren’t just a survivor anymore.

You were a force of nature.

And it was time to go home.

You just smiled to yourself as the doors closed in front of yourself and Bucky.

It was noticeable, the change, between yourself and Bucky. 

The rare good morning grunts, or more often; complete, yet heavy, silence. They had been swapped for smiles and genuine good mornings. The training and shift patterns were easier to assign, mission reports were completed with less dent marks in the paper, and the evening dinners were less awkward. 

Sam and Wanda had become hopeful. They all had. 

“They look happy, don’t they?” Sam asked aloud, already knowing Wanda was silently standing beside him. 

She smiled. “They really do.”

Down the hallway, you and Bucky were exiting the training room, laughing. The look in Bucky’s eyes – the light – had been rare to see in the last year. But when he was with you…

The light between both of you could blind any shadow. 

“Is it permanent?” Sam asked, something in his gut denying him true joy. 

Wanda smiled, hopefully. “I think so. Their connection runs deep. He helped her heal. She helped him. Nobody can end a connection like that.”

Sam nodded, turning his head to look back down the corridor where you and Bucky had just turned. He could only hope it would last. 

Bucky had been in love with you for a long time, even if he didn’t like it. Sam didn’t want him to hide it away. He deserved love. And so did you. 

Even when all you did was fight, you were each other's safe space. 

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Shut up.”

“Because one wrong hit and it all falls down.”

You were starting to regret agreeing to family games night at Kate’s apartment. It was yourself, Kate, Yelena, Clint and Bucky; all sat on the floor. 

“Careful, doll.”

“Shut up.”

You knew you’d taken a risky move with the jenga block, but if you’d chosen the one Clint had first been trying to ‘help’ you towards, you’d lose. 

“You know, this is a stupid game. We should play something else.” Yelena said. Her’s would be a different tune if she hadn’t lost the last round. 

Kate shushed her, “She’s gonna do it.”

Clint looked at his work partner. “This is a one for all game. Can’t be girls vs boys. We’re outnumbered.”

Yelena scoffed. “Bucky is like…ancient. He qualifies for two people, at least.”

You sniggered, trying to keep your focus on the wooden block. 

“You are a child.” Clint deadpanned before turning to Bucky. “They’re children.”

“Ah!” You pulled the brick free and held up your arms. “Done it!”

The tower remained standing for another minute before Clint took his go and the tower came falling down. 

Yelena just laughed, “Ha.”

You chuckled, pushing yourself to stand. “Okay, I’m getting another drink.”

“I’ll set up the next game.” Yelena called out before picking up the monopoly board. 

“I’ll come with you,” Bucky said as you stepped over his legs before helping him up.

As the pair of you walked into the kitchen, you could hear the other three stuck in an argument over who should be the banker. 

“Beer?”

Bucky held out his hand and you passed him the two in your hand. Popping off both caps, he threw the tops into the sink before handing you yours. 

You both clinked the necks of the bottles against each other’s. “You did good.”

“Would have been easier if I didn’t have this super annoying voice coming from across the table.”

Bucky smirked a little, narrowing his eyes. “Now where would the fun in that be?”

You just shook your head as you took a sip of your beer. You leaned against the sink as Bucky leaned adjacent to you. 

“So…”

“So?”

Bucky lowered the beer bottle from his lips and braced himself on the counter. “I’ve got a free day tomorrow if you want to…do something. With me.” 

You looked him over. “Why are you shy?”

You saw him blush a little as he looked away. “I’m not- I’m not shy.”

You smiled and Bucky felt like he needed to look away despite that being the last thing he wanted to do. 

“Bucky,” your voice was soft as you looked at him. “What is it?”

“I just…” Bucky’s question was on the tip of his tongue. But then he chickened out. “I was wondering if you wanted to train with me tomorrow?”

“You were nervous to ask me to train with you?”

Bucky nodded. “Last time I asked, you said no.”

You just stood back for a moment, your eyes fixed on him. “I’ll train with you.”

Bucky felt like his crush in a 40s dancehall had just finally agreed to dance with him. “Really?”

“Really,” you nodded. “Don’t know who would train on their day off, but sure.” You smiled before grabbing the bowl of snacks on the kitchen counter. 

“We better get back in there before the bank has a hostage situation.”

Bucky chuckled, following you back into the living room. 

By the time the next afternoon rolled around, you and Bucky were beat. 

Bucky held his side. “I thought you were taking it easy after your injuries.”

You laughed, “I got a full clearance from the hospital four months ago. Good as new. Thought I’d go easy on you? Never.”

You almost had Bucky to his feet but he pulled a reverse on you. Somehow you found yourself trapped on your knees, your back against his chest. “Little too cocky, sweetheart. And who said I wanted you to go easy on me?”

Jabbing him in the ribs, he calculated your next move. You were rolled onto the mat together. As you had Bucky on his back, you felt him reach for your knife. Only, it wasn’t there. 

He felt a small pinch by his side. He looked down, a little breathless. “You remembered.”

A small chuckle left you. “I remember a lot of things about you, Barnes.”

You didn’t know what it was. Your words and their hidden meaning, the smile on his face as he was looking at you, the way his eyes flicked to your lips, or the fact that yours did the same with him. Maybe it was his hand, holding onto the side of your leg, his thumb mindlessly rubbing back and forth. Maybe it was the breathless exchange. Or maybe it was your constant reminder of him that fell forward from your t-shirt. 

Dangling between you both were Bucky’s dog tags. 

Pulling your attention away from the slow-swinging metal, Bucky spoke, “You’re still wearing them.”

Your gaze locked onto his. “Yeah…never take them off.”

Maybe it was the fact that Bucky was looking at you like…like he wanted to kiss you. Or the fact that you wanted him to. 

But something shifted. 

You cleared your throat and quickly moved yourself from Bucky’s body and stood up. “I, uh, I should…there’s somewhere I’ve gotta…” 

You couldn’t think straight. You just needed to get out of there, before you did something reckless. 

The rest was a blur. Gathering your things up, Bucky slowly standing up and trying to keep you calm. He was clueless and worried. And somewhere between it all, you’d pressed his dog tags into his palm and left. 

For the next month, things were…awkward, to say the least. 

“Has she told you anything?” Bucky asked, once again frustrated that you weren’t talking to him. 

It was bordering on week 5 of you ignoring him. 

And it. Was. Maddening. 

Wanda shook her head. “No, nothing.”

In saying you’d told her nothing, that was the truth. But deep down, Wanda already knew why. Whatever had happened between you and Bucky after that day…it had scared you. It had opened something up inside of you that you’d been forcing down for a long, long time. 

“I thought we were finally getting somewhere,” Bucky sighed as he sat down. 

“Maybe you should just try and talk to her.”

“How?” Bucky almost exclaimed.

“And we’re standing again,” Wanda whispered to herself as Bucky launched himself from the sofa and started pacing again. 

“Everytime I see her, she doesn’t look at me. If she sees me coming down the corridor, she takes a completely different exit. We got assigned a three day recon mission last week, she won’t take the mission.”

“She’ll take the mission, Bucky.”

He just shook his head. “She won’t. She hates me. Again. I don’t even…”

“She doesn’t hate you, Bucky. She never has.” Wanda told him. “Look, Y/n…she’s not someone who trusts easily. And she trusts you, Bucky. I know she does. Maybe even more than she even knows. Which also means, I know that it scares her.”

Wanda stood and laid a light hand on Bucky’s chest, a little over his heart. “Just talk to her. Find her. Make her sit down if you have to. Talk. It’s the only thing you can do.”

Bucky bowed his head and sighed. That was even if he could get you alone in a room for ten minutes. 

“We need to talk.”

You ducked your head as if a bullet had just been fired towards you. “Jesus- James.” You closed your eyes and sighed heavily. “You need to stop sneaking up on me. Make a noise or do something. How long have you been standing there?”

“Ten minutes. At least,” Bucky answered honestly before pushing himself from the wall. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t about to run off. And, from the way you’ve been punching that bag, I’d say you’re really pissed at someone.”

“Want me to give you three guesses?”

Bucky just hummed and continued to watch you as he stood a little closer. 

“What do you want, Bucky?”

“I want to talk.”

“What about?” You continued to hit the punching bag in front of you. 

“You know what.”

“No, I don’t.”

Bucky came and held the bag still and for a moment, you stood back. Breathless, sweaty and tired, you looked at him. 

“I know you’re not dumb, Y/n. You know what.”

You stepped away, untying the bandage from your hands. “Enlighten me.”

Bucky watched as you walked away from him. He could take a lifetime of you hating him, but not a lifetime of you ignoring him. 

“Aren’t you tired of this game?”

“What game?”

“This one. And the one we’ve been doing for the last few years. I thought we made up. I thought we were finally friends.”

You shook your head. “You don’t wanna be my friend, Bucky.”

“Yes, I do.” He stood in front of you before you could walk away. You finally looked at him. 

For the first time in over a month, you finally looked at him. And he knew it was still true. He could drown in your gaze for the rest of his life. 

“Or maybe I don’t.” 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What I do know, however, is that I want you to talk to me. I can take you hating me for the rest of your life, Y/n. But I can’t take you ignoring me. Pretending like we don’t exist.”

“We?”

“What happened here?” You knew what he meant. The training mats were less than eight feet away from you. “That day?”

You turned your gaze away from him, trying to run away from the conversation. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”

He let you pass but he still followed behind you. “Something happened.”

“Nothing happened, Bucky.”

“Y/n.” Bucky stopped walking. 

“Goodnight, James. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Y/n, wait!” 

Finally, you stopped in your tracks. Your back was still facing him, but you had stopped running. For the moment. 

Slowly, you turned around to face him. Your grip tightened on your bag. “What?”

Bucky stood looking at you. Breathless. Angry. Worried. Sad. Annoyed. Tired.

“I can’t keep doing this,” he muttered, almost to himself as he bowed his head and braced his hands on his hips. “I can’t.” He looked back up at you, a little more determined. “I like you, Y/n. I can deal with you hating me. I’d prefer it, actually, compared to you ignoring me. If I’m being completely honest, I more than like you. But since I’ve barely been able to keep you in the same room as me for the last month, I’m gonna keep that to myself until I know you’re not gonna run away from me.”

You didn’t know what to say, so Bucky continued. 

“Just…tell me what happened…please.” Bucky was ready to get on his knees and beg. 

Your words were caught in your throat. Stuck in place, burning underneath whilst freezing on top. So you did the only thing your body was allowing you to do. 

Move. 

You could have turned away. You could have ignored it all. 

But you stayed. 

Bucky watched as you dropped the bag from your shoulder and it landed with a loud thud on the ground. Then you were making your way over to him. 

Pulling him in by his dog tags, you placed your other hand by the back of his head and kissed him. 

It was safe to say Bucky hadn’t been expecting it. Dreamed of it a few times, but never expected it. 

It felt surreal. 

You felt his hand clasp your waist, his fingertips pressing lightly into your skin almost as if to check you were real. It wasn’t long before you felt one of his hands beside your face, trying to hold you closer as he kissed you right back. 

Eventually the kiss broke apart, but Bucky wasn’t ready to let you go. 

“That,” you eventually said. “That was what happened…what almost happened,” you corrected. 

Bucky felt lightheaded and unsteady on his feet but in the best way. 

“You should have stayed that day.”

You found the courage to finally look at him. 

You shook your head. “I…couldn’t. I know it’s bullshit but…it scared me. More than anything. I’ve been hiding that part of myself for so long I just…I didn’t know what to do.”

“Well, just for future reference, this is the better answer.” 

You felt yourself chuckle a little once you saw the corner of Bucky’s mouth lift up. 

“I can take you hating me, doll. But I can’t take the silence. Even when we’re fighting, I still know you’re there. You still talk to me.”

That was when Bucky let you go. 

“What are you doing?”

From around his neck, he pulled the dog tags up and over his head. “Giving you these back.”

“But they’re yours.”

Bucky just laid them over your head and around you, holding them with a smile. “They’ve been yours since you stole them, doll.”

Holding them in your palm, you looked at them. 

“They haven’t been the only thing you’ve stolen from me.”

You looked back to Bucky, a softened smile on your face. And he was looking right back at you, the same stupid grin on his face that had been making your stomach fill with butterflies. 

“Promise me you won’t run away from me, again?”

You shrugged. “Like you said, this is the better answer.”

Bucky grinned, sharing a laugh with you as he cupped your face before kissing you again. 

“If this is about her,” Bucky muttered, reaching for his water bottle, “you can drop it.”

“Oh, I could. But you know I won’t.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, unscrewed the cap, and took a long sip. Maybe it was the cold water or just the way Steve wouldn’t let things go that made him crack.

“There’s no point,” he said, gesturing vaguely to himself with a dry, humorless chuckle. “She’s not interested.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “Did she say that?”

“No,” Bucky admitted, avoiding his friend’s eyes. “But c’mon, Steve. Look at me.” He motioned again, sharper this time, metal fingers curling into a loose fist. “I’m all trauma and a metal arm. Not exactly Prince Charming.”

There it was, Bucky’s truth laid bare in the space between them. 

Steve didn’t flinch. Instead, he laughed, a sharp, disbelieving sound that caught Bucky off guard.

“What?” Bucky snapped, defensive.

“You’ve got old-school charm,” Steve said, walking over to clap him on the shoulder. “You’re like… Cary Grant with a six-pack. Women love that tortured, brooding thing you’ve got going on. Especially when it comes with decent hair and actual manners.”

Bucky snorted, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re out of your damn mind.”

“I’ve known you my whole life, Buck. You think she doesn’t see the good in you?” Steve’s voice softened as he leaned in. “You’re loyal. You’re protective. You’ve got that quiet thing—the ‘I’ll walk you home in the rain and remember how you take your coffee’ vibe. That kind of thing matters.”

Bucky shook his head, but the fight was starting to drain from his posture. He wasn’t convinced, not really. But Steve’s words pressed against some tender hope inside him that had gone untouched for too long.

“Just talk to her,” Steve said, more gently now. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She says no.”

“Or,” Steve countered, grinning again, “she says yes. And then you owe me a coke for playing matchmaker.”

Bucky let out a slow breath. He looked away, eyes tracking the motion of the punching bag still swaying from earlier hits.

“You really think she’d be interested?” he asked, and there was something raw in the way he said it, like he wanted to believe it but didn’t know how.

“I know she would,” Steve said, and for a second, Bucky let himself consider the possibility.

*****

The kitchen was blissfully quiet, bathed in soft mid-morning light. You stood at the counter in your warmest hoodie, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. The rich, familiar scent filled the air as you reached for a mug, still blinking sleep from your eyes.

“Morning!” came a voice, bright, energetic, and entirely too cheerful for the hour.

You turned, stifling a sigh, and saw Steve breezing into the kitchen, already showered in daylight and post-run endorphins. The light sheen of sweat on his brow gave him away, but he still moved with that effortless ease, like someone who enjoyed waking up at sunrise and conquering the world before breakfast.

“Hey,” you greeted, offering a faint, sleepy smile. “Coffee’s almost done.”

“Perfect,” he said, sliding in beside you and leaning casually against the counter, his presence familiar and unhurried, like he had nowhere else to be.

You turned back toward the coffee maker, expecting the moment to settle into a comfortable silence, but then Steve spoke again, the words too light, too carefully casual.

“Y’know… Bucky makes a mean omelet.”

Your hand froze midway to the cabinet, fingers hovering over the mugs.

“…Okay?” you said slowly, glancing at him over your shoulder, your voice wary but even.

“Mmm-hmm.” Steve’s tone was all innocent mischief, the kind that immediately made you suspicious. “Spinach, feta, the works. Like, Michelin-star level stuff. And have you smelled him lately?”

You blinked, utterly thrown. “What?”

“He smells like cedarwood,” Steve said with complete sincerity. “And righteousness.”

You nearly dropped the mug, laughter bubbling out in a choked sound as you poured your coffee with hands that were suddenly less steady than they had been a moment ago. “Okay, now you’re just messing with me.”

“I’m not,” he insisted, wide-eyed and somehow managing not to smile. “You know I don’t lie. And Bucky? Great guy. So loyal. Thoughtful. Deep. And that whole broody, mysterious charm? I mean, come on.”

You tried to hide the way your breath caught, or the way the warmth in your face wasn’t just from the steam rising from your coffee, but Steve’s eyes didn’t miss a thing. You dropped your gaze, busying yourself with creamer you didn’t even need, as if caramel vanilla could somehow drown out the flurry of thoughts suddenly rushing through your brain.

Why was he saying this?

Why now?

And Bucky, of all people? Bucky Barnes, the one person in this tower you couldn’t look at too long without your pulse doing something embarrassing. He wasn’t the kind of man who noticed someone like you. He was… intense and quiet, shadowed and sincere. He carried too much history in his bones and wore guilt like a second skin. And you? You were just you, normal and steady, barely on his radar, let alone in his thoughts.

Still, you didn’t want to admit to the disappointment curling in your chest. You’d long since made peace with the fact that whatever feelings you had for Bucky were yours alone to carry, tucked away in quiet corners and harmless daydreams.

“Steve…” you started, but the words caught somewhere between disbelief and denial. You weren’t sure what you were trying to say anyway.

He just gave you that maddeningly perceptive half-smile and shrugged. “All I’m saying is—maybe give him a shot. He’s a good guy.”

You stared into your mug as if it held all the answers, your heart doing anxious little somersaults beneath your ribs.

God help me, you thought, I’d say yes in half a heartbeat if he asked me absolutely anything.

*****

The late afternoon sun hung low on the horizon, painting the terrace in a warm, honeyed glow. Autumn air drifted in soft and cool, carrying the quiet rustle of city noise far below and the occasional gust that sent dry leaves skittering across the floor. You leaned on the railing, hands wrapped around a fresh mug of coffee, your third cup of the day, nursing it more for comfort than caffeine.

The tower behind you buzzed faintly with life, but up here, it felt distant and peaceful. Which was why you jumped a little when the sliding door creaked open.

You turned as Bucky stepped out into the light, like he wasn’t sure he belonged in it. His hair was still damp from a shower, pushed back behind his ears, and he wore a simple henley and jeans, civilian softness over a soldier’s frame. His hands were in his pockets, metal fingers twitching just once before stilling. He looked at you, then away, then back again.

“Hey,” he said, voice lower than usual, like he didn’t want to break whatever fragile calm had settled around you both.

“Hey,” you replied, your mouth curving into a small smile. “Didn’t think anyone else would come out here.”

He nodded, coming to lean beside you on the railing, but not too close. There was a careful distance in how he moved, like he didn’t want to invade your space, even if he wanted to be in it.

“I like the quiet,” he said after a beat, eyes fixed somewhere on the skyline. “Sometimes it’s easier to think when the world slows down.”

You hummed in agreement, sipping your coffee to ground yourself. There was something different in the air between you, tense and charged in a way that didn’t feel like nerves alone. He wasn’t looking at you, but his presence was more focused than usual, like he’d made a decision and was still working up the courage to follow through.

He cleared his throat, shifted his weight. “So… I’ve been thinking about something for a while now,” he continued slowly. “And I figured I’d just… stop thinking so much and say it.”

That got your attention. You turned slightly to face him, brows lifting in question.

Bucky met your eyes, and for a second, he looked as nervous as you felt, like someone standing at the edge of something they weren’t sure they’d survive jumping into.

“I was wondering if maybe…” He exhaled, scratched the back of his neck. “Would you wanna have dinner with me? Sometime? Just… you and me.”

Your brain stuttered.

For the briefest moment, you just stared at him, wide-eyed and blinking like you hadn’t heard him right, like your mind couldn’t reconcile the words he’d just said with the fact that Bucky Barnes was actually standing in front of you, asking you out.

But then it clicked that he was serious.

“Yeah,” you blurted, breath catching with the force of your answer. “I mean—yes. I’d love to. Really.”

Bucky’s eyes widened slightly, his shoulders dropping a little, the tension eased in a quiet, almost invisible way. 

“Okay,” he said. His lips curved into the smallest, softest smile, almost as though your yes had caught him off guard, like he believed you’d turn him down.

You smiled back, heart still thudding in your chest, mind still trying to process the fact that this was real.

*****

Bucky stared at his reflection like it might swing first. The mirror offered a version of himself he barely recognized: not the soldier, not the asset, not the ghost he usually avoided looking at for too long.

A navy button-down, clean, pressed, fitted just enough to hint at his frame without screaming effort. The sleeves were rolled to his forearms, a detail Natasha had insisted on. “So you don’t look like you’re trying too hard,” she’d said, smirking like she could already read his nerves. His hair was tied back, neat, but not slicked or overly styled, and he’d shaved enough to lose the scruff, though the jawline remained, for whatever that was worth.

He looked fine.

And that was the problem.

Because “fine” didn’t feel like enough when he was about to go on a date with you.

He didn’t know what kind of guys you usually went for, though they were normal, probably. Guys who hadn’t woken up screaming more nights than not, who didn’t have decades of blood in their rearview. 

“You look like you’re going to war,” Sam’s voice drawled from behind him.

Bucky turned, deadpan. “Feels like it.”

Sam sauntered in, arms crossed, wearing that too-easy grin that made Bucky want to punch him half the time and thank him the other half. He leaned on the doorframe like he had front-row tickets to a show.

“It’s a date, Barnes. Not a hostage negotiation.”

Bucky looked back at the mirror, adjusted his collar for the third time, frowned, undid the adjustment, then repeated the cycle all over again. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’ll be fine.” Sam clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got that tortured ex-assassin thing going for you. Women eat that shit up.”

“Not funny.”

“I’m not joking. You’ve got the whole brooding, soulful eyes, ‘I’ve seen too much and need love to heal me’ vibe.” He wiggled his eyebrows, smug. 

Bucky groaned and looked down at his shoes, simple black lace-ups, freshly cleaned and more civilian than anything he’d worn in months. They looked fine, too. Still, he wasn’t convinced they didn’t look stupid.

“She said yes,” Sam added, more seriously now.

Bucky gave a small shrug, eyes still locked on the floor. “Probably just being polite.”

Sam rolled his eyes so hard Bucky could hear it. “Right. Because people love agreeing to awkward dinners with guys they have zero interest in. You know—just for the fun of it.”

Before Bucky could argue back, Natasha breezed into the room like a gust of lethal wind. She held a small bottle of something in one hand, likely cologne, and gave him a once-over that felt more like a weapons scan than a fashion check.

“Sit,” she commanded.

“I’m good,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.

