Pretty and Nerdy things

He's all rough edges and tattoos wrapped in a sinfully suave package and most importantly-he's all yours.

You have the mafia boss wrapped around your finger.

And the way he treats little Bumblebee is something you'll always cherish. How he softens his tone around her, protecting her, listening to her, spoiling her in a way that allows her to keep her sweet nature but shows her how she deserves to be treated.

You never truly understood the phrase "it's the little things in life" until you saw her tiny hand in his larger one as they walked to the park or watched him toss her into the air, her smiling face never faltering because she knows her Papa would never let her fall.

And it's times like that when you begin to have thoughts. You don't really allow them to take root. Not yet anyway. But they linger. Just wisps of 'what ifs' that sift through your mind, appearing randomly.

Like what if...you had another? What if...you had a little boy that looked like him or another Bumblebee with her adorable personality?

You'll enjoy the what ifs for now and someday soon you'll give them a little more consideration.

Standing in front of the fridge, you have both doors flung open as you scrutinize your choices. Nothing looks appealing and you're beginning to get cold. Closing the door with a dramatic sigh, you amble over to the pantry and peer inside. Scanning the neatly stocked shelve, your lips pull into a dismayed frown.

You want something. You don't know what you want. Just something.

Then you spot the colorful box on the lower shelf. Bumblebee's shelf. Not technically but Francine, your chef, has been putting her favorite foods and snacks where she can easily reach them. And she did draw tiny round bees on the side of it with her name in the middle.

A slither of guilt creeps under your skin but you tell yourself that you'll have the cereal replaced before she even knows it's gone. The box is only a quarter full anyway or does that make this worse?

You're debating that even as you snag milk out of the fridge.

You don't even like fruit loops but for some reason, this is the best bowl of cereal you've ever had. It's not a craving though. You just really, really want it. And before you know it, the box is empty and you're stuffed. Leaving it on the kitchen island, you're rinsing out your bowl when you hear her little, sleepy voice.

"G'morning mommy," she yawns, rubbing her belly with both hands.

You turn to see in time to see her crouch down and hug Daisy before giving you a brilliant smile. "Hey, sweet bee. Good morning."

She grabs the stool, climbing up with a few huffs, mumbling I got it, I can do it when you start to help. Bucky swears she looks like you, but her personality is all him. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah," she starts, then the bright red box catches her attention, and her smile widens. "My foot woops. Can I have some?"

That slither of guilt winds up around your spine nearly making you cringe. “Oh well about that...”

Settling her knees on the soft cushion of the chair, she reaches over and takes the box. It falls over with a faint thud, she tilts her head down, her cheek grazing the granite countertop as she looks inside.

"Mommy my woops are missing." Her soft voice sounds shocked, befuddled.

You feel so bad.

So very bad.

She gazes up at you with wide eyes, a small wrinkle forming between her brows. “What do we do?” 

Oh.

How are you going to tell her that you ate her ‘woops’.

Wiping your palm down your face, you maintain your composure while trying to think of how to handle this. “You want some oatmeal instead? Or how about some eggs.” 

She shakes her head. “They make my tummy hurt.” She purses her lips, gazing forlornly at the empty box. “Can we tell Papa and he’ll find out who took my woops and get 'em back?”

You cringe at the thought of telling your husband you ate the baby’s cereal. You can hear him taunting you now especially since you’ve spent the better part of last week making fun of him for losing three rounds of blackjack to a toddler. 

He’s been itching to find an excuse to get you back. 

“We can’t do that,” you state slowly, clutching your hands behind your back. 

“No?” 

“No, because-” your eyes shift upwards, far away from her trusting gaze, the words spill out before you can stop them. “-uh Papa is the reason your fruit loops are missing.” 

Her shocked gasp echoes throughout the room and you push down the urge to giggle.

Continuing your appraisal of the ceiling fan, its too late to turn back now so you state, “yeah he was very very hungry and he really needed them. He was going to replace them before you woke up but he ran out of time.” 

“He was hungwy?” She props her chin on her hands, nose scrunching. “That’s not good. Okay, he can have all the woops," she decides with a nod. "Can I have pancake?” 

You drop your gaze to hers, matching her smile.

Oh you feel so bad but Bucky will never know and you’ll buy a dozen boxes of that damn delicious cereal tonight.  

“You want some chocolate chips or blueberries in your pancake and then we can put whip cream on top?” You walk over to her, taking her out of the chair and swinging her onto your hip. “And you can help me flip the pancakes in the air-” her eyes light up and she wiggles in your arms with a delighted yay. “We’ll even make extra for papa.” 

“Yes, so he won’t be hungwy anymore. We have to take care of him mommy.” Her happy squeals trail out to the hallway, drifting around a smirking Bucky.

He pushes off the wall and peeks into the kitchen to watch his two favorite people dance in front of the fridge. 

Although if he remembers the last time you craved sugary cereals, he just may be staring at his three favorite people.

Later that night. 

Bucky holds his weight on his hands, his body hovering above yours. “So I stole her fruit loops huh?” 

You raise your chin defiantly and grab two handfuls of his firm ass. “It was either me or you Barnes.” 

“I see how it is,” He playfully snarls, lowering himself until his heavy, comforting weight is pushing you into the mattress.  Bucky runs his tongue along his bottom lip, his eyes darkening with heady lust and desire.

“If you think for one second, I’m going to apologize, you have another thing coming,” you retort, biting back a smile, spreading your thighs to accommodate his massive body, his masculine, fresh scent enveloping you. 

“Oh someone’s coming alright,” he promises, his lips brushing lightly over yours. “Over and over until I get what I want from you.” His voice deepens, the smooth baritone washes over you.

“And what do you want?” You ask softly, swallowing at the intense expression glazing over his blue eyes. 

Bucky smiles, wondering how long until you realize you're about to make his already perfect life even better.

But friend, lab assistant, overly watchful co-worker will do too. If he can remain in your life, it's good enough for him. Bucky hopes for a more that he doesn’t deserve, and slowly, over years, more grows until it blooms love.

It’s how he discovers the give of your skin against his teeth is like the bruise of a peach, soft and tart.

It’s how he discovers your love, all of your love, is like golden light. Like a shining beacon to follow home.

It’s how he discovers he doesn’t quite mind being cared about, not if it's you, not if he’s allowed to tip it back to you, like a torch passed back and forth by children in the dark.

Your love goes down easy, like ice cream melting at the back of his throat on a hot day. It's uncomplicated, not like every other relationship he has to form and reform, shadowed by past deeds, Natasha and Steve, Sam and Tony.

He offers up his soul to you, and you pluck it out of the palm of his hand and examine it, before slipping it onto your finger like a ring.

Bucky is entirely yours.

He loves you more than he should, more than he should be allowed to.

He’s desperate and co-dependent and utterly in love.

And you don’t seem to mind at all.

Bucky starts wondering about your future, about your future together, about a house and some pets. About finding a real ring to give you and not just the imagined, misshapen rock of his soul.

Of course, when things go too well, the harder the descent is into hell, the harder the fall from grace.

Normally, usually, when the team goes on a mission, you stay back at base, at the Compound where you are safe and secure and protected. You are not an Avenger, you are Avenger adjacent. An intel analyst.

Still. You are close enough to bleed and hurt, still close enough to fall into Bucky’s toxic orbit, close enough for his being to swallow yours entirely.

But Natasha was unavailable, out on another assignment, and the threat level for this mission was supposed to be relatively low.

So, you had offered yourself up. Shiny and new, like the brass of a new minted penny. Like you weren’t all the fortunes in the world shuffled into the deck of one person.

Like you weren’t Bucky’s whole world. Like the planet of his being, the core of him, wouldn’t fall out of the sky if the universe of you suddenly dropped out of existence.

“I’m trained,” had been your only refrain, a gentle reminder to him that you were not as breakable and fragile as Bucky sometimes liked to believe. He knows that you’re not, that you are anything but breakable and fragile.

But the world so liked to rip and tear and take.

It liked most of all to rip and tear and take from him.

Bucky has never been a keeper of good things. They’re always taken from him, right when his damnably loyal heart finished stitching itself inside a new home, right when he thought this time it will be different. The world smiled and rubbed its hands together. Jackpot. There was no greater prize, no greater tragedy, than one soaked in love and loyalty and crushable hearts.

You had touched his cheek with fingers so soft he’d wanted to take a bite of you. “I’m trained,” you had repeated. “And most integrated with the team already. It will be fine.”

Steve had nodded, making the change on the tablet in front of him. “Y/N is right. You shouldn’t encounter any hostiles. Intel gathering only.”

Bucky had shot Steve a look, but said nothing.

It was like no one realized. That if something, anything, happened to you, he would shatter into a million pieces, that he would follow you into the ether, that his heart couldn’t be torn apart again. He simply wouldn’t survive it. It had been stitched together too many times.

This was his last heart and unfortunately for him, he had already given it to you.

But the mission goes fine. It’s so, so fine.

Until it isn’t.

He’s shuffling through a stack of papers in an abandoned lab when you open a drawer on the other side of the room. Just a drawer, nothing to indicate what might be inside. You’re clearing the lab together, because his stipulation to not having a meltdown about your inclusion in the mission was that you should not be separated.

Before boarding the jet he’d been staring at you silently, brooding and moody and a little mad. You had had a fond look in your eyes when you smoothed your thumb against the worried crease between his brows. “It’s going to be fine, Bucky.” He had nodded through the bad feeling clawing at the back of his throat and you had smiled.

A nasty blue vapor blows into your face. You splutter and wipe a hand across your nose and eyes, shaking your head to clear it away.

Bucky says your name, leaps across the room.

But how can he fight smoke? This is not the kind of danger he expected.

His hand on your arm, ready to catch you if you suddenly fall.

But you only sneeze, an adorable little squeak. “What was that?” You ask, rubbing your nose.

He grips your chin in his hand and turns your head to peer into your eyes but they’re clear and open as they always are.

“Dunno,” he allows for a little relief to seep between his bones, shoulders loosening as he releases your chin. You seem completely fine. You seem to shake it off. “We need to find out though. We have enough intel. Let’s go.” He presses the hard drive you had secured earlier into your hands.

His voice is gruffer than usual, demanding. Bucky presses a hand to your hip and gives you a gentle but firm shove toward the door. “Now.”

But you just smile, turn and touch the inside of his wrist where a sliver of skin peaks out between glove and sleeve. “I’m fine. It was probably nothing. Maybe just a lot of dust.”

Dust, Bucky thinks, is not a poisonous, neon blue. But he lies to himself because it’s easier, he lies to you because he can see just a hint of worry shining in your eyes. “Probably, doll.” He snags a box of files from the desk as you trundle out the door and into the hall. He swabs the inside of the drawer, where a mist of blue rings the edge, and drops it into one of the discarded sample collection tubes.

He finds you in the hall and guides you out of the dank underground lab, and when you get back to the compound and report what happened, you’re whisked away from him, swept to the medical wing and quarantined, blood drawn and tested.

The files and hard drive and collection sample are handed over to the rest of the intel team, to Stark and Banner.

Your blood tests come back normal. You joke with the medical staff and laugh like you always do, like a honey bee buzzing in his ear on a hot summer day, as he paces around the room. You seem totally and completely fine.

The only thing they can do, it seems, is wait. Wait and see if something happens.

Testing the blue vapor will take a little more time, he’s told.

So, you’re prescribed a night in bed, with Bucky as a jailer to monitor you. No one, it's reasoned, would look after you better, would notice something sooner, should something happen.

Bucky tucks you close in your shared bed, after, of course, a shower and dinner. He makes tea and hands you a bucket sized bowl of popcorn. He turns on your favorite movie and tries not to think about the thread of fear that had settled in your eyes in the med wing.

He doesn’t like seeing you frightened, even a little bit. He doesn’t like not knowing how to comfort you, how to protect you. Bucky does not like feeling like his world is fragile, like everything might fall apart at the seams.

Maybe he’s being a tad dramatic.

But strange things follow him, follow all of the Avengers team, and his world has fallen apart enough times that he’s come to expect it.

You are by far Bucky’s best reality, the best iteration of his life.

You had smiled at Steve and Helen and Stark, but it had not reached your eyes. You were worried and trying not to show it. For his sake or theirs or your own, he’s not sure.

But when you looked at him the fear melted away, eased out of the tension in your face. Like looking at Bucky, knowing he was close was enough to bring you comfort, security.

So, he holds you tight as the credits roll, you’re breathing even and slow, already lost to the world of sleep. Bucky presses his nose to your neck and inhales slowly, lets the unfiltered, raw scent of your skin anchor him to the world, feels your heartbeat through his lips, counts the beats of your pulse.

Even in sleep you clutch him close, your fingers pressed against the knot of his spine, your leg tossed over his hip, nose dipped to the hollow of his collarbone.

He isn’t supposed to fall asleep, and he doesn’t mean to, honest, but he does. Bucky is warm and safe and so cocooned with love that he falls asleep in the glow of the TV screen and you.

You’re okay. The mission went fine, neither of you even had to draw a weapon. And now, you’re home and safe, and he’s home and safe.

It feels like any other night.

The blue vapor was nothing.

Something like vapor…

was harmless.

~

The next morning, it happens.

Fears he didn’t know he should harbor, realized.

The first time it happens, you’re both confused.

The first time the loop resets, Y/N stumbles out of bed, your movements jerky and uncoordinated.

Bucky’s first thought is nightmare. You’ve had a nightmare. About the mission, about whatever you had inhaled, about him.

His next thought is stupid. Bucky should not have allowed himself to fall asleep. He should have stayed vigilant for this very reason.

Nightmare.

The barely suppressed fear as you smiled after the blood tests came back normal, flash through his mind. You had been afraid, whether you admitted it or not.

Your hip smacks against the bedside table in a loud thump as you stumble, only stopping when you come face to face with the bedroom door.

The sheets are warm from the heat of you, soft with your detergent, fragrant with the smell of the vanilla and peach of your body wash, your lotion, like a well-loved little cake on a warm spring day, ingrained into the fabric. The scent of butter from the popcorn bowl left on the table overnight.

He sits up, mind groggy with a hard sleep, dreamless and deep. “Hey, y’okay? ‘S just a dream-,”

You whirl when you hear the shuffle and shush of the sheets, back pressed against the door.

The room is a faint blue from the TV, but slowly lightening as the sun peaks over the horizon outside, flooding the room with the first threads of pale golden light. You’re never up so early and Bucky’s usually up earlier.

But you’re already talking, nervously chattering, not listening to him. “-s’ sorry, dunno how I ended up in here.” A nervous chuckle, weak with confusion. “I don’t remember…don’t remember coming in here. I’ll head back to my room-,”

You start to turn but freeze, your hands fisted in the hem of your shirt, his shirt, that you’d stolen years ago. It’s your favorite of his.

“What the fuck?” you whisper under your breath, eyes flicking between him and the shirt, brows furrowed like you don’t recognize the material between your fingers.

“Your room?” Bucky asks, sliding his legs from the warmth of the duvet, bare feet hitting the floor. “Why would you go to your room?” You haven’t slept in your room in…years. It couldn’t properly be considered your room anymore. None of your things were there. Your room, this is your room. His and yours together.

You don’t answer, your hands traveling surreptitiously up your body, tugging something from the collar of your shirt.

His dog tags, which you hadn’t taken off since he looped them around your neck after a disastrous date that you still kissed him at the end of. Your smile had been blinding. So happy he couldn’t look at you. You had pressed a hand beneath his chin and tipped his head up, to kiss him, to bring your forehead to his and promise Bucky, I’ll never take them off.

A picnic. He had taken you on a picnic.

It had been summer and warm and your skin had been soft against his and he had believed you.

He trusts you like no one else.

You stare at them now as though you can’t make sense of the gleaming metal. You yank them over your head suddenly, the chain dangling between your fingers. You look as startled as he feels.

Something akin to panic is starting to rake over your features.

The hardwood is cold against his toes, a chill that slowly bleeds up, seeps between his ribs to fist over his heart.

Your fingers drift down again and touch the top of one of your bare thighs.

“Did we sleep together?”

You sound shocked, maybe angry. But it doesn’t seem to be directed at him. Like you’re mad at yourself.

Bucky starts to say your name but you continue, closing your fist over his name. “I can’t remember anything. Did I go out? I don’t normally drink that much I-,”

Can’t remember anything.

The words refuse to register in his mind.

Something is wrong.

“Y/N,” he interrupts. “No. Sweetheart, I think you had a-a dream or somethin’. Come back ta bed.”

But his words don’t seem to soothe you. Your back hits the door again and you look sick, confused.

“Bucky, I think,” you start slowly, setting his dog tags down on the dresser to your left, your hand shaking just a little bit. “I think you’re confused.”

“What?”

“Look, it's okay. I’m not mad. You-,”

“Catch me up here, Y/N. What are you saying? Just come back to bed, we can sort it out after we’ve gotten some more sleep.” He’s desperate suddenly, to have you back in bed. If he can just get you back in bed, curl around you, burrow himself into the fleshy realness of you, things will make sense again.

Because something is not making sense.

But his words just cause you to reach a hand behind you for the doorknob. “Look ‘m just gonna go grab Steve and we can sort this out now.” Before he can respond, you’ve wrenched the door open and darted through the apartment and out into the halls of the compound.

It takes him a minute to gather his bearings, to slip on a shirt and sweatpants, before following you.

He hears you before he sees you.

“-think he’s relapsed or something. He seems to think we’re together. I know he has memory issues but-,” You stop abruptly, he can hear you shifting from foot to foot nervously.

There’s a long pause before Steve says, incredulous, “Seems to think you’re together? What are you talking about?”

“I mean I’m wearing his shirt, Steve. He put his dog tags on me for god’s sake.” Bucky can’t breathe as he rounds the corner into the hallway of Steve’s room. He thinks he might throw up when he hears you continue, “Like he’s claimed me. I don’t blame him, I know he’s been through a lot but-,”

“If you’re fucking around this is a really cruel joke, Y/N,” Steve says, stern, almost pissed off.

“Joke?” You ask, your voice shrill and tipped with panic. “Why would I joke about this?”

Steve glances back at Bucky when he emerges into the hall and you whirl.

“Y/N,” Steve touches your shoulder gently and you relax just slightly, like you have an ally at your back. Bucky clenches his jaw, head still spinning.

Because you don’t seem to recognize him. At least not this him.

The him that’s wholly yours. The Bucky that shared a bed with you, that used your peach body wash, that loves you and is loved by you in spades, in return, beyond all reasonable comprehension.

Steve’s frowning at the two of you, at the way you hold yourself hard and straight, uncomfortable and tugging down Bucky’s shirt to hide yourself, to preserve some kind of modesty, like Bucky hasn’t already seen all of you. Steve is starting to realize something is wrong. His spine softens just slightly, tender suddenly, careful instead of indignant.

You weren't being cruel. You’re confused and upset.

And Bucky is realizing with a slow creeping dread that being forgotten is far worse than being remembered.

His guts knot in his belly, sick threatening to crawl up his throat with a sudden surety of realization.

You don’t fucking remember him.

“Y/N,” Steve continues, cupping your elbow with one hand. “You and Bucky have been together for years.”

Betrayal flashes through your eyes. “Are you guys fucking with me? This isn’t fucking funny you know.” But the pitch of your voice tells Bucky that you don’t think it’s a joke.

You jerk away from Steve, fear that he’s never seen in you twisting your features.

He realizes he's never seen you truly afraid.

“We aren’t-,”

“Where’s Natasha?” You ask, pressing your back to the wall opposite Steve’s door, like you can’t trust either of them and desperately need an ally.

Your chest is falling and sinking rapidly.

You saw horrors everyday combing through terabytes of intel, but this frightened you.

Because to you, one of your most trusted friends has suddenly turned on you, is lying to you, gaslighting you, has seemingly given you up to his psychotic best friend.

But Steve seems to realize somehow, waving Bucky back as he takes a few steps back himself. “She’s still out on assignment.”

Your eyes are dilated with a fear that makes Bucky’s stomach curdle. To have a fear like that from you turned on him, is too much.

You’ve never looked at him like that, like he’s a feral dog about to bite.

“That’s not true,” you reply, voice a shake, like the last leaf from a tree. “We had drinks in the kitchen. I was telling her about-,” you stop yourself, eyes cutting to Bucky for a moment. “I saw her today before I went to bed,” you swallow. “In my room,” you add, with an accusatory look between the two of them. Like they planned this. Like Bucky’s the enemy.

Bucky shakes his head and replies, stepping closer to you, “No. She’s been on a mission for weeks. It's why you were on the mission with me yesterday.”

You look back at Steve, disbelieving. “He’s not lying. Nat hasn’t been here for weeks.”

You look like you want to scream. Or fall to the floor. “Bucky isn’t cleared for missions, Steve. He just got here from Wakanda. You expect me to believe we went on a mission together yesterday?”

Wakanda? He hasn’t been to Wakanda in years.

Steve is watching you, you watch back. Waiting.

“What’s today’s date?”

Bucky glances at Steve as your brow furrows. “The vapor,” he realizes with sudden clarity. The vapor had done something to you. “Fuck.”

“What are you-,”

“Just humor us, Y/N.” When you only look at him with skepticism Steve rolls his eyes. “C’mon. Everything we’ve been through together over the years? You’ve been asked stranger questions.”

You swallow and glance between them, seeming to realize you aren’t in danger, that you never were.

Slowly you nod and then whisper a date years in the past.

Bucky’s mind whirls, trying to remember what-

It was before, of course. Because here is the universe taking its just reward, ripping the stitches out of his heart. He closes his eyes as the room seems to tilt and roll, and tries not to let the sudden yawning hopelessness pull him under.