“You’re not, but thanks for trying.” She circled him once. “Let me fix your collar. And for God’s sake, please tell me you’re not wearing combat boots tonight.”

“I didn’t plan on it,” Bucky muttered, but he glanced down anyway, just to be sure the shoes hadn’t changed when he wan’t looking.

“Good,” Natasha said without missing a beat. “Because if I saw you walk out of here looking like you were about to storm a HYDRA base, I’d have thrown them—and you—off the balcony.”

She was already smoothing the collar, stepping into his space without hesitation, her hands brisk and practiced. He let her, even though his stomach felt like it had tied itself into about six different knots.

Bucky sighed and glanced at the mirror one more time. The man staring back still didn’t look like someone you’d say yes to. But he was trying. 

*****

Across the tower, you stood frozen in front of your closet like it was deliberately withholding the one outfit that might make tonight go smoothly. The hangers swayed slightly, mocking in their silence, every dress suddenly too plain or too detailed, too structured or too soft. Nothing felt right. 

“Wear the green one,” Wanda called from behind you, stretched out comfortably on your bed with a magazine in hand and not a single ounce of urgency in her tone. “You know the one.”

You glanced back at her, uncertainty etched across your features. “Isn’t it… too much?”

Wanda looked up over the glossy pages, arching a brow like she couldn’t believe you were actually asking that. “You’re going on a date, not negotiating a peace treaty. And he’s not blind.”

You sighed, pulling the forest green dress from the hanger with more hesitation than necessary. The fabric was soft beneath your fingers, fitted at the waist, fluttery at the sleeves, the neckline dipping just enough to make you second-guess whether it was too much skin or not enough confidence. It had always been one of your favorites, but tonight it felt like a gamble. 

“I just… I don’t want him to think I’m trying too hard,” you murmured, holding the dress up to yourself and frowning at your reflection like it might offer advice.

Wanda’s gaze softened. She set the magazine aside and sat up, her voice quieter now. “You like him.”

You couldn’t respond right away, with the truth of it lodged in your chest like a pebble under skin. You ran your fingers down the fabric’s seam, willing yourself to breathe normally.

“Yeah,” you said eventually, barely above a whisper. “I do. A lot.” You swallowed hard, then added, “But what if he only asked because Steve talked him into it and he didn’t want to say no?”

Wanda rose and crossed the room to you, her expression equal parts gentle and exasperated. She took the dress from your hands, set it aside, and reached for your fingers instead.

“Then let tonight prove otherwise,” she said simply. “But for the record? He wouldn’t have asked unless he wanted to. Bucky doesn’t do pity. And he sure as hell doesn’t do favors, not even for Steve, unless his heart’s in it.”

You met her eyes, searching for even a flicker of doubt and finding none.

So you nodded, quietly, and turned back to the mirror. Your heart was pounding now, not a gentle flutter, but a deep, echoing thrum that seemed to shake your ribs. You stepped into the dress slowly, like the motion alone might summon courage. The fabric slipped over your shoulders, settled against your waist, and for a moment, you just stood there, staring at your reflection.

You smoothed the front of the dress with trembling fingers, adjusting a sleeve that didn’t need adjusting, your breath catching somewhere between nerves and hope.

Maybe tonight wouldn’t be perfect. Maybe you’d stumble over your words or laugh too loud or say the wrong thing entirely.

But maybe he’d look at you and think for one moment you were beautiful.

You hoped that would be enough to get to a second date.

*****

The little Italian place Steve recommended was tucked away on a quiet Brooklyn side street, with string lights in the windows and mismatched chairs that somehow worked. You arrived first, nervous, but composed, smoothing the skirt of your forest green dress as you glanced at the door for the tenth time in three minutes.

Then he walked in.

Bucky Barnes, dressed in a navy button-down (sleeves rolled, showing off those contrasting forearms that made you swoon), with his hair pulled back in a low tie and the faintest nervous energy in his walk. He looked unsure in the doorway, hesitating for the briefest second before spotting you, and then gave you the smallest smile, tentative, as if he still couldn’t quite believe you were actually here, waiting for him.

“You look…” he started, and then cleared his throat, voice roughened by nerves. “Wow. You look beautiful.”

You flushed instantly, heat blooming beneath your skin as you glanced down, heart pounding far too loudly for something as simple as a compliment. “Thank you. You, uh… you clean up pretty well yourself.”

And then a silence stretched, where neither of you quite knew what to do with your hands or your breath. The hostess lead you to a quiet table, tucked near the back.

“So…” Bucky said as he eased into the chair across from you, his smile a little crooked now, “how long do we pretend this isn’t awkward before admitting it is?”

You let out a laugh, nervous, but real, relieved that at least one of you was willing to say it. “Maybe three more minutes?”

He grinned. “Deal.”

The server came and went, and somehow you still hadn’t made eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. Two glasses of water sat untouched between you, condensation slipping down the sides, while you toyed with the edge of your napkin and Bucky adjusted his sleeves with no real purpose, like maybe he could fidget his way out of this awkwardness.

“Steve,” you both said at once, voices overlapping.

You blinked. “Wait—what?”

He chuckled, his shoulders loosening a little. “Did he give you a speech too?”

“Oh, absolutely. Something about how you make the world’s best omelet and smell like cedarwood and righteousness?”

Bucky groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Christ. He told me I’m basically ‘Cary Grant with a six-pack.’ I almost canceled just from the secondhand embarrassment.”

That pulled a fuller laugh from you, the kind that lived in your chest instead of your throat. “Okay, that’s hilarious. I knew he was laying it on thick with me, but Cary Grant?”

“He meant well,” Bucky said, dropping his hand and giving you a more relaxed smile now, one that creased at the edges. “He always does. Just… doesn’t know how to dial it back.”

He looked down at his glass, fingers brushing the base.

“Still, I guess I should thank him,” he added, a little quieter. “Never would’ve had the courage to ask you otherwise.”

Your breath hitched just a little at that, the sincerity in his voice cutting through every anxious thought still clinging to you.

“I’m really glad you did,” you said, and you meant every word.

And after that, the ice cracked. The conversation began to flow, slow at first, then easier and smoother. You talked about movies you both liked, swapped stories about life in the Tower, laughed over Sam’s unholy playlist choices during team morning runs (“‘Smooth Criminal’ at 5AM,” Bucky muttered, still traumatized), and how Natasha had threatened to throw him and his combat boots off the balcony if he wore them tonight. You laughed until your ribs ached and dessert menus appeared, your cheeks warm, now from something sweeter than embarrassment.

Then, as the laughter faded, a softer, more expectant quiet settled in.

Bucky leaned back in his chair, thumb tracing the rim of his glass again. “Can I ask you something?”

You nodded, heartbeat picking up again. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Before all this…” he hesitated, then met your eyes. “Did you ever think about us? I mean—being something more?”

Your stomach flipped. For half a second, you just looked at him, unsure if you’d misheard or if he was really asking that. And then you nodded, slower this time. “Yeah. I did. For a while, actually.”

His brows lifted, surprise flickering across his features. “Seriously?”

You laughed softly, but it was because of nerves, and vulnerability, not to brush it off. “Of course. But I figured… you weren’t into this.”

You gestured vaguely to yourself, your curves, your softness, your very non-Black-Widow self, and looked down, suddenly unsure if you’d said more than you should have. You weren’t embarrassed, just exposed. And afraid of the silence that followed.

It wasn’t awkward, but it lent a heaviness to the conversation.

Then, from across the table, Bucky’s voice came low and sure, “Wait—you thought I wasn’t attracted to you?”

You shrugged one shoulder, unsure how to answer.

And then he leaned forward, his tone steady but thick with something unspoken. “I thought you figured I was too broken to be boyfriend material.”

That pulled your gaze back up, fast.

“I never once thought that,” you said, firm, no hesitation this time. “Not for a second.”

His eyes searched yours, as if trying to decide whether to believe you.

“And I never once looked at you and saw anything but someone I wanted,” he said, soft but certain. “Still do, in fact.”

The words sunk into your soul, quiet and deep, like a stone dropped into still water, rippling through every doubt you’d carried into the evening.

“Really?” you whispered, the disbelief cracking around the edges of your voice.

Bucky’s smile was small, honest, and just a little stunned himself. “You’re exactly what I want.”

Your throat tightened from the ache of finally, finally getting something you hadn’t let yourself hope for.

“Well,” you said, blinking quickly, cheeks flushed and warm as you fought the sting in your eyes, “that makes two of us.”

And when his hand reached across the table for yours, you didn’t hesitate to hold on.

*****

The elevator ride up to your floor was quiet. Neither of you quite knew what to say now that the hard part was over, that the laughter and conversation of dinner had faded. 

You stood side by side, close enough to feel the ambient warmth of him, and even though your arms weren’t touching, there was something about the way his body angled just slightly toward yours that made it feel like he wanted to. Like maybe he didn’t want this night to end either.

Bucky’s metal hand stayed tucked inside his jacket pocket, but you noticed his other hand gently brushing the edge of the handrail, restless, unsure, like his nerves had settled into the smallest movements. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed somewhere ahead, but you could feel his focus was still on you. 

When the doors finally slid open onto your floor, he glanced at you, voice low but full of sincerity.

“I had a good time,” he said, warmly.

You smiled as you stepped out, heart fluttering. “Yeah. Me too.”

You reached your door and paused there, key in hand but not moving to use it yet, your fingers curling slightly around the metal. Your pulse was steady but fast, now the nerves of two people standing just close enough to want more but still not knowing how to ask for it.

Bucky lingered a step behind you.

“I, uh…” he began, rubbing the back of his neck with that same sheepishness that made your heart ache in the best way. “I’m not great at this part.”

You turned to face him fully, amused, but touched by his honesty. “The goodbye?”

His mouth tilted in a wry half-smile. “The part where I want to kiss you, but I don’t want to make it weird in case you don’t.”

Your breath hitched, and the key slipped slightly in your grip as you swallowed down the shock of hearing him say exactly what you’d been hoping for since halfway through the entrée.

“It wouldn’t be weird,” you said softly, the words coming easier than you expected, but your voice still trembled at the edges with anticipation.

His brows lifted, betraying the faint wonder in his expression, like he couldn’t quite believe he’d heard you right. “Are you sure?”

You nodded, more sure of that than anything. “I’m sure.”

He stepped in, slow and deliberate, as if checking with every breath whether you’d change your mind. You didn’t. You wouldn’t. Your back pressed gently against the door as he moved closer, and your body hummed with the intensity of wanting this so much it almost hurt.

His hand came up, warm and steady, fingers brushing softly along your cheek as he cupped your face, gentle and reverent, like he was afraid of rushing you. His thumb skimmed your skin, and just that single point of contact had your breath catching in your throat.

And then his lips met yours. They were soft, slightly dry, just barely parted, pressing into yours with a careful tenderness. 

You wondered idly if he had imagined this moment and, like you, still didn’t believe it was real. The kiss wasn’t deep or demanding, wasn’t full of fire or claim. It was quiet, measured, and sweet. His mouth slid softly over yours, tentative but full of emotion, like he was pouring months of unsaid feelings into that single connection.

You placed your hand against his chest, right over the soft cotton of his shirt, and felt it immediately, his heart, thudding fast beneath your palm, matching your own in its uneven, breathless rhythm. Your fingertips curled slightly, just to revel in the truth of him standing here, kissing you.

He pulled back just a fraction, lips lingering near yours, breath shallow and warm against your skin. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and low, still close enough that you could feel the vibration of it through his chest and along your palm.

“Sorry,” he murmured, almost shy. “I’ve wanted to do that for a while.”

You blinked, still caught in the haze of him, your lips tingling, your heart weightless and full all at once.

“Don’t be sorry,” you whispered, smiling through the soft daze, completely smitten and not even trying to hide it. “I have, too”

He smiled back, boyish and a little unsteady, like he still couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Then he slowly let his hand fall away, stepping back with a kind of reluctance that told you plainly he hadn’t wanted to let go yet.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked, voice still soft, still hopeful.

“Yeah,” you said, feeling the weight of that word settle somewhere deep and warm. “Definitely.”

He gave you one last look, a mix of wonder and affection, and then turned, walking down the hall with shoulders still squared, but lighter than before.

You watched him go, your hand resting over your heart, your lips still tingling, and your soul at ease in the most beautiful way.

*****

Just around the corner, tucked into a patch of shadow like a kid hiding from Santa, Steve leaned against the cool wall, listening with an unrepentant nosiness that came from genuine hope. He wasn’t spying, exactly, just making sure that the two people he cared about most were finally seeing what he’d seen all along.

He caught the sound of quiet laughter, the low murmur of Bucky’s voice, and then slow reluctant footsteps. A beat later, Bucky rounded the corner, his expression dazed in the best way, lips curved in a soft, almost stunned smile.

Steve barely had time to duck back before he was spotted, flattening himself against the wall with all the grace of someone twice his size and half his stealth. But he didn’t care.

As soon as he heard Bucky’s footsteps fade down the hall, he let out a quiet, victorious breath, fist clenched in silent celebration.

“Yes,” he whispered to himself, grinning like an idiot.

“He must still be in his rooms,” Walker replies. He speaks with conviction but there’s a weariness to his eyes, telling of the horrors he relived to try and fight his way to a common ground. “We need to find Bob and Yelena, and put an end to this shitshow.”

“Not without Barnes,” you snap. You look around and take a shuddering breath. “I’ll go find him.”

“And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” Ava asks. Her British accent almost sounds sardonic. 

“I don’t know,” you mumble. You study every window, every mirror, every reflection. You need a passageway to his psyche. Shaking your head, you murmur under your breath, “come on, Bucky. Gimme a clue here.”

A raspy, Russian laugh has everyone jolting. Your head darts to the Alexi on the sofa, half-collapsed in his seat. He’s pointing at the screen, applauding seemingly himself, a chunk of pizza crust catching in his beard. The glorious Red Guardian, nothing more than a washed-up has been. The present-day Alexi cringes, head bowing slightly at the insight into his ‘secret life’. But then something glimmers. It catches your eye. You take a step forward to a framed picture. The glass almost sparkles in an inexplicable phenomenon. Somehow, something in your gut knows. Bucky. You take a breath and swallow. You know Bucky’s life is scattered with shadows. Warping, melting black holes of guilt and shame and terror. Stepping into his mind might shatter yours. But if he’s lived it and survived, you can take a pass through to find him. With that, you let your fingertips reach out to the glass. They slip through it like parting water, giving way to a portal of kinds, and your eyes slip shut as incomprehension overwhelms you. When you open them, you’re no longer in Alexi’s living room . 

It’s cold. Water drips in the background, monotonous and repetitive. Drip, drip, drip. You’re standing on concrete, damp with puddles of water, stained with what looks to be oil and something darker. Blood. Metal walls built atop of cinderblocks surround you. Grey and dying. Lifeless. Fluorescent overhead lights dangle from the ceiling, lighting the facility like a morgue. You swallow your dread as you take in the view. It’s easy to denominate where you are without looking at the emblem shining proudly on the wall, like a hunter’s buck head mounted. Hydra.

Movement behind you has you turning, startled. You suddenly miss the company of the others. Of the Alexi sat slouched on the sofa. Your eyes fall on phantoms of Hydra, men dressed in white lab coats as if pretending to be doctors, dishonoring the name of scientists. That isn’t what makes your stomach drop though. What is, is the sight of the man between them. The man whose legs are dragging limply on the floor, arms slung over their shoulders. The man whose chest is barely moving, life barely flickering in his body, soul barely alive. Bucky. But not your Bucky - not the Bucky you know now, the Bucky you have the honour to call your closest friend and deepest confidant. No, a Bucky from the past. A Bucky whose mind was splintered into fragments, forced together to form the image of a Hydra. A mind that was wired to know only one thing: compliance. 

Bucky’s sometimes shared bits from his past with you. Back when you were in Wakanda together, he’d sometimes find it therapeutic to share snippets of his nightmares that had awoken him. You’d talk over glasses of whiskey or tea, sitting before a bonfire, swatting away mosquitos, absorbed in the noises of nature. The pictures you’d paint in your mind from his stories were like stills from horror movies no director would even dream to make. You’d listen, allow him to free himself from the clutches of them by sharing the load, if only slightly. It brought the two of you closer. A friendship no longer forged out of happenstance but instead out of trust. Understanding. 

But seeing it here, before you, played out like some twisted theatre, was different. This was almost a torture of its own. 

You feel bile scratch at your throat when they force him into the chair. They’re careless with his body as though he’s nothing more than a thing. A weapon with the inconvenience of organs. And like all weapons, he needed to be cleaned. 

The headpiece whirs to life, slowly inching down towards the frontal lobes of his head, as if taunting him with what was to come. You shake your head as if that might stop what’s about to happen. When the power whizzes to life, your hand clutches desperately at your thigh, clenching the thin, form-fitting fabric of your suit in a pathetic attempt to ground you. Blood draws from how hard you bite your lip. Tears sting your wide eyes. It’s like watching a car crash: you can’t look away. The human mind frozen in shock, gluing your vision to the horrible, detailed recreation of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes being scrubbed into the Winter Solider. His cries are the worst part. You never imagined them before. Your mind wouldn’t allow you to. Everytime it tried to conjure a picture, his mouth would open with soundless cries. But here, they echo off the walls. Bounce off each hard surface, shattering your eardrums, cracking your heart. They’re guttural. Feral. Something almost inhuman, primal that one would never need to tap into. 

The words. Those Godforsaken words that held Bucky prisoner for years. The Russian sounds jagged like rocks on the soldiers tongues as they speak them. Demand them into his head, for him to comply. For him to be theirs. He’s heaving, forehead sticky with sweat, hair thick and greasy. Uncared for. Nothing more than a means to an end. The shiny silver metal of his arm is near unrecognizable. You’re so accustomed to the sleek black Vibranium one that it’s hard to recall this former appendage. The memories it held. The history. There’s a twinge of guilt when you squeeze your eyes shut, unable to witness anymore. It’s a luxury to close your mind to it - a luxury he never had. But you know Bucky. He wouldn’t want you to see this. Wouldn’t expect you to stand there and subject yourself to his torture. He was considerate like that. Sympathetic in a way you endlessly envied. 

There was a job to do. 

Bucky wasn’t here. That means he must be lost in another room. A room shrouded in shame.

Shame.

What was shameful about this memory? Maybe all memories of Hydra came with that gnawing guilt, that he was their fist for so long. But as the scene continues to play, you realise why this particular reawakening. The briefing begins once The Winter Soldier confirms his compliance to the soldiers: Two people. Murder. Make it look like an accident. Steal the serum from the vehicle. No witnesses. 

Tony Stark’s parents. 

The scene before you hazes like you blinked, and then resets. Bucky is no longer in the seat, the soldiers and so-called scientists no longer gathered around him. Instead, he’s being dragged over, hauled into the chair. There was no time to dwell, not when Bucky needed you. God knows where he is. You look around you, searching for something - anything - that might pull you into the next place. No glimmer. No reflection. Nothing. 

“Bucky!” You yell. You cup your hands around your mouth and try again. “Bucky!” 

It echoes off the walls of the base. Nobody pays you any mind. Then, Bucky’s own yells shadow your own. You whimper, clenching your eyes, turning your head away. You can’t bear to hear it again. Your hands twitch as if to go help him, but you know it’s futile. You learnt that from your own rooms. After what feels like an eternity, the cries stop, and the room falls silent. Completely silent. There’s no dripping of water, no utterance of Russian words. Nothing. Your eyes hesitantly blink open and–

It’s daylight. You’re outside. It looks like…a park? You frown, glancing around and taking in the surrounding view. Trees. Lots of trees. Bushes and shrubs and plants. A long, stretching field of grass. Some schoolboys kick a soccer ball between them, calling at each other to pass! Pass to me! There’s a couple sharing a picnic. Children playing in the playground, chasing each other from the slides to the climbing-frame, chattering as they swing side-by-side. Parents sit on the bench and observe, chatting amicably between themselves. A dog-walker here; a duck-watcher there. It’s peaceful. Serene. 

“Mommy look,” a little girl whispers. Your ears prick and you turn your attention. She’s tugging on who you assume to be her mother’s sleeve of her coat. A small finger points over at something. “Look at that man.”

You remember where you are. Bucky’s rooms, resembling his shame. Your face crumples as you reluctantly follow the line of her finger. Bucky is walking, one hand tucked into his jacket pocket, the other exposed. It’s only for a flash: he’s brushing some hair off his face. It’s cut short. It must have been from after the Battle of Thanos. The black metal of his hand catches the sunlight. It’s mesmerizing, the way the golden lines shine. You finally place where you are. Central Park. 

“Isn’t that–”

“Don’t look at him, dear,” the mother interrupts. She sounds alarmed. You clench your teeth. 

“But isn’t that–”

“Yes, dear. It is,” she hisses. She tugs the child protectively behind her legs, as if Bucky were to lunge for the child. Your patience wears thin. Bucky pauses his walk. He heard them, no doubt. He hears most things, whether he likes it that way or not. The mother gathers her daughter’s hand in hers and guides them away from the park. “That’s a dangerous man, Millie. A murderer. He should be ashamed, walking around a park near these children. There’s no damn justice left in this country.”

The mother leads them away from the park, the daughter in tow. The little girl spares one last glance at Bucky. He’s staring at his feet. His metal hand slips into his jacket pocket. You can practically feel the embarrassment radiating off him. He nearly shrinks into his frame. You begin to make your way over to him, to comfort him in the way you know best: a pat on the shoulder, to test the waters, then a hug, if that’s what he needs. Touch - gentle and caring in a way that he hasn’t known for so long. But he flashes out of sight before you can reach him. You glance around frantically. He’s reset, back to where he was before. You remember what’s happening. Remember the goal, the target, and shake your head. 

Looking around, you search for something that might lead you to the next space, but once again, nothing gives a tell. You break out running into the distance, towards the park, and the futherer you get, the sooner you realise it’s a mock-up. Walls painted like trees and people. You brace yourself, raising your arms up to your face to soften the impact, and force yourself through the walls. They shatter around you, breaking apart like drywall and paper mache, and you tumble forward. It’s reflexive, the tuck and roll you catch yourself with. You return to your feet, panting lightly, hands raised and ready for battle.

You’re inside. No, not inside, but in an object of some kind…Wind rushes through your hair, nearly knocking you off your feet. There’s something tonally different to the park, and to the Hydra base. It’s tense. Hairs prickle on the back of your neck and you scan the area for threats. Force of habit, with so many years working for Shield, and later as a vigilante. The price to pay for helping Captain America. You finally recognise where you are. It’s the helicarriers. The ones from…

Oh no. 