It was before you started dating, before you were even friends.

The date you name, is maybe a few weeks after he first arrived in upstate New York.

Your reaction in the bedroom suddenly made sense. To you, you had just woken up with a complete and utter stranger. A mentally unstable, sometimes inadvertently violent, one at that.

Did we sleep together? The anger in your voice for yourself, the possibility you’d taken advantage of him when he was mentally unstable. Like you’d ruined something.

You don’t remember him. But it’s worse. You don’t even know him.

“C’mon,” Steve beckons you with a jerk of his head. “Let’s get you to medical. Stark and Banner should have a look at you.” And you follow easily, stepping into Steve’s orbit.

Because of course you would. You were friends with Steve long before Bucky had showed up, long before Steve had even known he was still alive.

You don’t glance back at him once, though he follows closely.

Forgotten.

Was this what it felt like to be the one who remembered?

He tries smiling at you in the lab, once your blood has been siphoned away again.

Steve explains the year to you, the mission and that you were compromised, that you seem to have lost your memory. Or that you've been set back in the past. You accept it, when Stark and Banner confirm, Helen Cho too when she steps into the lab, iced coffee in hand. Bucky listens on, quiet and watchful of you. Steve explains the vapor in more detail, what had happened to you in the lab.

“And you were in Bucky’s room because you and Buck have been together for a couple years now.”

The look on your face is worse than shock, it's like ice water in his veins.

Not revulsion, no, you had never been cruel, had never turned your nose up at anyone. It’s disbelief, like you can’t imagine it. Not even a little.

And while he had known, he really had, that you hadn’t felt an immediate attraction to him all those years ago. You look as though you can’t even perceive the possibility.

You send him a crooked smile, apology on your lips. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

And how many times has he said that over the years?

The universe certainly did have a way with creating personal hells just for him.

“‘S okay, honey. We’ll get this sorted out.”

He doesn’t really believe it.

But you smile at him.

Like you always do.

~

You follow Bucky down the hallway back to your room.

It’s late now, nearing midnight.

A whole day spent in medical, in the lab. Now, he’s escorting you back to the apartment, so you can grab some of your things.

Clearly, you would be going back to your old room. You would sleep there.

Because Bucky is suddenly a strange man to you.

He doesn’t say anything to you, not wanting to frighten you further, even if it had been inadvertent. Not wanting to force you to interact with someone you barely know.

You surprise him though, like you always manage to do, by jogging to catch up with him. He slows his pace, so that you can walk together.

The scent of you washes over him, antiseptic from being in the lab all day, from being jabbed and having your blood drawn so many times. But underneath that, you still smell like you. Like peach body wash, the coppery tang of your blood, the fresh scent of unperfumed skin.

They’d drawn your blood so many times, you had started to become woozy. You hadn’t eaten anything since the popcorn the night before and they had taken so many vials from you.

You had been surprised at his outburst, when he snarled at lab assistant that you needed to eat couldn’t these fucking people see that?

You’d nodded at him, a tiny smile tugging at your lips, almost proud in your thanks.

“So me and you, huh?” You say now. He nods and tries not to mourn, tries not to let the pressure at the back of his eyes seize him.

He can’t look at you.

Already you feel lost to him.

They aren’t sure if your memories are gone or only hidden, if they could be retrieved or if the effects of the vapor could be reversed.

Hopefully analyzing the sample would yield something, reveal something helpful.

Something itches at the inside of his skin. The urge to bruise his knuckles against someone’s teeth, to bleed. So he can feel something else. A different kind of pain..

What would happen if your memory never returned? Would you fall in love with him again? Should you? Should he let you?

Steve slated the intel you collected yesterday as highest priority, maybe the information gathered would tell them something about what the defunct lab had been experimenting on, what it was that you had inhaled. If there’s hope, if there’s a way to reverse it, if it would go away on its own.

“Bucky?” You ask.

You.

You’re still here.

And hadn’t he been willing all those years ago to settle for any place in your life?

You were still here.

“Yeah. Sorry, sweetheart, I’m distracted.”

“Can’t imagine how hard this is for you if I…if we’re…”

You don’t seem to know what to call it. “Together?”

“Yeah. Together. I mean, last I know you just got here. You just got here from Wakanda and-,” you pause and seem embarrassed. “I’m sorry for how I reacted earlier.”

He shrugs.

Like it hadn’t hurt to see you rip off his dog tags like they burned you. Like the fear in your eyes hadn’t sliced through his ribs right into the meat of his heart.

But what else should you have been expected to think?

“It’s not your fault,” he says, gentle as he always is with you.

Bucky tells himself it doesn’t matter if you remember, he does.

He remembers all of you. He’ll show you himself again. You would know him again.

“Still,” you say.

He jumps when you press two fingers to the inside of his wrist.

It’s a comforting gesture between you and apparently one that had not been taken with your memory.

“Still,” your fingers curl against his skin, warm. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it was jarring.” You swallow. Bucky doesn’t dare look at you.

You fill every corner of his being. He’s constantly only aware of you, the slide of your skin against his, the scent of your hair when the smell of your shampoo fades, the scar along the curve of your elbow from a childhood injury.

“For what it’s worth,” you say, “you seem so much better than I remember you.” You duck your head embarrassed again. “Healthier. Not so weighed down. Like you sleep.”

He hadn’t realized you’d been watching him all day too.

“All thanks to you.”

“Seriously?” You lift a disbelieving eyebrow.

“And rigorous state mandated therapy and mental de-programming.” He says drolly.

You laugh and Bucky lets a smile curl the corner of his mouth. He glances at you and finds you already watching him.

“Oh you’re funny huh?”

“Not usually.”

You hum, “don’t think I would fall for someone without a sense of humor.”

“Yeah I’m sure it’s my sunshine personality that won you over,” he deadpans.

You laugh again, loud.

Bucky opens the front door, lets you pass before him. He watches your eyes rove over a space that should be familiar to you.

“Can I-?” You point to a kitchen cabinet, indicating you want to snoop around.

He almost laughs again.

“‘S all yours anyways, honey. You need somethin’ specific let me know and I’ll find it for you.”

“You’re very chill about all this.” You say shuffling through the mugs in the cabinet. Examining a hand painted one he had brought you back from Budapest back when you were still just friends.

Your eyes are wide as you turn it in your hands. He thinks he hears you murmur pretty under your breath before reshelving it.

He’s glad you still think so.

“I’d do just about anything for you. Including whatever this is. We’ll figure it out.” He’s not so sure, but he can’t say that. For him and for you.

“Oh,” you say, turning and pressing another mug to your chest. “This not casual then?” You joke, but something is fractured in your eyes and he remembers the disbelief on your face in the lab. Like you can’t imagine loving him. “This thing between us is pretty serious, huh?”

The mug has a peach on it. You bought it in a tourist trap shop in Georgia when a layover had stranded you in Savannah overnight.

His throat is tight. “I’d say so. You’re, uh, takin’ this in stride yourself.”

You shrug and look a bit sheepish, setting the cup back down on its shelf carefully before pulling open the fridge and glancing inside. “Well, to me…it's like nothing has changed. I don’t remember anything so there’s nothing to lose.”

Your head is still stuck in the fridge so you don’t see the way his breath hitches with pain, with loss. You don’t see the devastation rip across his face. Don’t mourn, he tells himself harshly. Y/N is still here.

But he means nothing to you. Like a total restart, a do over.

Was this the universe giving you a chance to make a different decision?

How many times had Bucky begged for a redo in his own life? Another chance to do things differently?

Only for you to be given one, in the worst way possible.

You turn, shutting the fridge and Bucky schools his face into a neutral expression. “I can look around? Maybe something here will jog my memories?” You point to the door that leads to the bedroom.

He thinks it’s a little more complicated than needing to jog memories but doesn’t say so.

“Like I said, it’s all yours.”

You start toward the bedroom but stop when he doesn’t follow.

“C’mon? Might need your help or something.”

Bucky follows, stepping into the bedroom, where the sheets are still rumpled and the TV still glows an iridescent blue.

You deftly click it off before flicking on the lamp. “Which side of the bed is mine?”

“Closest to the wall.”

“Ah, makes sense. Farthest from the door.” You smile at him and when you turn to your bedside table, Bucky slides his dog tags off the dresser beside the door and stuffs them into the pocket of his sweatpants. He doesn’t want to look at them, doesn’t want to think about the horror that had passed over your face when you realized what they were.

You didn’t know, he tells himself. The you that knows who he is, would never have had that reaction.

It still hurts, burns and sears. His chest is full of holes.

You rummage through the nightstand.

A bottle of painkillers, your glasses, a book, the long coil of your phone charger, a couple of foil wrapped condoms. Your fingers pause over the condoms before you slide them back into the drawer and pluck out the book instead.

You sit at the edge of the bed and flick through the pages quickly. The book is creased, sticky tabs lining the pages, notes in the margins. “I started reading again.” Your fingers pause, surprise coating your voice, “And annotating. I haven’t done that since high school.” Twisting to look over your shoulder at him, you hold up the book. “You must be a good influence on me, Barnes.”

Bucky shakes his head, “Dunno about that.” He sits at the edge of his side of the bed, watching you flip the book in your hands. “You - that was-,” he pauses, not sure why it's so hard to say. Maybe explaining your relationship to a person who can’t remember you is just painful. He licks his lips, finds his throat dry, and for the first time in years, he finds himself on the verge of a panic attack.

But he pushes on, pushes the hot, tight feeling in his chest down. After you left he would have to go to the gym, break his knuckles against a sandbag. He feels itchy, misplaced and unmoored, adrift. “- it was something that brought us together. When we were friends, becoming friends. We started reading together.”

He can’t decipher the look that crosses your face. Surprise, joy, despair in a quick succession. He blinks and it’s gone. Something like disbelief again. He doesn’t know what it means.

“Do we still read together?”

Instead of answering, he turns to his own nightstand and pulls out another book. This one too is beaten up, tabbed and written in, his script and yours tangling together.

His fingers brush against yours when he hands the book over. He fidgets, swallowing against the panic in his throat.

While you stare at the book, flicking gently through it with a reverence he doesn’t dare read into, he stands and shuffles through the closet to find your overnight bag.

“Bucky?” You call, his name on your lips like a balm. His shoulders droop, tension that had been puncturing wicked holes in his chest melting away.

“Yeah, doll?” He sits the bag on the bed.

“D’we read together a lot?”

“Almost every night.”

You nod and set the book aside before making your way to the bathroom.

Bucky has no way of deciphering what just happened, what it means to you, as the you from five years ago.

He hears the shower door open, hears you shuffling bottles around. He plucks some of your favorite pajamas (that aren’t just his shirts) and stuffs them into your bag, before trekking after you.

You’re holding two of the body washes, eyes flicking back and forth between them. He leans against the doorway and watches you, the tilt of your head, the curve of your mouth.

“I feel like I shouldn’t leave you,” you say suddenly, looking up from the bottles, holding them to your chest like it’s his heart. “I-I, y’know, don’t know you, but I think - my body does? I feel like I shouldn’t leave you.” You purse your lips, jaw tight, “I feel anxious.” You shake the bottles at him, “I also feel bad for taking your things.”

“‘S your stuff, Y/N,” he says automatically, deciding that’s the easiest part of your statement to focus on.

You don’t want to leave him.

Bucky shouldn’t find happiness in that, not now.

You peer at him from beneath your lashes before shuffling closer, seeming to sense he won’t tell you to stay, not after that morning and the fear in your eyes. “I changed my preferences I guess. Never used to buy fruit scented stuff.”

Bucky blinks and looks down at the plastic bottles in your hands. Peach and plum. He only ever remembers you having used - but that’s not true. When he first met you - when you started waiting for him in the mornings, making him take walks with you, when you started reading together on the couch, his thigh pressed to yours, you had smelled like tea, like cinnamon and vanilla.

“Musta changed -,”

You’ve drifted closer to him, you’re so close, he could dip his head forward and touch his forehead to yours.

It's painful.

That feeling comes back, and he recognizes it this time, the feeling he used to get all the time, like he needed to bleed, like he was losing something that he wouldn’t ever be able to replace.

You touch his wrist.

“Bucky?”

“You changed for me. I never wanted to change you.”

And god, he’s always associated you with fruit. You were peach trees and sunshine and eternal summer.

“‘s just body wash.”

But it's not. It never is.

You’re too close. Far too close.

You’re familiar to him but he’s not familiar to you. Bucky wants to kiss you but instead he looks away. “Maybe it's just body wash but, you liked something else before-,”

Maybe I’ve taken something from you, he wants to say. Maybe I’ve taken more than just this.

“Y’know, maybe I don’t have my memories of the last couple of years. But I do know myself. I’ve never done a thing I didn’t want to. Besides, if someone doesn’t change over a five year period, something is probably wrong.”

He ducks his head, “Guess that’s true, doll, I just -,” Bucky meets your eyes, wide and clear, waiting, “this is just really hard for me.”

“Think you’re doing okay.”

“Yeah?” He laughs without humor, “Not how it feels. It’s hard not to be -,”

“Familiar?” You supply.

“Yeah,” his shoulders drop.

“Then be familiar,” you smile. “I’m familiar to you. It’s okay.”

You're so close, he can see flecks of light in your eyes. “I have this weight in my chest telling me not to leave, telling me to be honest with you.” You say, “It's telling me to be familiar too.”

He closes his eyes. You’re doing it again. It’s like falling in love all over again. It’s like the first time he admitted himself, his feelings, to you all over again. The truths, honesties you whispered like a siren. Your call is as potent to him as any drug.

You’re heat in his cheeks, wind in his hair, honey bees in spring.

“I should trust my gut, right? Natasha would have castrated anyone that mistreated me, right?”

“Right,” he says tightly.

“Do you want me to go?” You start to take a step back, “Am I making it worse?”

Bucky reacts on instinct, hand flashing out to grab yours and keep you from pulling away.

He hasn’t touched you all day, your skin is warm and soft as it ever is under his. Like the give of satin beneath his touch. “No. No, you aren’t making it worse.”

Worse, worse is when you aren’t around.

And because you seem to be encouraging it, he tugs you closer and lets his forehead fall against yours.

You touch his cheek, sliding your thumb along the arch of the bone, the pink that rises to the surface of his skin. You exhale softly, shakily, your breath cool against his skin. He wonders what it's like for you, to have feelings in your gut that your brain can’t make sense of, doesn’t have memories to connect to.

Probably a lot like when Steve talks about their childhood to him.

“I want to tell you,” You say suddenly, pulling back a little to meet his eyes, “that you’re so different from the you I know. You’re…seems kinda silly to say maybe but, I’m proud of you. For me, y’know, a huge step was that yesterday you let me drag you out on a walk around the compound with me for fifteen minutes.”

He doesn’t say anything, can’t find his voice.

“How did we get together?”

That’s easy.

“We became friends,” Bucky says, tucking one of your hands inside his. “We were friends for a long time.”

“Did I ask you or did you ask me?”

“I asked you. Took you to Coney Island, bought you ice cream and won you a stuffed bear.”

“That’s so cute,” you giggle.

He’s glad you think so. “It was until I kissed you.”

You stop laughing. “What’s that supposed to mean?” You ask, indignant and offended for another version of yourself. “Am I a bad kisser?”

Bucky snorts, “No, nothing like that. Just, I guess I didn’t make it quite as clear as I thought that we were on a date.”

“Oh.”

“Mm.”

“So I was surprised? Good or bad surprised?”

“Good I would wager since you let me keep kissing you after you punched me.”

You gasp, “I didn’t.”

“You did,” He tries to hold in a laugh, “On my left arm so you nearly broke your knuckles. And we had to find someone to give you ice while I explained myself.”

What he doesn’t tell you is that there were fireworks that night. That you lied together on the beach that night in the still cooling sand and kissed him until the world went gray and foggy and peaceful.

You’re smiling at him, “Bucky can I stay here with you tonight? I have questions.”

His chest seems to cave in with the pain that ripples outward, like a stone into a pond. “‘Course. Like I said, it's all yours anyways.”

“What is?”

“Everything.”

~

The second time the loop resets, it's better for you.

It's worse for Bucky, because he finds out its a fucking loop.

He stays up all night with you, talking, sharing his best memories from the last five years with you.

You’re enamored with him. Bucky thinks you tell him things that he would have never known otherwise.

“I always had this fantasy as a nerdy little girl. Of, like, reading with someone, someone I really loved. Sounds so stupid, right? But, it’s true. I had this image of listening to someone read, or reading to someone.” You look over to the pile of books you had pulled off the shelves in the living room, all tabbed and worn and scribbled with your writing and his. “Guess I got it.”

Maybe he had made you change your body wash scents but he’d also made a wish he didn’t know you had come true.

Bucky hadn’t known, you’d never told him.

You only fall asleep on the couch once the sun starts to peak over the horizon.

Bucky tucks a favorite blanket of yours around your shoulders, kisses your temple, and even though things with you are going well, he still feels out of control, like his life is flashes he can’t control.

So, even though he’s exhausted and hasn’t slept, he changes into gym clothes, stops by the lab for a progress update (nothing on the sample yet), and heads to the gym.

The first solid punch he lands against a punching bag is so satisfying he almost groans. His mind empties, the only thing he needs to focus on is the swaying bag in front of him.

Bucky doesn’t have to think about you. About you fascinated by him, trying to relearn him, even though you know everything about him already. He doesn’t have to think about you inching closer to him on the couch.

He doesn’t have to think about how he misses you so bad, the you that knows him, and it’s only been a day.

It all becomes worse, though, when Steve rushes into the gym. “Y/N reset.”

“What? What the fuck does that mean?”

“I mean…Y/N came into the lab and had no idea what was going on.” He explains that he had asked you the date again, and that you had answered with the same date you gave yesterday. When questioned, you did not remember the previous day at all. “No memory of anything that happened yesterday.”

And that’s how they discover that you weren’t just reset five years into the past, you’re on some kind of self setting loop.

“So, Y/N is stuck? Will it reset every day-? I-,”

“We don’t know. I guess we have to wait until tomorrow and see if it happens again. I explained everything again. Probably best if you come to the lab, explain yourself.”

Bucky nods, looks down at his bloody knuckles, his hand is swollen from the abuse and shakes.

Again.

He would have to explain to you again.

And what if you looked at him the way you did yesterday?

Not revulsion, but disbelief.

He imagines the disbelief as disappointment.

It can’t possibly be anything else.

“Want me to wrap your hand before we go up?” Steve asks, nodding to the blood running rivulets down his arm, concern crossing his face before he peers into Bucky’s eyes. “Did you sleep?”

“Y/N had questions, I-,” He swallows. “I can wrap it. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”

~

They don’t make you stay in medical all day.

Stark and Banner have samples of your blood and samples of the vapor. Steve considers going back to the abandoned lab, to poke around again.

But no one wants anyone else set five years back into a seemingly unending time loop.

You don’t seem to despair about your situation.

“Stranger things have happened,” you say, smiling like you always do. You wrinkle your nose at Steve, “Could make friends with an ice man from the ‘40s after all.”

Bucky is exhausted but he still hoards you like a dragon with treasured gold, insists on explaining to you again.

You look surprised this time, when you're told of the relationship you have with him. He thinks maybe this time, you have a curious tilt to your head.

But it's there again, that disbelief.

He almost wants you to say it. Whisper, “How did that fucking happen? Where did I go wrong?”

In the apartment, you look through the same cabinets you did yesterday. You touch the hand painted mug from Budapest, the Georgia peach mug. You smile at the all pink cookware.

This time, maybe because it's so early in the day, you run your fingers along the bookshelf checking the titles, examine the stack you don’t remember leaving on the coffee table the night before, you unfold the blankets from their basket at the end of the couch and examine them, you flick through Bucky’s record collection next to the player.

Today, you find your phone tangled in the sheets of the bed.

You flick through the pictures, smiling at some of them.

“Wow,” you say. “We’re really in love, huh?”

You pause over a picture, your breath hitching in your lungs. Bucky can’t see the screen, so he doesn’t know what makes you click the phone dark and set it aside.

You discover again that you read together almost every night.

Bucky makes sure to tell you more this time, now that he knows it's so important to you. How did he not know before? “Usually you read out loud,” he says. “You curl up real tight next to me, with your head on my shoulder, sometimes you sit between my legs, and you read.”

“And the tabs?”

“If I have a comment you make me take a note,” he says, watching your eyes as he pulls out the stack of post-it notes, sticky tabs, and colored pens. “You always make me do it in my own handwriting so we know who thought what.”

And this time, the look that crosses your face is like he hung the moon and stars. You look away from him, nodding to yourself, just a little bit shy.

“You’re a dreamboat, huh?” You tease.

“Oh, yeah, sweetheart, a real ray of sunshine.”

“You seem like it,” you rag on him. “‘S a little weird to wake up with-,” You glance at him out of the corner of your eye.

“What?” He flops back on the bed horizontally, closing his eyes.

You’re on the other side of the bed looking through your nightstand again.

God he’s tired. It’s been a long time since he’s been awake for such a long period. There’s you to thank for that he supposes. He always sleeps when he has you next to him.

You touch a curl of his hair and he jumps. Bucky curses himself when your hand darts away.

“Dunno. Guess with a person,” You say. “You seem to care about me a lot. I’ve never had a relationship like this one before. That seems so serious and real.”

He doesn’t flinch when you touch his hair this time, fingers threading through the short strands. “When did you cut your hair?”

“Years ago,” he says, opening his eyes to look at you. “You never told me that. That you never had-,”

“Feels silly to be scared to tell you things. Maybe before I was scared, didn’t know what would happen, or if something would scare you away. Maybe I was afraid of saying too much. Besides, I won’t remember it anyways right? I get a redo tomorrow.”