You know this memory. You know it well. It’s seared into your hippocampus, stained with blood, and no matter what you do to dispel it, it remains. You can understand why. It’s hard to force yourself to forget the day you nearly shook hands with death. 

It smells like jet fuel and fresh air. You frantically look around in search of the two bodies you know are here. On the thin metal bridge opposite to the one you stand on, you make out your figure. It’s strange seeing yourself, almost hard to recognise it as you. But you know it is: can tell by the hair and the suit. You’re determined, face stoic, as you race forward to the motherboard of the ship. The chip is in your upper legging pocket. You can almost feel the press of it against your skin now, as you watch. Then, your eyes land on something you never saw that day. They spot The Winter Soldier climbing up soundlessly onto the metal bridge. They spot him following you with measured footsteps, moving fast but with deadly quiet, like a fox stalking prey. You’re unaware of him, eyes focused on the target. Watching on, your throat turns dry as the Soldier retracts a knife from his belt. 

“Helicarrier two is nearly secure, Cap,” you inform the team through your earpiece. You pause to pull out the chip, and that’s when he gets you. 

The soldier loops an arm over your shoulder, tightening it around your neck. You stumble backwards, gasping out painfully as your air supply suddenly cuts off. A hand scrambles to his arm only to find hard, unmoving metal. You can still feel the pulse of dread that ran through you in that moment. You’d seen him before, fought him on the bridge with Sam and Nat and Steve. He’d done a number on Natasha and she was three-times the agent you were. He was quick, relentless, free from remorse. Your other elbow jams into his ribs and it’s just enough to have his grip loosen. You waste no time, whipping a leg around his ankle, tilting him enough off balance that you both stumble backwards. Another elbow, this time to the nose, and he grunts, falling away from you. You pivot and raise your fists, only in time to dodge his swing. You’re not as lucky the second time: he catches you on the brow. A fist-fight follows, of jabs and ducks. You land a few but they hardly affect him. It’s like he’s made of brick. Then, he sucker-punches you in the chest. The air flew out of you, winding you, and you catch yourself on the railing of the bridge with a pained gasp. He lands another to your ear and you whimper out, head falling forward. Blood trickles slowly from the lobe. You watch the scene from afar, but something shifts in you when the soldier raises the knife. 

“No!” you scream. You sprint ahead and collide with the soldier. You grab for his wrist and he looks at you. There’s pure ice in his gaze, no trace of Bucky in his eyes, and your blood runs cold. His metal hand locks around your throat and you gasp out. The ground slips away from you as he slowly lifts you. And then, you’re tossed onto the floor. Gasping for air, you scramble for purchase, desperate to stop the inevitable. You turn your face in time to see the Soldier plunge the knife into the side of your former self.

The scream she lets out has tears springing to your eyes. Her hand quivers as it hovers by the hilt of the knife, body immediately spiralling into shock. You can still remember the feel of metal piercing through skin and muscle. Tearing through the fragile casing of your organs. He twists the weapon and she cries out in agony, eyes clenched shut, drool falling from her lips. As you watch on helplessly from the floor, eyes wide in horror, you shake your head as if to plea for the Soldier to stop. But he doesn’t. He signs the death certificate as he pulls the knife from her body. Blood quickly seeps through her clothes. It pushes through her fingers as she desperately tries to force pressure on her own wound. The chip is forgotten by both you and the soldier. His mission is complete, for now: eliminate you. The soldier turns heel and strides away, ready to take down the next member of the team, to keep Hydra’s empire from falling. You rush over to the body of your former self, hands shaking as you check her over. Blood. So much fucking blood. 

“Please,” she gasps. You realise then, that she’s not looking at you. She’s looking at him. You forgot this happened. The pain mostly blacks out the memory, after he removed the knife. 

The soldier freezes. He heard you. 

Your voice sounds powerless, raspy as you struggle to intake air. “Please,” you try again, half-whimpering. “Please help me.”

He hesitates. You see it. It’s a flicker. Nothing more than a twitch of one of his metal fingers. But it’s something. A sign that he was still in there, fighting to come out, to help you. 

But he doesn’t. He has a mission. He walks away. 

The warm body in your hands vanishes. It’s as if you hallucinated her. That is, until you see her running towards you, past you, for the motherboard. It reset. 

“Oh, Bucky,” you whisper to yourself, shaking your head. Your eyes press shut, taking a beat to calm yourself. 

The two of you had discussed that moment more than enough. You’d forgiven Bucky long before he even knew who you were. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t have a choice. You never held it against him. Never blamed him for those months spent in hospital, in and out of surgery, tiring yourself out in physical therapy. And yet, it seems that despite those restless nights of talking it out, of you listening to his apologies and accepting each one without hesitation, it seems the moment still haunted him. You could understand why, the same way you understood why it still remained in your brain. It can’t be easy, letting go of the thought that he nearly ended your life. You just wished he wouldn’t blame himself for it. 

Before you open your eyes, you feel the ground beneath you change. It warps into something squishy and plush, and your knees give way slightly at the feel. Carpet. You blink your eyes open into warm, orangey lamp light. You recognise this place like an old friend. It’s your apartment. Your brows furrow. No, that doesn’t make sense. 

Bucky was your friend. Ever since Wakanda, the two of you had made some wordless pact to stick together. He understood you in a way that didn’t need verbalising. Could read you like a book from childhood, well-versed in your tells, your wants and fears. That’s what made him such a wonderful friend. You never had to perform with him. There was no need for filters, no room for embarrassment. You’d complain about your crappy dates over take-out; binge watch corny movies whilst sharing beers; try and bolster him up at bars when you went out with Sam and Jouqian for a drink; listen to him practice his speeches for his run for congress. There was no room for shame in your friendship. So…why were you here?

“You sure this ain’t too much trouble?” Bucky asks you. Your attention quickly pivots to you and Bucky. He’s hovering by the bookshelf, arms folded over his chest, dressed in sweatpants and a vest. You’re straightening a quilt over the sofa-bed that resided in your living room. 

“Would you stop whining already? You’re worse than Wilson, y’know that?”

Bucky chuckles at that, bobbing his head. You straighten, hands landing on your hips, and nod to yourself as you take in your handy-work. 

“That should be good. You want an extra pillow?”

“I think I’ll survive with three,” Bucky replies, humour evident in his voice. You roll your eyes and cross the room to him, pinching his cheek chidingly. 

“Just trying to be a good hostess,” you sing-song, walking past him and into the kitchen. Curious, your eyes remain on Bucky. He’s watching the past-version of you. A smile rests on his lips. One that you’ve never noticed before. It seems almost secretive, because the minute you turn to ask him something, it’s fading into a different kind of smile. One you now recognise. Your brows furrow at the picture. Weird. “A’right, here’s your water. You think you’ll need anything else?” 

Bucky shakes his head. He takes the glass from you  as he replies, “this is perfect, doll. Thank you.”

“Course. Me casa est su casa,” you smile, stumbling through disjointed Spanish. You cringe at your former self. Bucky chuckles, as if it might be endearing. 

“It’s es, not ‘est’,” he corrects. Then, he utters the phrase in perfect, fluent Spanish. The other you rolls her eyes mirthfully at him. 

“A’right, we get it Mister ‘I can speak twelve languages’.”

“Thirteen if you count–”

“--Hey! Keep rubbing it in my face and you can sleep in the bathtub,” you warn, pointing a finger at him. He raises his hands in surrender, laughing quietly. You then melt into a smile, easing up the act. Crossing the room to him, the you of the past tosses her arms casually over his shoulders in a warm embrace. “G’night, Buck. See you in the morning.”

You never noticed before, too caught up in the act of doing, but watching it unfold now, you realise Bucky’s reaction. He seems startled, which is strange, considering you hug him rather often. His arm slowly loops around your waist, holding you to him, and you watch that smile return. His eyes slip shut and he presses his chin gently against your shoulder. 

The moment shatters when you pull away, oblivious. You wave farewell as you leave the room, closing the door behind you. 

You stand and watch, befuddled, as Bucky finishes getting ready for bed. This is bizarre. What the hell is so shameful about crashing on his friend’s couch for the night? He does it rather often, especially when he moved back to New York. The nightmares caught up with him then, after the pocket of peace in Wakanda was sacrificed. People knew who he was. The government had burdened him with a pardon that he always felt was undeserved, and that seemed to trouble his psyche more than anything. Couple that with the ghosts of his past, from a lifetime ago before the war, back when things were more simple and familiar, and Bucky was knocking on your door with an apologetic smile. You’d always welcome him in, would never turn him away. The two of you would watch a movie or show, talking over most of it with mindless commentary, before you’d set up the sofa for him. It got to the point that you decided to invest in a sofa-bed. 

Now, watching the scene play out, you wonder if he feels ashamed for reaching out. For needing company and comfort of another’s home. You wonder if Bucky felt as though he should shoulder the burden of being alone. Men often felt shame for their mental health, so it would be wrong to assume that Bucky was different. 

The lamp remains on. You glance around the room in search of something that might be the root of the room. Maybe you left a pair of panties drying on the radiator, and he was ashamed of seeing them? That seemed rather tame compared to the other horrors embodied in this maelstrom of pain…

Bucky shifts under the sheets. Looking over to him, you watch, intrigued, realising the scene isn’t over. His eyes are shut, metal arm whirring as he brings it up towards the pillow, messing with it until it’s how he likes. He’s rather…cute. Sweet as he tries to get comfortable. An unseen side to him, human and regular, that’s weirdly endearing. You begin to smile. Then, your brows furrow slightly. He presses his nose into the pillow - your pillow - and inhales, slow and deep through his nose. He isn’t just taking a breath. He’s smelling the pillow. Your stomach twists tight, as if trying to knot itself. A small groan pushes through his closed lips, muffled into the case, and your eyes widen. Is he…

He takes another deep breath in. His eyes squeeze, lips purse, and something akin to…pleasure twitches his features. He rolls onto his back, the blanket shifting with the movement, and then you watch, alarmed, as the silhouette of his arm inches below the sheets. You can’t seem to look away from his face. His brows twitch together, teeth catching his lower lip, and then–

He hums, deep, guttural.

“Oh my God,” you gasp, quickly turning your back to him. Your hands fly up to your burning face, lips agape, eyes wide, stupefied. The sheets rustle behind you and he groans, quiet enough to go unnoticed by other you, who lays unaware in her bed. You squeak, hands flying up to your ears, mortification flooding over you like a bath of cold water as you accidentally intrude on a very private moment. 

A private moment, which happened in your living room. 

A private moment, which sparked from Bucky smelling your pillow. 

A private moment, which began from the mere smell of you. 

He rasps your name, no louder than a breath. You only just catch it. The way your name sounds on his tongue...It's hotter than sin, and you let out a startled breath. You’re ashamed at the arousal that pulses through you at the sound. Shaking your head, you straightened yourself out. You can’t listen to this any longer. It feels wrong. No, it doesn’t just feel it - it is wrong. Bucky has spent his whole life having his humanity stripped away from him, as if he didn’t deserve it, and you refuse to be another name added to that list of people who didn’t treat him like a person. You rush to the door of the living room and swing it open. You don’t look as you step forward. Rookie error. 

A scream rushes through you as you fall down, down, down. 

You nearly bounce back up when you land. It’s soft, softer than the carpet, and gives easily under your weight. A mattress. Thank God, you think to yourself, pushing up onto your knees with a huff. You look around the room, searching for the man you’ve been chasing through each twisted, turning memory. Returning to your feet, you straighten your suit. 

“Bucky?”

There’s no reply. You sigh, rubbing your forehead. Where the hell is he? Worry curls in your gut. What if something went wrong? What if his rooms were too heavy for him? What if he–

“Come on, doll. One more step.”

It’s his voice, but it isn’t him. You startle when the bedroom door opens. It’s only then that you register your surroundings. It’s his bedroom, the one from his old flat back when he lived in Brooklyn. God, that place was like a prison. He was punishing himself when he lived there. A sofa made of stiff leather sat before a flat-screen television. A kitchen barren of appliances or plants. The fridge was only filled with necessities. No art on the wall, not even a clock. The bedroom was just as desolate. A wardrobe organised with too much precision, almost display-art in its meticulousness, and a desk without any books or computer. The bed was comfortable at least, not that Bucky used it much back then. He preferred the floor. Would sleep on it in the living room with nothing more than a blanket, the hard wood cradling his body. 

You take a step back as if to make way, as Bucky and this former version of you step into the bedroom. You’re hanging onto him, nearly blackout drunk, practically dragging his sturdy frame down like a heathen. You can’t help but cringe at the sight, bringing a hand up to your forehead. It seems your legs are rather useless as you practically trip over yourself. Bucky catches you, keeps you steady. 

“Easy there,” he chuckles. 

You groan, flopping onto the bed face-first. Bucky stands, watching, hands on his hips, and laughs to himself. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” you slur into the bedsheets. You raise a finger in the air, arm wobbling as you do so, and Bucky laughs harder. He struggles to stifle them. He’s pretty when he laughs. Sounds young, carefree. It makes you smile as you watch. 

“Come on, party animal,” Bucky chuckles, grabbing your hand to help twist you onto your back. He kneels by your feet and undoes your heels, metal fingers meddling with the tiny clasps. You smile to yourself, unable to place the memory in your own mind. You couldn’t remember this moment, just the incredible hangover you were met with the next day.

Once again, the question begs: why this memory? Bucky is a perfect gentleman as he helps you get ready for bed. You can barely keep your head upright. Your body rattles with hiccups, eyes half-closed, make-up smudged under your eyes. It’s not a good look, to say the least. Bucky eases your heels off one by one, placing them neatly by the wardrobe. You watch as he hesitates, unsure whether to offer you more comfortable clothes to sleep in or leave you in your dress. He stands, glances to his wardrobe, and runs a hand over his head, fingers brushing through his hair, as he thinks. 

Your eyes catch a moving figure on the bed. You watch, mildly amazed that you even have the strength and coordination to do so, as you rise to your feet. Bucky hasn’t noticed. He’s too busy weighing up what to do next. He nearly jumps out of his skin when your hand lands on his shoulder. He turns his head quickly, body following soon after. One of his hands instinctively reaches for your waist to steady you on your feet. He’s confused and concerned, brows furrowing as his eyes scan over your squiffy features. 

“Doll, what’re you–”

Your mouth presses against his in a heated kiss. You gape at the sight, mind drawing a complete blank at the supposed moment you lived. Bucky’s hands fly up, hovering, frozen like statues, by your sides. His eyes are blown wide. Your hands cradle his face, holding him close, turning his face just-so as you kiss him with unexplained fever. Shaking your head, you watch on, mortified, as drunk-you forces Bucky into a kiss. 

And then…his eyes slip shut. One of his hands slowly lowers to rest against your waist, a shadow of a hold on your body, sinking into your skin like rocks on wet sand. He turns his head, chasing your taste, your tongue. Then, you listen as other-you sighs against his lips. That seems to flip a switch in Bucky’s head. He quickly pulls away with a gasp. His hands take you by the shoulders, holding you away from him, arms outstretched. He looks horrified, staring at you with damp lips and a heaving chest. You feel yourself wither with embarrassment and shame at the thought of forcing yourself upon him like that. Drunk or not, it was no excuse. 

But then he’s closing his eyes and shaking his head. It hangs, low, defeated, and he takes a slow, almost sad, breath. 

“Not like this, doll. I– You’re drunk and…It’s not…It ain’t how I pictured it…” he murmurs. Drunk you hardly seems to hear him. She takes a step back and melts down onto the mattress. Bucky helps you into bed with a distracted mind; guiding you under the covers and ensuring you lay on your side. Then, he heads for the door. He lingers in the doorway, finger hovering over the light switch, and watches you. A smile tries its way onto his face - that smile from before - but it is chased away by his frown. You recognise the shadow that casts over his face. You’ve seen it in the dead of night, when he’s awoken from a nightmare. You spotted it in Wakanda, when he pieced together who you were and what he did to you. You remembered it from the funeral, when Bucky realised that he’d never be able to apologise to Tony for what he did to his parents. Shame. One of his metal fingers lifts to his lips, as if he’s recalling the feel of yours on his. The room becomes engulfed in darkness. 

It’s only for a moment. You’re left alone with your thoughts, trying to organise them into some sort of coherent system. Guilt, for kissing him; embarrassment, for, well, all of it; sadness, for not even remembering it; and…longing. Was that what that was? That odd twisting feeling in your gut, reaching out like vines, clutching at your heartstrings. Sadness, maybe? You can’t make sense of it. The one thing you can make sense of is the recognition that not one part of you is angry at him. Not even remotely. If anything, you’re curious about his moment of weakness. About that brief half-minute, when he allowed himself to kiss you back. About the way he looked at you before leaving the room. Had he looked at you that way before? Did you never even notice the way he–

The light flashes on and it nearly blinds you. You groan, rubbing your face, and you can make out muffled voices down the hall. The scene is resetting. Bucky still isn’t anywhere to be found. 

It’s becoming exhausting, wading through these memories, confronting these pockets of Bucky’s conscience without him even knowing. Would he be mad at you, when you do find him? Or will he understand? There’s only one way to find out…

You slip out the bedroom door after you and Bucky make your way inside. To your surprise, instead of stepping into another memory or room, you simply enter his living room. You freeze. There’s a silhouette sitting on the floor, staring at the TV. Bucky. His knees are brought up near his chest, arms wrapped around them. Despite his large frame, body mostly muscle, he looks small. Fragile and scared, like a child trying to self-soothe. You glance around and wonder if this is another memory. But as your eyes adjust to the scene before you, you recognise his tactical suit from before you stepped into the void. His hair is longer, nothing like how it was in the memory, and his black vibranium arm glimmers in the flashing colours of the TV.  He’s watching a soccer match. Although, something tells you that he isn’t actually watching. You swallow and take a step forward. 

“Bucky? Is that you?” you tentatively ask. You see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. He refuses to look at you, it seems. “Buck?” 

His head hangs. Relief consumes you and you let out a sigh, clearing the rest of the distance. You drop to your knees and throw your arms around him, grateful he’s in one piece. 

“Thank God you’re okay. I was so worried when you didn’t find us in Alexi’s–”

He’s stiff, still like a statue, unmoving like a corpse. Your words die on your tongue as you pull away, a hand lingering on his back. 

“Bucky?”

He swallows. His voice is hardly more than croak as he asks, “how’d you find me?”

“I uh…” You hesitate, unsure whether you should be transparent or not. It doesn’t take you long to decide. “I went through your rooms until I found you.”

His eyes press shut as if you’ve delivered news of death. His silence unsettles you. Your hand rubs his back and he leans forward, out of your touch. A pain stabs through your chest. 

“Bucky?”

“If you went through them…Then you saw it, right?”

Your lips move but no words come out. Instead, you swallow. Bucky isn’t looking at you but he must be able to catch you nodding your head in his peripheral, because his face becomes twisted with agony. 

“Oh God,” he mumbles. Balling his hand into a fist, he presses it firmly against his forehead. “I’m so fucking sorry…”

You shake your head, going to touch him again before freezing. Your fingers hover half a centimetre from his back. 

“Look, we…We need to go help the others and stop whatever the hell is going with this…thing that Bob’s become but…” He looks up at you then. Bucky’s eyes are damp with unshed tears as he holds your gaze, and you know you can’t bring yourself to look away even if you tried. “But I promise you, you don’t ever gotta see me again after that, yeah? I promise you that.”

Your stomach opens with a pit of dread. “Bucky, I–”

“--I’m so sorry, okay? You gotta believe me when I say that. I…” He gasps, trying with all his might to keep it together, “I tried so hard not to want you, I really did. I tried so fucking hard but I…I couldn’t help it…”

He clenches his eyes closed and grits his teeth, jaw going taut. He presses further into his fist, knuckles turning white. A single tear slips down his cheek. Your heart splinters and you fight the urge to wipe it away. 

“I couldn’t help it,” he whispers, as if admitting a sin to God himself.

You shake your head slightly, mouth moving uselessly. A small, shaky breath escapes you. Tears prick your waterline as everything you’ve seen hits you like a freight train. It barrels through your mind and tears your hippocampus open, flooding you with memories. A new light is shed on them. A perspective you never allowed yourself to see before. The unexplainable serenity and safety you felt in his company, despite the start of your friendship. The kind of safety that enabled you to share stories of your life with him without fear of judgement or rejection. The kind of safety that you sought out after a hard mission or a nightmare haunted you. The kind of serenity you craved when you were bored out of your mind on a mission, and Bucky’s off-handed quips were your only company through a cracked phone screen. The kind of serenity you were consumed by during the nights spent by his side, laughing as he teased you, raving over your favourite shows and sharing the theories and backstories to each storyline. Never afraid to be too much or too little. No, it was always just right. 

And now you see it. The longing glances. The tenderness in his gaze when his eyes landed on you. The extra layer of panic when you were in battle, scanning over your body to make sure you’re alright. The smile that you kept catching sight of as you ventured through his shame that was reserved just for you, when you weren’t even looking. And how couldn’t you look, because he was right there, all this time. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” you breathe. 

Bucky frowns. His brows furrow, mind struggling to parse together your words. You shake your head, slow then fast, and swallow your anxiety because this was much more important. 

“I don’t want you to leave. I don’t…I don’t care about any of that, I just…I don’t…” You can’t find the words. Every sentence is weak, sandcastles in rain, and you shake your head and grunt, annoyed. Bucky looks at you, addled, and you wipe the tears from your cheeks with an aggressive sweep of your hand.

That’s when the answer comes to you.

Pushing to your feet, you extend a hand down to him. He blinks at it, then up at you. “Do you trust me?”

It takes less than a second before he’s lifting his hand and guiding it into yours. You help ease him to his feet. Then, you turn and face the door to the bedroom. As you begin to move, Bucky holds the two of you in place. You look back at him. He’s reluctant to meet your eyes. 

“I don’t…I can’t see that again,” he admits. Your heart squeezes. You gently clench his fingers in your hold. 

“Trust me, yeah?”

He takes a shuddering breath before nodding. His feet give way as you guide the two of you to the door. You turn the knob and close your eyes, steeling yourself for what you’re about to face. 

The only room you couldn’t bring yourself to face before, instead fighting your way to Alexi’s horrors. 