“We don’t know that. Maybe tomorrow you’ll remember.”

“I’m sure. A one time loop reset.” You pause in threading your hands through his hair, “Feels so weird. To feel connected and have nothing inside to connect it to.” You had said something like that yesterday, but he doesn’t tell you so. “Was it like this for you? In the beginning?”

You lean over him, your face upside down. “Hard to tell,” he reaches up and touches your temple. “But I think so.”

Maybe if you can tell him things, he can tell you something too. He knows what it is to be afraid to be too much. He hadn’t realized it was possible for you to feel the same.

“Y’know,” he murmurs, “you think this is weird. To me it's…like-,” Bucky hasn’t been good with words in a long time. For you, he’ll try. “-like-like-its devastating.” Your hands flatten along either side of his head, thumbs against his stubbled cheeks. He doesn’t look away. “You’re my whole world.”

You smile, “Do you normally tell me that?”

“No. Like you said. Afraid to be too much.”

“Do I know how much you love me?”

You seem to have a clarity of the feelings between you, that the other you doesn’t.

“God, I hope so.”

“Start telling me. It won’t chase me away.”

You flop down beside him, legs hanging off the opposite side of the bed, and Bucky turns his head to keep you in his field of vision, still upside down to him. You stare up and Bucky stares at the curve of your jaw. He inches closer to you. “I can tell you with all honesty, you are not too much. You’re…strangely perfect.”

He chuckles, “Expecting more of-,”

“A murderous maniac? Nah. Yesterday,” you lift one arm and draw shapes in the air against the canvas of the ceiling, “we went on a walk together. It was the first conversation I ever had with you. You were so quiet and withdrawn. Lonely, like the world swallowed you up. It was nice.” You drop your hand and turn to look back at him, “I thought you were very pretty. I have - had I suppose - a tiny little crush on you. I’m glad it all worked out.”

“Crush huh?”

“Don’t go getting a big head, Barnes,” you smile. “Told Nat about it and everything. She made fun of me so bad.”

The drinks you mentioned having in the kitchen with Nat. You’d been telling her, maybe gushing to her, about a walk with him.

He remembers thinking you’d never look his way again, that he was too broken to remember how to have a conversation. Still, he’d managed to catch you in the common area again the next day and ask you what you were reading. You’d smiled and patted the space next to you, I’ll show you.

It was the first time he’d been late to therapy. You made him late.

Bucky had only wanted to be your friend then, hadn’t had much capacity for anything else.

The love he felt for you had come on slowly as he recovered, like ocean stilt between his bones.

It feels odd but good, something like pride swelling in his chest, that you had talked about him, had a crush on him.

“S’okay. I’ve never stopped having a crush on you,” he answers.

You try to hide your smile and fail miserably and lean forward instead to press your forehead to his.

Bucky closes his eyes and swallows.

He can do this.

~

“The effects of the vapor should wear off on its own eventually,” Bruce says to the team, gathered around a conference table weighted with stacks of documents and cups of coffee.

“Should?” Bucky asks, incredulous.

It’s already been two weeks, and guesses are no longer good enough for him.

“Yeah. To the best we can tell. Obviously we’ll keep looking for an antidote in the meantime. It looks like it was developed for-,” Bruce stops, his eyes cutting to Bucky. “To be blunt it looks like it was meant to be a redo on the Winter Soldier program.”

“That lab wasn't connected to Hydra,” Steve says.

“Apparently they were. Or at least contracted by someone Hydra adjacent.”

“How long will it take to wear off?” Nat asks. She’d arrived back in the compound that morning, and as a result Y/N had spent most of the day with her, much to Bucky’s displeasure. “Without an antidote?”

“They were obviously going for durability, so maybe a couple months. If they were planning on icing Barnes again then one dose would be enough for years depending on how long they left him out for hits.”

Bucky digs metal digits into the flesh of his right hand until he breaks through skin, to the meat of his palm. Blood drips onto his jeans.

You shouldn’t encounter any hostiles. Intel gathering only.

He supposes there were no hostiles that day because he was supposed to have become one.

Before he can stop himself he’s out of his chair and putting space between him and that room, between him and what could have happened that day had he breathed in the vapor and not you.

Putting space between him and the notion that you might not remember for months.

Months.

For months you could be stuck in a loop of endless time, losing a real span of your life to waiting.

Would he have to explain to you every morning?

What if Banner’s wrong? What if it doesn’t wear off? What if you never come back? What if they stop the loop and you still don’t remember anything?

Y/N is still here, he corrects himself viciously.

You are here.

He’s so busy scowling and stomping that he doesn't notice the red trail he leaves behind him.

Bucky wants to rip the world to pieces, but he can only settle for his own mangled body.

He stalks to the gym, changes at the facilities there, before beating the shit out of a sandbag with a raw hand. The old wound splits open immediately, blood flecks the canvas fabric. Bucky doesn’t really give it a chance to heal these days.

When the punching bag swings off the hook, he growls and turns toward the treadmill instead.

Hours pass, the sun fades from the sky.

Despite the tales about him, he is human, and eventually he collapses.

He lies panting on the floor of the gym, his hand stained red, when he hears your voice. “You normally go psycho like that?”

God.

He hadn’t really gotten to talk to you today because of Natasha and this will be your only impression of him. Bucky swallows dryly. “No.”

“Good because it looks like it hurts.”

“Worried about me, sweetheart?” Bucky snaps. He means to be playful but his voice comes out like a punch, like a wounded animal snarling at the wind. He hears his words thump down around your ankles.

For a long moment, you don’t answer.

Then he hears your feet shuffle away.

“God-fucking-damnit,” he mutters.

He won’t even be able to apologize to you, if he doesn’t see you again today. And how could he apologize to you tomorrow when you won’t remember today?

Bucky groans and sits up, ready to track you down, just to apologize for his outburst. He won’t have anything bad between you, whether you remember it or not.

But before he can stand, you burst back into the room, dropping down beside him on the mat. You hold out a hand.

He stares, “What?”

“Hand,” you point. “Now.”

Gently, he sets his right hand in both of yours. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

For a moment you don’t speak, carefully lowering his hand to your lap so you can rip open a couple of alcohol pads. He grits his teeth while you clean the wound in the center of his hand, his bruised, bloody knuckles.

“You left a trail of blood in the hallway.”

“Oh.”

You snort, “Oh? Is that all you have to say? I may be confused and not remember you, but I don’t like seeing you bleed out all over Tony’s expensive floors.”

He sighs, “I’m sorry, Y/N.”

“You should be,” You say hotly. “According to Nat we’re like some kind of freaky soulmates so please try not to bleed to death while my memories take a vacation.”

Now he laughs, glancing at you and finding your eyes already on him. “Seriously, Bucky, promise me you’ll let this heal. Even if I can’t remember.”

The words stick in his throat, a fist around his neck. “Why do you care? You always care. Every day you…you don’t know me but you care anyway. I-,”

You shrug, and look down at his hand in your lap. Slowly, you start to wrap gauze around his palm and knuckles. “My body knows you, I think, even if I don’t. It's like reaching for something you’re so sure is real but it turns out to be a mirage.” It's the third time you’ve said some iteration of that. “We took a walk yesterday,” and you repeat the story he’s heard several times now. But he doesn’t interrupt you.

Your fingers circle his wrist when you finish bandaging his hand. “I don’t remember feeling this…affinity for you yesterday. But I do now. Suppose that’s the five years of memories stored up in my DNA but, I dunno I-I just don’t want you to hurt.”

He turns his hand to squeeze your fingers. “I promise, honey. I’ll let it heal.”

“Even if I don’t remember?”

“Even if you don’t remember.”

It’s quiet for a moment and Bucky isn’t expecting you to hug him. He’s damp with sweat and you’re supposed to be upset with him. “I just want to say I’m sorry.”

He buries his nose in your neck, circles his arms around your waist and tugs you close because god it seems like it's been forever since he’s gotten to properly hold you. It's only been two weeks but it feels like decades.

You go jellylike, molding yourself against him.

“God for what?”

“You’d think the universe has made you suffer enough, Barnes, but you seem to be her favorite victim. I’m sorry I don’t remember and that you have to. Can’t imagine what it's like to explain everything everyday.” You exhale against him, breath hot against his skin, “Have you tried not talking to me?”

He jerks back so you’re forced to look into his eyes. “Now why would I do something like that?”

You shrug, “You could get a day off. You’re stressed, I mean, you just had a fistfight with a punching bag and lost.”

Bucky scoffs but pinches your chin between his thumb and forefinger, “That punching bag is the one lying on the floor.”

“Yeah,” you snark back, sarcastic, “but you’re the one bleeding.”

“You fixed me up pretty nice though, huh?” He says, curling metal fingers around your wrist so you don’t move away, holding out his flesh hand to examine your bandaging job.

For a moment you don’t respond, absently patting the back of his metal hand. “Seriously, Bucky, one day where I don’t know, so you can get some rest, won’t kill me.”

But he’d rather die than be away from you, than have you forget him entirely, even for one day. And Bucky’s sort of afraid, afraid that if he lets you forget for even one day, you’ll never get your memories back.

That if he lets you forget for one day, you’ll remember everything else and forget him entirely, muscle memory and all.

“Darlin’,” he says gently, cupping your face against his palm because you let him, may even lean into it a little, “no matter how much it hurts, being away from you, not seeing you, is worse. I would stay in this loop forever, if it meant I got to stay with you.”

“You really mean that too, don’t you? Like, it's not just empty words. You really would.”

“I promise.”

Bucky has never been one to break promises.

~

Bucky keeps his promise and lets his hand heal.

He tries not to be destructive, and finds it just a bit challenging.

Since you aren’t sleeping with him at the moment, he goes out and practices vigilantism when he probably shouldn’t.

Steve and Sam frown at him, but don’t stop him, don’t comment when he comes back to the compound bruised. He feels better and he can keep his promise to you even if you don’t remember it.

He sleeps for short bursts in the wee hours of the morning, before he goes to find you and explain everything again.

Most days, you’re shocked but take it in stride.

Some days, you take some convincing.

But that’s okay. It gives him more time to spend with you, to reveal moments of your relationship to you, like peeling back the skin of an orange to show you something ripe with potential. He tells you things about those moments, the feelings he had had, that he never would have mentioned otherwise, that he would have been too afraid to admit to.

He dreams about you, in the few hours he gets.

Bucky dreams of the first time you made love, of the way summer sunshine had played against your skin and the sheets, dabbled and fleeting, swaying with the trees outside.

You had smelled of honey, your skin so soft he wanted to bite into the warmth of it.

God, you had smelled like sunshine.

Sunshine shouldn’t have a smell, but against your skin, it had. Warm, like shea butter and coconut.

He really hadn’t thought he could love you more, thought that his capacity for love had already overflowed, but that morning proved him wrong. It proved that the sun was a burning force, that you were the sun, and that he wouldn’t mind being consumed whole, burned alive.

Bucky always breaks from the dream in a sweat, heart pounding, because it feels like it's an omen, like he should relive it because he’ll never get back to that moment.

This morning, he slips out of the dream and into reality like he always does. The sun is just peaking over the horizon, you’ll be up soon.

The timing is perfect, after weeks of practice. You open your front door, spot him waiting, new as the morning dawn, looking so different to you with short hair, a bruise across his cheek, and no peaceful sleep. “Mornin’, Y’N, I need to talk to you about something,” he says, like he does every day, like he would for the rest of his life if he had to.

~

You’re looking through the pictures on your phone again and this time Bucky can see the screen, though you don’t know that.

He can see the picture that gave you pause in a couple of your other resets.

To him, it's an ordinary picture. The two of you tangled together in bed, a selfie you’d snapped when he wasn’t paying attention to what you were doing.

Bucky is staring at you in the photo, a serious look on his face.

He can’t remember what he had been thinking about in that moment.

And he has to wonder what you’re thinking about it now, why it's captured your attention consistently throughout your resets.

He has to wonder if you’re disappointed. You admit to your crush on him, almost every reset, and it means everything and so little simultaneously.

The look on your face from that first time haunts him.

Disbelief.

He still doesn’t know what it means.

Probably, that you were disappointed. That a little crush could shape your whole life, bend it like a wire hanger to the shape of him.

Bucky clears his throat and you immediately lower the phone, a panicked look on your face.

He only smiles and treks around the couch with a cup of your favorite tea.

You take it from him and ask, “How long has it been? How many resets?”

“It's been six weeks. So forty-two resets in total.”

The look that crosses your face is one of grief. Bucky clenches his jaw and looks away, surely you would blame him for the lost time, the forty-two days you don’t remember. For not protecting you better, for letting you go on the mission in the first place.

But you set your mug on the table (he made sure to give you the Budapest one) and turn to him, one leg lifting to tuck in the space between you so you can lean close. “I’m so sorry, Bucky.”

“Sorry?”

“I think I would have lost it already, if I had to do what you’re doing.”

Bucky stares at you, his jaw aching from how hard he’s clenching it, like his mouth is suddenly razor wired shut.

You reach out and touch the inside of his wrist. “Are you doing okay? That’s a lot of days to do this.” With your other hand you gesture to the blooming bruise on his cheek. “Steve told me you’ve been sleeping little and fighting in the evenings after I go to sleep and forget again.”

“You shouldn’t worry about me,” he finds his voice. “You’re the one that-,”

“Barnes, listen to me,” you say sternly, and it reminds him of when you first started hanging around him, not balancing on your toes and treating him like already shattered glass, like he might cut you if you weren’t careful. He’s still sharp and pointed to you, you don’t know that his edges have been rounded out over the years, though you can probably guess. “I don’t remember anything. This is all new to me. Every day I guess it is. You could be lying to me and this could really be day one million.”

You squeeze his wrist. “But everyday, you have to do the same thing. And you have to remember the day before and I can’t think of anything more heartbreaking.”

Bucky sets down his own cup on the coffee table and takes your hand.

He wonders, if after you take the antidote or the vapor wears off on its own, you’ll remember all your past resets. Maybe you’ll forget everything and think it's that first night again. Maybe you’ll get stuck in the past and remember nothing.

Either way, he knows tomorrow you won’t remember, and so it makes it easier for him to say things he’d otherwise hide from you.

He tells you something that he’s said in none of your other resets. “I miss you. You’re here. I didn’t lose you. I keep telling myself I could have lost you, forever. It could be…worse. It could be so much worse. But I still miss you anyways.”

Your fingers are tight on his. “But you did, in a way. We’re…really close, like, so close. In love kinda close. We live together and we’re best friends. You did lose me. I’m still here but everything else is gone and maybe that’s worse.”

The spaces between your words are silent as caverns, as tombs beneath the earth.

Because you’re right, of course.

You usually are.

“So, I’m sorry. Have you thought about taking a day off-,”

“No,” he interrupts. “No. You-you’ve suggested that before. I won’t do it.”

“God, Bucky, why?” You peer into him, leaning ever closer, consuming his field of vision.

He takes a breath, “Sweetheart, it's painful, I won’t say it's not. It's been so fucking hard without you. But everyday I also get to - I get to tell you everything that made us, I get to tell you how we fell in love. I - and maybe it’s disappointing to you - but that’s been-,” Bucky doesn’t know what to call it and so he stops.

Bucky can’t very well say it's been good, because that isn’t quite right. But watching you puzzle through your life together has been fascinating, has made him love you even more, appreciate what he doesn’t deserve.

“Disappointing?” You frown. “Have I ever told you in any of my resets that I have a crush on you?”

Bucky licks his lips, carefully doesn’t move when you press your forehead to his, your eyes still open and peering into his. “Yeah, doll, you tell me every time.”

A teasing smile lifts the corner of your mouth. “Good. Then you know this is like a dream come true. To find out your super hot crush eventually likes you too and you - well you get a very perfect life.”

He snorts, “Wouldn’t say it's perfect -,”

“Ah, maybe life isn’t but this is. You.”

“Honey-,”

“Seriously, Bucky.” You pull away but it just forces him to really look into the heart of you, into the center of your conviction about this. Something tells him its the memories stored up in your DNA, the remembrance of something with no name, and he knows you really believe what you say. “I don’t know if you know this, but most people wouldn’t do what you’re doing. Forty-two days? That’s extraordinary.”

In almost every reset, you touch his wrist, the curve of his cheek, a lock of his hair.

But he hasn’t held you, hugged you close since the reset where you made him promise to let his hand heal. Almost four weeks ago.

He hasn’t kissed you since you fell asleep that first fateful night.

You wrap your arms around him, sliding easily against him like he wasn't a veritable stranger to you. It feels so good, to have your weight against him, that it's everything he can do not to break down.

“So why would I find anything disappointing?” He feels the curve of your mouth against his shoulder, the contours of your shape against his.

He presses his nose to your hair and inhales.

Peach.

Though he had made sure to find your vanilla and cinnamon stuff and put it in the bathroom in your room.

Still you had been choosing peach, though there was no way for you to know that you had changed scents.

“Dunno,” he says and then because he’s already spilling his guts he explains your reaction that first morning. The look that flashed over your face, the look that continues to flash over your face when you look at the books and the photos. “You just looked like you couldn’t believe it. About me and you.”

“Well, Bucky, I mean, c’mon, I probably thought you kidnapped me or something. Why wouldn’t I have that reaction?”

“You didn’t see your face.”

You laugh and rub your hand slowly up and down his back. “I was probably scared. But not for the reasons your mind is telling you. I promise. I know myself. And I can tell you now that I feel disbelief because apparently I get the chance to love you. That’s so strange to me. It’s not disbelief that it happened but that I got the fucking chance.”

Bucky squeezes you tighter when he feels you start to pull away. “You took my dog tags off.”

Your voice is so soft when you answer, “You gave me your dog tags?” When he doesn’t say anything you whisper, “I’m sorry I took ‘em off. But it doesn’t change anything. I get the chance to love you.” You repeat.

He doesn’t answer, throat tight.

This time you’re insistent when you pull away. “Bucky,” you touch his cheek. “I promise. No part of me, any me, is disappointed. Or upset. About this, about us. Okay?” He nods against your hand but finds it hard to believe anyways. “Do I change much each reset?”

“No,” he says. “You’re just you every time.”

“So I’ve probably wanted to kiss that sad little smile every single reset.”

You’re poorly hiding a smile, and Bucky doesn’t think as he cups your cheek and brings you in for a kiss.

The taste of you is like coming home, like the world ending.

And only slightly like the cinnamon muffin you had for breakfast.

You both sink to the side against the couch cushions, shoulders loosening, lips still connected. Bucky tries not to feel like he’s consuming you, tries not to let too much longing slip into the kiss.

But you hook your legs over his lap and cup your hand against the side of his neck and it becomes very hard to think, especially when your thumb digs into the hinge of his jaw.

Bucky presses his cheek against yours when you pull away, and listens to your panting breaths, his nose nudging against the curve of your ear.

“Wow. What a first kiss.”

He chuckles just a little, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek.

“The other you had to wait three years.” This time he doesn’t mention the punch, the ice pack.

You gape at him, “Three years? Why’d it take so long?”

“I think,” he says, pressing his flesh thumb to the center of your chin. “We would have rather stayed friends than risk-,”

You’re nodding before he finishes speaking and kissing him again quickly after that.

“Why do you use the peach scent?”

“I thought you liked it better? You lean in when I use it and-,”

He kisses you a third time, because you shouldn’t remember something like that.

Maybe things will turn out okay after all.

~

Your memories fracture back into each of your resets after that, though you don’t seem to realize that they’re things you shouldn’t remember. Confusion has started to reign in you, when you can’t sequence events in your mind.

The day that Stark and Banner finish a solution that could possibly work as an antidote, you exit your room as you do every morning but with a confused look on your face.

It's day sixty-three.

Bucky is waiting for you like always, with hair still wet from the shower and a bruise over one eye, but healed hands.

Before Bucky can launch into his well practiced speech, you press a closed fist to your chest like you’re gripping something there. “Did you take your dog tags back? I can’t find them, I-I didn’t mean to lose them.”

You don’t give him a chance to answer, instead pressing your hand to your forehead, looking terribly confused. “I…but why would you have given them to-,”

“You want to wear them?” He asks.

“Of course,” you answer, indignant. “You gave them to me. I promised to never take them off.” Your voice fades again, “When did that happen? I feel-,”

“Hey,” Bucky strides forward and takes your hand, curling his fingers around your wrist. “It's okay. I have them right here. Got some things I need to explain to you.”

He pulls them out of his pocket, not having had it in him to start wearing them himself again. They didn’t belong to him anymore, they belonged to you. Bucky was just waiting to give them back to you.

You bow your head and Bucky slips them around your neck.

You take a deep breath and smile at him, like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

“What did you need to tell me, Buck?”

~

“We don’t know if it’ll work and there’s not really a way to test it,” Banner says later that day. “It’s up to you whether you decide to take it now, since your memories seem to be coming back. You could just wait it out.”

“But I could wake up tomorrow and know everything again? Remember everyone?”

“That’s the hope.”

Bucky grits his teeth and says nothing from his place across the table from you. “How many days has it been?” You ask.

“Sixty-three today.”

You swallow, and look like you might cry.

But before Bucky can reach out to you, Natasha has an arm around your shoulders, you blink and the tears are gone. “I’m sorry,” you say and meet his gaze before quickly glancing away. He’s not sure what you’re sorry for. “I want to take it.”

“Maybe you should think about it-,” Bucky starts but you scoff and the room goes silent.

“So I can forget again? So you can live another sixty-three days like this? And now I’m…I don’t like feeling confused. I don’t like not knowing what happened or when, or what’s real.”

He wants to scream. Instead he clenches his jaw and leans forward, staring you down across the table. “And what if it makes you forget everything? What if you’re reset one last time and start over five years in the past? And that’s it? You never get anything back? At least this way we know you’re getting your memories back.”

“You wouldn’t explain everything to me one last time?”

Bucky closes his eyes, presses the heels of his hands against the sockets until stars appear in his vision. Of course he’d explain it to you one last time, he’d explain it everyday for the rest of his life if he had to. All he settles for instead is repeating, “At least this way you can get all your memories back.”

“I’m not putting you through this anymore. Not when I don’t have to.You think I can’t see how much it hurts you?”

“Can you at least think about it for today?”

“Fine.”

With that the rest of the team departs the conference room as quickly as possible, sensing a coming storm. Bucky and Y/N stay seated until everyone is gone, staring each other down from across the table.

His dog tags glint at him from around your neck when you reach up to fist your hand around the name plates.

“Why do you want to keep being tortured?” When he doesn’t answer, just keeps staring at you, you lean back in your chair and cross your arms. “Don’t be stubborn about this Bucky.”

“I would rather go through this while you get your memories back, than risk you losing them altogether,” he says. “I want you to remember those moments. I know better than anyone that having someone tell you about something that happened doesn’t hold a candle to actually experiencing it. Especially when it's something you did.”

You take a breath, “Buck, listen, I can tell you’ve been running yourself ragged.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it does!”

“Why aren’t you more concerned? Do you want to forget? Do you want to forget about me?” He stands, paces back and forth, before forcibly stopping himself and dragging his hands through his hair instead. He doesn't look at you, can’t.

So he stands there, clenching his jaw and staring at the wall like an idiot. You wait, not saying anything for a moment, until his shoulders relax.

“I don’t want to forget. I know how important memories are to you in particular, but seeing you hurting hurts me. Especially now that the reset memories are surfacing.”

Bucky still doesn’t turn to you, listening to the clank of the metal plates around your neck slide together and apart.

“I just don’t want to…I can tell you again. I always will if I have to. I just - I just don’t want to lose everything. I don’t want you to lose me.”

And that truth settles in his bones.

So, Bucky repeats it. “I don’t want you to lose me.” He turns and looks at you, meets your steady gaze. “I don’t want you to lose whatever feeling you had the first time I kissed you. Or the first time we made love. Or the exact thought you had when we - it doesn’t matter. I know only what I thought. I can’t tell you the whole story. I’m afraid we’ll never be the same. I don’t want to lose you, but god, honey, even if it makes me selfish, I don’t want you to lose me.”

You nod when he finishes, your lips trembling just a little.

When you answer, it's with a little gasp in your voice, “And maybe it makes me selfish, but I just can’t watch you do this. I can’t stand to keep forgetting you.”

Bucky knows better than most the fear of forgetting.

“I’m with you either way.”

You keep your eyes on his, entirely focused on him, “It will be fine, Bucky.”

But hadn’t you said that the last time?

And oh, the world did love to rip and tear and take.

~

You swallow the antidote all in one go, with your nose pinched and an uncomfortable look on your face.

You wince when it's all down and then smile at Bucky and tell him again how it's going to be fine.

He hands you a glass of water, which you down, and then just like before he’s tasked with watching you.

Bucky wouldn’t have let anyone else, wouldn’t have left the med wing were it necessary for you to remain there. So you walk together, this time to your rooms, just like the last time.

While you take a shower, he makes tea for you both.

It will be a long night for him, but hopefully you’ll sleep. Hopefully, you will sleep and tomorrow you will remember him.

If you come out of the loop but with memories missing and gone, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

Explain to you again, he supposes, and work from there.

Listen to your many stories for the hundredth time like it's the first.

Show you everything you don’t remember.

Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe he should start again, maybe that was the point.

But he thinks of you never knowing about the way he’d kissed you on the sand at Coney Island, about how there had been fireworks, the roaring sound of the ocean in his ears, how he would have gladly drowned in you.

He needs you to remember.

The mug in his hand, a plain white one, fractures as he grips it. “Fuck,” he murmurs, tea dripping down his arm and onto the tiled kitchen floor.

You appear then, in a cloud of peach and mango, fresh and dewy from the shower. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

“‘Course, honey,” he says, setting the cracked mug into the sink, sliding the unbroken cup toward you. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He crouches with a paper towel to wipe the spilled tea off the floor and when he straightens you’re there, incredibly close, eyes peering into his.

“I mean with me. Lay with me.”

“No. I’ll stay on the couch.”

“Bucky,” you say. “I want you to.”

But you don’t know how you looked at him the last time you’d woken up in a bed with him. Confusion that had bloomed into fear. “No. It's best if-,”

“Please? I’m, y’know, kinda scared. If you don’t - I’ll just stay in the living room then, you can’t stop me.” You lift your chin, defiant, before you continue, “I have a weird little memory, of the first time you ever stayed over.”

You look confused saying it, time and events smashed together and reconfigured in your mind. You touch the dog tags around your neck and continue, “You didn’t want to stay with me then either. But I remember it's the safest I’ve ever felt.”

“Fine,” he concedes, pressing a guiding hand to your back. “It's just because you have a crush on me.”

You wrinkle your nose and mumble, “Pretty sure it’s a little more than that.”

In your room, he lowers the lights, tugs back your duvet, and lets you settle first.

It's quiet for a long time after that, as you settle down, sipping your mug of tea which you pointedly share with him, scrolling mindlessly on your phone.

Bucky thinks you believe yourself sneaky, inching closer to him until you’re pressed against his side, your head coming down against his shoulder.

He wraps his arm around you, tugs you closer.

You bring up the photo, the one of the two of you in bed together. You hold your phone so both of you can see it. “What were you thinking about?”

“Honestly? Don’t remember. Probably something self depreciating.”

“Like what?”

“How I don’t deserve you.”

You set your phone aside and close your eyes. He imagines you’re listening to the sound of his heart, counting the beats. “Maybe I was thinking about how much I love you.”

“Do you?”

“Is there any doubt?”

“No,” you murmur, voice slurred as you slip into sleep. “It's very clear when you love someone, Barnes. Even when you think it isn’t. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”

Bucky doubts that very much, but doesn’t say so.

Maybe you just know him.

Maybe in the morning, things will be fixed, or maybe they’ll be at square one again.

And then, like a new fighter in a ring, a new fear rises up.

What if you remember everything?

Every single moment of your life together and all of your resets?

The things he’d told you, the fleshy inner parts of himself he’d revealed. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too much, too many feelings, too much rawness to encapsulate.

Bucky tightens his arm around you, pulling you infinitely closer, and begs the universe to let him have this good thing.

~

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but he does.

Just like last time.

Running on little more than a couple hours rest for months on end, and without you, hasn’t exactly lent itself to his exhaustion.

With your weight against his chest, the duvet tucked around both of you, and the sound of your soft breath in his ears, sleep had been unavoidable.

He wakes to your hand against his chest, fingers tightening in his shirt. Bucky snaps awake, but doesn’t move, carefully let’s you come back to yourself. Your eyes peak open slowly, blinks that take so long he thinks you’ll fall back asleep.

But then you peer up at him through lashes thick with still dispelling sleep.

For a long moment you just look at him and he looks back, Bucky waiting for the look of disappointment or despair, confusion or horror. Your hand slides up his chest, cups behind his neck. You tug and bring his forehead to yours.

“Bucky,” you murmur. “James fucking Barnes.”

“Do you-?”

“I remember everything. Every second.”

Fear pierces his lungs, along with elation.

He pushes you back, back into the pillows and sheets, to hover over you and anchor his hands on either side of you, before he leans down to kiss you breathless and hard. You taste sweet and sharp. “Fuck, I missed you.” Bucky says against your mouth. “God, baby, I missed you so fucking bad.”

A tear escapes and you knock it away.

You hook a foot behind his knee. “You have been holding back on me. How dare you not wax poetic to me about love, our love? How dare you keep your thoughts hidden from me. You feel so much and you never say anything.” You pinch his side, cup his cheek in your hand, run your fingers inside his shirt and up his spine, counting the vertebrae. “How dare you wonder if I could love you back when you would tourture yourself for sixty-three days?”

“Had to get you back. Would have done it forever,” he presses kisses down your neck, over the edge of your jaw. Your skin is soft and you smell like the detergent you use on your sheets, like cotton and new life.

He wants to bite into you but settles for kissing you again, sliding his tongue along yours, tasting you.

Maybe he’s trying to distract you.

From memories of him trying to describe -

“Bucky?” You fist your hands in his shirt and push him away just far enough that you can properly see his face. “I fucking love you. Okay? I’ve loved you back the whole time. I had a crush on you before you even knew what a crush was. I punched you the first time you kissed me because I was so scared to be…I was just the first person you got close to. I was so afraid to crash and burn but you…you looked at me like, y’know, like I was about to kick you for kissing me. But I was afraid you were only kissing me because I was there and I decided it didn’t matter because you said you cared about me, that it was supposed to be a first date. And I thought, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t last, at least I will have gotten to be in your orbit.”

He tries to interrupt you, but you just keep chattering, “And I remember that picnic when you put your dog tags around my neck and I promised to never take them off.” You curl one hand around his tags, the other curving back to hook around his wrist pressed into the mattress beside your shoulder. “That day was a disaster. You were so pissed off because the wine bottle cracked and the sandwiches got wet and you forgot the blanket and the bees wouldn’t leave us alone. But all I remember from that day is thinking you looked like my future, you looked like a son of the moon. I wanted to devour you, I was so hungry for you, the love you showed even if you didn’t tell me. I would have gladly eaten those soggy sandwiches if it meant I could keep being that fucking happy.”

Bucky can only look at you.

You squeeze his wrist and Bucky turns his hand so he can squeeze his fingers through yours, hoping to never let go again.

“So how dare you, how dare you be afraid I would never find my way back to you? How dare you be afraid to escape the loop so I could come back to you, fully?”

“You really think you would have fallen in love with me again?”

“You doing okay there, Buck?” Steve asked from his left, chuckling as he took another bite of mashed potatoes. He was dressed in his formal military uniform – olive green overcoat, golden buttons, and a display of colorful pins against his left chest. It tugged at his broad shoulders, the fabric straining against muscle.

Bucky nodded wordlessly, though there was a strange twist in his stomach. It was as if something sat on the tip of his tongue, an idea filtering in the headspace above the clouds he couldn’t reach, sitting just beyond his fingers. He looked down and found himself dressed in the same uniform as Steve. Olive green. Golden buttons. A bright display of his service pinned to the jacket.

A sharp pain burned in his left shoulder and Bucky pressed the heel of his palm into the muscle along his collar to massage the tender tissue. A slight jolt caught him off guard when the muscle gave way and he dug his fingers against the tension, against the tissue on his shoulder. He’d been expecting resistance – a solid block preventing him from attending to the nerves under his skin – though he wasn’t sure why.

When the pain subsided, Bucky looked down to find an empty plate staring back at him where he’d assumed his meal had been. He didn’t remember what he’d eaten, but he supposed he must have enjoyed it. There was barely a crumble left behind. Still, his stomach growled.

“You boys doing alright?”

A woman walked into the living room with a frilly pink apron wrapped at her waist and wrinkles around her eyes. Bright smile on her face, she brushed her hands along her apron, flour turning the fabric white.

Bucky jolted up from his chair at the sight of her, lips parted, breath caught in his throat. He was on his feet and imagined he looked rather strange as he struggled to find his voice. It was like he was looking at a ghost.

Bucky’s mother raised an eyebrow in his direction, a laugh shared with Steve, but Bucky did not dare to tear his eyes away. His vision began to blur he longer he looked at her – his gaze transfixed upon the rosiness of her cheeks, the scruff on her favorite baby blue shoes, the faded pink of a mark on her right hand from when she’d burned the Thanksgiving turkey years ago.

His mother – truly standing just steps away from him.

She must have spotted the tears swelling in Bucky’s eyes because her smile slowly dipped into a frown. Carefully, she crossed the room to him, guided him back down into the chair and gently set a hand against his cheek. Her palm was warm to the touch and Bucky found himself leaning into it, seeking more as if he were a fevered child, as if he would never have the opportunity again.

“My sweet boy,” his mother eased, running her fingers along the short whisps of his hair. “You missed me terribly out on the front, didn’t you?”

Bucky brushed his eyes as he looked up at her. “Sorry, Ma. Been a long time, I guess.”

She nodded, a bittersweet smile through the pink stain on her lips. Bucky realized then he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her. It felt like decades, though he supposed time moved differently behind enemy lines.

“I thank the stars every day you came home to us,” she cooed, leaning own to press a kiss to her son’s forehead. “It is by the grace of God that the war is finally over and my son is home safe.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes, the seed of doubt sowing back into his stomach. “Over?”

“I should hope so,” came a voice emerging from the kitchen door – familiar, foreign. Peggy Carter walked into the room dressed in red and with lipstick bright enough to match. She slid into the seat next to Steve and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek like she’d done it dozens of times before. “Considering the extravagant ceremony they threw in honor of the Howling Commandos, I think it’s safe to say you boys have done enough for your country. Retire in peace, will you?”

Bucky’s mind clouded with flashes of a party with red, white, and blue streamers, of celebration between muddied men in the trenches and cheers loud enough to drown out the soaring fighter jets above. He caught glimpses of strapping handcuffs to the wrists of a scientist with a round face and the whistle of a train as it whipped around a mountain. He could hear the sounds of his friends singing in the bar that night in victory.

The memories were distant – distorted. They had a glimmer to them that felt like a reel on a film, almost as if they were outside of himself. He shook his head, eyeing the way Steve smiled in Peggy’s direction, how she seemed to glow in return.

“It’s nice to see the two of you together,” Bucky said, happy his friend had finally worked up the courage to ask his girl for a dance. They spent enough time tip toeing around one another, Bucky was worried they might have missed their window.

“Gee thanks, Buck,” Steve chucked. “You were the best man at our wedding, you know.”

Bucky paused, brows furrowing. Sure enough, a band of gold wrapped around Steve’s ring finger, a sparkle of a humble diamond on Peggy’s. Bucky was about to object, the memory of his best friend’s wedding nowhere to be found, when the squeak of the kitchen door opened once again. This time, he did not have a chance to prepare for who walked through before his heart sank down beyond his stomach and through the hardwood floors.

“Pie’s ready!” you called cheerily, carrying the warm tin in your oven mitted hands before you set it at the center of the table.

Steve gaped at the pristine crisp layer of the crust, while Peggy praised how wonderful it smelled. Bucky couldn’t catch his breath.

You wore pins in your hair, tying it up away from your face in perfect curls that must have taken hours. The light blue of your dress cinched at your waist, flowing out around your hips and settling at your knees. It seemed... strange to see you like this, though he had trouble recalling knowing you in any other way.

The voice in the back of his head started to scream. An alarm was blaring, but Bucky shook it off.

“Darling? Are you alright?” you asked and it took Bucky a second to realize you were talking to him. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure and found nothing behind him but the tall cupboard lined with china.

You frowned, pulling up the chair beside him. A hand touched his forehead and Bucky swallowed back a sigh.

“Are you feeling feverish, sweetheart?” you eased, your hands sliding down the sides of his face, cupping at his cheeks. Bucky could hardly string a sentence together with how intently you were watching him, how intimately you touched him and held him as if it wasn’t the first time.

“I’m... I’m alright,” Bucky said, though he wasn’t sure he was convincing anyone.

You pouted, though you resigned. It was then he noticed the flash of a ring on your finger. Before he could quite stop himself, he reached for your hand, bringing it closer. The gem sparkled against the florescence of the lights; a diamond bigger than he’d ever be able to afford in his lifetime.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” you offered, admiring the ring yourself.

Bucky nodded, his throat burning. “He’s a lucky man.”

Peggy and Steve began to laugh and Bucky’s cheeks flushed red. He moved to drop your hand, but you slid in closer to him, close enough he could feel the heat of your breath on his skin.

“Lucky man, indeed,” you nodded and then, you kissed him.

Bucky jolted back, stunned, as if his heart had burst straight out of his chest.

“This creature will play to your deepest fantasies,” Tony said as he paced along the front of the conference room, file in hand. “It will construct a world you would not even dare to dream for yourself while it drains the life from your body. You must find a way to wake up before it kills you.”

“How will we even know if it’s taken us?” Natasha asked, arms folded tight over her chest. “How are we supposed to know we’re dreaming?”

Tony exhaled a tense breath. “There are some things that we know deep down could not be true. In this reality or the next.”

Bucky breaths were coming in too quickly, Tony’s words echoing in the back of his mind. He understood now his reaction to seeing his mother – a woman he never had the chance to say goodbye to, who he hadn’t seen in nearly eighty years. He understood why he didn’t share Peggys’s memories of the party for the Howling Commandos or his best friend’s wedding. Because it never happened.

It was why his perception of VE Day was so warped. He'd still been behind enemy lines.

He never apprehended Zola on the train.

He never came home to his mother with his best friend at his side.

He didn’t survive the war.

And you – you hadn’t agreed to marry him. You didn’t even belong to this time. He’d been a fool to not catch the flaw in the code the second you walked through the door; an even bigger one to not have doubted the tenderness with which you touched him, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, as if he weren’t the hollow shell of Hydra’s greatest assassin.

He scrambled out of his chair, holding up a hand defensively as he scanned the room. Nothing seemed to give way to the fantasy surrounding him. It was perfectly constructed to hold him in place, unaware, as his life was drained another world away.

Steve and Peggy rose to their feet, concerned glances between them.

“Sweetheart,” you called nervously, approaching him as if he were a frightened animal, “what’s wrong?”

Bucky shook his head, retreating a step back for each one you progressed. “This isn’t real.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You. This. Everything,” Bucky gestured to the room. “It’s in my head. The Djinn... it must have... shit. It’s not—It's not real!”

You sighed, shoulders slumping, as if he’d figured out the surprise you were meaning to tell him at the end of the dinner, as if his realization were little more than a bump in the road. When you looked at him again, it was with a renewed hope.

“It can be, if you’d like.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes on you, surprised at your response. You looked at Steve, then Peggy, and then to his mother, before you stepped to him, grabbing his hands in your own. Slowly, you guided them to your lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. Flesh and bone. Not a trace of metal in sight.

“Stay with us,” you eased with a purr in your tone that nearly buckled his knees. "There is a kindness in this, don’t you see? Here, you can have your family back, your time. You can live a normal life without ever looking over your shoulder. You can have me.”

Bucky stared at you – or not-you. He was having trouble convincing himself as his gaze flickered to the faded scar on your jaw line, the one he’d given you in under the control of the Winter Soldier. It hadn’t been there seconds ago; he was sure of it. You started to inch closer to him and Bucky closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to recall the last moment he saw you.

“Don’t try to be a hero, Barnes,” you chuckled, grip tight around the handle of your Glock. You peered around the corner into the adjacent hallway. Covered in decades of cobwebs and soot, it looked untouched save for the dozens of bodies Tony had found on the floor below – drained and mummified by the feral creature they were after.

“Certainly no chance of that,” Bucky retorted. It was part of your usual banter. Charming smiles and witty lines. While you laughed under your breath, Bucky could still catch the flicker of concern in your gaze, wondering about the sliver of deprecating truth in his statement. He wasn’t a hero, not by a long shot. If anything, he considered himself to be on the farthest end of that particular scale. No one seemed to know that better than you did.

“Stark wants me to check out this quadrant,” you said, eyeing the empty hall. “You’ll be okay on your own?”

Bucky laughed. “You know I’ve got a few decades on you when it comes to this stuff, right?”

You stuck out your tongue at him; a childish taunt, though it made Bucky smile in the grimmest of places. It was a victory within itself.

“Just watch your back, will you?” you argued in that playful sort of tone that made Bucky’s stomach week. “Since I can't do it for you?”

Bucky paused, admiring the sincerity past the teasing. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve your kindness, but he was determined to hold onto it as long as he could manage.

“Only because you asked so nicely.”

A weight seemed to lift from your shoulders. You smiled at him and he was certain he’d never know another rainy day again.

“Good. I’ll see you in ten.”

Bucky grinned as he watched you disappear into your hall. “See you in ten.”

Bucky couldn’t shake the dread forming in his stomach. He glanced around the 1950’s dining room, wondering where he was laying in the abandoned factory. He wondered if he’d been tossed into the pile of bodies Tony found or if he’d stumbled upon something more horrific. A moment of panic flickered in his heart as he questioned whether you were laying in the dark next to him – trapped in a fantasy of your own.

“Sweetheart?” your voice called again. It was too loving, too affectionate. He should have known it was only in his head. “You don’t have to return to that world. You’ve suffered enough, my love. There are no monsters here. No Hydra. Don’t you deserve that? After all you’ve been though?”

Bucky swallowed the bile in his throat. The nerves in his shoulder began to burn.

“Stay here,” you urged again, your voice a siren’s melody. “Stay with me.”

Bucky shook his head. He’d chewed through his cheek, could feel the sting of it and the copper on his tongue. “You’re not real.”

“Does this not feel real?”

Before Bucky could realize what you were doing, you stepped into his space, your hands sliding along his cheeks, and your lips touched his cheek. He felt the pressure of it, the warmth of your breath. He felt the chill in its absence. He shuddered.

“Stay here, Bucky, where it’s safe.”

“No,” he strained, stepping back out of your hold. The disappointment on your face was enough to clench his heart. “I’m dying as we speak. That... that thing... it’s killing me.”

“Time is different here, pal,” Steve spoke up, an arm wrapped around Peggy’s shoulders. “What may be minutes out there is a lifetime here. You can grow old, Buck. You can have the life you always wanted, the life you were meant to have.”