The door opens to a well-lit room. It’s modern, with floor-to-ceiling length windows lining one of the walls, and a sleek, silver bartop busied with guests and party-goers. Streamers decorate the ceiling, twinkly lights looped around pillars. Music plays from speakers in every corner of the room. Classic hits that everybody knows. Some people are dancing, others tapping their feet along and drinking, good-natured. There’s sofas which are occupied by chattering groups of friends and co-workers. A pool table crowded by primarily men, likely congratulating themselves on being the masters of the universe for another year. 

“Where’re we?” Bucky asks after a beat. You take a small breath before looking at him, forcing a smile that you know he’ll tell to be fake. 

“One of my rooms.”

Bucky frowns. You slowly let his hand slip from your hold. You know this evening well. It’s a repressed memory that enjoys making a guest appearance, most often when you’re around Bucky. The evening you realised that there was something more there, something deeper under your skin, but that you refused to touch. 

Dressed in a floor-length gown, you saunter up to the bar, sadling by the side of the present-day you. There’s no need to look at Bucky to know he’s watching.

You order a drink and toy with the olive skewered on a cocktail stick, sloshing it in and out of the martini. You take another glance over for the millionth time that night, eyes landing on Bucky. Not this Bucky, but the Bucky from the party. The one dressed in a suit that was designed for him to wear it. The suit that ruined all other men for you, because nobody else could possibly make it look that good. The Bucky that was currently talking to a gorgeous, tall blonde lady, with eyes that could bewitch and thighs that could kill. The Bucky that was talking to his date for the New Year’s Eve Party. 

“I don’t…” Bucky’s words fade into the rhythm of the song currently playing. He glances at you - you see it in your peripheral - but you keep your eyes trained on the phantom of your memory as she drinks. You know there’s bigger things at stake, an entire city in peril, but this feels a thousand times more pressing and important. If you don’t have Bucky, you have nothing. It’s a terrifying but simple conclusion. So you need him to see. 

You take a sip of your martini and let out a sigh. Your head hangs and you purse your lips, and for a long while, just stand there, alone, thinking. Then, your head darts up. You toss back your drink, leaving the olives neglected in the glass, and stride back into the party, eyes set on a random former-Shield agent who has been occupying the pool table for the larger portion of the night. You watch as you shake his hand, smiling all pretty at him, before the scene flickers and resets. Bucky shakes his head, looking at you. 

“I don’t understand,” he murmurs. “What’s so shameful about that?”

“It’s not what I did,” you tell him, unable to look away from the Bucky in the distance, talking to his date. He’s smiling. You think that’s what had bothered you the most. That he wasn’t smiling at you. “It’s what I was thinking.”

“What were you thinking?”

You chuckle humourlessly, dropping your head and gaze. A moment to still yourself, then you face him. 

“That I hated your date. That I hated everything about her, and wanted to fucking gut her in the middle of the party, and rip her hair out of her head, and scratch up her face. I was thinking that I hated her because…Because I could never be her. And I wanted to be her so bad, because I realised - at that stupid New Year’s Eve party - that I wanted to be the only person you looked at like that. The only person you wanted to see. I realised I wanted to be the best thing at the party, to you. And I wasn’t…And I hated her for that and I…” You take a gasping, short breath. The words that follow are guilt-ridden, your body shrinking with shame, “I hated you for it too. But most of all, I hated myself, because I’d…I’d let myself...want you.”

Bucky stares at you. His eyes dance over your face, searching for some lie, some sign that this itself was part of the mind games you’d both been thrown into. But instead, he just saw you. Saw it plain and simple, written across your face in big, black ink. 

“Why were you ashamed, of those things? The things in your rooms?” you quietly broach. 

Bucky grunts, shaking his head. “It was wrong. You were my friend - you are my friend - and I…I let myself fucking…” He shudders at the memory. You think you know which one is playing in his mind right now. Then, his expression deepens. Sadder. “I kissed you back. You were drunk, and you trusted me, and I took advantage and I let myself kiss you back, when I knew it was wrong.”

“Only for a second,” you tell him. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he replies, quick, like he’s rehearsed this apology a thousand times before. You wonder if he’s thought of confessing, to clear his conscience. Wonder how long he’s let himself rot under the shame of harbouring feelings for you. Because that was what this was, right? 

“I don’t even remember that night.”

Bucky doesn’t seem to like the sound of that. His eyes close and he tries not to wince. 

“I wish I did though,” you whisper. “Cause that was the first time we kissed, I don’t even remember it.” 

He’s hesitant when he opens his eyes, as if waiting for you to take it back. But you don’t. You stand there, a shadow of a smile on your lips, and shrug. 

“I’m sorry I did that to you, but I’m not sorry I…I’m not sorry I…”

“You’re not sorry you what?” he pushes, wide eyes staring at you. It’s as if his whole world hangs on your next words. 

“I’m not sorry I have feelings for you. No matter how hard I’ve tried to be.”

Bucky gazes at you, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. His hand twitches, fingers reaching out towards yours, and you meet him halfway. Loosely intertwine your digits with his. He shuffles a step forward, and his forehead slowly eases down until it rests against your own. You let out a small huff and he takes a breath in, and the two of you stand in the room of your shared past. 

“I’m not sorry I have feelings for you, too,” Bucky admits in a low rumble of his voice. 

Your hand lifts to his face, cupping his cheek in your hold, cradling his jaw. He finds your lips like ships returning home in the night, guided by the glow of a lighthouse. It’s sweet, and tender, and wistful from years of wanting. His tongue darts across your lower lip and you gladly give way, sinking into the taste of him as his hand wraps around your waist, tugging you closer, holding you near. Eventually, the two of you break apart, but you refuse to step out of his orbit. His nose nudges yours in a silent kiss, and you smile. A strand of his hair curls around your finger and he sighs, content. 

“What say we go save the world now, huh?”

“Only if you’re there too,” Bucky replies, tone lighter than you've known it to be before. 

You realise then that your absolute truth is the same for Bucky: if he didn't have you, he didn't have anything.  

The coldness didn’t arrive all at once, it settled over Bucky in slow and suffocating layers. In the days following your fight, the shift in his behaviour became absolute.

He stopped coming back to your shared quarters, opting instead to sleep in the lower-level barracks under the guise of late-night surveillance shifts. When you passed him in the glass-walled corridors of the compound, his blue eyes once so warm once so full of a fierce and protective light, averted instantly.

He didn’t check if you had eaten.

He didn’t linger when you entered a room.

He treated you with the brisk impersonal efficiency he reserved for distant acquaintances, while Clara remained comfortably within his orbit.

She was always there, whispering in his ear during strategy meetings and resting her hand on his forearm with practised ease.

You began to notice all the little and apparently silly details about Clara.

Bucky said he like black coffee, Clara began drinking black coffee.

In the first week you saw her eating a tomato and cheddar cheese pizza. Now she ate double mozzarella pizza just like Bucky.

What made the situation infinitely less suffocating was that the rest of the team saw through Clara completely.

The other Avengers didn’t just dislike Special Agent Clara Vane, they actively detested her presence in the compound.

Sam made a point of leaving the kitchen the second she walked in, offering her nothing more than a icy, unblinking glare.

Natasha and Clint openly ignored her tactical suggestions during briefings, tracking Clara’s movements with quiet and lethal disdain.

Even Steve, usually the picture of professional diplomacy, held a tense and rigid posture whenever Clara entered the room, his jaw clenched tight.

Bruce didn’t use her ideas coming with the techs.

Tony, simply ignored her.

“I don’t trust her,” Natasha had told you bluntly in the gym one afternoon, watching Clara cross the courtyard toward Bucky. “She moves like a operative who’s trying too hard to look like an analyst. And the way she hovers around Barnes is unsettling.”

“Tell him that,” you had replied bitterly, pulling your boxing wraps tight. “He won’t listen.”

And he wouldn’t.

Bucky had built a fortress around himself and strangely, Clara was the only one he was letting inside.

Whenever Sam or Steve tried to pull Bucky aside to question why he was spending so much time with the joint task force agent, Bucky shut them down instantly, defensive and prickly. He insisted she was just helping him process old Soviet data, that no one else understood.

Clara had managed to exploit the one blind spot Bucky had left. She handled his desperate and quiet need to make sense of his past without dragging the people he loved into the mud with him. Because the team visibly loathed her, Clara shifted her strategy. If she couldn’t win the Avengers over with charm, she would systematically destroy your credibility instead.

It was a subtle but calculated work.

During a joint intelligence briefing, Clara casually brought up a minor miscalculation in a field report you had submitted, framing it as an “understandable emotional oversight” caused by your personal life. She dropped quiet hints to S.H.I.E.L.D. liaisons that your focus was slipping, planting small seeds of doubt that began to poison your professional reputation. Because the team was already on high alert and defensive of Bucky, the constant friction in the air made everything feel fragile. Clara used that tension to make you look volatile, isolated, and unreliable.

She’s playing a game, you thought, staring at your monitor late one night in the empty lab. And Bucky is the only one playing along.

You knew there was something deeply wrong with Clara Vane.

The way she was handling Bucky’s vulnerabilities, the way she manoeuvred around security protocols, the eerie precision of her timing.

It wasn’t just ambition.

It was a targeted strike.

Knowing that standard S.H.I.E.L.D. and Avengers databases had already cleared her, you bypassed official channels entirely. Sitting in the dark, bathed in the pale blue light of a black-market terminal you’d rigged in an abandoned basement sub-level, you began to dig.

You bypassed three more layers of encrypted firewalls, using custom decryption algorithms to slice into the darkest, not indexed corners of the international dark web and red-classified intelligence vaults.

What you found made the air freeze in your lungs.

Clara Vane wasn’t just an overly ambitious agent. She was a high level operative for Apex.

It was a clandestine, subterranean syndicate that made Hydra look almost quaint by comparison.

As the encrypted files unspooled across your screens, horror clawed at your throat. Apex didn’t just seek world domination or ideological control. They were a monstrous enterprise built on human trafficking, black-market organ harvesting, and live human experimentation. Page after page detailed horrific biological trials conducted on kidnapped civilians in unmarked facilities across Eastern Europe.

The deeper you dug through the red-classified ledgers, the stomach-turning reality of Clara’s direct involvement came to light. She wasn’t just a passive field intelligence officer sitting in an office. Her hands were filthy with the syndicate’s most stomach-churning operations.

Your breath caught in your throat as a series of manifests uploaded, bearing Clara’s personal digital signature alongside encrypted routing codes. She had personally overseen logistics for Apex’s child trafficking ring, coordinating the abduction and transport of vulnerable orphans and runaway youth from destitute rural sectors across the Balkans. The files detailed their precise inventory, innocent kids logged not as human beings but as “biological assets” destined either for live-subject neural testing or to be sold into the high-paying international black market.

Clara had catalogued their ages, their physical traits and their psychological profiles with the same cold and clinical detachment she used to present briefing slides to Steve and Tony. To Apex, and to Clara, those children were nothing more than bargaining chips, raw materials, and disposable test subjects.

Seeing her signature stamped beneath shipping manifests that doomed terrified children to unimaginable horrors made hot, nauseating fury surge through your veins. The woman sitting in your compound, laughing at Bucky’s jokes and pouring him tea, was a monster who stripped the vulnerable of their lives without a second thought.

You found the operational directive that had placed Clara inside the compound.

She hadn’t been sent just to gather intelligence.

Her primary directive was to exploit the Avengers’ vulnerabilities from the inside, specifically Bucky. Apex was hunting for the exact neurochemical triggers and residual programming files from his time as the Winter Soldier, aiming to replicate the brainwashing protocols for a new line of disposable, mind-controlled operatives.

As you scrolled further, a specific tactical blueprint made your stomach drop.

Apex had synthesised a specialised aerosolised compound. It was a subtle, sweet floral scent designed to bind to sensory receptors and interact with the lingering neurochemical pathways of former Winter Soldier candidates. It didn’t fully brainwash him, but it stripped away his natural restraints, lowering his defences, heightening his docility, and making him dangerously receptive to her presence while clouding his higher judgment.

A sharp, sickening memory flashed in your mind. The faint, distinct trace of perfume clinging to Bucky’s clothes the night he slept in the lower barracks, and the subtle floral underlying note that had lingered in the compound’s common areas ever since Clara had arrived. It hadn’t been a personal preference, it was a weaponised trigger.

The scrolling data didn’t stop there. Further down the encrypted thread, you stumbled across a promotional dossier draft. A sickeningly glossy, corporate marketing presentation prepared for Apex’s high-paying private clients and black-market investors.

Alongside the chemical compounds and neurological delivery metrics sat mock-ups for consumer packaging, designed to hide the aerosolised trigger in plain sight for covert field operations and widespread public deployment.

“They want to sell it as a deodorant…” you mumbled to yourself, your voice barely a whisper in the dark room, disbelief and disgust heavy on your tongue.

It was insane, morbid and utterly grotesque. Under the guise of a mundane, household room spray, Apex intended to distribute the aerosolised trigger globally, allowing them to passively pacify high-value targets or entire civilian sectors without ever raising a single red flag.

Furthermore, Clara was actively feeding Apex internal structural data on the compound to secure raw materials for a catastrophic dirty bomb, designed to wipe out entire metropolitan populations while leaving infrastructure intact.

The crushing weight of what you had discovered, and the terrifying realisation of how close Bucky had come to being completely rewritten without even knowing it, finally broke the dam.

Standing alone in the dark basement sub-level, illuminated only by the cold blue glare of the monitor, your breath hitched. Hot, silent tears spilled over your lashes, tracking down your cheeks as the overwhelming stress, the heartbreak of his distance, and the sheer terror of the bomb plot crashed over you all at once. You pressed a hand over your mouth to muffle a sob, your shoulders shaking in the empty room.

He didn’t know.

He thought he was just finding closure.

He thought he was talking to someone who understood his past, completely unaware that a chemical weapon was being used to bypass his mind and pull him back into the nightmare he had fought so hard to escape.

You wiped the tears away angrily with the back of your hand, your jaw tightening as raw, protective fury replaced the grief. There was no time to break down. Not yet.

Your hands trembled, but your resolve hardened into ice. You inserted a sleek and black encrypted USB drive into the console, transferring every shred of evidence.

Surveillance logs, financial trails, bio-weapons schematics and Clara’s direct communications with Apex handlers.

Taking one last deep, shuddering breath, you locked the terminal, secured your jacket and stepped back out into the cold silent corridors of the compound carrying a secret that could either save them all or tear them apart completely.

The meeting took place at two in the morning in a nondescript, windowless safehouse tucked behind a deserted dockyard in Brooklyn. Rain lashed against the high, grime streaked windows.

Director Nick Fury stood by a metal table, his single eye cold and sharp, while Agent Maria Hill stood beside him, her hand resting casually near her sidearm. Neither of them had asked questions when you sent the emergency, dark-frequency ping. They just showed up.

“This had better be worth the midnight field trip,” Fury said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

Without a word, you reached into your jacket, pulled out the black USB drive and slid it across the stainless steel table. It clicked softly against the metal.

“What is this?” Hill asked, picking it up and immediately plugging it into a hardened, portable tactical reader she pulled from her case.

“That is Special Agent Clara Vane,” you replied, your voice flat and tired, but unyielding. “Or whatever her real name is. She’s a mole.”

Fury’s eyebrow twitched slightly, but he didn’t interrupt. Hill’s fingers flew across her keyboard as the decrypted files began to pop up on her screen. Within seconds, her face drained of colour.

“Jesus,” Hill breathed, her eyes darting across the lines of code and human experimentation logs. “Apex? I thought they were liquidated in Bucharest three years ago.”

“They rebuilt,” you said. “And they sent her. She’s been siphoning classified data right out from under our noses. Bucky’s Winter Soldier telemetry, tactical weaknesses of the main roster, structural schematics of the compound… and the blueprint for a bio-synthetic explosive designed for mass population eradication.”

Fury leaned over Hill’s shoulder, his single eye scanning the damning evidence. The sheer scale of the atrocity detailed on the monitor. The trafficking networks along with the stolen technology and the imminent threat of a mass-casualty bomb, made even the veteran director’s jaw tighten in rare, visible shock.

“This is a complete breach,” Hill said, looking up at Fury, her voice laced with urgency. “If Apex has this level of telemetry on Barnes, his mental architecture is at risk again.”

Fury straightened up, his gaze locking onto you with intense scrutiny. “You brought this directly to us. You didn’t raise the red flag at the compound. Why?”

You looked Fury dead in the eye, not flinching.

“Because the situation at the compound is too volatile,” you answered honestly, the words tasting like lead on your tongue. “The team already hates her. Sam, Nat, Steve, Tony… they can barely stand to be in the same room as her. If I walked in there with this, things would escalate instantly. Someone would confront her… or Steve would try to pull Bucky out and Clara would realise… she’s been burned.”

You paused, taking a slow, steadying breath.

“If she realises she’s caught, she’ll trigger her fail-safes,” you continued, your voice dropping, heavy with an ache you couldn’t entirely hide. “She’ll leak the Winter Soldier files to Apex or pull the trigger on the bio-weapon data before we can dismantle her network. And Bucky… Bucky is too blind to her right now. He thinks she’s his only connection to clearing his past. He would defend her right up until the moment she betrayed him, and that emotional fallout would destroy him.”

Silence stretched across the cold room, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of rain against the roof.

“She played a dangerous game,” Hill said, looking at Fury before turning her sharp eyes back to you, a newfound respect flickering in them. “She knew the team disliked her, so she isolated Barnes completely, making him her only shield.”

“It’s worse than that,” you said, your voice cracking slightly before you forced it to steady. The raw emotion from your breakdown in the basement still burned in the back of your throat, but your eyes were sharp and focused now.

Fury raised an eyebrow, leaning forward. “Explain.”

“She isn’t just manipulating his survivor’s guilt,” you revealed, taking a steadying breath. “She’s using chemical conditioning. Apex synthesised a compound… it’s a sweet floral scent. It binds to the lingering neurochemical pathways left behind by the Winter Soldier’s program. It’s not like he’s controlled by her but… I mean no… he kinda is. It strips away his restraints and his defences are… gone.”

Hill’s jaw set into a hard line. “A passive neurochemical trigger.”

“I’ve been smelling it on her since the day she arrived,” you continued, your fists clenching tightly at your sides. “It lingers in the common areas, on his clothes… every time he comes back from being near her. He thinks he’s finally finding someone who understands his past, but in reality, he’s being chemically primed to drop his guard. He literally can’t see through her right now.”

Fury let out a low, menacing growl from the back of his throat, his single eye darkening with cold rage. “Weaponising his trauma against him right under our damn noses.”

“Which is exactly why we can’t just storm in there and pull her out,” you urged, looking between both of them. “If she realises the scent trigger isn’t working anymore, or if we try to forcibly separate them without dismantling Apex’s trigger network first, she could escalate to a full neurological override or pull the pin on that bio-bomb.”

They looked at each other.

“She tried,” you corrected quietly. “But she was wrong about one thing. I’m not gonna stop protecting him just because he’s pushing me away.” You held your breath for a second. “She could try even controlling Wanda or Nat,” you closed your eyes. “If she hacked Tony’s system we’re fucked up.”

Fury stared at you for a long, heavy moment. Slowly, he reached down, picked up the USB drive, and slipped it into his coat pocket.

“You did the right thing coming to us, Agent,” Fury said softly, his tone unusually grave. “If this gets out prematurely, we lose our shot at taking down Apex’s entire command structure. We play this close to the chest.”

“What’s the play, Director?” Hill asked, her hands already hovering over her comms unit.

“We go dark,” Fury replied, turning his gaze back toward the rain-slicked window. “We let Agent Vane think her little wedge between our people is working. We let her think she’s in control.” He looked back at you, his eye glinting in the dim light. “And then we catch her with her hand entirely inside the vault.”

You nodded slowly, feeling the cold weight of the USB leave your hands, replaced by an even heavier burden. You were going back into that compound. You were going back to the hostile glances the team threw at Clara, to Bucky’s distant, guarded eyes, and to Clara’s sharp, victorious smiles.

You were going back into the dark and this time, you were walking in entirely alone.

For the next three agonising days, you lived inside a nightmare of your own making, wearing a mask so seamless it felt like porcelain painted over raw nerve endings.

Every morning, you woke up in the small sterile guest room on the fifth floor. A cold, empty space that felt like a staging ground. You checked your tactical gear, swallowed the bitter knot in your throat and walked down to the common areas with your shoulders squared and your expression carefully smoothed into polite, professional neutrality.

Maintaining the facade was hard, but it was the only thing keeping the operation alive. Fury and Hill were quietly moving assets into place in Berlin and Bucharest, dismantling Apex’s supply chains piece by piece behind the scenes. Until they gave the signal, Special Agent Clara Vane had to believe her strategy was succeeding without a single hitch.

Which meant you had to watch her and you had to watch him.

The team’s hatred for Clara had settled into an even more icy and unspoken stand-off.

Sam rarely spoke to her beyond blunt, just a one word answers.

Natasha and Clint didn’t even bother looking in her direction when passing through the kitchen, their cold silence heavier than any verbal threat.

Steve maintained a strict, rigid distance, his blue eyes tracking Clara with a deep, simmering distrust whenever she was in the room.

Wanda, just back from a solo mission, tried so hard not to use her powers on her after you explained the situation.

Bruce and Tony locked themself into the lab, every time they heard her voice.

Yet, Bucky remained completely ensnared in her web.

There was no internal resistance to be seen.

He didn’t pull away.

He didn’t flinch.

He didn’t seem bother by Clara.

He liked her.

When Clara walked up beside him in the lab and rested her hand on his vibranium wrist, Bucky didn’t move an inch. He leaned into her space, his shoulders relaxing under the sickening influence of the synthetic lilac and jasmine scent clinging to her skin. You watched him laugh at her murmured comments, his blue eyes clouded with that unnatural, dazed docility. He looked entirely comfortable around her, completely open to her touch, while the rest of the team burned with silent rage.

Toward you, Bucky was a wall of ice.

He didn’t pour you coffee.

He didn’t hold the elevator.

If you entered a room, his eyes hardened and within moments, he would quietly turn on his heel and walk out.

He treated you like a complete stranger who had somehow deeply wronged him.

The only broken thread in his cold armour occurred in a rare, haunting glimpses.

Once, when you passed each other in the dim empty corridors late at night far from Clara’s sight and scent, he would freeze. He stepped into your space, his expression a storm of shadowed confusion but he lean down and press a single, lingering kiss to the centre of your forehead.

It wasn’t sweet.

It felt desperate and painful and fleeting.

He didn’t look you in the eyes before or after. He just pressed his warm lips to your skin for a fraction of a second, pull back and disappear into the darkness before you could even speak his name.

It ripped your heart open.