Bucky stared helplessly at the image of his best friend. He looked so much like the Steve he knew. He bore the same blue of his eyes, the same half assured grin to his smile. He looked so impossibly real.

“Stay here, son,” his mother tried, tears swelling in her eyes. Suddenly, she was dressed in funeral black, clutching a folded flag to her chest. Bucky tore his gaze away, unable to look at her. “Please don’t leave me alone again.”

Bucky held his breath, his hands shaking as he curled them to fists. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“We’re trying to save you, sweetheart." Your hand slid down his arm, coaxing the tension from his muscle where there was once metal. Slowly, he dared to meet your eye and he wondered for a helpless moment, whether he might allow himself to fall into your trap.

“You don’t want to go back to that life, pal,” Steve sighed. “There’s nothing there for you.”

“Nothing but a life always looking over your shoulder. Scrambling to earn the trust of a nation who will never see you as anything more than the weapon Hydra created,” Peggy said, though her words were not of malice, but a reminder of the horrors he could leave behind in favor of something gentler. She paused, glancing sadly in your direction. “An unrequited love for the woman you’d trade your life for.”

Bucky closed his eyes. He couldn’t stand to look at you – the version of you he’d created in his mind. It didn’t matter that you might love him here, that he might have the life he’d been dreaming of in his own time; with his family and free of the nightmares that have plagued him for decades. None of it was real.

That wasn’t Steve. Or the Peggy he’d known only briefly in his youth.

The woman crying in the corner wasn’t his mother.

And as much as he had longed for the way in which you were currently watching him with love and affection in your gaze, Bucky would rather have his friendship with you in the real world than the imagined love of a copy constructed in his deepest fantasy.

“I have to wake up,” Bucky muttered to himself, just to remind him that he must.

He thought of his worst nightmares, of the moment that always brought him screaming back to the surface. There would be kinder ways, easier ways, but this was the most efficient. It was the air catching his foot as he walked down a flight of stairs. It was the pavement he would never hit as he fell and fell and fell—

You shared a worried glance with Steve.

Bucky lunged for the carving knife.

***

It smelled of rotten flesh.

Bucky groaned, struggling to open his eyes. The room was impossibly dark. He couldn’t see beyond his own fingertips. Beside him, a bag was hung from the ceiling connecting a line to the needle prodded into his forearm. He swallowed, though there was little to ease the sandpaper in his throat.

“Bucky!” your voice echoed down the hall. It cracked in the effort. Panicked. It wasn’t the first time you’d screamed his name. “Damn it, Bucky! Where are you!”

“M’here,” he called, though it barely escaped in a whisper. Bucky struggled to move his arm to rip the IV line from his vein, but he couldn’t so much as clench the muscle. He was paralyzed. His gaze flickered to the door – sealed shut. “Y/n...”

“Steve,” you choked out beyond the room, skidding to a stop. Your breaths were labored, like you’d been running for hours. He heard a thud against the wall, like you’d collapsed against it. “I can’t-- I can’t find him. He’s been gone too long. I’m— Oh God—I can’t—”

Bucky was certain he could only make out your voice because of his enhanced hearing, and even then, it was like you were standing above water as he drowned under the ocean currents. You were too far away. You could have run right past him and never know it.

“Here...” Bucky tried again, but he wasn’t even sure if he’d said it aloud. His fingertips reached towards the door, trembling in the effort. His back was still firm on the concrete.

“I know, I know,” you replied, likely to Steve on the coms. “We’ll find him. We have to.”

And then you were running. But the echo of your footsteps were fading down the hall. Quieter. Quieter. Until he heard nothing at all.

No. Wrong direction. No. No—come back. Come back!

Bucky used whatever strength he could manage to clench his hand around a broken stone from the concrete. He tossed it towards the wall, hoping the sound might alert someone to his presence. The thought crossed his mind only briefly as he wondered whether the Djinn itself might find him first. Though he supposed it already had.

“I’ve got something.”

Bucky held his breath. He never suspected Stark’s voice to be one to elicit relief but as he heard the iron of Tony’s knuckles tap against the outer wall, assessing the stability, the fear loosened its grip on Bucky’s chest.

“Heat signature matches Barnes’ description,” Stark continued. The mechanics of his suit were buzzing. “It’s fading. He doesn’t have much time. I’m making a door.”

Bucky prepared himself, though he couldn’t have shielded his body if he tried. The explosion was short lived, the rubble contained to the edge of the room. Only the dust of stone and a few vagrant pebbles made their way to his body.

“Got him!” Stark called into the coms. His suit was blinding against the dark of the room. He’d only made it halfway across the room before you sprinted through the opening, across the rubble, and skidded on your knees to where Bucky laid paralyzed on the floor.

“Bucky!” you cried, hovering over him, hands roaming along his body though you did not dare to touch him. It was only as he caught sight of the fear burned into your eyes that he noticed the blood coating your skin. It dripped red and angry over your suit, into your hair. It dried against your cheeks, with small streaks running from your eyes as if your tears had cleaned a path of their own.

He stared blankly at the layer of blood, shaking as his hand reached towards you though he couldn’t find the strength to lift it. He wasn’t sure you’d noticed his effort.

“Blood...?” It was all he could manage.

You shook your head rapidly, understanding him as you always did. “Not mine. I got the Djinn. Messy, but it’s over. You're safe.”

It wasn’t his safety he was worried about, but he didn’t bother correcting you. He was too busy studied the glossy reflection in your eyes, the nervous bite of your teeth over your lower lip.

“We need to get him to medical, now,” Stark urged. It wasn’t a good sign when his voice was devoid of humor.

You gathered Bucky’s hand in your own, squeezing it tight enough that he could feel the pressure of it despite the venom in his bloodstream.

“You’re going to be okay,” you told him, though it seemed more like you were trying to convince yourself. A smile pushed out onto your lips, cracking through the blood of the Djinn. You freed one of your hands only long enough to brush the hair from his eyes. Impossibly gentle. “Stay awake for me. Can you do that? I need you to try, okay?”

Bucky nodded, though he could feel himself slipping. The darkness was pulling him under quicker than he could hold on. He tried to focus on the feeling of your hands, how tightly they enveloped his own. So small in comparison. Warm.

But it was fading.

“Bucky! No, stay awake!” you cried, your voice distant. Tremored and pulsing and panicked. He could hear the inflection of fear in your voice and all he wanted to do was calm you, to tell you that it was okay, that there was nothing to be afraid of.

But the darkness claimed him before he could.

***

There was a pressure on his right arm when he woke.

Bucky stirred under thin, cotton sheets. It smelled of disinfectant, the lighting of the white room too bright to adjust as he opened his eyes. He groaned, wincing at the steady pulse of the heart monitor beside him.

When his vision finally came to, his already shallowed breath caught tight in his throat as he saw you hunched over the side of his bed, curled tight around his right arm. The edge of a plastic chair pulled up close to the bedframe barely held your weight. Your hair was sprawled over Bucky’s thigh, arms circled under his forearm as if clutching a stuffed animal to your chest.

You were still asleep, though Bucky wasn’t sure how you’d managed it in that position. He wondered how long he’d been held up in this room, how long you’d been laying watch by his side. Your skin was cleaned of the Djinn’s blood, your suit traded for leggings and a crewneck a few sizes too big for your frame.

Bucky glanced down to find himself dressed in a hoodie and grey sweatpants from his own closet. Enough time must have passed for the med team to be willing to trade the hospital gown for something more comfortable. He wondered whether it was you or Steve that made the argument to Dr. Cho.

He untucked his left hand from the blankets, lifting it just slightly in the hopes he could brush the hair from your eyes as you slept. It would be an intimate gesture; one he’d never dared before. But hoped, perhaps, it would be safe to offer while you were asleep. A gentle touch. An innocent one. Just to keep the hairs from scratching your nose.

“Buck?”

Steve was standing at the doorway, two mugs of coffee in his hands.

“Hiya, Steve.”

Slowly, the surprise on Steve’s face rose to that of relief, and he quietly made his way inside the room. Coffee was placed on the bedside table, the wafting smell of your vanilla creamer instantly easing the tension in Bucky’s muscles.

“Good to see you awake, pal,” Steve whispered, cautious not to wake you. Bucky nodded in appreciation.

“How long’s it been?” Bucky dared to ask.

As Steve sank into the chair on the left side of the bed, opposite yours, a frown pushed onto his features. He sighed, trying to find an ounce of comfort in a distinctly uncomfortable chair.

“Longer than we’d hoped.” Steve pressed his lips to the thin line, though Bucky’s supposed it was his effort to smile. He glanced over at you as you remained asleep, arms still curled around Bucky’s.

Bucky hadn’t minded when he noticed the tingling sensations or when he lost feeling in the numbness. He much preferred the ease of your comfort instead – how easily you’d fallen asleep beside him, how you found comfort in his closeness rather than revulsion.

“She hasn’t left, you know,” Steve said quietly. “I’ve only been able to drag her out long enough to shower. If she had it her way, she’d still be coated in Djinn blood. I suspect she’s only sleeping now out of pure exhaustion. Natasha’s been bringing her meals and Sam dropped off a duffle bag of books a yesterday morning. She was terrified you’d wake up alone.”

Sure enough, the evidence was clear around the room. He hadn’t noticed the cardigan draped over the chair in the corner or the blanket from your bedroom hanging on the arm rest. The latest book you’d been reading was propped open on the nightstand by his bed, a faded photograph of the team from last year’s holiday party used as the bookmark. A tray of barely touched food sat on the table.

He’d never known you to do something like this. Though he supposed he’d never been out this long before.

“We weren’t sure if you’d wake up again,” Steve admitted. “It’s been almost four days. Without the serum, you would have been dead before Tony found you. The Djinn... it’s different than what we’ve fought before. It went for your mind and... well... we know—”

“—it’s already pretty messed up to begin with,” Bucky finished, though Steve scowled at his frankness.

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” Steve said. He set a hand on Bucky’s left shoulder. Brotherly comfort. He sighed. “I should let Dr. Cho know you’re awake. She’ll want to do some tests.” He paused, glancing in your direction. “Should I give you a few minutes before I track her down?”

Bucky swallowed; his throat suddenly dry. He nodded.

The smile that graced Steve’s face did not go unnoticed. With that, he picked up his mug – black, no sugar – and left yours waiting. He gave a casual salute and headed for the door.

And then, the room was quiet again. Except for the heart monitor.

He was about to call your name when you started to shift. Your nose scrunched, eye pressing tight to avoid the inflection of florescent lights. A light groan as you turned your head, setting your forehead on Bucky’s hand. Slowly, as if it took most of your strength, you leaned back into your chair. Your hold on his arm did not waiver.

It took a moment as your eyes fluttered open before you noticed he was awake. Bucky didn’t dare say a word, his breath suddenly caught in his throat. You cracked your neck, stretched your back. A short glance to the bagel Natasha had brought, still left uneaten several hours later. She’d scold you for that, certainly.

Then, as if time itself had slowed, you looked at him.

It only took a second. A short, panicked realization that you could see the blue of his eyes, before you scrambled out of your chair. It fell on its side and you nearly tripped over it yourself as you backed up a few paces, your grip on his hand flinching back to cover your mouth.

“Bucky? You’re— You’re awake?” you gasped as if you weren’t sure whether to trust your own eyes. You were staring as if you’d seen a ghost.

“Seems that way,” Bucky chuckled lightly, pushing out a smile in hopes to ease your panic.

You wasted no time before you lunged at him. The force of it caught him off guard, but suddenly, your arms were wrapped around his shoulders, your face pressed to the crook of his neck. Bucky only realized as he finally pushed past the surprise to set his hands against your spine that you were shaking.

“We thought— I wasn’t sure if— God, Bucky you almost—”

“Hey, I’m all right. I’m okay,” Bucky quickly replied, running a hand along your back. Slow, soothing motions to draw the trembling to the surface and expel it from your body. He’d never held you like this before and he held his breath to keep his heart from jumping from his chest.

“You can’t do that again,” you mumbled, holding him tighter as if being pressed to his chest was not close enough. “I don’t know what I would have—”

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Dr. Cho stood at the edge of the room, clipboard in hand. She smiled as you reluctantly unwound yourself from around Bucky and sank into the chair next to him. It didn’t slip his notice when you reached for his hand, squeezing it tight in your own. He wondered whether you’d done that for his sake or yours.

“It’s good to see you awake,” Dr. Cho said as she stepped into the room. She wore a soft smile; a kindness of a woman who was both physician and friend. “How are you feeling?”

Bucky swallowed. He wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

“Why don’t we let Agent Y/l/n step out so we can run some tests?” Dr. Cho advised. Your grip tightened on his hand. “I’d like to talk to you about your experience with the Djinn and when you were in the dream state.”

Bucky nodded. When he turned to look at you, your muscles were taunt. You were staring at Dr. Cho, but your shoulders were squared on Bucky. Your hands nervously squeezing at his, thumb tracing at the line of his palm. It was the same mannerisms he’d caught hazed glimpses of when you’d begged him to stay awake in the factory. If he wasn’t mistaken, you appeared as if you were afraid.

“It’s all right,” Bucky told you, offering a smile. “Get some rest. I can’t imagine you slept well here. I’ll come find you when I’m cleared, okay?”

You paused, uncertain. The edge of your cheek tugged between your teeth, gnawing at the flesh. You spared a short glance in Dr. Cho’s direction before you turned back to him. Your shoulders sagged; a heavy breath pressed from your lungs. Bucky wondered about your hesitancy – what it meant that you so clearly did not want to leave his side, how you’d spent days cooped up in his hospital room waiting for him to wake up.

It wasn’t until you started to untangle your fingers from around his own, that he realized you’d still been holding his hand. Slowly, you began to stand and gathered your things around the room. You were quiet as you made your way to the door and Bucky couldn’t help the sense of dread in his stomach as he watched you leave.

But then, in the frame, you glanced over your shoulder. “Meet me on the roof?”

Bucky smiled. It was the one place he’d found respite in when he first moved to the tower. High above the city lights and the traffic below, he could stare up into the stars until he was lost into their endless abyss. You'd taken to wandering around on the roof a few times yourself when sleep was a distant friend. It was the sanctuary you’d once bonded over.

“The roof,” Bucky confirmed with a gentle nod. He didn’t know when he’d be able to get there, but he knew you’d wait for him.

***

Nightfall had swept the city before Bucky was cleared by the medical team. He didn’t bother changing or returning to his room before he set off for the back stairwell. The door, whose hinges were often stuck with disuse, was left ajar. The stairwell was colder than he remembered, though he supposed it had been some time since he’d ventured his way to the roof. Lately, he’d found midnight comfort in the kitchen by a pot of tea and the quiet murmur of the infomercial you’d fallen asleep in front of.

He tried not to think about the dream Dr. Cho had asked him to walk through again in excruciating detail. The Djinn they’d encountered was apparently not the only one SHIELD had a radar on. Several agents had fallen victim to the fantasy world within the last few weeks. None has survived. Except Bucky.

Dr. Cho was kind enough not to react when Bucky explained the obvious trigger that woke him to the fabricated natural of his reality. She simply scribbled a note on her clipboard, though it was several sentences longer than he would have expected necessary. She emphasized that he was safe, that the Djinn had been killed and he would not be subjected to that world again.

Bucky ignored the lingering feeling of disappointment.

He pushed open the door to the roof with a little extra effort from his shoulder and was met with a wave of cold air. He hissed, crossing his arms over his chest as he stepped outside.

The first thing he noticed was the strings of Christmas lights draped overhead and tied to a banister at the edge of the roof. A cardboard box marked as ‘YULETIDE OR WHATEVER’ in Stark’s handwriting sat propped up by the door. Bucky was almost certain the decorations had been taken down weeks ago.

He followed the lights, stretching a hand up to touch the bulbs. They were warm with electricity. The wind seemed to pick up as he turned the corner, though suddenly he couldn’t feel much of a breeze at all when he spotted you.

You were sitting on the edge of a blanket you’d draped out on the floor, fidgeting with your phone. The light illuminated against your skin, highlighting the lip you tucked so nervously between your teeth. A bottle of unopened wine sat on the ground beside you – two empty glasses on either side.

“Y/n?”

Your eyes snapped up, startled. A hand clutched at your chest. “Bucky!” You scrambled to your feet, quickly brushing out the lines in your clothes. “I didn’t hear you come up! How are you feeling? Did Helen clear you okay? Do you want to go inside? I know it’s a bit cold out here but I thought—”

“I’m fine,” Bucky chuckled, amused by the sudden shift in your energy. He was used to the teasing and the banter. Nervous rambling was entirely new, though he wasn’t complaining. It was endearing.

“Good, good,” you nodded, exhaling a heavy breath. You glanced out to the city lights.

“You didn’t have to do all this, you know,” Bucky added, gesturing to the lights and the bottle of wine. “I’ve spent a lot of nights up here in the dark without one of Stark’s good bottles of wine and managed just fine.”

He was teasing, but when you returned his smile, it was smaller than he’d expected. Almost forced.

“Oh, I know,” you chuckled anxiously. “I just—um, I wanted it to be different tonight.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Different? Why?”

You wrung your hands and Bucky realized you’d barely met his eye since he’d approached you. It wasn’t like you to be this nervous. His heart started to pick up, his body on edge. Something was wrong. He was half prepared to take a walk around the perimeter to make sure the two of you weren’t being watched. An old habit, but a safe one.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you... and um... and I wasn’t sure how,” you explained, though Bucky wasn’t following. You’d started to pace along the open space, giving Bucky the chance to eye for listening devices while you were distracted.

“I’ve been trying to work up the courage for a while actually,” you laughed under your breath. It faded quickly in favor of something grimmer. “But then—then last week I was confronted with the possibility that I might not ever get to tell you. When you stopped responding on coms, it felt like the floor had been ripped out from under me. You were missing for almost twenty minutes. That thing has drained our agents in less than ten and when Tony found you... Bucky, I’ve never felt fear like that before.”

Bucky stilled, his attention quickly diverting from his mental reconnaissance. He watched you as you relentlessly paced, unable to meet his eye. You only spared quick glances in his direction, as if to make sure he was still there, still listening.

“I didn’t know if you would—” you clenched your jaw, unable to say it. You pushed out a tense breath, forcing yourself to stand still. Slowly, you lifted your eyes to his, a sort of relief beginning to wash through you. “But you’re okay now. You’re alive and you’re here. And I can’t let another day go by without telling you. Our jobs are dangerous. Every mission could be our last. It’s what we both signed up for, but—”

Bucky shook his head, his brows knitted together. “I’m not following.”

You pressed your lips to a smile. Carefully, you took a few steps closer to him. When your fingertips touched his own, he almost flinched. It wasn’t something you’d done before today, so easily taking his hands – hands that had killed and tortured, hands that were barely human. You did so without the slightest trace of hesitancy.

A breath filled your lungs. Then, an exhale that seemed to carry years of weight.

“I’m in love with you.”

Bucky's heart plunged as he jolted two steps back. His hands slipped out from your own, flinching back to his sides. Tremors began to shake in his right hand and he curled it to a fist, for the first time wishing more of his body were made of metal to shield the utterly human panic coursing through his veins. If he glanced down the concrete under his boots, he was nearly certain it would have pulled out from under him.

There was a short flash of hurt of your face as you studied his reaction, swallowing nervously through a lump quickly burning in your throat. Bucky tried not to notice.

“You don’t have to feel the same way,” you offered quickly, voice wavering now. “I just thought you deserved to know that someone—that I—”

“Oh God, it’s happening again.”

The words slipped out the moment they entered his thoughts. It made sense now – why you’d been so attached to him in the med wing. All the hand holding. The embraces. The sudden shift in your outward affection towards him. And now... your confession. It was as real as his mother’s dining room and the version of his friend seated at the table beside him. It was a dream. A fantasy.

He never woke up.

Fuck.

“What’s ‘happening again?’” you asked cautiously, a hand extended in his direction as if taming a frightened animal.

Bucky shook his head. He didn’t have time to explain or argue with a figment of his imagination. He didn’t want to consider how long he’d been under the Djinn's spell, whether the team would find him in time or if he’d be little more than a mummified husk by the time they discovered his body. He supposed it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stay here.

“I need to wake up,” he muttered to himself, quickly glancing around the roof for the tools at his disposal. He pushed past you, looking for a corkscrew for the wine bottle. It would be messy, but it’d be efficient. He imagined he’d wake up before it even got the tip of it to his throat. There was nothing in his memory beyond lunging for his mother’s carving knife. No pain. Not even a scratch. A simple means to an end.

It wasn’t as if he was looking to end his life. Quite the opposite, actually.

This was him fighting to survive.

“’Wake up?’ Bucky, what are you talking about?” You chased after him, grabbing a hold of his shoulders and forcing him to meet your eye. There was a panic laying within them that hadn’t been present in his mother’s dining room. Your fingers dug into his right shoulder, pressing into the muscle there. He vaguely registered the grip on his left – still metal, still solid.

“This isn’t real,” Bucky grumbled and you released him immediately. You stumbled back a few paces in shock. He had to admit that wasn't the reaction he’d been expecting. You hadn’t played these games with him last time. The desolation in your eyes seemed so real.

“You think you’re still under the Djinn’s spell.” It wasn’t a question.

Bucky swallowed. He shouldn’t be wasting time talking to you and yet— the devastation in your voice nearly buckled his knees. Knowing it would be a mistake, he forced himself to look at you anyway. Your lips were parted and trembling. Your eyes wide, pupils blown. You took a step towards him and he retreated.

“You’re not going to convince me to stay,” he warned, tearing his eyes away from you and the trembling of your lower lip. He returned back to the task at hand. “I have to get back.”

“’Back?’” You rushed after him, following on his heels as he tore apart the roof in search of a stray crowbar or an exposed wire. He picked up a rock and studied it for a moment, contemplating, before you swiped it from his hand and chucked it across the roof. “You’re already awake! Bucky, this is real!”

He groaned, unable to find a single weapon on the roof. Until he remembered he stood on the top of one of the tallest skyrises in the city. The building under his feet would serve as a weapon itself, his own body the bullet. He looked at the ledge, but it seemed even in the fantasy world you were better at anticipating his next moves than he remembered.

You jolted out in front of him, blocking his path. You held your hands up and it was only then he noticed how badly they were shaking. Violent tremors to match the rapid rise and fall of your chest. Your eyes were near black with how wide your pupil had blown.

“Bucky, stop! What are you doing?!”

“I need to wake up,” he said again, shoving his way past you. It didn’t stop you from chasing after him. As you always did.

You grabbed his hand, yanking him to a standstill, demanding he meet your eye. “What makes you so sure this isn’t real?!”

Bucky clenched his jaw. “The same way I knew the last one wasn’t real.”

“And how was that?” you challenged, the fear in your voice suddenly laced with fire. But it was smothered to smoke the second Bucky turned on his heels, stilling you in your tracks as his eyes met yours.

“You kissed me.”

He didn’t bother waiting for the fabricated look of surprise.

He yanked his hand from your grasp and turned back to the ledge.

It was easier than he expected to climb onto the railing. He wondered whether Stark or the architects had considered the height of the single barrier between surface and the open air. He steadied himself, balanced on the beam no wider than his boots. From there, Bucky could glance down and see the endless stream of blurred traffic lights in perfect reflection to the lights glimmering from the stars above. The wind was brutal against his ears.

He’d wake before he touched the ground. He might even come to the moment he stepped off.

He closed his eyes.

Ready to go home. Back to a reality that was unkind, but real.

To his best friend.

To you.

Then, a clicking sound.

“You want to jump?,” you snapped. “Fine.”

Bucky’s eyes snapped to the handcuff now secured on his wrist; its twin clasped tightly around your own.

He knew this wasn’t real and yet seeing you standing next to him, so close to the edge, only a breath away from a fall that could end your life... it crippled him. He began to wonder whether it was possible for his heart to leap straight from his chest and fall to the pavement before he had a chance to jump.

“What are you doing?” he gaped, wide eyes staring at you.

You shrugged. “If you’re so certain this world isn’t real, then it shouldn’t matter if you pull me off the roof with you.”

Bucky froze. The wind could have knocked him off the ledge in either direction. Adrenaline began to pump wildly in his veins. “That’s one hell of a bluff.”

“I know you, Bucky,” you replied, deadly calm, gazing out to the skyline and the empire state building lit bright in the distance. It was quite beautiful if it weren’t for the plunge a hundred stories less than a step away. “You might not mind risking your own life... but on the chance you’re wrong about this world, I can bet you won’t risk mine.”

“I’m not—I'm not trying to kill myself,” Bucky argued. He groaned, gazing out to the skyline and staring longingly to its abyss. “I’m trying to wake up. I’m trying to survive! Don’t you get that? This is me saving myself. I’m trying to get back home. I don’t belong here!”

A devastating moment of silence passed as you seemed to absorb his reasoning. Bucky held his breath, trying to convince himself to take the step forward anyway, before you could manage to break his will and convince him to stay. He was so painfully close to staying...

“You truly think you’re that unlovable?” you whispered under the wrestle of wind. Bucky turned to find tears spilling over your cheeks. His heart lurched. “Do you really believe the only world I could possibly love you is in a fantasy built by a monster?”

“You don’t think I want this to be real!?” Bucky shouted, the sudden rush of anger – built of a torturous longing – quickly infiltrating through his veins. “You don’t think I would have killed to have survived the war and see my ma again? To—To have grown old in the time I was supposed to and to have never heard of Hydra again? To have watched Steve marry the love of his life like he was supposed to? You don’t think I would have given anything to be the man you were going to marry? To just stay there and be happy? And now this! When everything is the same and I was almost fooled by it all... and you stand there and tell me you love me as if I haven’t dreamt of those worlds since the day I met you?!”

Bucky shook his head, tears sliding over his jaw line and spilling down a hundred stories to the pavement below. Exhaustion tugged him under, anger washing into a sorrow he couldn’t give a name to.

“You have no idea how badly I want this to be real,” Bucky choked out. “There’s a reason you’re at the center of these dreams, Y/n.”

He could hear you crying, though he did not dare to look at you. Your hand slipped into his, handcuffs chiming together, the metal links flowing against the wind. It was warm against his own, taking away the sting of the chill in favor of something kinder. You squeezed his hand.

“I don’t know how else to get home to you,” Bucky muttered, defeated. “You have to let me go.”

He could feel your eyes on him, blurred by your tears; could feel the warm pressure of your hand encasing his. Security, safety. Even if it was a delusion. How strange a monster would offer something so kind as it drained his body to a husk.

Bucky closed his eyes as you rested your forehead to his shoulder, breathing in the scent of him. Sterilized from the hospital room and still – lingering with the evergreen candle he burned in his bedroom to avoid the cold embrace of total darkness. He wondered how it were possible he could smell the pretzels and hot dogs from venders on street corners a hundred stories below.

“Bucky?” There was a renewed hope in your voice, a realization in the slight hitch of your breath. It was more painful to him than he cared to admit.

“Yeah?”

“There was something else Tony said the day of our briefing,” you began steadily, “another way to challenge the Djinn’s fantasy world. Do you remember what it was?”

He pictured Tony standing at the front of the conference room, Steve tucked in the corner behind him with his arms folded over his chest. An image of the Djinn was displayed on the monitors behind him. Bucky held back a shiver at the memory of it.

“There are some things that we know, deep down, could not be true. In this reality or the next,” Tony warned.

“Under this logic, how do we prove anything is real?” Sam scoffed, kicking his feet up onto the table. “I could be strung up in the Djinn’s layer right now and not know it. What if I don’t recognize this all-telling universal lie?”

“You’re telling me this is your fantasy world, Wilson?” Nastasha teased, winking at him from across the table. “Debrief meetings?”

“He has a point, though.” Steve pushed himself from the wall to stand beside Tony.

Tony sighed. “The fantasy is just that. A fantasy. A world where no harm can come to you. It’s why you’d wake up the same way you would in a dream if you were to die. The Djinn would not construct a world only to torture you. What would be the point in that? It wants to keep you sedated and calm... happy. It’s a dream world for a reason. The characters in it cannot hurt you.”

“So basically... draw some blood,” Natasha offered.

Tony frowned, though it curved into a slow smile as he hung his head.

“Let me prove it you,” you begged, slowly pulling yourself away from the ledge, sinking back to the safety of the roof. “Let me prove to you that this is real.”

Bucky paused, watching you from his position on the edge. He tried to force himself to take the final step off the other side, to let the air catch him in his descent, to not care what it might do to the dream-state version of the woman he loved. But his body would not allow him its reprieve, not while your fate was tied to his.

Slowly, Bucky nodded. He allowed you to ease him away from the ledge and guide him to the center of the roof, far enough away from the drop. Despite the cuffs between you, it was your grip tight on his hand that offered him a sense of security to solid ground.

Once you were certain you were as far from the edge as you could manage, you pulled the corkscrew from your pocket, eyeing him suspiciously as he tensed at the sight of it. He supposed he hadn’t given you a reason to trust him around it given how eagerly he’d scavenged the roof for a weapon just moments earlier.

“Remember what Tony said?” you asked, setting the tip of the corkscrew against his forearm in no more than a gentle scratch. “That the people the Djinn creates in your dream—”

“— can’t cause you pain. Yeah,” Bucky finished. His heart was pounding so loudly he was certain you could hear it. It hadn’t crossed his mind to test the world before he escaped from it. Why would he? He was already convinced it wasn’t real. And yet, his hand started to shake so badly, he could help but wonder whether you could feel it.

“I’ll stop the second it draws blood, okay? The absolute second, I promise,” you reassured him, not moving an inch until he met your eye again. “You’re safe with me.”

Bucky stilled. His breath held tight to his lungs.

You’re safe with me.

It was a phrase you used often. One he sought out in the dead of night when he could not drive the mad scientist from his head or the feeling of a scalpel to his bones. You’d whisper it until the cover of night with your arms encased around his shoulders and his heartbeat to your chest. He’d memorized the tone of your inflections, the cadence of your breath, until he could call upon it even when you were worlds away.

That sense of safety – of security – extended beyond the terrors plaguing his dreams. It found him sunken into the living room couch, two movies in, with a bowl of popcorn in his lap and you nestled beside him. Teasing and smiling and tossing M&Ms into his mouth until your laughter carried in echoes down the hall. Brightness extending to him even when he spent the day locked in his room and sheltering from the light. You’d reached your hand to him with eighties films and microwave popcorn and he took it willingly.

It dawned on him with the full force of a freight train that he was the first person you sought out in every room. It was your eyes he caught watching him from across the field and your bullets clearing his blind spots. His was the position you ran to when hope was crumbling and his name was the one you called when you were scared. It was his presence that eased your worry. His comfort that brough your relief.

Stolen glances. Shy smiles. Nervous habits. Moments he’d dismissed in favor of one excuse or another under the adamant truth that your love was not one he could possibly earn. But as you watched him, waiting patiently for permission to cause him merely a fraction of pain as if you might feel it yourself, Bucky remembered every moment you proved him wrong.

“Wait,” he choked out, staring at the point of the corkscrew as you quickly held it back from his skin. Bucky took in a shaken breath, slowly daring to meet your eyes. They watched him with such concern, such compassion, it nearly crumbled him. “If I had jumped—” he clamped his jaw, barely able to say it. And still, he forced the words out. “You really would have let me kill you?”

You smiled solemnly at him, your hold on the corkscrew relaxing. The hand cupped under his forearm pressed gently against his skin – your fingertips dancing over muscle like keys on a piano. Smooth movements. Tender touches. The panic slipped from his veins.

“Maybe that’s my universal truth, Bucky,” you told him simply. “In this reality or the next, I know you could never hurt me.”

Bucky nodded so slowly he wasn’t sure you saw it. He wasn’t entirely sure he believed you, not knowing what the Winter Soldier might do if he were to cross your path again. But there was a reason Bucky so often threw himself in the line of fire to protect you in the field, why he hadn’t called to you for backup when he caught the first glimpse of the Djinn after you split up. It was the same reason he couldn’t bring himself to jump while you were cuffed to his side.

You caught his eye again, ever so patient, and adjusted your hold on the corkscrew.

“You ready?” Asking permission again because you knew what it was for him to have his consent taken away.

The sharp edge of the screw hovered over his arm. Your thumb stroked against his forearm to ease his fear.

Bucky decided before the tip broke his skin that this world was his own.

He didn’t watch as you pressed the corkscrew to his skin in a short, careful line barely hard enough to scratch. He didn’t look at the tiny pebbles of blood prickled in its wake. Even as he felt the slight sting of open air on the cut, Bucky was entirely focused on you.

On the way you tugged your teeth between your lips in concentration. On the wince in your expression as you drew blood. On the sorrow in your eyes in being the one to cause him pain, if only for a moment.

The cut was already clotting when you released his hand. The corkscrew still closed tight into your grip and your eyes were focused on the center of his chest, as if you were afraid to discover whether or not he believed you.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky exhaled, sinking down to his knees. He bowed his head as the reality of what he’d nearly done crashed into him; weight crippling into his chest as if he’d been flooded by the heavy current of an Atlantic undertow. His curled his hands into his sweatpants seeking purchase, his forehead leaning to rest against your thigh to ground him. “I’m so sorry. God—I'm—”

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” you soothed, kneeling to his level. Your arms enveloped him, tugging him against your chest and he gave you no resistance. He hadn’t even noticed you had unlatched the cuff from his wrist as he began to shake in your arms, his body heaving under the weight of a choice that could have ended his life. And yours.

“I’ve got you,” you eased, fingertips tracing along his spine.

He wasn’t sure if he was ready for this to be real; to not have a chance to redo the moment he’d spent years dreaming of. But Bucky’s life had never gone according to plan. He’d spent his years free from Hydra analyzing every moment he could remember; wondering if he had made one different choice, would he have been subjected to the horrors he faced. He couldn’t change his past or what had already been done. But he could start somewhere new – somewhere he could believe that the love of a woman he adored could be real and earned and something he could be worthy to receive.

“Will you tell me again?” He could hear how broken he sounded, the whispered request to try again, to react differently this time. As you cupped the side of his face, slowly drawing his gaze to yours, he wondered whether he might have to clarify, to ask through the heat of his cheeks to hear the words he’d dismissed without a second thought.

But you began to smile and all Bucky could feel was relief.

“I’m in love with you, Bucky.”

His heart could have caved in if it weren’t soaring ten stories above. Bucky wasn’t sure how to handle the swell of unbridled affection in your gaze and the reprieve it gave him. All he could do was return your smile until it ached in his cheeks, turn his face just enough to touch his lips to the palm of your hand, and sigh.

“One more time?”

Your laughter brightened the night sky at his request and Bucky wondered how it was possible that his lifetime of pain and suffering had led him to this moment with you.

“I love you,” you laughed through glossy tears.

Bucky leaned in closer, the tip of his nose brushing yours, the heat of your breath on his lips. “Tell me every day?”

You nodded, wrapping your arms around his arm. Inching closer. Your mouth grazed his. “Until you get sick of it.”

“Not possible.”

Then, he kissed you. And he questioned how he could have ever believed this was made of anything but the tangible fabric of his reality. No dream could possibly come close. No fantasy could have predicted the way you breathed new life into his bones or how your tongue swept across his lower lip or the knots that bloomed in his stomach when you curled your fingers into his hair. His imagination wasn’t nearly clever enough or kind enough to consider how beautifully you kissed him.

When you finally pulled back, Bucky realized he was near short of breath. His lungs were burning and his chest rose quickly, but he was still eager for more. He kissed at the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your jaw, and training along your neck as you laughed enough to make him forget what he almost lost.

Bucky stilled, closing his eyes as the breeze swept chills down his spine. With his nose tucked to the crook of your neck, giving him the chance to breathe in the smell of your shampoo, he decided he would not turn his back from the roof or the barrier he’d nearly jumped from. He couldn’t keep sweeping his trauma under the rug, forgetting the moments he’d rather ignore. If he couldn’t find the strength to do it for himself, he knew he could do it for you.

He pulled back, though you kept a hand on the side of his face, gently brushing your thumb over his cheekbone.

“Do you think...” he sighed, nervous now. “If I told Sam I wanted to talk to his friend... the therapist down at the VA... do you think you could go with me?”

The relief in your smile was enough of an answer, but Bucky spoke up again before you could respond.

“Just to, um, the appointment, I mean,” he continued, his cheeks flushing red. “You don’t have to sit in or anything. I just... I might need a little push to get me to the lobby. But I’ll go. I promise. No more trying to fling myself off roofs when the woman of my dreams tell me she loves me.”

He laughed despite himself, chuckling through the awkwardness of it – the trauma of it, too – and you tried to catch your own laugh as it fought against the frown tugging it down.

“That’s not funny,” you warned, though you were smiling. Still, you softened, leaning in to press a chaste kiss against his lips. “But of course, I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you,” he murmured into another kiss. The wind began to pick up again and Bucky pulled you closer into his arms. Resting his chin on the crown of your head, he guided you down to the blanket you’d laid out on the ground hours earlier. The unopened bottle of wine stood untouched within arm's reach.

He was content to lay there with you until the morning – warm in your embrace and soothed by the gentle hum of your breaths. His fingertips traced in patterns along your spine; spirals and circles and following the lines he’d spent admiring from a distance. Then you began to stir, propping a hand up against his chest to get a better look at him.

“Woman of your dreams, huh?” you teased, a brightness returning.

Bucky chuckled. “In this reality and the next, sweetheart.”

---

“I’m not setting you up with one of my friends again, James, Dot is still traumatized by your motorcycle ride from hell.”

“Oh come on, that was over a year ago. Besides, I don’t want one of your friends, I want you to come with me.” This caused you to break out into a fit of laughter so hard tears formed in your eyes, and when you finally calmed down, Bucky was glaring at you, arms crossed, and an adorable little pout on his face. “Remember when I had to come pick you up from that party all the way across the city a couple weeks ago? You owe me!”

"I owe you $20, not a day of pretending to be your girlfriend to get your parents off your back." But he knew it was impossible to say no to him, and that shit eating grin on his face said he knew it too. This was gonna be a long weekend.

--

The next couple of days were weird, to say the least. Bucky took you to buy a dress and made sure he had a tie to match, then took you for lunch after, and was an actual gentleman. Something was very very wrong.

“Okay, who are you and what have you done with my fuckboy roommate?” You said as you made your way into the apartment, dropping everything into a pile on the couch.

Apparently he had changed his career path to be an actor, because his gasp and pearl clutching were almost believable if it weren’t for the smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.

You managed to hold eye contact for a full 30 seconds before you both dissolved into a fit of laughter, and you threw a lightweight bag at him in response. He dodged it easily and came barrelling toward you, throwing you down on the couch and settling his full weight on you.

“Get. Off. Dumbass,” you heaved, not keen on having a 6 foot something man crush you to death, and while he did lift his weight slightly, he didn’t budge his position.

“So, I’m thinking-”

“Oh no, don’t hurt yourself.” You laughed at your own joke, but his weight pressing into you yet again caused it to turn into a wheeze. He eased off with a smirk before continuing.

“As I was saying, I think that we should practice for this weekend.” Your confusion must have been written all over your face, because he elaborated. “Well, my ma thinks we’re actually dating, so we need to make it believable. We should probably start by having sex.”

He was so tickled by his own joke that you were able to actually push him off you and into the floor, which only made him laugh harder.

“Fuck you,” you snarked, and he doubled down in his laughter.

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I was goin’ for, sweetheart.” Seriously, what alien had taken over this man for him to start calling you pet names.

“I’m not sleeping with you, James.” He pouted at that, because of course he did. “At least not yet.”

And that’s how you left him - still on the floor, red faced, mouth hanging open like a total idiot.

–

Thank god you and Bucky were best friends, because otherwise this drive to upstate New York would have killed you. Instead, it was filled with both of you screaming Doja Cat and Taylor Swift for 4 hours. By the time you reached Bucky’s parents’ house, your voice was hoarse and your smile was wide.

And Bucky just kept surprising you. As he parked the car, you sent a text to your mom to let her know you had made it safely, and he came around and opened the door for you. Then, he carried your overnight bag inside, refusing to even let you touch it.

You wondered if this was what it was like to actually date Bucky, then immediately pushed the thought from your head.

When you finally stepped into the house, Bucky was already being smothered in kisses all over his face by his mother. Who then directed all her attention to you as soon as you stepped through the threshold.

“James! You didn’t tell me you were dating Y/N,” she exclaimed, clearly surprised to see her son’s roommate of the last two years was who he had brought as a date. Who he had claimed was his girlfriend. He looked a little embarrassed, but truly flushed red when she continued. “With the way he talks about you, I have to say I’m not entirely surprised.”

You didn’t say anything to that, yet, but oh Bucky was not getting out of that conversation.

“How sweet of him,” you replied as she wrapped you in a hug. This wasn’t the first time you had met her, but it was the first time you were in her home, and she seemed more than happy to have you there. It was a nice feeling.

“Alright, you kids, go wash up and dinner should be ready in about an hour.” Then she looked between you, obviously debating her next words. “And remember Rebecca is staying here tonight, so keep quiet so she can get her beauty sleep before the wedding.”

“Ma!” Bucky threw his hands in the air, before grabbing your bags again and hastily making his way upstairs.

You just kept your eyes on the floor, following Bucky, trying not to let your immense embarrassment show.

“Sorry about her,” Bucky was saying as soon as you entered his room. “She really just-”

“So, you talk about me a lot?” His only response to that was a groan, burying his head in his pillows.

“C’mon, you’re like, my best friend. Of course I’m gonna talk about ya.” Even though you both knew that wasn’t the full truth, your only response was a hmm before you made your way over to your bag to grab a change of clothes.

“Turn around, Barnes, we’re not there yet,” you said as you noticed him eyeing you with curiosity.

“I’ve seen you naked before. No big deal.”

“Yeah, that’s because you don’t know how to knock, creep. Now turn around.” He rolled his eyes but did as you asked.

Even when you noticed him sneaking glances, you found you didn’t quite mind it.

Fuck.

You had never had these types of thoughts before. Sure, he was undeniably attractive, but the two of you had always just been friends. Maybe you flirted pretty often, but that was just both of your personality types, it never meant anything.

Now you were questioning your entire relationship. Had his flirting been more? Did you just never notice? There were a lot of things you simply weren’t ready to unpack.

Thankfully, you were saved by Winnie yelling up the stairs that dinner was ready. You didn’t even say a word to Bucky as you made your way downstairs.

–

Despite your racing thoughts, you had a lot of fun at dinner. You and Becca formed a tag team to gang up on Bucky and make fun of him, much to his dismay. And whenever he would start to say something back, Winnie would give him a look akin to don’t you dare.

The real issue came after dinner, when you and Bucky were getting ready for bed, and it really hit you that you would be sharing a bed with him. It wasn’t the first time you had slept together; falling asleep on the couch during a movie night, him crawling into your bed when he had a nightmare, or sometimes you were having a hard night and just needed the presence of your best friend. But this felt different.

Maybe it was your mini revelation of Bucky’s possible feelings, or a change in your own. Regardless, when you finally crawled under the covers, you kept to the very edge of the bed, scrolling through Twitter on your phone in an attempt to ignore Bucky’s blatant staring.