By Thursday night, the agony became unbearable.

The air in the compound felt suffocating. Fury had sent an encrypted ping an hour ago.

Final phase launching in 48 hours. Stand firm. N.F.

But looking at Bucky’s complete detachment, the way he was slipping deeper into Clara’s orbit, and the sheer terror of what Apex was doing to his mind, you couldn’t stay silent for another second.

At eleven o’clock, you stepped out into the quiet hallway and caught him just as he was exiting the lower stairwell, a towel draped over his shoulders after a late-night workout.

He froze when he saw you, his blue eyes immediately snapping shut for a fraction of a second, as if looking at you physically pained him.

“Bucky,” you said softly, your heart hammering against your ribs. “Please. Can we talk in my room for just five minutes?”

He stared at you, his jaw clenching tightly. For a long, terrifying moment, you thought he would refuse. But with a heavy, harsh exhale, he muttered, “Five minutes.”

You opened the door to your guest room and stepped inside. Bucky followed, keeping his distance, standing near the centre of the small space. He kept his arms tightly crossed over his chest, his posture rigid and hostile. The scent of sweet, synthetic lilacs clung heavily to his clothes.

Entering in the room, you immediately went to the dresser where your perfume stood. You picked it up and sprayed some on your neck.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice low, clipped and completely devoid of warmth. He looked, better saying starred, at you while you sprayed your perfume but didn’t say anything.

The coldness in his tone hit you like a physical blow, but you fought to stay grounded. You took a step toward him, your eyes searching his clouded gaze.

“Bucky, look at me,” you begged quietly. “Please. Look at what we’re doing. You won’t talk to me... you won’t even stand in the same room as me but you kissed my forehead in the dark like you’re drowning. Why are you pushing me away? What is happening to you?”

You moved closer to him. You touched your neck, where the perfume rested. You felt some wetness on your fingers where you sprayed your scent. You decided to rest your hand on his chest. Wiggling your fingers, you let him smell the scent.

You stood in front of him. Your hands went on both side of his face. You delicately touched his cheeks and he closed his eyes for a second. You pulled him toward you and peck his lips.

Realisation hit you.

It was like kissing a mannequin.

No emotions.

No lips moving.

No tongue exploring your mouth.

Nothing.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed and a sudden explosive dark anger flaring across his features. “Nothing is happening to me!” he snapped, his voice sharp and laced with a defensive venom that shocked you. “I’m finally clearing the red out of my ledger! I’m finally working with someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m a time bomb!”

“I have never looked at you like that!” you yelled out, an angry tear breaking free and spilling down your cheek. “I love you, Bucky! I have loved you through every single nightmare, through every scar!”

Desperate to break through the chemical fog, desperate to feel the warmth of the man who had held you in Prague, you stepped forward again and reached for him. You tried to wrap your arms around his waist, burying your face against his chest, clinging to him with everything you had.

“Please,” you lightly told him against his shirt.

Bucky went stark rigid. The moment your arms touched him again, his breath hitched in a sharp, furious gasp.

“Don’t!” he growled.

He didn’t just pull back, he gripped your wrists with his flesh hand and shoved you away. You noticed how he still haven’t use his metal hand on you.

You stumbled backward, your heel catching on the carpet and crashed against the edge of the small wooden desk. Pain radiated up your spine, but the physical ache was nothing compared to the catastrophic agony in your chest.

Bucky stood there, his chest heaving and his hands trembling as he stared down at you. For a fraction of a second, a flash of pure horror flickered in his blue eyes as he looked at your shaking form, but the artificial haze instantly swept back over his features, hardening them into stone.

“Don’t touch me,” he rasped, his voice tight, venomous, and laced with an anger that wasn’t his own. “Stop doing this. Stop acting like I owe you something just because we used to be something.”

You lay pressed against the desk, your hand clutching your side, fresh tears streaming relentlessly down your face. You looked up at him, choking on your own breath, seeing the complete, tragic wall he had built around himself. He was slipping away, entirely trapped inside a mind that was no longer fully his.

“Get your head straight,” Bucky spat coldly, stepping back toward the open door. “Because I’m done trying to fix whatever this is.”

He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him, the heavy thud echoing through the small room like a gunshot.

You collapsed onto the floor, pulling your knees to your chest, and let the silent, gut-wrenching sobs tear through you in the dark. He hated you. He had shoved you away, blinded by a weaponised scent and a silent war he didn’t even know he was fighting.

You pressed your forehead against your knees, shaking violently, your heart completely shattered into pieces. A little bruise on your wrist too.

Forty-eight hours, you thought through the suffocating pain, wiping the tears furiously from your face as your grief slowly turned into a cold, terrifying rage. Just forty-eight more hours, Clara. And I will destroy you for what you’ve done to him.

“Nat? What is going on?” Wanda whispered, her Sokovian accent thickening with concern. “Why is she in the guest room? Where is Bucky?”

Natasha didn’t answer right away. She just reached out, opened the door, and ushered Wanda inside before locking it firmly behind them.

You were sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, holding a bag of ice to your ribs where you had slammed into the desk hours earlier. Your eyes were bloodshot, your face pale, and the exhaustion radiating from you was so profound it made Wanda’s breath hitch.

“She wouldn’t tell me what happened,” Natasha said smoothly, her voice a deadly, quiet hum as she looked at you. “But I know Barnes’ handprint when I see a bruise forming. And I know she didn’t fight back.”

Wanda’s eyes widened, her gaze snapping to the dark purple shadow blooming along your wrist where Bucky had gripped you, and then to the way you protectively guarded your side.

“Y/N,” Wanda breathed, dropping to her knees in front of you. “Did Bucky do this to you?”

“It wasn’t him,” you choked out, your voice hoarse from hours of silent crying.

“It certainly looks like him,” Natasha countered, stepping closer, her hand resting on the hilt of a tactical knife on her belt. “Tell us. Right now. Because I am five minutes away from walking down to the barracks and breaking his other arm.”

You looked between the two women.

The deadliest spy in the world and a witch capable of tearing reality apart.

You knew Fury had ordered you to keep the circle closed. But as you looked into their eyes, seeing the fierce, unyielding sisterhood and protection they were offering, you knew you couldn’t survive the next forty-eight hours alone.

Reaching under the mattress, you pulled out a small, palm-sized frequency jammer you had built and clicked it on, ensuring Clara’s hidden bugs couldn’t pick up the audio.

Then, you told them everything.

You told them about the midnight hack, the Apex syndicate, and the bio-synthetic bomb. You watched Natasha’s face go terrifyingly blank. The absolute lack of emotion that meant the Black Widow was calculating kill protocols.

When you finally explained the aerosolised floral scent, the chemical conditioning Clara was using to bypass Bucky’s healing mind stripping his defences and plunging him back into docility, the air in the small room violently dropped in temperature.

The glass of water on the night stand shattered.

A deep, pulsing hum of chaotic red magic bled into the room. You looked up to see Wanda trembling, her hands glowing with volatile scarlet energy. Her eyes, usually so warm and kind, were burning with a terrifying unholy rage.

Of all the Avengers, Wanda understood the horror of mind control intimately. She knew what it meant to have your autonomy stripped away and to be turned into a weapon, to be trapped inside your own head while someone else pulled the strings. The idea that Clara was doing it to Bucky, right in their home and right in front of them, snapped something deep inside her.

“Where is she?” Wanda demanded, her voice echoing with a layered, unnatural resonance. The shadows in the room bent toward her. “Where does she sleep?”

“Wanda, wait...” you started, dropping the ice pack and reaching for her.

“No,” Wanda interrupted, her glowing eyes locking onto the door. The wood of the doorframe groaned under the pressure of her rising magic. “I am going to tear her apart. I am going to rip that scent out of her lungs and drag every secret she has out of her mind before I crush her skull.”

She turned toward the exit, fully prepared to march down to Clara’s quarters and execute her on the spot.

“Wanda, stop!” you cried out, ignoring the pain in your ribs as you lunged forward, grabbing her glowing wrist.

The red magic singed your skin, but you held on tight.

Natasha moved in a blur, stepping directly in front of the door to block Wanda’s path. “Listen to her, Maximoff.”

“She is in his head, Natasha!” Wanda yelled, tears of pure fury spilling over her lashes. “She is rewriting him! I will not let another Hydra fanatic touch him!”

“She’s not Hydra, she’s Apex!” you pleaded, your voice cracking as you tightened your grip on her wrist, forcing Wanda to look at you. “And if you kill her right now, the fail-safes trigger! The bomb blueprints go live, and Clara’s handlers will instantly realise... he’s dead. They will wipe Bucky’s residual triggers remotely. It will completely break his mind, Wanda. You’d be killing the only chance we have to dismantle the network!”

Wanda’s chest heaved violently, the red mist swirling erratically around her fingers as she stared down at you. The raw, terrifying power hummed in the air but as her glowing eyes dropped to the dark, ugly bruise blossoming across your wrist and then to the desperate, shattered plea in your tear-streaked face, the rage in her gaze fractured into profound, deep pain.

Slowly, the scarlet glow began to recede. The oppressive weight in the room lifted, the floating debris settled, and the shattered glass on the night stand ceased its rattling. The fierce, terrifying witch evaporated, leaving behind your best friend, utterly heartbroken for you.

Wanda collapsed to her knees on the cold floor, wrapping her arms tightly around your neck and pulling you into her with a force that nearly took your breath away. She buried her face in the crook of your shoulder, her body shaking with sudden, heavy sobs.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda cried quietly into your shirt, her fingers tangling desperately into the back of your hair as if trying to shield you from the entire world. “I’m so sorry, moya dorogaya. I’m so sorry you had to carry this nightmare all by yourself. You’ve been suffering right in front of us, and I wasn’t here to protect you.”

The dam inside you broke completely. Holding back the tears in front of Bucky had been agonizing, but feeling Wanda’s warm, familiar embrace dissolved the last of your defences. You buried your face in her shoulder, letting out a ragged, silent sob, your trembling fingers clutching at her jacket.

Natasha stepped away from the door, the sharp, lethal assassin’s wall she always kept up completely crumbling. She moved across the small room with a quiet, deliberate grace and sank to the floor beside the two of you. Without a word, Natasha reached out, her hand resting firmly against your uninjured shoulder pulling both you and Wanda a little closer into her.

“Look at me,” Natasha commanded softly.

You pulled back from Wanda’s shoulder wiping at your wet cheeks, and looked at Natasha. The Black Widow, a woman who guarded her heart tighter than any S.H.I.E.L.D. vault, had eyes glistening with unshed tears.

“You did incredible,” Natasha whispered, her thumb gently brushing a stray tear from your cheek, her voice thick with a rare, fierce affection. “You tried saving him… and you did it while your heart was being ripped out of your chest every single day. I am so proud of you. But you are done carrying this alone. You hear me? You have us now.”

Wanda reached out, her hands cupping your face, her thumb gently smoothing over your cheekbone. Her eyes, still rimmed with red, searched yours with an intense, unyielding tenderness.

“He loves you, Y/N,” Wanda said, her voice shaking with absolute conviction. “I know it feels like he’s gone right now, I know how much it hurts when he looks past you… but I know his mind. Even under that poison she is giving him, his soul belongs to you. He is fighting his way back to you, even if he doesn’t know it yet. We are going to get him back.”

You squeezed Wanda’s hands, letting her words sink into the hollow, aching places in your chest. “I know,” you whispered, choking down another sob. “I just… I miss him so much.”

“We know,” Natasha murmured, wrapping her arm around your waist, resting her forehead against yours for a brief, grounding second. “We know, baby. But this ends now.”

Natasha straightened up slightly, her expression returning to that cold, methodical calm, though the fierce love in her eyes remained. “Forty-eight hours,” she stated. “That’s what Fury said?”

You nodded against Wanda’s shoulder, taking a shaky, steadying breath. “Less now. By tomorrow night, S.H.I.E.L.D. hits the Apex bases in Europe. Once they have the main servers secured, Fury gives the signal, and we can take her.”

“Fine,” Natasha said, her green eyes flashing with a lethal, terrifying promise that sent a chill down the spine. “We play her game for one more day. We let her think she’s won. We let her think she successfully tore you two apart.”

Wanda pulled back slowly, wiping her own tears away with the back of her hand. Her expression hardened into something utterly, beautifully ruthless, the crimson sparks dancing quietly beneath her skin no longer wild and erratic, but focused, dangerous, and precise. She looked at Natasha, an unspoken, unbreakable bond passing between the three of you.

“She doesn’t get S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Wanda whispered, her Sokovian accent biting through the silence of the room like a drawn blade. “She hurt our family. She hurt you. She gets us.”

The next morning, the kitchen in the common area felt less like a communal space and more like a tactical pressure cooker.

Clara sat casually at the long marble island, dressed in a sharp, crisp blouse, her tablet propped up next to a plate of fruit. She looked thoroughly at home. And right beside her stood Bucky. He leaned against the counter, his posture stiff, his eyes clouded over with that familiar, hollow daze. The sickly sweet aroma of synthetic lilacs and jasmine hung heavily around them both, radiating from Clara in subtle, steady waves every time she moved.

Across the room, the rest of the team made no effort to hide their disdain.

Sam aggressively chopped fruit at the far counter, his jaw clenched so hard his teeth clicked. Steve stood by the window, staring out at the grounds with his arms crossed tightly, his silence louder than any argument. Natasha sat at the far end of the island, twirling a butter knife with lethal, rhythmic precision, her eyes fixed on the back of Clara’s neck. Clint leaned against the doorframe near the pantry, tossing a coin up and down, his hawk-like eyes tracking Clara’s every breath with open hostility.

Over by the coffee machine, Tony stared at his mug as if it had personally offended him. He hadn’t made a single joke all morning, his dark eyes flicking between Bucky’s vacant expression and Clara’s neat tablet setup. Beside him, Bruce poured a cup of herbal tea with hands that were visibly trembling not from anxiety, but from the immense effort it took to keep the green at bay. Bruce’s pulse was spiking every time Clara spoke, his breathing measured and deliberate.

None of them trusted her. None of them wanted her here. But because Bucky shut them out every time they tried to intervene, they were walking on eggshells, trapped in a cold war inside their own home.

You sat quietly near Natasha, nursing a mug of tea, wearing your mask of exhausted indifference. Your wrist ached beneath the sleeve of your sweater, and your ribs throbbed every time you took a deep breath, but your eyes remained steady.

Then, the heavy glass doors slid open, and Wanda walked in.

She wore a dark, oversized sweater, her hair pulled back, appearing to all the world like a tired Avenger looking for her morning caffeine fix. But beneath her calm exterior, her eyes burned with a cold, terrifying purpose. She had spent the entire night holding you while you cried, listening to the truth of what Clara had done to Bucky.

Now, she was going to tear the answers straight from Clara’s brain.

Wanda moved quietly across the hardwood floor toward the kitchen island, placing her right near the coffee station and just a few feet behind Clara’s chair.

“Morning, Wanda,” Clara said smoothly, not even looking up from her tablet. “How was Eastern Europe?”

“Big.” Wanda replied quietly, her Sokovian accent low and even.

Bruce stepped aside slightly to give Wanda room, offering her a quick, sympathetic glance before his eyes darted back to Clara with deep suspicion. Clint stopped tossing his coin, his gaze sharpening. Tony took a slow sip of his espresso, his knuckles white around the ceramic handle.

As Wanda reached for a mug, she casually turned her head toward Clara. Beneath the counter, hidden from view, Wanda’s fingers twitched. A microscopic, almost invisible thread of crimson magic bled from her fingertips, snaking through the air toward the base of Clara’s head. Wanda didn’t intend to destroy her yet, she just wanted to breach her mind, pull out the decryption codes and see the exact layout of Apex’s mental triggers.

The red thread touched the base of Clara’s skull.

And then, Wanda froze.

It wasn’t a gentle resistance. It was like striking a wall of solid, lead-lined steel. The crimson spark vanished instantly, swallowed whole by a jarring, synthetic psychic block. There were no thoughts inside Clara’s head to read, just a deafening metallic hum like a specialized neurological dampener implanted at the base of her brain designed specifically to counter telepathic intrusion.

Wanda’s hand hovered over the coffee pot, her entire body locking up for a fraction of a second. Her breath caught sharply in her throat, her eyes widening in genuine, stunned shock.

Clara slowly turned in her chair, a mild, polite smile resting on her lips. She looked directly at Wanda, her eyes sharp, cold, and entirely knowing.

“Is the coffee fresh?” Clara asked, her voice dripping with artificial innocence. “Or do you need a minute to wake up?”

Beside her, Bucky didn’t even register the silent exchange. He just stared blankly at his own hands, completely trapped in the chemical haze, entirely oblivious to the mental war being waged right above his head.

Across the island, Natasha’s twirling knife instantly stopped. Clint’s hand drifted imperceptibly toward his belt. Tony’s jaw set into a hard line, his dark eyes narrowing as he caught the subtle shift in Wanda’s posture. Bruce took a slow, deep breath, his knuckles flushing a faint green before he forced it down.

You gripped your mug tighter, your heart leaping into your throat as you watched Wanda slowly force her breathing back under control, her knuckles turning white around the handle of the coffee pot.

The heavy glass doors of the training sub-level had barely hissed shut behind the three of you before Natasha turned, her face a cold, unreadable mask. She slapped the wall console, locking the heavy steel doors and cutting off the feed to the internal security cameras with a swift, practiced combination of keystrokes.

“Alright,” Natasha said, her voice dropping into that dangerous, quiet register. She stepped toward Wanda, her green eyes piercing. “What happened up there? You went completely solid the second you reached for the coffee pot.”

Wanda stood near the center of the padded floor, her arms crossed tightly over her oversized sweater. Her breathing was still shallow, her cheeks pale, and beneath her sleeves, tiny sparks of crimson energy flickered erratically across her knuckles.

You leaned heavily against the wooden bench near the equipment rack, holding your side where your ribs still throbbed. “Wanda, please,” you whispered, your heart pounding against your chest. “You looked like you saw a ghost. Did you get into her head?”

“No,” Wanda said, her Sokovian accent thick and clipped with a mix of shock and dark, rising fury. She looked up, her glowing eyes locking onto yours. “I couldn’t get in at all.”

Natasha’s brow furrowed, her hands settling on her hips. “What do you mean you couldn’t get in? Is she trained against telepathy?”

“It is not mental training,” Wanda spat, taking a step forward, her voice trembling with disgust. “Mental training is like trying to push through a heavy door or a wall of ice. This was… artificial. Synthetic. The second my magic touched the base of her skull, it struck a dead zone. A dampener.”

You straightened up, forgetting the dull ache in your side for a fraction of a second. “A dampener?”

“A neurological implant,” Wanda explained, her fingers curling into tight fists as red mist began to pool around her palms. “Directly at the base of her brainstem. It creates a localized, high-frequency metallic hum inside her neural pathways. It isn’t just protecting her thoughts... it is designed specifically to disrupt psychic energy. Apex knew we had a telepath on the team. She came prepared for me. I think she knew you would have hacked the system...”

Even if you did suspect it already, the idea of being trapped made you shiver.

Natasha let out a low, bitter breath, rubbing her forehead as she paced a short line across the floor mats. “Jesus. They didn’t just study Bucky. They studied the whole damn roster. She sat there at that table, completely aware that you were trying to read her, and she just smiled.”

“She knew,” Wanda whispered, her eyes turning dark with raw hatred. “The look she gave me… she was mocking me. She knows I cannot touch her mind without blowing her head open.”

The room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The realization hit you like a wave of ice water.

Clara wasn’t just a mole siphoning data from the shadows. She was a fully equipped, surgically enhanced weapon tailored specifically to counter the Avengers from the inside. She had neutered Wanda’s telepathy, blinded Bucky with weaponized chemical conditioning, and turned the team’s distrust into a shield to isolate him.

“This changes nothing about the timeline,” Natasha said firmly, breaking the silence as she turned back to face both of you. Her eyes were hard as flint. “Fury’s strike teams are already moving in Europe. If we panic now and try to force our way through her implant, she’ll know she’s burned and pull the trigger on the bio-bomb blueprints.”

Wanda looked at you, her expression softening into that deep, fierce protectiveness from the night before. She walked over to where you stood, gently resting her hand on your uninjured shoulder.

“She thinks she is untouchable because I cannot enter her mind,” Wanda murmured softly, her crimson magic swirling gently around her fingers, warming your skin through your shirt. “She thinks that makes her safe from me.”

“It doesn’t,” you said quietly, looking into your best friend’s eyes.

Wanda offered a cold, terrifyingly sharp smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“No,” Wanda whispered. “It just means when the forty-eight hours are up, I won’t be using my magic to read her thoughts. I’ll be using it to break her.”

The rain outside the Brooklyn safehouse was relentless, drumming a hollow, rhythmic beat against the reinforced glass. Inside, the air turned instantly lethal the moment the words left your mouth.

“You told who?”

Director Nick Fury didn’t just speak; he roared, the sheer force of his voice vibrating through the small, concrete room. He stepped forward, his single eye blazing with a terrifying, raw fury as he slammed his hand down onto the metal table. The steel rang out like a gunshot.

“Are you out of your mind, Agent?!” Fury spat, leaning over the table until he was inches from your face. “I gave you a direct order! We go dark, we keep the circle closed, and we play this close to the chest! And the first thing you do is turn around and run your mouth to Romanoff and Maximoff?”

Agent Hill’s hand went instantly to her holster, her eyes widening in genuine alarm. “If Maximoff uses her magic inside the compound, Vane’s telemetry trackers will pick up the spike in a heartbeat. The entire operation-”

“I KNOW!” you interjected yelling, stepping right up to the edge of the table, refusing to back down despite the terrifying weight of the Director’s rage. Your voice was hoarse, your body still aching from where Bucky had shoved you hours prior, but your gaze remained unwavering. “I fucking know the risks, Director!”

“Then why the hell did you blow the protocol?!” Fury snapped, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck strained.

“Because Bucky put his hands on me last night!”

The admission hung suspended in the air like a blade.

Fury froze.

Hill’s fingers went entirely still against her sidearm, her jaw dropping slightly as she looked from you to the raw, dark purple bruises blooming along your wrist and the way you held your ribs.

“He shoved me,” you continued quietly, the anger draining from your voice, leaving behind a cold exhaustion. “He’s deteriorating. The chemical is clouding his mind so fast that he may become a danger to everyone in that building, including himself. I was lying on the floor of a guest room bleeding from a secret I was keeping to protect him... and Wanda and Nat walked in.”

You took a deep, shuddering breath, looking Fury dead in his single, piercing eye.

“Wanda nearly leveled the fifth floor when she saw what was happening. She was going to tear Clara apart with her bare hands right then and there. If I hadn’t told them the truth... if I hadn’t given them the bigger picture... Clara Vane would be a smear on the common room floor right now. The fail-safes would have triggered and Apex would have wiped Bucky’s brain remotely.”

Silence descended on the safehouse, heavy and suffocating. Rain lashed against the roof, the sound filling the space where Fury’s rage had just burned.

Fury didn’t say a word for a long minute. He slowly stood up to his full height, his gaze lingering on the bruise on your wrist before shifting back to your face. The intense anger in his posture began to bleed away, replaced by the grim, heavy weight of a man who realized just how close the entire world had come to tilting off its axis.

“They know about the fail-safes?” Hill asked softly, breaking the quiet.

“Yes,” you said, turning your head toward her. “Natasha locked down the security feeds and I used a frequency jammer. Wanda tried to read Clara’s mind at breakfast this morning but she hit the neural dampener Apex implanted at the base of her skull. But they’re standing down. They know we have to wait for your signal.”

Hill let out a long, slow breath, looking over at Fury. “They’re holding the line, Nick. Nat knows how to play a long game, and if Wanda knows the stakes for Barnes, she won’t move until we give the order.”

Fury closed his eye for a brief second, pinching the bridge of his nose as he let out a low, gravelly sigh. When he opened his eye again, the explosive anger was gone, replaced by a dark, dangerous understanding.

“Maximoff couldn’t breach the implant?” Fury asked quietly.

“No,” you replied. “It’s a specialized synthetic blocker. It threw her out immediately.”

“Good,” Fury muttered, a cold, ruthless glint returning to his eye. “That means Vane still thinks she’s the smartest person in the room. She thinks she’s got Barnes under her thumb, she thinks she’s blocked our heavy hitter, and she thinks you’re isolated and broken.”

He stepped around the table, stopping just a foot away from you. He looked down at your bruised wrist, his expression unreadable, before meeting your eyes once more.

“You took a massive risk, Agent,” Fury said, his voice dropping into a low, somber tone. “Under normal circumstances, I’d have you stripped of your clearance and benched for breaking protocol.” He paused, his jaw flexing. “But you kept Maximoff from pulling the trigger too early. You kept this operation alive.”

“So we’re still go for the European strikes?” you asked, leaning forward slightly.

“S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical units are moving into position in Berlin and Bucharest as we speak,” Hill confirmed, checking her encrypted tablet. “We hit Apex’s main server farms simultaneously in thirty-six hours. The second those servers go dark, their remote fail-safes are neutralized.”

Fury leaned in slightly, his voice cold as steel. “When those servers drop, Hill gives the word. You, Romanoff and Maximoff handle the mole inside the compound. No S.H.I.E.L.D. teams, no loud entrances. Just you three.”

A sharp, ruthless smile touched the corner of your lips despite the pain in your chest. “Understood, Director.”

“Get back to the compound,” Fury commanded, turning his back to return to his monitors. “Keep your head down and play the victim. Let Clara Vane enjoy her little victory for one more day.” He paused, looking over his shoulder at you one last time. “And get that wrist iced. You’re going to need both hands when the clock runs out.”

The 48 hours finally ended.

The day of the operation arrived under a heavy, overcast sky that swallowed the morning sun whole.

Thirty-six hours had ticked away, second by excruciating second. In Berlin and Bucharest, S.H.I.E.L.D. strike teams were already in position, awaiting Director Fury’s simultaneous command to raid the syndicate’s server farms and sever their remote connectivity. Inside the Avengers compound, the air was practically vibrating with unsaid words and razor-sharp tension.

Nick Fury and Maria Hill had arrived at dawn to personally oversee the briefing. The entire team crowded around the main glass table.

Steve, Tony, Sam, Bruce, Clint, Natasha, Wanda, Bucky, and Clara.

Fury didn’t waste time on pleasantries. He brought up a tactical map of a decommissioned industrial complex nestled in the dense forest outside of Prague, an underground logistics hub that S.H.I.E.L.D. had supposedly “just intercepted” through high-level chatter.

“This is a joint strike,” Fury announced, his voice booming over the quiet room. “We’ve flagged a high value black market data vault operating inside this facility, hoarding stolen military telemetry and bio-synthetic intelligence. We go in fast, secure the server drives and neutralize the hostiles. No second chances.”

He carefully kept the syndicate’s true name, Apex, completely off the displays and out of his mouth, keeping the broader operation strictly classified to prevent Clara from realizing her handlers were already burned.

Then came the deployment orders.

Fury began assigning perimeter teams and entry vectors with practiced precision.

Natasha and Wanda were paired to cover the upper catwalks.

Steve and Sam were assigned to the main courtyard.

Tony, Clint, and Bruce were mapped to air support and heavy breach backup.

Bucky, as usual, would check the perimeter.

“Primary vault extraction team,” Fury said, his single eye sweeping over the group before landing squarely on Clara. “Agent Vane, you’re lead on data retrieval.”

Clara offered a smooth confident nod, her lips curling into that familiar smile. “Understood, Director.”

“And you’ll need tactical escort,” Fury continued smoothly, his eyes shifting across the table to land directly on you. “You’re paired with Agent Vane.”

The room instantly went dead silent.

Tony slammed his mug onto the table, his eyes wide with incredulity. “Excuse me? Barnum and Bailey called Nick, they want their circus back. You’re putting them together?”

“Are you out of your mind, Fury?” Sam snapped, stepping forward, his hands on his hips. “They’ve been at each other’s throats for a month! Put her with me, or put her with Steve.”

“It’s a bad call, Cap,” Clint added, leaning away from the wall, his hawk-like gaze fixed on Fury. “Putting two operatives with active personal friction on a live extraction vault is asking for a disaster.”

Steve looked at Fury, his brow deeply furrowed in concern. “Director, with all due respect, if there’s instability in the primary pair, it puts the whole extraction at risk.”

Across the table, Natasha and Wanda remained perfectly still. Neither of them raised an objection. They knew the truth. They knew that placing you beside Clara was the trap. The bait to ensure Clara felt completely in control completely unthreatened, until the exact moment Fury gave the signal to shut her down. But, still, they were scarred for their best friend.

“It’s okay,” you said, your voice calm and steady.

Every head in the room turned toward you.

“It’s fine,” you repeated, looking Steve and Sam dead in the eye, offering them a small, reassuring nod. “We’re professionals. We can execute the objective without personal distractions.”

Clara’s smile widened by a fraction of a millimeter, a fleeting flicker of dark satisfaction. She believed you were completely broken and isolated from Bucky, stripped of your credibility and foolishly walking right into her hands.

Then, there was Bucky.

Standing beside Clara, wrapped in the faint, nauseating fog of synthetic lilacs, Bucky didn’t speak a word. But as you accepted the pairing, a strange and unreadable expression crossed his features. His brow pinched tight, his blue eyes flickering through the chemical haze with a sudden, sharp intensity. For a fraction of a second, he looked at you not with cold indifference but with a profound confusion as if a piece of his mind was screaming at him that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. But the look in his eyes lingered long after the briefing broke up.

He’s fighting it, you thought.

An hour later, two stealth jets cut through the low-hanging gray clouds, descending onto a muddy clearing surrounded by towering pine trees just a mile outside the Prague complex.

The heavy ramp creaked open, spilling cold, damp forest air into the cabin. Rain began to patter softly against the dark metal hull.

One by one, the Avengers stepped out onto the slick mud.

Steve tightening his shield straps.

Tony’s armour humming softly.

Natasha and Wanda moving side by side like quiet shadows.

Clint and Sam checking their gear.

Bruce taking slow, grounding breaths.

Fury and Hill standing at the edge of the ramp, eyes fixed on the treeline.

Bucky stepped down onto the rain-slicked earth, his metal arm catching the dim, gray light. Right beside him, Clara adjusted her tactical vest, completely unaware of the invisible crosshairs painted on her back.

You walked down the ramp last, stepping onto the wet ground and looking toward the heavy, iron perimeter gates of the facility hidden deep within the trees.

The stage was set. Everyone was in place. And the storm was about to break.

Bucky noticed it first during training. Not because you missed a shot, you never do, but because you laughed.

It was bright and sudden, the kind of laugh echoing across the compound’s training room as Steve nearly lost his balance after Sam distracted him with a sarcastic comment.

Natasha snorted.

Clint applauded dramatically.

Even Bruce looked up from his tablet.

And then your eyes found Bucky.

You grinned. “There he is,” you announced, pointing at him. “The one person who didn’t laugh.”

“I laughed.”

“You breathed slightly harder.”

“That’s laughing.”

“You need lessons.”

Before he could answer, you were already jogging toward him, sweat clinging to your forehead, hair escaping your ponytail. Without asking, you stole the water bottle from his hands, took a sip and handed it back.

He drank from the exact spot your lips touched.

Sam caught it. “Ew.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You two have become disgustingly domestic.”

“We’re sharing water.”

“You looked at the bottle like it proposed to you.”

You burst into laughter again.

Bucky only shrugged.

“Maybe it did.”

No one remembered exactly when the two of you became the couple.

One day, you were teammates who always partnered on missions.

The next, you were somehow inseparable.

Maybe it started because your fighting styles complemented each other. You moved quickly, reading situations before they unfolded, while Bucky was the immovable force that protected your openings. You trusted each other’s instincts without speaking.

Or maybe it started with late-night coffee after missions?

Patching each other up in the medical bay?

Silent conversations in the gym at two in the morning?

Eventually, Tony walked into the kitchen one morning, saw Bucky making your favorite breakfast while you leaned sleepily against the counter wearing his sweatshirt, and simply turned around.

“Nope.”

“What?”

“I’m not emotionally prepared for this level of healthy.”

Mission briefings become easier, not because you’re dating but because you understand each other.

Steve pointed at the holographic map. “You’ll enter from the east.”

Bucky shook his head. “No.”

Steve blinked. “No?”

Bucky looked at you.

You studied the projection for exactly three seconds. “The ventilation shaft.”

Steve sighed. “Why the ventilation shaft?”

“The eastern corridor bottlenecks.” You explained.

“They’ll expect two entry teams…” Bucky added.

“…and the cameras rotate every thirty-one seconds.” You nodded toward Bucky, finishing the phrase.

Steve slowly looked between both of you. “You already had this conversation?”

“No.”

“You literally finished each other’s tactical plan.”

You and Bucky exchanged a confused glance. “We did?”

Natasha smirked. “It’s getting creepy.”

People think dating the Winter Soldier was intimidating.

They’re wrong.

The first time he officially asked you out, he nearly crumbled on his legs. He decided to take a walk in the park. The afternoon was perfect and the sun was bright in the sky.

He took your hand, with his flesh one of course, and intertwined his fingers around yours. You looked up at him, smiling. He marked that day as the start of his new life. He glanced at a bench, under a big and towering tree. He guided you, letting you sit before sitting himself. You both began to talk about everything.

Mission, late night snack, Steve being the mama of the group and nightmares.

“Sometimes,” he began. “I think this is a giant dream I’m living… and that I’ll wake up sweaty…” he looked down.

“It’s not,” you grabbed his chin. “It’s very much real, Bucky.” You said, sweetly.

You kept talking, and Bucky yawned… or that was what you thought.

He looked ahead of him, and rose his arm. You took a peak with the corner of your eyes of his air hanging in the air and smiled. Feeling the pressure of his arm on your shoulder, you looked at the hand he put on your shoulder.

When you turned your head, he smiled.

A real smile.

“Trying to find the perfect moment…” he left the phrase hanging.

You didn’t wait.

Raising your hand on his chin, you pulled him toward you.

His arm slid from your shoulder to your arm, then around your waist, pulling you more into him. Your both arms went straight up around his neck. The kiss was deep but sweet. He grabbed your waist, pulling you into his hard chest. You moved closer to him too, wanting zero space between you. As you felt your breath heavy, you pulled out for a second.

Resting your forehead against his, you smile.

You puffy and red lips matching his. You both smile and then he kissed you again.

Even tho in the park Bucky was the sweetest man alive, it was also true that the scary version of Bucky existed. It was the one the world knew and the one enemies whispered about. The version of him who could dismantle ten armed men before anyone realizes he was moving.

You knew someone else.

You knew someone who quietly tucked blankets around you when you accidentally felt asleep on the couch. Someone who memorized exactly how you took your coffee after asking only once. Someone who pretended not to like romantic movies but somehow always remembered your favorite scenes. Someone who apologized to spiders before carrying them outside.

“You don’t have to save every bug,” you told him one evening.

“They live here too.”

“It’s my apartment.”

“They’re paying rent emotionally.”

You stared. “…Emotionally?”

“They’re supportive.”

“They’re spiders.”

“They’ve never judged me.”

You kissed his cheek. “I definitely love the weird version.”

The mission in Prague was supposed to be routine.

Retrieve stolen Stark tech, neutralize minimal resistance, and get out.

Instead, the facility erupted.

A sudden explosion tore through the lower levels, sending a violent shudder through the concrete structure. The lights flickered, died and emergency red beams flooded the corridors. Worst of all, the comms went dead. One second you were coordinating with the team, and the next, static flooded your earpiece. You were trapped on the fourth floor; Bucky was somewhere three levels below.

“Bucky?” You called out, pressing a hand to your ear.

Nothing.

Your chest tightened, heartbeat accelerating. “Bucky, do you copy?!”

Still nothing.

Three floors down, Bucky caught the desperate edge of your voice for a fraction of a second before the connection entirely dissolved into white noise.

It was enough.

He didn’t wait for orders.

He didn’t wait for Steve.

He just ran.

Years of tactical restraint evaporated under the sudden, suffocating weight of panic. When a collapsed section of the stairwell blocked his path, he didn’t look for an alternate route. He used his vibranium arm to tear through the crumbling concrete like wet cardboard. Enemy agents emerged from the smoke, but they barely registered his presence before they were neutralized.

One tried to draw a weapon, another one never got the chance.

In the dim, flashing emergency lights, the terrifying shadow of the Winter Soldier had returned… but he wasn’t acting as an assassin.

He was a protector.

On the fourth floor, you weren’t exactly waiting around to be saved. Three mercenaries already lay unconscious at your feet, and a fourth crashed clean through a glass partition after you kicked him squarely in the chest.

Still, you were cornered.

The heavy footsteps of reinforcements echoed down the hall. Bracing yourself against a heavy laboratory desk, you adjusted your stance. “You picked the wrong Avenger.”

Then, the door exploded.

It didn’t just break, it shattered completely.

The reinforced steel tore completely free from its hinges, flying across the room and embedding itself into the opposite wall. Before the dust could even settle, Bucky blurred through the opening.

His movements were a masterclass in controlled violence. One punch deactivated the first guard. A spinning kick sent the second flying. The final mercenary barely managed to lift his rifle before Bucky disarmed him, threw him to the floor, and rendered him unconscious.

Suddenly, the room fell dead silent. Bucky stood amidst the wreckage, his chest heaving, his eyes wild as they scanned the room until they finally locked onto you.

He crossed the space between you in a single stride.

“Are you hurt?” He demanded.

Despite the smoke, the alarms and the adrenaline spiking in your veins, you couldn’t help but smile. “I’m okay.”

Bucky let out a shaky breath, stepping in close to cup your face with both hands. The cold vibranium of his left hand and the warmth of his right flesh hand were equally gentle against your skin. “You scared me,” he murmured, his thumb brushing your cheek.

You glanced over his shoulder at the catastrophic ruin of the entryway. “You blew up a door.”

“It was locked,” he defended flatly.

Reaching into your tactical vest, you pulled out a small plastic rectangle. “I had the key-card.”

Bucky stared at the card. Then he looked back at your face, his expression entirely unbothered. “…Oh.”

“Yeah…”

He dropped his hands, though he didn’t step away. “I regret nothing.”

Back at the Avengers Compound, the story inevitably leaked.

Tony nearly fell out of his swivel chair laughing, holding a tablet displaying the tactical readout. “You destroyed reinforced, military-grade steel. With your bare hands.”

“It was faster,” Bucky muttered from the couch, arms crossed.

“She had the key, Barnes!” Tony shouted, wiping a tear from his eye. “The door was literally unlocked for her!”

“I know that now.”

Steve sat at the briefing table, pinching the bridge of his nose in a desperate attempt to ward off a headache. “What does the property damage report look like?”

Tony waved a hand dismissively, still grinning like a madman. “Don’t worry, Cap. I’ll bill Barnes.”

Steve looked up, deadpan. “You own the building, Tony.”

“I don’t care,” Tony smirked, glancing back at Bucky. “I’m still billing him.”

Life at the compound wasn’t all lighthearted bickering and easy victories. There were difficult days, too. Healing wasn’t a linear path, no matter how much time passed.

Some mornings, Bucky woke from nightmares sweating and panting, convinced he was still trapped in a freezing Siberian laboratory or stranded on a muddy battlefield in 1944.

Some evenings, the phantom echoes of his past were simply louder than the present.

On those nights, he never had to explain himself. You simply sat beside him on the floor of his bedroom or out on the dark balcony. Sometimes your fingers would intertwine, anchoring him to the here and now. Sometimes you talked about random stuff, sometimes you didn’t speak for hours. Yet, the silence never felt empty.

During one of those quiet nights, staring out at the starlit grounds of the compound, he finally whispered a thought that had been tormenting him. “What if one day you realize I’m too much?”

You didn’t answer immediately. Instead, you reached out and took his left hand, the cool vibranium smooth under your palm. Then you took his right flesh hand, holding both equally, letting him feel the steady rhythm of your pulse.

“You know what I see?” You asked softly.

He shook his head, his eyes lowered, unable to meet your gaze.

“I see the man who always checks if everyone else has eaten before serving himself. I see someone who carries a mountain of guilt that was never his to carry.”

His throat tightened, his breath hitching.

“I see my partner. My best friend. The love of my life.”

When he finally looked up, his eyes shone with unshed tears. “I don’t deserve you.”

You smiled softly, leaning in to press your forehead against his. “Good thing love isn’t earned.”

Weeks later, during a press conference celebrating another successful mission, a reporter threw out the inevitable, lighter question. “So… what’s it like dating another Avenger?”

You exchanged a quick, knowing glance with Bucky. “You first,” you nudged him.

He cleared his throat, leaning slightly toward the microphone. “It’s easy.”

The reporter looked surprised, raising an eyebrow. “Easy?”

“She makes everything easier,” Bucky said, his voice entirely devoid of his usual guarded edge.

Your heart melted right then and there.

Then the microphone turned toward you. “And you?”

You smiled, looking out at the crowd of flashing cameras before shifting your gaze back to him. “It’s safe.”

“Safe?” The reporter prompted.

“I’ve never had to wonder if someone would catch me,” you replied softly. “He always does.”

Beneath the long tablecloth, out of sight of the flashing lenses, Bucky quietly reached out and squeezed your hand. The cameras didn’t catch it, but the warmth of it radiated through your entire chest.

Months later, Sam walked into the common room late at night and found both of you fast asleep. You occupied one end of the large sectional couch and Bucky occupied the other, but somewhere during the night, you’d unconsciously migrated toward each other. Your head rested comfortably against his shoulder, your breathing deep and even. His metal hand held your wrist loosely, a subconscious anchor ensuring you wouldn’t drift too far away even in sleep.

The television was still humming quietly, the credits of an old movie rolling by. An empty popcorn bowl sat on the coffee table, and a shared blanket covered both of your laps. Sam smiled despite himself, pulling out his phone to quietly snap a picture. He fully intended to use it to embarrass both of you at breakfast, but not today. Today, he simply pulled another blanket over your exposed feet, turned off the television, and left you both to your hard-earned peace.

The Avengers would continue to save the world.

History books would record the impossible victories, the alien invasions, the battles against HYDRA and Ultron, but history rarely remembers the quiet moments that truly matter.

It wouldn’t remember Bucky automatically reaching for your hand before entering a crowded room because he knew the noise still overwhelmed him. It wouldn’t record you absentmindedly straightening the collar of his tactical jacket before every deployment, or the shared coffee at sunrise after sleepless nights. It wouldn’t note the forehead kisses, the whispered “come back to me” before the jet doors closed, or the profound relief of a shared smile upon returning.

Those moments belonged only to the two of you.

Then came the arrival of Special Agent Clara.

She was an intelligence specialist transferred from a joint task force in Berlin, brought in by the SHIELD to join and help the Avengers.

The first day she walked into the briefing room, she didn’t look like the standard bureaucratic transplants the compound usually attracted. She was sharp, sharp-tongued and carried herself with an easy, unbothered confidence that instantly drew the eye.

At first, you didn’t pay it much mind.

The Avengers were a revolving door of operatives, technicians and specialists but within a week, the rhythm of the compound began to shift. More specifically, the space around Bucky began to change.

It started small, the kind of subtle adjustments that only someone who studied his every movement would notice. During the morning briefings, Clara began taking the chair directly next to him. She didn’t sit straight-backed like the other analysts. She leaned in, her elbow resting on the mahogany table turning slightly toward him as Steve went over the logistics of a localized HYDRA splinter cell.

“Berlin had a similar cell structure three years ago,” Clara said one Tuesday morning, her voice smooth and conversational. She looked directly at Bucky, her eyes bright with a familiarity that felt misplaced. “Right around the time you were laying low near Bucharest… wasn’t it, Barnes? The local authorities were terrified of their own shadows.”

Bucky, who usually sat through these meetings like a statue carved from granite, actually offered a small, huffing laugh. “They had reason to be. The local police force was bought and paid for by the highest bidder.”

“Exactly,” Clara said, her lips curling into a knowing smile. She reached out, her fingers lightly tapping the edge of his vibranium forearm to emphasize her point. “Which is why we don’t use their standard routing protocols. We use the ones we built during the winter transition.”

Your eyes dropped to her hand. Her fingers stayed on his arm for a beat too long.

Bucky didn’t pull away from. He didn’t even flinch. For a man who spent decades treating every human contact as a potential threat, he remained perfectly still.

A cold, sudden weight settled into the pit of your stomach.

Over the next two weeks, the alarms in your mind grew louder. It wasn’t that Bucky was ignoring you; it was that his availability had suddenly split.

Clara was everywhere he was.

When he went to the armory to recalibrate the tension settings on his arm, Clara was there leaning against the workbench with a tablet in hand, ostensibly discussing data encryptions but laughing at jokes you couldn’t hear from the hallway.