Finally, you couldn’t stand the feeling of eyes on you, so with a sigh you locked your phone, carefully setting it on the nightstand, before turning to finally face him.

“Something is very wrong here.” Your breath hitched at his words, scared you had somehow given your inner turmoil away. “I’m not being cuddled right and it’s urgent that you do so right away.”

You let out a deep breath, before rolling your eyes at him. He was your best friend, there was no need to be awkward. All these thoughts were only coming because you were pretending to date. They didn’t mean anything and you all would go home in a couple days and everything would be fine and normal.

Having calmed your overactive thinking for the moment, you scooted closer to Bucky, allowing him to wrap his arms around your waist and rest his chin on the top of your head.

You fell asleep to the steady rhythm of Bucky’s breath, thinking about how safe and secure you felt with him.

–

The next day was a whirlwind. Becca asked you if you wanted to come to the venue to get ready with her and her bridesmaids, and of course you said yes. But this separated you from Bucky for most of the day.  She tried to get you to talk about your relationship with Bucky, but you just kept redirecting her back to wedding things, which she was more than happy to talk about. You selfishly thought about asking her what Bucky had said about you, knowing she would definitely tell you, but decided it was best to leave everyone else out of whatever was going on with you two.

Even though you had fun, it was a relief to finally get out of the clouds of hairspray and perfume and be by his side. The last time he had seen you, you were in sweats and a hoodie, all your makeup and your dress in a bag to take with you to the venue. So when he caught sight of you, fully ready, his jaw nearly dropped to the floor.

“You look… breathtaking,” he finally said after staring at you for a solid minute, just taking you in. You felt your cheeks warm at his comment, but just placed a quick kiss on his cheek in thanks.

That was new.

He seemed pleased, though, as he led you to your seats - in the front row right beside Winnie. You felt like a fraud, like you weren’t really supposed to be here with the family. Like you weren’t really a part of them.

It really pulled on your heartstrings when Becca finally came down the aisle, and Bucky teared up, obviously feeling emotional seeing his big sister on this big day. When you sat down, you grabbed his hand and held it in your lap for the entire ceremony, He flashed you a quick, grateful smile before turning his attention to the vows.

Winnie gave you a knowing look.

But what really surprised - and kind of scared - you was after the ceremony, when the family was taking pictures together, and Becca asked you to join. She said she could tell you would be around for a while. Which only made you think even more about what Bucky had told his family.

You were best friends, and fully intended to be for a long time, but that was completely different. It felt like a serious girlfriend thing, which you guessed that’s exactly what you were supposed to be in that moment. Bucky tried to wave them off, saying you didn’t like pictures, but neither Becca nor Winnie was having any of that.

So that’s how you ended up ingrained in the Barnes’ family wedding photos, praying to whatever was out there that you would always be in Bucky’s life.

After the photos came dinner, where Bucky sat next to you, and constantly kept a hand on your thigh unless he was getting you another drink from the bar. You felt warm and fuzzy inside, which is probably what compelled you to pull Bucky to the dance floor about an hour later.

There was about a minute of a fun, fast paced song until it mellowed into a slow dance - something you were not prepared for. You started to pull away, figuring Bucky wouldn’t want to dance to this, but he pulled you close, hands settling on your waist.

“C’mon, doll, I won’t step on your toes. Promise.” His grin when you looked up at him was big and goofy, and you couldn’t help but to match it. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you rested your head on his shoulder, content to just sway for the entire song.

When one slow song faded into another, you finally lifted your head again, only to be a hair’s breadth away from Bucky’s lip. You saw a foreign emotion flashed through his eyes before he closed to space to press his lips to yours. Shocked, it took you a moment to kiss back. But then you quickly pulled away, unsure of what was going on, what your feelings were.

“I, uh, I need to get some air,” was all you could say before you pulled out of Bucky’s arms and headed for the wide double doors leading to a balcony. Once you were out in the warm summer air, you felt a little better, a little more clear headed.

You leaned against the railing, trying to process everything from the last few days. You didn’t know how long you were out there, but eventually you heard footsteps approaching, and a body leaned into the rail beside you.

Not even turning your head, you knew it was Bucky. He carried an aura about that always gave you the sense of security, and you could smell vanilla and sandalwood and something else that was entirely him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me, I would never want to make you uncomfortable.” His voice sounded watery, like he was holding back tears. And it broke your heart.

“That’s not… Buck, I’m just confused. I don’t know what you’re feeling, and you’re not exactly telling me. I think everything has just been a shock, like I’m just now seeing something that’s been right in front of me. I just need an explanation.”

He took a deep breath, as if he needed to gather himself before he said anything.

“I realized about a year ago that I liked you as more than just a friend. It was the first night I had a nightmare in a long time, and you didn’t think anything of it. You just crawled into bed with me and wrapped your arms around me. You didn’t ask questions in the morning, like it was the most normal thing to do.” He paused for a moment, taking a long look at your face before continuing. “I guess it just grew from there. It didn’t feel like our relationship changed, but my feelings sure did. I think maybe we’ve never been normal best friends.

“But for a year it feels like I’ve just been pining for you. I’m not good with the whole feelings thing, so I never knew how to tell you. Never knew how you would react.”

Taking a step towards him, you cupped his face in your hands, just looking deep into those icy blue eyes, as if all the answers would lie there. And maybe they did, because the slow realization that had been creeping into your mind hit you like a freight train. Bucky was right, you had never been normal best friends. You had always been as close as possible, almost right off the bat. You thought it was just a platonic connection, like people talk about how they have friends that are their soulmates - their twin flame.

But it was so much more than that. And maybe it took a wedding and a couple days of pretending Bucky was your boyfriend for you to see that, but no one ever said life was easy.

“I feel so stupid that I didn’t see it until now,” you started. “That it took me so long to realize my feelings. I guess I was just so used to the way things were, that I didn’t think about anything else. But I know what I want now, I can see it so clearly. It’s always been you.”

“Where do we go from here?”

Instead of answering, you pulled his face to yours, a much sweeter kiss than last time. It started off slow, full of hope and curiosity, but quickly turned into a wanting neither of you could have guessed was there. Soon your hands were tangled in his hair and his were splayed across your back, pulling you into him as if he wanted to fuse your bodies together.

It could have been minutes or hours, standing on that balcony exploring each other, with the stars twinkling above you.

However long it was, it felt like a good start to forever.

taglist *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Do they not have furniture up there? You thought mildly as you stared for what was probably too long at the grounded seraph in the middle of an IKEA. A few strands of his blonde hair fell onto his forehead, his chiseled jaw set with a deep frown. He had the same perplexed dread on his face that you had had on yours moments ago, staring out at the swirling snowstorm that had swallowed up the landscape. After a moment, his eyes darted to you, and he seemed to come back to himself, taking a deep breath and running a hand through his hair.

“Sorry about that ma’am,” he said gently, his full pink lips upturned slightly. His eyes—the most gorgeous shade of blue you’d ever seen—flicked back towards the storm, his shoulders deflating a little with defeat. “How did it get so bad? I was in here for ten minutes…” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“Folks, we’re gonna have to wait this one out,” someone else said, and you turned to find the store manager, Bruce, his nametag said, standing along with you and Blonde Gabriel at the doors, his hands on his hips. It was only then that you noticed the gaggle of people surrounding you, about eight other employees and twenty unfortunate souls who had decided to do some shopping during a snowstorm, you included.

You turned to look outside again, and there wasn’t a doubt that Bruce was right. There was no way anyone could drive in the middle of all that unless they had it out for themselves. You couldn’t even see your car, and you had snagged a spot right in front of the store.

Bruce sighed deeply, giving his employees a wordless look before glancing at his watch and up at the rest of you. “We close in about two hours, so hopefully it clears up by then. I’ll make a few calls to see about plows coming down here, but in the meantime…make yourselves comfortable,” he said, taking one last look at the storm before walking towards the back of the store.

You glanced back at the angel to see he had taken out his phone, furiously typing away at the screen, running his hand through his hair again. You guessed it was a stress habit he had, and you found yourself wishing you could replace his hand with yours.

“Can I help you with anything?”

You jumped a little, startled by the voice that thankfully pulled you out of your thoughts before they got too self-indulgent.

“I’m so sorry,” the employee in question said, her brow creased with worry. “I didn’t mean to scare you,” she said, her Eastern European accent wavering.

You shrugged away her worry, giving her a bright smile. “It’s okay…” you made a quick sweep of her auburn hair, her dark makeup, her nametag that said WANDA in block letters. “…Wanda. I’m fine, just bummed about the snow,” you said, jerking your thumb at the doors.

She scoffed, glaring at the storm as if she could control it with her mind alone. “After this, I’m moving to Tahiti,” she joked, and you laughed along with her. You were about to tell her to save you a seat on the plane when she frowned at something past your shoulder. “Stevie, you okay?”

It took you a moment to realize she was addressing the angel —Stevie . He was still typing away on his phone, his thumbs flying furiously. He let out a long sigh, looking up at Wanda and giving her a genuine, albeit stressed, smile.

“I’m good Wan, just telling Bucky off for sending me out in the blizzard of a lifetime,” he mumbled, frowning down at the device as if it were actually the offending ‘Bucky’. “Wait for me if it clears up, I’ll give you a ride home,” he told Wanda, offering another small grin to the both of you before walking off, placing his phone to his ear.

“You know him?” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could stop them, your voice painfully wistful as you watched him go. You cringed, looking over at Wanda to find her grinning at you knowingly.

“I do, unfortunately,” she said rolling her eyes. “He works with my brother. And often gets into trouble with my brother,” she deadpanned. “Do you know Steve?”

“Uh, no, we just met. Kinda,” you said, looking towards where he retreated. You swore there was a trail of pixie dust on the ground following his tracks.

“Do you  want  to know Steve?”

You looked at Wanda, that knowing smirk still on her face as if she could see all of the not-so-savory thoughts that had passed through your head moments ago. You could feel heat blaze on your neck, and you huffed out a nervous laugh, looking down at the wicker mail basket that you had forgotten you were holding.

“You know, I still didn’t pay for this. I should go do that,” you said, holding it up for Wanda to see.

She just cocked an eyebrow at you, turning in the direction of the register. “Okay then. Follow me, and I’ll ring you up,” she said, beckoning you to follow her.

You sighed, placing a cool hand on your embarrassingly warm cheek. You took one last glance at where your angel had disappeared to, hoping he’d choose to stay here on earth just a little while longer.

***

Two hours later, and things weren’t exactly looking up. A chorus of groans rang out in grim harmony as Bruce doled out the bad news to the crowd of shoppers.

“Are you serious? My kids are still with the sitter, I need to get home,” one lady complained, flapping her arms with exasperation.

Bruce shuffled nervously, wiping his glasses on the corner of his blue uniform vest. He had a sort of twisted, constipated look on his face, and you couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy. “I’m sorry ma’am, but that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen tonight. The Department of Transportation rep was pretty adamant that the plows won’t be here until early morning.”

“Wait a second, the morning? So, you mean we’re actually stuck here? For the entire night? This is ludicrous!” another man exclaimed, a wave of murmuring bubbled up amongst the other patrons, growing louder and louder despite Bruce’s best efforts to mitigate the situation.

“Settle down, everyone.”

The angel’s— Steve’s —voice cut through the chatter with ease, all other voices dying down in response to his authoritative tone. He hadn’t even raised his voice, his words alone commanding respect and compliance without even trying. He stood towards the back of the group with Wanda, his shoulders squared, his jaw set, his entire figure composed and in full control as his gaze swept over the rest of his fellow patrons.

You weren’t sure if you wanted to salute or get on your knees.

“Look, this is a stressful situation for all of us. I get that,” Steve began calmly, his tone taking on more warmth. “I’m sure none of us saw this coming when we woke up this morning, but we’re here, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re all trying our best here, and Bruce is right,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the front entrance. Everyone else seemed as enraptured as you, all eyes trained on him with no protest. “The snow is still coming down bad, and even if the plows could make it out here, it would still be dangerous. At the very least, we’re in a warm, dry place with comfortable furniture we can hang out on until morning.” He sounded so sure, so unwavering, that you couldn’t help but believe what he was saying, to hold onto his words like an anchor out at sea.

“And food,” Bruce chimed in, looking measurably more at ease. “We still have plenty stocked in the café, including the meatballs. There’s coffee too.”

“And we have a projector in the back,” Wanda added. “We can hook it up to a tablet and put on Netflix.”

“Perfect, dinner and a movie,” Steve said enthusiastically, opening his arms in appeal to the others. “Can’t get any better than that, right? We’ll make the most of this. It’ll be fun, like a…a—”

“Sleepover?” another lady blandly finished for him, crossing her arms over her chest.

Steve chuckled, ducking his head a little. “Not exactly the word I was fishing for, but that works too,” he said, glancing up sheepishly. He straightened again, placing his hands on his hips, some authority returning to lines of his figure. “Let’s get this party started.”

He made his way over to Bruce, the two of them beginning to plan out whatever needed to be done, and Wanda made her way over to you, shaking her head and grinning fondly over at Steve. “He’s good at that, right?” she said, snorting lightly.

“It was quite the rousing speech,” you said mildly, ignoring the heat that threatened to invade your cheeks.

“Trust me, he sounds even better when he’s drunk,” Wanda said with a small chuckle. You laughed at that, and she regarded you for a moment with a calculating look, as if she were trying to take you apart and see what you were made of from the inside, out. She must have liked what she saw, because she grinned at you, tilting her head towards the other side of the store. “The projector’s in the back, and I bet we can find a white sheet to hang up, too,” she said, turning and heading towards the rear, following the main aisle that ran through the whole store.

You jogged a little to catch up to her, various room and furniture displays lining either side of you. It was almost like you were stuck in a human-sized dollhouse that some cruel, giant child had trapped you in for their amusement.

It didn’t take long for Wanda to find the projector, and the two of you managed to find a large white tarp to hang up. You found a good spot that would accommodate the group, pushing couches together to create a makeshift home theater. All the while, Wanda talked about her childhood, and leaving Sokovia when she and her brother were young. You told her about yourself, maybe a little too much, but it was surprisingly easy to talk to her and fill in the silence as you worked, despite only knowing her for less than an afternoon. The two of you were just about finished hanging the tarp when someone came and interrupted.

“Uh, Wanda?”

The two of you turned to find one of her coworkers, a lanky, brown-haired kid who couldn’t have been past 17, his hands and feet shuffling with nervous energy.

Wanda sighed, giving him a bland look. “What is it, Parker?”

He turned a little pink, scratching at the back of his head and tugging at his collar. “The toaster oven is acting up again,” he blurted quickly, as if he had said something forbidden. “We tried to jiggle the chord like you do, but...” he trailed off, haplessly shrugging his shoulders.

Wanda shook her head at him, sending a side-eyed look your way, and you bit your lip to keep from smiling. “This place would fall apart without me,” she murmured, more to herself than you or the kid, gesturing for him to follow her towards the back again.

You looked over the little movie set up one more time, adjusting some couches and making sure the projector was in a good spot. You eyed the tarp and noticed one of the corners was hung a little unevenly. You probably should have waited until Wanda came back to fix it, but you figured you could handle one corner on your own. You carefully climbed the ladder the two of you had found, holding on with one hand while the other attempted to fix the tarp.

“You know, you really shouldn’t use a ladder unsupervised like that.”

You jolted, the ladder shifting enough to make you yelp, grabbing onto it for dear life with both hands, tarp be damned.

“And I probably shouldn't startle you on a ladder like that, shit,” the deep voice chastised itself, a pair of large hands bracketing your waist to steady you and the ladder. “Easy, take your time stepping down,” the man said, his hands holding you steady as you made your way down. You turned around, ready to tell the man not to worry about it, but your voice caught in your throat.

Because it was your angel.

Steve .

Standing right in front of you like a dream. He was even more breathtaking up close.

For a moment, you just stood there, your mouth slightly agape, your brain working overtime to formulate words it could push out of your vocal cords. Your eyes swept over the golden waves of his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, the spattering of freckles that dotted his cheek and neck, until you finally gazed into the blues of his irises, cerulean swirls mingling with whisps of emerald. And his eyelashes—

“Are you alright, ma’am?” he asked, slicing through the murky mess of your mind. There was a small wrinkle between his brows, concern riddled over his prepossessing features. When you didn’t respond right away, the wrinkle grew deeper and he glanced over you, no doubt trying to figure out if you had, in fact, hit your head on the way down and sustained brain damage.

“Hi,” you finally blurted out, your voice a couple of octaves too high.

You wanted the ground to swallow you whole.

Steve’s face lightened up a little, a whisper of a grin beginning to form on his lips, though the concern was still there. “Hi,” he said back, amusement dancing in that one syllable.

It grew quiet again, the two of you unsure how to proceed with what was already an incredibly awkward encounter. That’s when you both realized how close you were to each other, and your gazes both trailed slowly down to Steve’s hands, which were still firmly holding onto your middle. Even then, he held on for a second longer than necessary, his fingers dragging along the fabric of your shirt as he pulled them away from you, reaching up to smooth over his hair with a light chuckle.

“Uh, you’re Wanda’s friend,” he said haltingly, jerking his hand back towards you for a shake. “I’m Steve, nice to meet you.”

You marveled at the dichotomy of the man in front of you, the one who had not long ago commandeered a group of strangers, who now seemed a little flustered and nervous just talking to you. You took his hand and shook it, vines of electricity zipping up your arm from the contact.

“Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m Y/n,” you said, desperately trying to keep the breathy wonderment out of your voice.

He smiled at you, and there was another pause, the air thick with a tension you couldn’t quite place. You scrambled for something to say,  anything to say, when a pinging sound rang out, Steve’s face dropping as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He groaned audibly, pinching his eyes shut and opening them again, shaking his head at the screen.

“Everything okay?” you asked carefully, resisting the urge to smooth out the frown on his face.

He puffed out some air, his cheeks inflating a bit as he swiped a few more times on his phone. “Yeah, just some work stuff I had to get done. It’s infuriating to do without a laptop, and the service in here is pretty shoddy anyway.”

“Ah,” you said, nodding slowly. “Well, I’m sure your boss will understand considering the circumstances. And if not, I’m pretty sure we’re only one more billionaire space race away from the proletarian revolution.”

You immediately wanted to kick yourself for trying to make a stupid joke, but your regrets dissolved as soon as Steve laughed, his whole body leaning back a little, his hand clasped against his impressively broad chest.

“Gosh, I needed that,” he said once he settled down, that damn smile lighting up his features again, sending a torrent of butterflies through your gut. He glanced up at you and lifted his shoulders helplessly, stuffing his hands in pockets. “This sucks, doesn’t it?” he breathed out, sounding relieved that he could finally give voice to his own negativity, to deflate and let it go, away from the ears of the angry mob.

You gave him a sympathetic smile, quirking your own shoulders up a bit. “It does, but like you said before, it could be worse. We could’ve gotten stuck in a Wal-Mart,” you said with a shudder.

He laughed again, and you couldn’t help the swell of pride that rose in your chest, the warmth that spread through you at the sight of him growing a little lighter.

“What exactly had you out in this storm, anyway?” you asked as you began to meander together along the main aisle towards the cafe. “Something about a Bucky, you said...”

“Don’t remind me,” he said, rolling his eyes with another sigh, though he didn’t seem as disgruntled as before. “My roommate Bucky found a stray cat a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been doting on her ever since. He asked me to stop by here on my way home to see if they had any nice cat beds for her. Apparently, the one we have isn’t ‘up to her caliber',” he said grudgingly as he took out his phone and handed it to you.

You were able to see that his lock screen was a picture of the fluffiest, white-furred cat you’d ever seen, with startling marble eyes and the cutest little nose. You cooed, and Steve chuckled, taking a look at the photo himself before slipping it into his pocket.

“Alpine,” he said, giving you a cursory glance. “She’s a cutie, I have to admit.”

“She is, and your roommate is right. She deserves a throne to sleep on, Steve,” you chided playfully, eliciting another laugh from him and earning yourself a small nudge from his arm that sent your butterflies into another tizzy.

“What about you?” He asked, turning smoothly, walking backward so he could face you as you spoke. “What made you run out in a blizzard?”

You hesitated, trying to find the right way to articulate your words. “I...I didn’t have a real reason,” you admitted, looking down at your shoes. “It’s just...this time of year is a little hard for me, and I impulsively decided to do some retail therapy.”

For some reason, shame rolled over you, as if you had committed a crime instead of just feeling a little down. This time of year was hard; it was cold, dark, and it was full of holidays that you no longer felt connected to, ones that reminded you of how lonely you really were. You sighed, chancing a glance up at Steve.

He slowed his steps until he came to a complete stop in front of you, a concerned look on his face. “You okay?” he asked softly, so softly that it made your heart ache.

You swallowed down the emotions that threatened to bubble up, pushing out a smile and straightening your posture. “I’m good. Believe it or not, I feel better than I did this morning. This is kind of my comfort store, so...”

“’Comfort store’?” he parroted, raising an eyebrow.

You chuckled, feeling a smidge self-conscious about opening up to a stranger, but Steve seemed like the sort of person you couldn’t help but confide in, the sort of person who would take what you said and tuck it in between his heart and left lung. “Yeah, my comfort store. When my siblings and I were younger, our aunt did a good amount of babysitting for our mom, and she would always drag us out shopping with her. She was always redecorating her place, so we went to IKEA a lot,” you explained, looking around at the furniture displays that surrounded you. “To pass the time while she shopped, we would play this game where we would go around to the different rooms they had set up and we’d pretend we were different people with different lives based on the room we were in. It was the best thing about coming here.” Those were some of the memories you held dear, remnants of a simpler time, or at least simpler than they were now.