When he was in the common room in the evenings, reading or staring out the window, Clara would wander in. She always brought two mugs of tea in hand. She knew how he took it. Black tea with no sugar, identical to how he’d drank it in the 1940s.

“You’re quiet today,” Sam remarked one afternoon, leaning against the counter as you watched Bucky and Clara across the courtyard. They were walking side by side, Clara gesturing animatedly with her hands while Bucky listened, his head tilted slightly toward her, his expression remarkably open.

“Just tired,” you lied, your fingers tightening around the ceramic of your mug.

Sam followed your gaze. His expression shifted, the easygoing smirk fading into something more guarded. He didn’t say anything immediately. He just watched the way Clara leaned into Bucky’s side as they stepped up the concrete stairs, her laughter echoing faintly through the glass pane. Bucky didn’t step back. He actually reached out, his flesh hand briefly touching the small of her back to guide her through the heavy door.

“He’s been working a lot with her on the old Soviet files,” Sam said, his voice carefully neutral. “She’s got access to the German archives he couldn’t get his hands on last year. It’s… good for him. Getting some closure.”

“Yeah,” you whispered, the word tasting like ash. “It’s great.”

But it didn’t feel great.

The real shift happened during a training session on a Thursday evening. The gym was mostly empty, the heavy fluorescent lights casting long, stark shadows across the mats. You had spent an hour working on your kickboxing forms, trying to sweat out the persistent, irritating anxiety that had been clawing at your throat for days.

The double doors opened, and Bucky walked in, wearing a dark gray tank top and sweatpants. But he wasn’t alone. Clara was right beside him, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail, sporting athletic gear that suggested she wasn’t just there to watch.

“Told you, Barnes,” Clara was saying, her tone teasingly competitive. “My instructor in Berlin was the best. I can hold my own.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bucky replied. A rare, genuine grin breaking across his features. It was the kind of smile he usually reserved for you after a long and successful day.

They didn’t notice you at first. They moved to the center mat and Clara immediately dropped into a defensive stance. Bucky circled her, his movements light and fluid. When she lunged, executing a quick, sharp jab to his ribs, he blocked it easily with his right forearm, but she used the momentum to sweep his leg. He caught himself, laughing aloud as he countered, gripping her waist to flip her onto the mat.

She landed with a soft grunt, but she didn’t look angry. She looked up at him, her hands resting against his chest as he hovered over her, his vibranium hand bracing his weight on the floor beside her head.

“Not bad,” Bucky murmured, his voice lower now.

“I had you for a second,” she countered, her eyes locked onto his, her breath coming in short, even gasps. She didn’t move her hands from his chest. Instead, her fingers spread slightly against the fabric of his shirt, a familiar, intimate gesture that made your blood run cold.

You dropped your hand wraps onto the bench. The sharp clack of the plastic weights hitting the metal frame finally drew their attention.

Bucky looked up quickly, his expression instantly shifting from relaxed amusement to something tight and unreadable. He stood up, offering a hand to Clara to help her pull herself off the mat. She took it, lingering close to his side as he turned toward you.

“Hey,” Bucky said, wiping a line of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Didn’t know you were down here.”

“Clearly,” you said, your voice entirely devoid of warmth. You didn’t look at Clara, though you could feel her sharp, analytical gaze tracking the tension in your shoulders. “I was just finishing up.”

“You don’t have to leave,” Clara said, her tone perfectly polite, almost friendly. “We were just running through some close-quarters drills. Bucky was showing me how he counters a high-line knife attack.”

Bucky.

“I’m good,” you said, grabbing your water bottle. You looked directly at Bucky, searching his blue eyes for the man who had held you on the balcony two weeks ago, the man who had told you that you were the love of his life. But right now, those eyes looked guarded, shadowed by a sudden defensiveness that you hadn’t put there. “I’ll see you upstairs.”

He didn’t follow you. He stayed on the mat with her.

That night, the silence in your shared quarters didn’t feel like a sanctuary anymore. It felt like a wall. Bucky came in late, the scent of the gym and the faint, distinct trace of Clara’s perfume clinging to his clothes. He didn’t immediately come over to where you were sitting on the edge of the bed. Instead, he went straight to the bathroom, the sound of the shower running for a long, agonizing twenty minutes.

When he emerged, wearing only a pair of dark sleep pants, he stood by the window, looking out into the dark compound grounds just like he had weeks before. But this time, you didn’t go to him. You stayed right where you were.

“You’re distant,” he said quietly, his back still turned to you.

“Am I?” You asked, the sarcasm sharp and defensive. “I thought I was just staying out of the way.”

Bucky turned slowly, his features obscured by the shadows of the room. His metal hand clicked softly as his fingers flexed, a nervous habit he only fell back on when he was deeply unsettled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what it means, Bucky,” you said, standing up to face him. The space between you felt immense, an uncrossable chasm built out of tiny interactions over the last three weeks. “Clara. She’s everywhere. She’s in your briefings, she’s in the common room, she’s on the training mats. And you’re… you’re totally fine with it.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed, his jaw clenching. “She’s an intelligence officer. We’re translating files from my time in Europe. Files that could help clear up the remaining HYDRA cells. It’s work.”

“It doesn’t look like work when she’s touching your arm every five minutes,” you snapped, the pent-up frustration finally breaking through your composure. “It doesn’t look like work when she’s laughing with you in the armory, or when she’s got her hands on your chest on the training floor. You don’t let anyone close to you like that, Bucky. But with her, you don’t even blink.”

Bucky took a step forward, his voice rising, laced with an old, defensive edge that made your heart ache. “She knows the world I came from! She understands the Berlin protocols, she knows the names of the people I had to handle. It’s… it’s easy to talk to her about things that I don’t want to drag you into.”

The words hit you like a physical blow. You took a half-step back, your eyes widening slightly as the air left your lungs. “Drag me into?” You whispered. “Is that what we are now? I’m the person you have to protect from your past, so you go to her instead?”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said quickly, his anger flickering, replaced by a sudden flash of panic. He reached out with his flesh hand, trying to catch your wrist, but for the first time since you had fallen in love with him, you pulled away from his touch.

His hand hung empty in the air between you.

“I thought we were in this together,” you said, your voice cracking slightly before you forced it to steady. “Every scar. Every day. That’s what we said. But now, the second someone comes along who speaks your old language, you shut me out.”

“I am not shutting you out!” Bucky insisted, his voice tight, his eyes wild with the frustration of a man who didn’t know how to explain the tangled mess inside his own head. “I’m trying to handle my life. She’s just a colleague. If she’s comfortable around me, it’s because I’m trying to be a normal person. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to be okay around people?”

“Not like that,” you said quietly. “Not when it feels like I’m being replaced.”

Bucky stared at you, his chest heaving, his face pale in the moonlight streaming through the window. He looked lost, caught between the defensive instincts of a soldier and the raw, unhealed vulnerability of the man you loved. He wanted to reach out again, you could see it in the way his shoulders twitched, but the space between you had frozen over.

“I need some air,” you said softly, unable to bear the heavy, suffocating weight of the room for another second.

You walked past him, your shoulder brushing his lightly as you moved toward the door.

He didn’t try to stop you.

He didn’t say your name.

He just stood there by the window, a solitary silhouette against the dark glass, his metal fingers still flexing in the dark.

The hallways of the compound were cold and empty as you walked aimlessly down toward the lower levels. The alarms in your head hadn’t stopped ringing if anything, they were deafening now. You had spent so long believing that the greatest threat to your relationship was the ghosts of his past or the dangers of the field.

You had never considered that the real danger might be how easily he could find comfort in someone else’s hands. As you stared out the glass windows of the common room at the quiet, sprawling facility, you realized you didn’t know how to fight a war where the lines between ally and enemy were entirely invisible.

also, i genuinely cannot stress enough how hot it is in the uk today. my garden thermometer is reading 41°C and, without sounding too dramatic, i do feel like i'm on the verge of internally combusting, so pls keep me in your thoughts while i'm suffering on the tube tonight

just a quick note about the taglist as well — if you'd like to stay on it, please let me know if you ever change your username! tumblr won't tag updated usernames, and i usually end up removing people because i assume the account's gone inactive... sorry :(

anyway, i had so much fun giggling and kicking my feet while writing this one, so i really hope you enjoy it! the next update will probably be sometime next week because i've got a suuuper busy weekend ahead and won't have any time to work on it. booooo

finally, tysm for all the support as always ♡ i hit 300 followers this week, which honestly feels kind of insane and so, so surreal, so thank you to every single one of you for enjoying this story as much as i enjoy making it

stay hydrated loves, peace and love x

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You disappeared with the guy and Jungkook got up from his seat to get another beer. Internally celebrating that Hangul wasn’t coming, he felt a little mad though, knowing that you were still in a relationship with him, that you didn’t know what he have done to you. After some minutes debating with himself, he decided that he needed to tell you the truth. Maybe you both could get into some agreement and make the guy paid for his wrongs. Maybe you could help him. Yes, he definitely wanted to talk to you, Hangul didn’t have to get away with everything, not ever again.

It was a couple of minutes later that Jungkook saw you taking shots with the birthday boy. You both seemed to have a close relationship and he realized that he had been avoiding you as long as he had met you. Even when Hangul was his best friend he didn’t make the effort to have a close relationship with you because of it, after getting over his little high school crush - like he likes to call it - he tried to avoid being with you since he didn’t want any problems with his ex best friend. Now realizing how stupid it was since you never had a bonding conversation and never actually got to know you for real. Maybe it was time to make a change. The conversation he had with Hangul the night after he caught him cheating replayed in his head and he cringed himself at the stupid comment he made about how he would get you. He didn’t want to use you, that would be evil and hypocritical… but maybe you could play along?. Maybe you could help him, you didn’t have to be friends, just get along enough to make the plan work.

He was going to have the answers today.

“Shot!, shot!, shot!.”

You weren’t a drug addict.

You actually didn’t consume any strong drugs. Of course, sometimes you drank alcohol and smoked a joint or two, trying not to mix both. There were other times though were you felt a little more risky. That night being one of those. After getting rejected from the publicist of one the biggest k-pop idols in the moment, you wanted to forget your problems for a little while. It was your friend’s birthday and you were planning on getting wasted since Hangul was going to picked you up later, however the pop-star that rejected your song being in the place didn’t make your plan easy.

You know it wasn’t Jungkook’s problem. In the music industry you couldn’t take rejections to heart, less when the artist reputation was on play however, that didn’t make your feelings less painful. It was embarrassing knowing that he was there even if he probably didn’t have any idea you wrote a song for him that you wanted him to be part of. You tried to ignore his presence and it absolutely worked when your friend, the birthday boy, got you alone in the bathroom to share some of his weed and then take you to get some shots.

That’s when everything started.

The first problem was that you didn’t ask what kind of weed he had given you, the second was taking shots like water after smoking an hallucinogen and the third problem was Hangul sending you a text that he wasn’t going to make it.

You saw how your phone died before you could respond to the text. Your vision was blurry and you just laughed before sitting in the floor outside the bar, your back pressed to the wall. There was a bottle of alcohol in your right hand and you knew you were out of it when your vision started to be more colourful and everything started to be funny. You weren’t worry about how you would get home, now the only thing you could think of was why the street seemed to get more bigger and bigger as the seconds went by.

“Are you okay?.”

Shit.

Jungkook tried to make a conversation with you all night. First when he stood with his friends to see you played beer pong with the birthday boy, he made a few jokes and remarks to you but you just chuckled a couple of times without trying to make an actual conversation. The second time was when you were asking for a drink to the bartender and he was standing next to you, he asked you some questions but you pretended to not hear him because of the loud music before leaving. He knew something was uncomfortable between you both, maybe Hangul told you about his crush or some lie?. The third time was when you stumbled and almost felt to the ground, he was quickly to grab you and ask you if you were fine… you just patted his shoulder, nodded and left.

He was not going to follow the ‘the third time’s a charm’ shit, he was going to talk to you not matter what. He needed to follow the plan.

When he saw you walking out of the bar, with a bottle of alcohol in your hands, he followed you. He saw you falling to the ground and looking at the street, giggling. He knew you were drunk, maybe even more than that. It probably wasn’t the best option to try to tell you what happened when you were in this state of mind but he knew he couldn’t hold it anymore. When would he have a chance again? it’s not like you were friends or you would see each other a lot, even if you worked in the same company.

He realized a couple months later, he could make any effort not to but he would still see you anywhere he went to.

“What?.”

You raised your head to look at him. Jungkook saw your big red eyes and chuckled a little, oh you were absolutely out.

“I asked you if you were okay,” he repeated.

“Uhm.” You nodded. “What is okay?.”

“I think that answers the question.”

“I’m okay.” You frowned. “I’m so okay— really okay. Actually, I’m more than okay!. I’m super okay!.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I can see that. Do you think you can share that?.” He pointed at the bottle between your hands.

“Of course!” You smiled so cutely he wanted to pressed his fingers in your cheeks. “I love to share.”

Jungkook copied your smile. “Thank you. You’re really kind.” He sat next to you and took the bottle to put it away from you. You didn’t have to drink more. “Did you have fun tonight?.”

“I did.” You nodded, looking at the floor. “But I want chicken wings so bad,” you whined. “I hate Hangul.”

Oh.

“Me too.”

He wasn’t sure if you were talking about the same subject. Maybe you knew…

“He was going to pick you up and take you to eat chicken wings too?.”

Yeah, you didn’t.

“Not exactly,” he grimaced. “He’s not coming for you?.”

You shook your head. “I love chicken.”

“I love chicken too,” Jungkook sighed. “Can I have your phone for a sec?.”

You gave it to him, he saw it was dead. So trying to communicate with a friend or a family member wasn’t an option. Maybe he could call his driver to take you home.

“Can we have chicken wings?.”

Maybe he could drive you home. Maybe he could wait for you to sober up and tell you about Hangul’s cheating ass.

“Sure,” he got up. “Do you still have your apartment in seobinggo-dong?.”

“Yeah?. Though, I moved with Hangul.” You smiled happily. “I will sell the complex soon,” you giggled. “We’re gonna live together forever, and get married… I’ll marry him!, I will be Mrs…”

“He cheated.”

“In what game?.”

“What?. No, he cheated on you, he had sex with another woman.”

That wasn’t the best way to tell you that, he knew, but he needed to get it out of his system, much more after hearing the stupid shit you were talking. You looked at him from the floor, your mouth closed for a second after hearing that comment. He kneeled down in front of you ready to comfort you, but you laughed. You didn’t chuckle, you laughed out loud for some seconds that seemed like hours.

“Ah, it wasn’t even that funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.” He spoke softly. “I’m sorry to tell you this way but he did, he fucked my…”

“Hangul wouldn’t cheat.” you rolled your eyes. “He loves me… You know who would cheat? Piper. Piper is a cheating bitch. I love her with Alex though— I love lesbians.”

Jesus.

“I’m serious.” Jungkook called your name, grabbing your cheeks so he could make eye contact with you. “He cheated on you.”

“Yah!” You pushed him slightly. “Stop saying shit. Hangul loves me! He would never cheat on me.” You exclaimed before standing from the ground.

“But he did…”

“Ugh, you’re annoying.” You whined. “I barely know you, girl. Oh my god, are you one of those crazy fans?!.”

“I’m not! I-” Jungkook clicked his tongue, annoyed. “Why would I lie?.”

“The fuck would I know?!.”

“Oh my— stop screaming...”

“Help. I don’t know this man!. He’s…”

“Okay, okay!. Shut up!” He looked around scared, putting his hand in your mouth, you pushed him again. “Please, stop.”

You frowned, angry. “I’m going home!, leave me alone!.” You stepped back to turned around but almost felt to the ground, dizzy. Jungkook was quick to grabbed you before you hit the ground. “Don’t touch me!.”

“I’m trying to help you!.”

“Why are you screaming at me?!.”

“Because you are doing it too!.”

He looked at you in despair, his eyes twitching when your angrily expression became a guilty one, you pouted and he rolled his eyes. You were fucking annoying.

“I want chicken wings.”

He was going to kill you.

“Then let’s get you some, okay?.”

“Yay!.”

He grabbed your hand to take you to his car, almost feeling mad for the fact that you didn’t believe that Hangul was capable of cheating. Jungkook was in disbelief, How could you not? He was a man!. He wanted to give you a large explanation about what happened but you didn’t seemed to care or even believe that it was possible. You were really in love with him and he understood that you wouldn’t put your trust in some “stranger” instead of your actual boyfriend. But you should take more into consideration the story of other people instead of just believing a man blindly.

He didn’t take you to eat chicken wings. He took you home.

The road was empty, it almost four in the morning and you were talking a lot of shit, almost about to fall asleep. The thing was, Jungkook wasn’t going to take you home with Hangul, he was going to take you to your apartment, the one he knew you still had that night even if he hadn’t saw you for a couple of months, now knowing that it was because you were living with Hangul. He was so persistent about the cheating situation also because it would be stupid for you to sell that apartment if you knew what your boyfriend did. You didn’t listen, creating another verbal fight that ended when you said some words that he would remember forever.

“I trust him more than I love him, I won’t believe you!.”

He knew you were high and drunk, your state of mind wasn’t the best in the moment. He also knew that what you said was truth, Why would you believe him?. Even if he tried to come to you sober he knew you wouldn’t. You would probably will be waking up the next morning with a headache and texting Hangul about all this, telling you boyfriend how Jungkook said some crazy shit and he would make up an story about how he was jealous of you both and wanted to act on a crush he had before. Either way, you weren’t going to believe him.

“What’s your code?.” He asked when you both stood in front of your door.

You jumped excitedly. “One, one, one, one.”

“That’s the easiest and dumbest code ever, did you how dangerous that can be— It’s not working.”

You giggled. “Oh, right. That’s my studio code. It’s one, two, three, four.”

“You’re insane.”

You both enter your apartment. You hadn’t been there in some weeks, it wasn’t dirty but it wasn’t clean either. It was almost empty, Jungkook noticed. It just had a sofa, some blankets and boxes that were closed since you were probably about to sell everything in there.

“Oh,” you grabbed your stomach like it hurt you. “I’m hungry. I needed chicken wings!. Why am I here!?.”

“You’re the worst drunk person I have ever taken care of!.” He exclaimed. “Just go to sleep…”

“I don’t wanna sleep, I want chicken…” You threw up on your shirt. “—wings.”

“I’m going to kill myself.”

Jungkook sighed, regretting everything he did that night, from going out to trying to talk to you. He was the most annoyed he had been in a long time. He took you to your bathroom, grabbing your hair when you threw up some more. He helped you clean yourself after that, cleaning your teeth, nodding and giggling a little when even that didn’t stop you from talking shit.

“I love Stevie Nicks so much,” you sobbed. “You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you… Was I just a fool?!.”

“She’s great.”

Jungkook continued laughing, taking his shirt off to put it on you since you didn’t have any clothes in your room. You didn’t say anything about it, almost to lost to know that you were in bra for a couple of seconds or even realized he took your shirt off, just singing some random songs and saying weird facts about dolphins.

“Can I have some water, please?.”

The idol crunched his nose, he felt his stomach a little tighter by how cute you acted when asking the question, he did it in a second. He watched you drink the water, sitting next to you in the sofa and analyzing you. Your eyes were more red than before and you seemed more sleepy, your makeup was intact but you were really out of it.

You were the worst person to take care of when drunk, but it was the first time in a month that he actually laughed at that hour of the day.

“Did you need anything else?.”

“Can I have your bracelet?!” You smiled, excited. “It’s so beautiful!.”

He was wearing a Cartier gold bracelet worth ten thousand dollars. It seemed so worthless in that moment, even more when you make eye contact with him.

“Of course.”

He needed to leave.

“Wow, it’s so beautiful!”

Jungkook made a mental note to pick it up tomorrow and talk with you about all of what happened.

“Let’s get some sleep now, okay?.”

“I won’t sleep,” you pouted. “I need Hangul.”

He was going to rip that bracelet from your dead body.

“I know but he’s busy right now” being a piece of shit. “Come on, I know something that might help you sleep.”

He helped you lay down in the sofa, covering you with a blanket before sitting on the floor in front of you, watching how your eyes were tired to the point of almost closing. You were a liar. He smiled slightly before beginning to sing a song you didn’t know but it was beautiful. His voice was captivating and relaxing, even more when it was that low and slow.

You quickly fell asleep and Jungkook left your apartment, without a shirt and a bracelet.

“You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you!.”

You were singing, playing the piano in your living room. Jungkook threw some crumpled paper at you to shut up, you giggled slightly before taking a seat next to him on the sofa. He was almost laying in there with a blanket over his legs and some notebook between his hands, writing nonsense. It was a Thursday night and Jungkook was in your apartment as always, after breaking Hangul’s studio a couple days ago you were trying to take it all in, the idol being more clingy than ever.

“I can’t believe we can’t write anything together.” Jungkook shook his head. “We’re the worst musicians ever.”

“Wow, speak for yourself. I had some hits.”

“Yeah?, When was your last one?. Like two years ago.” He joked, laughing when you punched his arm.

“Low-key yes, I’m a loser producer now.” You sighed dramatically. “I’m going to quit and become a farmer.”

“I thought you wanted to be a perfumer tester.”

“I can have two jobs,” you smiled. “You have a great memory.”

“I just pay attention,” Jungkook brushed it off. “You seem more indifferent about your music.”

“Not indifferent…”

“I meant like relaxed.” He corrected himself. “You got your creativity back?.”

“I don’t think it left.” You thought, trying to explain. “I just needed some time, I think I need to get back to the studio and stay there for an entire day to work on something, even if it’s shit, you know?. I wanted everything to be perfect but maybe it needs to be really shitty. I’ll do it this weekend.”

“Yeah, I get it. You need continuity.”

“Uhm, something like that.”

“I’ve been working on something too, my solo album as you know.” Jungkook told you after some silence. “I really like it,” he played with his pen. “If you start producing again and you feel like making a hit, make me your first call.”

“I don’t know, I don’t think I want to be rejected again.” You joked.

“Shut up.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s never going to happen again, I’ll make sure of that.”

Oh.

“I’ll try.”

“I’m serious.”

you scratched your hair, a little uncomfortable. “I don’t want to mix my personal life with work, you know?. After what happened… I don’t think I want to write songs for people I’m close to.”

“You work with Yoongi everyday.” He frowned.

“You know what I mean.”

He knew.

He stayed silent for a couple of minutes before sitting straight to look at you.

“I don’t want you to think that I use your music as a payback for Hangul.” Jungkook told you, his voice lower than before. “What I told him that night wasn’t right. Your art, I won’t ever take it slightly. I want it because I think you’re a great artist, but if you don’t ever want to collaborate with me that’s okay because I understand where you’re coming from.”

He understood, and that was something you liked. Because he knew you were in the right to do it and to not trust in anything after what happened. But you also knew you could not live with that fear forever, that would mean Hangul would win and you wouldn’t want that.

You nodded slightly before grabbing his hand. “Always so serious.” You rolled your eyes, trying to ease the tension of the moment. “Let me write a hit first.”

“I know you’ll do it soon.” Jungkook smiled at you, the happiness didn’t reach his eyes. “Can I ask you something?.”

“You already did.”

“Come on.” He squeezed your hand, he was serious again.

“Sure, tell me.”

“Do you think we can trust each other more?.”

“What do you mean?.”

“I mean, I know that we are friends now and that you forgave me for what I did but—” He sighed, trying to find the correct words. “I want us to work in our trust, you know?.”

“I trust you.” You frowned, confused. “I don’t understand, where is this coming from?.”

“I- uhm, I don’t want us to stop being close after we finish our revenge.” He said shyly.

“Ah, Jungkook!” You smiled, grabbing his shoulder between your arms to hug him. You pressed his cheek against yours. “We’re never going to stop being friends, we’re stuck with each other forever.”

“I’m just saying that I really like our dynamic and…”

“Yah!, oh my god, are you really crying?!” You let him go to look at his eyes. “You’re a baby!.”

“You’re supposed to comfort me!” He whined.

“Have I not show you that I really like spending time with you?.” You shook your head at his insecurity, he tried to clean his tears. “You’re literally the only person I’ve seen this whole week. Hangul is not the only thing we have in common. Of course we’re gonna be friends after!.”

“I’m just saying,” he sobbed. “I’m not that great at maintaining close relationships, I really want this to be one of it.”

“Ah, don’t worry.” You cleaned the tears of his eyes with your hands. “Let’s be close till the end of times.”

“I’ll do my best,” he smiled slightly.

Jungkook was a cry baby but you admired that about him. He always wore his emotions without shame, without fear. You hoped one day you could be like him, shamelessly yourself.

I really wanted to show how they care for e/o and how the relationship between them evolve hehe, also i love whining men and ik he’s the perfect for this so i needed to show it lol, hope you like it>_<

btw i published like one shot of namjoon so fucking read it 😡

That familiar feeling of disgust settles in your stomach, and you push yourself away from your desk to look outside your window, only to realize it’s gotten dark. The sun—the only thing you found comfort in these days—has disappeared and given way to the same dark sky that watched your life fall apart. A glance at the clock above your window told you it was nearing 11 PM. The quick passage of time only made you realize that you spent your day wallowing in your sorrows again, instead of doing something productive like writing in your journal or taking the initiative to call your agent and maybe book some jobs. Well, it’s too late for the latter, so you decide it’s going to be a long, long night of writing, and that meant you had to go out and get some food to sustain you through it all.

From the corner of your eye, you see the dark clouds start to roll in. Ah, it might rain tonight, you think. You wouldn’t be out for too long. The convenience store was only a 20-minute walk from your apartment. It will take at most 10 minutes to get your food, and then another 20 minutes to walk back home. You pick up the black coat left on your chair, along with your purse and an umbrella, and rush out the door. Ideally, you’d be back home by midnight. By the time you get down to the lobby of your apartment complex, after scaling 11 flights of stairs, you see that the rain has started and is only becoming heavier by the second. It was probably a better idea to drive to the convenience store, rather than walk, as you had initially planned. A few minutes driving in the rain couldn’t be as bad as nearly 30 minutes walking in it, right? That was the rational part of you talking again. You make your way to the parking garage, where your Aston Martin DB12 is parked. Not the most convenient car to drive around Seoul, but it was the only car you had, only because you got it in the divorce. Apparently, Yoongi just couldn’t leave you out on the streets with nothing, so he gave you this stupid, expensive car. Thinking about that moment, you scoff. As if giving you a luxury car would somehow make the situation better.

As you settle into your car, you really think about that moment. It feels like Yoongi really didn’t know you. This car was proof of that. You hated driving it, not only because of its obnoxious luxury, but also because of your lack of confidence. You’d never really been an experienced driver. Even before the divorce, you always had someone driving you or someone in the car with you. Rarely was there ever a time when you drove on your own. Now, you’re all alone in a city that seemed to be too big and too fast for your heart.

11:10 PM. According to your memory, the nearest convenience store closed at midnight, so you were still good on time. You hurry to start the car anyway. Better to be safe than sorry. There is a bad feeling settling in your stomach as you see the rain start to come down harder and harder, but you decide to ignore it. The goal for tonight was simple: go to the store, grab some food, go home, write a page or two, and just let your emotions out. As soon as you get home, you’ll take your therapist’s advice to write down how you’re feeling and start the process to heal. As soon as you get home, you’re going to start moving on. Tonight would be the start of a new beginning

As you drive out of the parking garage onto the main streets, the rain comes down hard on your windshield. Much harder than it looked from where you were in the parking garage. Seeing this made you nervous. Heart racing, you can faintly feel your hands start to shake. It was raining on that day too, you think, reminiscing about the day the divorce papers were placed in front of you by Yoongi’s lawyer. He didn’t even have the guts to give it to you himself. Remembering that caused your hands to shake even more, prompting you to grip the steering wheel hard to control it. That day, you slammed the door in his lawyer’s face and waited until he left to run out of the house and sit under the pouring rain to cry. There was something poetic about your tears being washed away by the droplets of rain.

After that, you constantly asked yourself why you were even surprised by the divorce papers when you already knew what he was hiding under your nose those last couple of months. But was it really hiding when he and his friends made it painfully and disgustingly obvious? Though you know Yoongi would never physically cheat on you, he had willingly entertained the feelings of that woman and eventually reciprocated them. They saw each other every day because they were label-mates under the same company, and if there were any budding rumors about the growing feelings, subtle touches, and looks between the married global superstar Min Yoongi and the rookie model Kwon Yura, it would be shut down as quickly as it was brought up because Min Yoongi had that power. He was a member of the group that built that company from the ground up and turned it into the multi-billion-dollar entertainment giant that it is now. He could protect that woman, but he couldn’t protect you from the slander and bullying you faced when you first started dating, or when you got married. He didn’t protect you when his friends and co-workers constantly snubbed you or indirectly said something insulting about you at company events or Sunday dinners.

When he started to drift apart from you and from your marriage, it was painfully obvious. It’s like he wasn’t even trying to hide it. Late nights at the studio turned into never coming home. Taking you to company events turned into not even telling you about them in the first place. You found out with everybody else when he started taking her to those events instead. On top of that, it seemed like he never fully supported your career as you did his. Those last couple of months of your marriage just felt like a humiliation ritual, and you were the only one being humiliated while millions of people witnessed it. So really, should you be surprised that you got betrayed and your heart was trampled on by the man who swore and claimed to love you more than anything in the world?

No, you should not have been surprised. In fact, you should have seen it coming. He was a coward who betrayed you in the worst possible way he could have, and you were a fake who couldn’t own up to your own struggles and save the relationship.

A pain shot through your heart, and your train of thought was shattered by an ear-piercing honk coming from the other side of the car.

Before you can even get a grasp of what’s happening, the car overturns, and you feel your body being whipped violently by the force before everything goes numb. Your ears are ringing, and you can practically feel your heart beating out of your chest. You can’t breathe. You can vaguely see shards of glass cutting into your skin. You can’t feel it, but there’s so much blood that you know it’s going to hurt like a bitch when you wake up, if you wake up.

You couldn’t help but laugh at the situation. Or wheeze. Of all the times you thought about dying,  you never once imagined being taken out by a fucking car accident. And you certainly didn’t think you would still be wallowing in your sorrows about Yoongi’s betrayal on your deathbed.

 Today was supposed to be the day you moved on. Tonight was the start of a new beginning.

How ironic.

——————————

messy ass chapter but life is like that we know. i might forgotten to add some people im sorry guys. 💔💔

She points to her right, where there’s a long stretch of streets lined with clothing and accessory stores. “Come on!” 

You venture another quick peek at Law, who’s just turning his head. Your eyes meet and he raises an eyebrow, mouth opening to say something but Nami’s already dragging you and Robin in the direction of the shops. 

The time passes by fast as the three of you slip in and out of stores, more and more bags clutched in your hands. Nami really gives a new definition to the phrase, “Shop ‘til you drop,” but you can’t say you’re not having an absolute blast. 

It’s a whir of soft cottons, sturdy denims, and buttery silks until you’re all headed back for the port where your ships are docked. The sun has started to dip below the horizon, casting a burnished golden hue on everything it touches. You spot your crew on the Straw Hats’ ship and Shachi’s yelling to you that you’re having dinner with them for the time you’re all on the island together, courtesy of Sanji. 

You’re about to head into the Polar Tang to drop your bags off when Nami asks if they can come with you and see your room and the clothes you had hidden away. You agree and they climb into the submarine with you, following you down the halls and into your room. Nami looks around and says, “It’s so cozy in here!”

Robin nods. “It’s very you,” she says with a warm smile. They set down their own bags as you open up the armoire and let them sift around inside. 

Nami grabs a blouse and holds it out. “This is so pretty, I almost wish I could steal it from you.”

You laugh as you pull out another top, something sleeveless and chic, and Robin says, “You should wear it tonight.”

“I wish,” you sigh wistfully, about to hang it back up but Nami stops you.

“Why not?” she asks. “You’ll be on our ship, not here! And we don’t have any dress code, so why not?”

You hesitate, weighing your options. You don’t think Law will be mad — you’re actually not sure what his reaction will be — and you suppose for a night, you could forego to strict boiler suit and let your clothes see the light of day.

“Alright,” you concede as Robin fishes around in your shopping bags before handing you a skirt you just purchased. 

“I think this goes well,” she says, handing it to you.

Nami claps eagerly. “I’m so excited to see everyone’s reactions!” She and Robin share a meaningful look that you can’t decipher but you shrug it off as they turn away to let you get dressed.

Law’s unraveling, unsurprisingly, starts with the Straw Hats. He had been hoping for a quick supply trip before heading off on whatever next step the crew needed to take, but instead, he’s gotten tangled up in something far more recreational. He can’t say it’s the worst thing — all of your deserve time off for your constant hard work — but he would have enjoyed this free time more if had gotten to spend more of it with you. Instead, Luffy winds up snagging him in a conversation that only gives Law a headache while Nami and Robin split off from the rest of them and whisk you away for the rest of the day. 

It’s sunset and you still haven’t returned. Law’s foot taps impatiently on the wooden deck of the Thousand Sunny and he tries not to let his imagination get the better of him. Are you guys just dawdling or are you in trouble? Are you hurt? Has someone taken you? Are you still on the island? He’d never forgive himself if those worst case scenarios actually played out, here or anywhere else. 

The anxiety abates when Law hears Shachi yelling your name and the plan to dine with the Straw Hats. He spies you in between Nami and Robin, burdened under the weight of many, many bags. To his dismay, you don’t immediately board the Sunny, instead disappearing into the Tang with the two women on your heels. Law frowns as he watches and Shachi snorts, “Don’t worry, Captain, your girl will be here in a few.” 

Penguin snickers and Law shoots a glare at both of them, prompting the pair to raise their hands in surrender while trying to suppress their laughter. He’s glad that none of the Straw Hats picked up on their teasing, he’d never hear the end of it. 

Law likes to think he treats everyone on his crew equally and fairly, but he’s sure his crush on your slips through the cracks. He assigns you tasks that keep you close and consults you on many important decisions and strategies. It’s not just because he likes you — you’re absolutely brilliant, everyone know it, and he wouldn’t have recruited you if that wasn’t true — but he knows his affection impacts his decisions. Still, he does his best to not let it show.

You, Nami, and Robin appear as everyone sits down to dinner outside on the deck. Nami and Robin step on first, almost in a ceremonious way, and they make their ways to their seats, revealing you. There’s a beat of silence and then the response. Bepo’s jaw drops, Shachi lets out a low whistle, Penguin freezes, and Ikkaku smirks approvingly.

Law, mid-sip of water, nearly chokes. Because you stroll aboard, moving so casually and confidently that you seem to glide, and in a top and skirt that fit you in all the right ways and places. Law can’t recall the last time he’s seen you in something other than the boiler suit, outside of your baggy pajamas and the one time he caught you in the hallway after a shower and only wrapped in a towel. He’d had to lock himself in his room for a good thirty minutes to calm down. 

But here you are, haloed by the golden orange glow of the setting sun, and Law can’t decide if he should continue staring or tear his eyes away, the vision too much for his heart to handle. You’re beautiful, you always have been, but when you enhance it like this, it’s a whole other level. 

Law is snapped from his trance by a loud, fawning yell of your name. Sanji’s made his way over to you, sinking to his knees and clasping your hands in his. He calls your name again, words of devotion pouring from his mouth. “You’re a goddess! I am unworthy of you, of being in your very presence! You put angels to shame, my beloved—”

“Oi, love-cook, leave her alone and let us all eat in peace. No one wants to hear your yammering, especially her,” Zoro sneers and Law finds himself thankful for the interruption. 

“She can speak for herself, stupid moss-head!” Sanji fires back before returning his attention to you. “What do you say, my love?” Law feels his eye twitch, hands balling into fists.

You offer a gentle but firm smile. “You’re very sweet, but we should get to the meal you so generously cooked.” Law can’t stop the scowl forming on his face; he would have preferred you punch the Straw Hat cook.

Hearts practically pop from Sanji’s eyes as he nods fervently. “Of course, anything for you!” He trails after you as you take your seat in between Law and Shachi. Law tries his best to look anywhere else but you for the rest of the night. 

You finish shopping for supplies and other necessary items by the next morning, though you and Bepo manage to convince Law to stay until tomorrow evening, when you’ll depart from the isle. You all take advantage of the locals’ friendliness towards your crew and spend the afternoon on the sandy shores of the beach. 

You and Nami emerge from your room after Nami persuades you into your newly-bought bikini to lounge with her on beach towels while Sanji waits on you hand-and-foot. As you disembark, you see that Ikkaku, Shachi, and Penguin have shed their uniforms for comfortable t-shirts and shorts, engaged in a rather spirited volleyball game with Luffy, Usopp, and Franky. Not too far from them, Zoro naps in the shade of a leafy palm tree, Chopper snoozing on his lap. 

You scan the beach for Law, who you find resting under a shady tree with Robin. Law’s foregone his usual coat or sweatshirt, opting for a white tank and shorts, so you can see his toned muscles and dark, swirling tattoos easily. You’ve seen him like this before but it still flusters you. He and Robin are talking, and there’s something he says that makes him huff out a small chuckle. Your stomach twists at the sight. He always seems to somehow gravitate towards Robin when your crews meet. 

You know you’ve been watching them too long because Law pauses and looks over. Your gazes meet, and Law stares, eyes shifting down your body then up again. A second passes, maybe it’s three, and then he turns away again. Your feet won’t move and your mind moves a mile a minute trying to process what that was. 

You don’t have long to dwell on your feelings as Nami tugs you to a spot on the beach. You lay out your towels and it’s not long until Sanji skips over to the two of you with sugary praises and glasses of hibiscus-lemon tea. You’re grateful for the cool drink, relishing the way the tangy and sweet flavor melt on your tongue. You smile up at Sanji, who is making a valiant but failing effort not to stare at your chest. “Thanks for this, it’s really good.”

It sends the cook spinning, nearly fainting, and Nami rolls her eyes. “He’s an idiot, ignore him,” she huffs as she lays back down. You join her, setting your drink in the sand, and closing your eyes. The sunbeams lull you into a half-sleep as you bask in the heat until a shadow falls over you. You crack an eye open to see Law standing beside you, pointedly looking out towards the sea and not at you. “You’re going to burn,” he says. “Or worse. Put on some sunscreen.”

He already has some in hand and you can’t help but giggle a little. Your captain’s always prepared, huh? He gives you the bottle and you disperse the lotion across your arms, legs, and torso. You turn back to Law through, who is still next to you, and ask, “Could you get my back? I can’t reach it.”

Law hesitates and Sanji’s jumps in, saying, “My goddess, it would be my pleasure to—” 

Law snatches the bottle from you, squeezing some into his hand and lowering himself to kneel. His touch is cautious, careful about being respectful as his fingers slide over the open expanse of your back, working the lotion in. His hands brush the back of your neck before skimming down to your lower back. You shiver slightly, a bolt of pleasure shooting through you. It’s all too soon that Law finishes, rising silently with little ceremony as Sanji stews over the missed opportunity. 

You swear you catch Law smirking at Sanji, though it’s quickly wiped away when Ikkaku shouts, “Hey, Captain, you’re looking a little red!” Penguin and Shachi roar with laughter. He snaps back with some cutting remark but the effect is lost with how flushed his face has become. You don’t know if you’re much better off with heat crawling up your spine but it’s far less noticeable since you’ve been laying out in the sun.

As Law storms towards your crewmates, you attempt to calm your racing heart as you shift onto your stomach and rest your head on your arms. Nami pokes you in the side. “So?”

“So what?” you ask.

“So… are you ever going to tell him?”

You decide to play dumb. “Tell him what?”

Nami deadpans at you, and you sigh heavily. “Never, probably.”

“Really? Because it’s pretty obvious that he likes you too. I mean, he’s beet-red after the sunscreen stuff.”

“He’s probably just embarrassed because the crew teased him,” you say.

Nami snorts, “Yeah, right.” She leans back down and you think it’s the end of it but Nami adds, “He was red the moment he touched you, just so you know.”

Law’s mind is still filled with you in that outfit from last night, the way you seemed to shine when you spoke, when you laughed. He couldn’t look at you the whole night, too afraid he wouldn’t be able to look away. Afraid his feelings would bubble over, that the wine that was served would loosen his tongue just enough to let them spill out. He thought that was the worst of it.

Oh, how wrong he was.

Law sits with Robin under a tree, the two of them discussing and debating the virtue of free will. While Law isn’t particularly interested in philosophical debates, he’s willing to talk about this in order to distract him from mental images of you. Then, he feels as if someone is watching, observing. He looks up to see you on the back deck of the Polar Tang with Nami, a beach towel tucked under one arm and sunglasses perched on your head. Law’s gaze dips lower and his brain short-circuits when he sees your bikini. All at once, his mind is both devoid of thoughts and filled with too many. He can’t stop how his eyes rake over you — the expanse of your legs, the curve of your body, and the way the color of the bathing suit compliments your skin and makes the hues of your eyes stand out. His mouth is dry, tongue heavy, and he feels a primal electricity set his entire being alight. 

Law is still buffering and it takes a quiet but significant hum from Robin to make him realize he’s been gazing for way too long. He hastily looks away, trying his best to resume their previous conversation, but the archaeologist in front of him says, “You should tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

Robin exhales a laugh. “I know you know what I’m talking about.”

Law purses his lips. “I… she doesn’t see me like that.”

Robin’s lips raise in a small smile. “I beg to differ.”

“You don’t know her like I do.”

“Maybe not, but I know how she looks at you, smiles at you, talks with and about you.”

Law doesn’t respond and Robin hums again. “It’s your decision, but you should know that women like her don’t stay single forever.”

The words hit Law harder than he would ever admit but it’s obvious from the way he immediately gets to his feet, grabs the bottle of sunscreen that he had brought out, and marches over to you. 

You’re going to miss the Straw Hats when you part company, but you’re going to make the most of the last night with them. It seems that everyone has that in mind as dinner winds down. Plates are cleared and washed thanks to a combined effort, and soon, there’s good music playing and strong alcohol flowing. 

You’d slipped into a dress, long and backless, for the last night — it seemed right for the occasion. It lets you move easily, which you’re grateful for as Nami pulls you onto a rather large crate to dance. The two of you twist together, shaking your shoulders and hips while dissolving into fits of laughter.

Sanji gushes over the two of you below as you run your fingers through your hair. The night air is cool against your warming skin as you dance. You’re perfectly tipsy, buzzed but still in control of your body and mind. You like this feeling, this night — it’s effervescent and joyful. That’s always what the Straw Hats bring — joy.

You accidentally move back a step too far, and you would have tumbled off the crate had it not been for someone catching you. Their hand brushes the bare skin of your back and you expect it to be Sanji, since he’s right there. But when you glance up, you’re met with Zoro’s face instead. “You should be more careful,” he grumbles, setting you down with a surprising gentleness. You guess you shouldn’t be surprised — you saw him with Chopper yesterday, letting the little reindeer rest on him as they dozed together.

If looks could kill, Zoro would be dead two-times over with how Sanji glowers in front of him and Law glares from the far end of the ship. Not that the swordsman notices or cares. He says to you, “You should sit. I think that was enough excitement for tonight for you.”

“Okay, Dad, whatever you say.” You give Zoro a playful shove and he rolls his eyes but the corner of his mouth quirks up into a cross between a smile and a smirk. You’re about to make another quip, but the Sunny is enveloped in a familiar blue light. Before you know it, you’re at Law’s side, swapped for the drink Law had been holding. 

The doctor doesn’t speak immediately and you look at him expectantly. Then, Law asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, just misjudged a step.” He’s silent again and you nudge him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Law considers you, examining your figure like he had yesterday. You feel suddenly too exposed, and you cross your arms to ease the feeling. Law’s eyes trail back to your face and there’s another beat of silence before he says, “I never, uh, I never told you how nice you look.”

“Huh?”

He motions towards you. “You look nice. You’ve looked… nice these past few days.” 

Heat floods your cheeks. Law says it in his straightforward way, one that leaves no room for you to question his sincerity. Still, you push out your bottom lip in an exaggerated pout and ask, “Just these past few days? Not normally?”

Law’s eyes go wide. “No! I didn’t— I didn’t mean it like that. You look nice every day. Better than nice, actually. But just… especially nice recently.” His eyes rake over you again and he adds, “I’ve never seen this dress.”

“Not a lot of occasions to wear it on the Tang,” you say, your tone light. Law pauses, his head tilting in contemplation. 

Then, he says, “I suppose we don’t need these uniforms all the time.”

You raise your eyebrows and you’re quick to say, “I don’t want to you think that I don’t appreciate why we wear them—”

“I don’t think that,” he says. His eyes drift back to you and, softly, he adds, “I just think I could get used to seeing you… not in uniform.” Even in the dim light, you can see the pink that burns on his ears. It makes more heat shoot through your body, curling and spreading into every vein.