When you looked back at Steve, his eyes were filled with something that left you feeling heady, a warmth that made it hard not to want his arms wrapped around you in the cool darkness of your room as snow piled up on your windowsill—

“Let’s play, then.”

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Let’s play,” Steve said again, gesturing to the displays. He gave you a boyish grin, one that made the thumping in your chest go faster. “I think we’ve got some time to kill before dinner’s ready,” he added.

You stared at him incredulously, your jaw hanging open a bit. “You wanna play the childhood game I played with my siblings?”

“Why not?” Steve shrugged, glancing up at you through those thick, gorgeous lashes. “Unless, of course, you know any other fun ways we can pass the time,” he said, a coquettish quirk lifting the edge of his lips.

It might have just been the harsh fluorescent lighting playing tricks on your eyes, but you swore there was a heat behind his gaze, a  want behind his irises, and all executive function in your brain short-circuited.

Maybe you had actually hit your head getting down from that ladder and heaven just happened to look like a Swedish furniture store.

As quickly as the look came, it went, Steve jerking his thumb at one of the displays. “C’mon, we got nothing to lose,” he insisted, shooting you another dazzling grin and heading over there.

You helplessly followed after him, the two of you coming to a stop in one of the kitchen displays. Steve leaned against the counter, crossing his arms and considering the place before looking at you. “So,” he prompted, gesturing around. “What about this room? What’s our life like in here?”

He said it so casually, our life, as if you weren’t in the middle of your very first real conversation ever, as if the thought of spending the rest of eternity here in this store with you was something he wouldn’t bat an eye at. Warmth spread through you, but by some miracle you managed to smother it down before it reached your cheeks, averting your gaze from him to the décor around you.

You sighed, placing your hands on your hips, examining the kitchen you were in. It was modern looking, with obsidian marbled countertops, a stainless-steel sink with the appliances to match, and glossy black cabinets that were sleek and didn’t have handles. You thought for a moment, making a show of tapping a finger against your chin and narrowing your eyes while Steve looked on with an amused expression. You turned to him triumphantly.

“You’re a high-powered attorney,” you began confidently, trying to keep your grin at bay. “You make enough to pay for our Central Park penthouse and then some. In fact, you just made partner at your firm last month, and you said you would take me to Milan to celebrate.”

“Is that so?” Steve asked, struggling to keep his own face serious. “And what does my lovely wife do with her time?”

“ Wife,” you barked out, clearing your throat to compose yourself. If he noticed the heat spreading across your neck and face, he didn’t say anything. “Uh, yes, well I spend my days scanning your credit card on Fifth Avenue, hosting cocktail parties for the other wives at the club we’re members of,” you said, letting a giggle escape you at the image of being a stuck-up socialite. “The only time this kitchen has ever actually produced a meal was when we hired those caterers for John Mulaney’s second baby shower as a favor for a friend of a friend.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head at you, his crystalline irises beaming in a way that made your breath catch a little. You had the passing thought that you would do practically anything to hear the sound of his laugh over and over again.

“Alright,” he said, all business again. “What aboooout...this one?” he asked, leading you over to the next kitchen display, placing a light hand on the small of your back.

The small contact made fireworks ignite through your entire body, and he pulled away far too soon, pulling out a chair at the cherry red vinyl table in the middle of the kitchen and gesturing for you to sit. You smiled at him, and you realized how easy it was to smile at him, how easy it would be to peel back your outer shell and offer him every ounce of joy you had to give.

“Thank you, honey,” you quipped, pushing the thought away and keeping up the little game you two were in.  That’s all it is, just a game, you reminded yourself.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” Steve responded in kind as he took the seat across from you, crossing his arms over the table and leaning in towards you. “Whatcha got? Lay it on me,” he urged.

You laughed, taking a look around before deciding on what life this room would hold. The floor was covered in black and white linoleum tiles, the cabinets were a soft mint green, and there was a retro SMEG refrigerator in the corner, circa 1944. You crossed your own arms on the table and looked right at Steve, a surge of boldness allowing you to lean closer to him, too.

“We got married right before the invasion of Poland,” you began, letting the image unfold from your mind. “You enlisted as soon as you could, and there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t worry about you. I got a job at a factory manufacturing sheet metal that helps us stay afloat,” you said, making the “Rosie the Riveter” pose. Steve chuckled, but didn’t interrupt. “Your mom lives just up the block, and she comes over every evening in hopes that I’ll pick up some cooking skills. She even tried to teach me the family cookie recipe, but I failed miserably,” you concluded.

You were ready to laugh at yourself, the very real image of your kitchen nightmares running across your mind, but it died in your throat at the look on Steve’s face. His smile had fallen, replaced by a grim line and a tight jaw. His eyes dimmed and darkened, a storm pulling 50-foot waves around his pupils, his gaze firmly fixed on the tabletop.

Your mouth suddenly felt too dry. “Steve? Are you okay?”

He took a sharp breath before finally looking up at you, his lips just barely upturned. “Yeah,” he said, his voice wispy and far off. “Yeah, I’m fine. What you said just reminded me of when I was younger. My mom was a nurse, so she had crazy hours most of the time, but more often than not she would manage to pull through for school functions,” he said, and some of the light returned to his eyes, though he still looked far away. “Especially bake sales. It was important to her, even though she already wore herself so thin, and the other moms judged her for not always being there.

“She would let me stay up late the night before and help her make her famous brownies. ‘Forever’ Brownies, she called them, because people always told her they could keep eating them and never stop,” he breathed out a laugh, but it sounded achingly hollow. “She said the key was her super special secret ingredient, and I wasn’t allowed to tell a soul what it was. She made me pinky swear,” he said, trying to play it off as something funny, but you could tell it meant everything to him. His entire heart was on his sleeve, exposed and beating in sync with his words, and you felt like you were bearing witness to something you shouldn’t have been.

You hesitated, drawing in a deep breath. “Is she...did she...”

Steve nodded, saving you from the rest of that question. “Two days before my high school graduation. Cancer,” he explained, and his grief was so palpable that you felt pinpricks in your nose and a boulder in your throat.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” you whispered, because there wasn’t anything else you could say, there wasn’t anything you could do to fill that void for him, to take away that pain even though every string in your own heart yearned to.

Steve shook his head a little, pushing out a wide grin that didn’t quite reach the rest of his face. “Don’t be. She was a good woman.”

You grinned back at him. “Well, I already knew that,” you said, and his brow furrowed with confusion. You just shrugged, looking down at your hands. “She obviously raised a good man.”

It was silent for a long moment, the air thick with everything the two of you had spilled into it, heavy with all the things you didn’t dare say. When you glanced up at Steve, he was already looking at you, so intently, so intensely,  that you swore there wasn’t enough oxygen in the whole world to inflate your lungs at that moment.

“You know,” he began, his voice unsteady, splintered and cracked at the edges. “I don’t really talk about her that much. With anyone.”

You knew what he meant without him saying it. That he had given you a small piece of himself, even though you were a stranger, that he trusted you enough to take a small sapling from the branches of his heart and plant it into your palm.

Maybe he felt it too, that magnetic pull you had felt towards him since the moment you met only hours ago. Or maybe you were just a stranger, a person with no stakes that could carry a secret with no true meaning.

You brushed aside the thought, stuffing down the emotions buzzing between the layers of your skin, giving him your best smile. “Well, thank you for sharing her with me. Come on, we can try another,” you insisted, getting up and urging him along to the next display.

He hesitated for a moment, his brow still furrowed as if he were trying to piece something together, but he shook it off, joining you at the center of the next kitchen, leaning against the island counter.

This kitchen was a little more rustic, with a faux stone wall on one side and wooden countertops. Copper pots hung from various hooks, and a pair of glass doors opened up to a backyard setting, complete with a picnic table and fake plants.

You thought for a moment, taking in every detail carefully before speaking. “We decided to take a gamble and move abroad to a cottage in the French countryside, where you work at a small vineyard that makes the best wine in town, and where I’m a local beat reporter who famously broke the news of the three-legged calf that was born at the dairy farm up the way,” you decided, looking to Steve for his input.

He had a soft grin on his face, as if he were picturing that charmed life, him coming home with grape-stained hands and fresh duck for roasting, and you pouring over notes at the picnic table for the article you were supposed to write.

“France, huh?” was all he offered with a honeyed smile, albeit a bit subdued.

You fought that heady feeling again. “Yeah. Not bad for a home, right?”

He looked at you silently for a moment, his eyes scanning your face, searching to find purchase, something to hold onto. “Je pense que tant que je suis avec toi, je serai toujours à la maison,”  he said quietly, his gaze steady on yours. There was a weight behind what he had said, you could tell by his tone, and you could feel that weight curl down your spine and pool at your feet in a way that made the hairs on your body stand on end.

You shook your head slowly at him, catching the corner of your bottom lip between your teeth. “I don’t know what you just said, but I’m gonna need you to say it again,” you told him with a wry grin. “Just like that, too.”

You were almost too satisfied to see a tinge of pink coat his ears, his lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he looked down at his shoes. You laughed, giving him a slight nudge just to bring back the joking nature of the game, to shake off the growing density surrounding your heart. “I’m pretty sure it’s your turn now, dear husband,” you singsonged, placing your hands on your hips and looking up at him expectantly.

He pointed at himself incredulously. “ My  turn?”

“Absolutely, yes,” you said matter-of-factly. “I wanna know what your mind is made of, or if I just married another pretty face,” you added with a smirk.

He glared at you playfully, hardly able to keep his grin from spreading before he abruptly pushed off from the counter, walking straight towards the main aisle again. You laughed, hurrying after him as he scanned the displays on either side, pausing occasionally before shaking his head, as if he were looking for something in particular. You were about to ask him what his M.O. was, when he finally slowed, his gaze fixed on a certain display.

When you caught up to him, you could see it was one of those sets that were made to look like a tiny apartment or house, a fully furnished living room connected to a bedroom and the matching bath. The living was filled with warm colors, one wall made entirely of polished wood, lined with bookshelves and a fireplace with fake flames flickering. The couch was styled in a way that made it look a little worn, as if it had already seen a bunch of love instead of coming straight from a factory. There was a small coffee table with two empty mugs on it and a cute pot of flowers. The rug looked decadent and soft, an invitation for you to take off your shoes and dig your toes into it.

You looked over at Steve, and he looked over at you, the two of you sharing a smile cut from the same cloth. You plopped down on the couch and he followed suit, resting his arm just behind you along its edge.

“So, what’s our life in here?” you asked quietly, shifting your leg just a bit until it touched his. His hand found your shoulder, his fingers languidly following its curve up and down. He let out a long, pensive, breath before he seemed to settle on something, a dreamy sort of look hazing over his features.

“I’m a teacher,” he began, and by the way he said it so assuredly, you knew he was telling you the truth, not a fantasy he had conjured up. “An art teacher at the middle school not too far from here. It’s not exactly what I thought I’d be doing with my fine arts degree but...I don’t think I’d trade it for the world,” he said, grinning softly at you. “What about you?”

You smiled back at him, and he pulled you in a little closer to his side, enough to make your heart stutter. “I work at a bookstore,” you told him, telling the truth back to him. “Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing after college, but it makes sense for me to be surrounded by books all day. Kinda where I belong.”

He hummed appreciatively, taking another look around, his thumb sweeping slowly across your collarbone. The two of you sat there for a moment in silence, nothing but the distant rumble of the HVAC system filling in the space. It was almost scary how comfortable you felt, how settled and at home you felt when you were nowhere near home at all. And this time, you didn’t fight the feeling, you didn’t scold yourself for getting too involved in this game, too involved with him. You just sat in it, and allowed yourself to indulge and succumb to the syrupy sweet haven you had found in the middle of a storm.

“You know, I bet if we knock down that BOGO sale sign, we’d have enough space for a couple more bedrooms,” Steve joked, nodding at the cardboard fixture a few paces in front of you.

“A couple?” you chuckled. “Will we be expecting a lot of guests, dear?”

He scrunched up his nose, a small smirk on his lips. “Guests, maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of the pattering of tiny feet.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? And I assume those tiny feet are attached to tiny humans?”

“Ideally.”

“Right. And how many of those tiny humans are we talking about?”

He thought for a second. “Five.”

“ Five,”  you snorted, pulling away from him to get a good look at his face. “Two, at most. I’m not a womb factory.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head slowly at you. “Can we at least compromise at three?” he bargained, pouting a little.

You looked at him, the slope of his nose, the curve of his cheeks, the twinkle in his eyes. Those eyes. You were lost at sea, surrounded by nothing but the shade of blue only the man in front of you could offer, and you could only hope no one would throw you a life preserver.

“Deal,” you said, barely over a whisper. “But only if they have your eyes.”

His gaze swept over your face, his hand trailing up from your shoulder to the nape of your neck, leaving goosebumps in its wake. “As long as they have your smile, I’m good,” he whispered back, looking down at your lips for a moment too long.

Your head was spinning, and you could have sworn his face had inched closer to yours. Your own gaze found his lips, and you had the overwhelming urge to close the distance between you and him, to find out how they would feel against your skin, how he would taste—

“Hey there, dinner’s ready!”

You and Steve jolted back as if you had touched scalding water, looking up to find the kid from earlier, Parker, standing not too far off, smiling enthusiastically at you and Steve. It took him a moment to recognize your flustered looks, the tinge of red across Steve’s face, and the heat blazing on yours. Parker’s smile faltered a little, his hands wringing together in front of him. “Um, was I interrupting something...”

“No,” Steve was quick to say, smoothing back his hair hastily and getting up, offering you a hand to do the same. “We’re right behind you.”

“Great!” Peter said, giving you a double thumbs up, though his smile was still unsure, zipping around and heading down the aisle towards the café. You and Steve followed after him, your head still spinning from what just happened, and what might have happened, had there been no interruption.

By the time you made it to the dinner table, you had managed to school yourself into something resembling normal, but Wanda wouldn’t be fooled.

“Having fun?” she asked as you sat down across from her, smirking at you in between a bite of Swedish meatballs. She glanced over at Steve, who found a seat at the other end of the table near Bruce, wiggling her eyebrows at you pointedly.

You just gave her a look, grabbing another bread roll and taking a big bite of it, hoping to swallow down the smile that threatened to splice your face. You couldn’t help it; your eyes slid over to the other end of the table, watching as Steve laughed at something Bruce had said, the fluorescent bulb over his seat making his hair look even more golden and radiant, as if there really were a halo crowning his head. His eye caught yours, and his smile grew wider, stealing a few more seconds to look at you before he was drawn back into the conversation.

Your stomach did flips, which didn’t bode well for the meatballs you had scarfed down, and you did everything you could to avoid Wanda’s sly expression for the rest of the meal.

The movie that had been decided on was  It’s a Wonderful Life, the whole group migrating to the projector setup you and Wanda constructed earlier. Wanda went up front to help Bruce put on the movie, and you decided on where to sit. You weren’t too keen on holiday films, so you chose one towards the back, far enough away from people that the glow of your phone wouldn’t disturb anyone during the film. The lights were dimmed, and you were just about to open Instagram when a deep, smooth voice cut in.

“I hope this seat isn’t taken,” Steve said, swiftly claiming the seat next to you despite the rest of the row being vacant. He kept his attention trained on the screen ahead, but there was an unmistakably impish grin on his face.

You wet your lips, pressing them together to contain your own grin. “Not at all, it’s yours to take,” you said, a gleeful tingle traveling across your skin.

The two of you were close again, though you weren’t touching, only a hairsbreadth between you. You wanted to close that space, to feel his skin on yours again, but you weren’t sure if that would fly now. You weren’t playing a game, you weren’t pretending to be husband and wife, but you didn’t want to let go of the fantasy just yet. For once, you wanted to take a risk, to take a dive without a parachute, so you inched your leg closer to his until the tips of your knees touched. You were sure your chest was going to explode.

For a moment he did nothing in response, seemingly unaffected as he kept watching the film. You were about to pull your knee away again in defeat, when he shifted his arm, resting it against yours so that the entire length of his was flushed against the entire length of yours. You took a deep breath and stretched your pinky ever so slightly until it rested against his, curling your tiny digit around his.

Again, he made no acknowledgment of your gesture right away, and you were about to run screaming for hills in shame when he lifted his entire hand, and in one fell swoop, gathered your hand into his, your fingers locked together like a braid. You glanced up at him and he was still focused on the screen, but his chest rose and fell as if he had just run a mile in the snow, his face spliced by a wide grin.

“Okay everyone, now’s a good time as any to get to sleep,” Bruce said after the movie concluded and the lights went up again. Steve was still holding your hand with no signs of letting go. “You have your pick of the beds here. The sheets are perfectly clean, so...first come, first serve, I guess,” he announced, gesturing around vaguely.

People began to get up, already looking around for a suitable place to sleep, and you shared a look with Steve, a reckless and coltish spark dancing around the rims of his pupils.

You both knew exactly where to go.

Without a word, you got up, hand in hand, laughing like school children as you ran down the main aisle, heading straight for the makeshift marital home Steve had found before anyone else could lay claim to it. You laughed until you made it there, falling back onto the bed in a gasping heap, hands still clutching onto each other as you smiled up at the ceiling.

Eventually, the laughter died down, replaced by a carbonated, nervous energy that fizzled and zipped between the two of you, the realization of the situation you faced hitting you both at the same time. It was only then that Steve let go of your hand reluctantly, sliding his palm against yours until it released, sitting up and running it through his hair like you’d seen him do plenty of time today.

He glanced down at you shyly, letting out a nervous chuckle. “I’ll take the couch,” he offered, patting the bed before standing up stiffly, as if his body and mind were working in different directions.

You sat up, shaking your head at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, dear. Why wouldn’t I share a bed with my lovely husband?” you joked, eliciting another chuckle from him. “But seriously, I mean, this bed looks plenty big for the both of us, and that couch is pretty lumpy,” you said, bracing yourself for rejection.

He hesitated before nodding slowly. “Okay. I promise to keep to my side,” he said with a wink.

You swallowed down the scream that erupted internally, instead pushing out a dramatic sigh, smoothing your hand over the duvet, which was surprisingly soft for a display bed. “It’s just gonna suck sleeping in jeans,” you said, looking down at the dark wash denim you had chosen that morning. If you had known how your day was going to end up, you would have chosen a pair of comfy leggings.

“Well, you can take them off.”

Your gaze shot back up to Steve and he blanched, immediately regretting his choice of words.

“I just meant—I mean,” he stuttered, looking down at the floor as if he were asking it to swallow him whole like you had earlier. “We’re gonna be under the covers anyway, we wouldn’t— I  wouldn’t see anything—”

“Steve,” you giggled, saving him from himself. “I get what you mean. That actually sounds like a great idea,” you assured him, getting up from the bed. He looked relieved to hear you say that, giving you a sheepish grin which you returned. After a moment, though, you raised your eyebrows expectantly, and he got the hint, turning around quickly and covering his eyes with his hands.

You unbuttoned your jeans, heat rushing to your face even though he couldn’t see you. It had been a while since you had taken your pants off in the presence of a man, and even then, you had never done so with a man who looked like he belonged standing on a pedestal in the middle of the Louvre. You just thanked your lucky stars that you had thrown on a pair of your good underwear that morning.

You got under the covers and told him it was safe, covering your own eyes as he rid himself of his own pants, the mattress dipping down when he slid in after you. Just then, the lights in the whole store went out, save for the emergency exit signs and stray lamps that cast a soft, red glow around everything.

“Have a good night, shoppers! Breakfast will be available in the morning when you wake up, seven a.m. sharp,” Bruce’s voice rang out over the intercom, a bit of feedback trailing after his voice.

You sank a little lower into the sheets and turned onto your side, pulling the duvet up to your chin and hoping Steve couldn’t hear the hammering against your rib cage. “It’s freezing in here,” you said, just to say anything.

“Yeah, according to Wanda, upper management controls the thermostat, even in a snowstorm,” he said, and you could feel him sit up a little. “I can go find some extra blankets—”

“No, it’s fine,” you said quickly. “Besides, can’t afford to lose your body heat now,” you added in a weak attempt at humor.

He huffed out a laugh, and you could feel just a bit of his breath fan over the back of your neck. “In that case, maybe I should move closer, if we’re sharing body heat and all.”

“Maybe you should,” you said, the words flying out before you could even think. You decided then that you had, in fact, met your demise at some point during the day, because there was no earthly way this was happening to you. Nope, you were definitely deceased.

Slowly, Steve shifted closer to you until his chest was pressed against your back, your figure dwarfed by his big, warm body bordering yours. “Is this okay?” he asked softly, his voice so close to your ear that it drew a shiver up your spine.

“Yes,” you breathed, your pulse thrumming in your throat.

You felt his arm snake slowly over you, coming to rest over your waist, drawing you even closer to him. “How about this?”

You could only nod in response, your vocal cords lending all their willpower to help your lungs expand. It felt more than just okay, to be in his arms like this. It felt right, like this was where you were meant to be, like every small decision you made that day, and the day before, the years before, led you up to this very moment. It felt so right that you forgot how wrong it was to feel this way, about a man you had only known for twelve hours, a man whose last name you didn’t even know.

“Coffee,” Steve said suddenly, knocking you out of the delirium you were in.

“What?”

“My mother’s super-secret brownie ingredient,” he explained, his voice heavy and laden with the memory. “She would add a fourth cup of freshly brewed coffee to the batter. Apparently, it complimented the chocolate flavors.”

You smiled, wider than you had in a while. “I thought you couldn’t tell a soul.”

You felt him shrug, the tip of his nose tracing the curve of your neck lightly. “I don’t think she’d mind if I told you,” he said, giving you another piece of himself.

Your chest splintered, your heart straining to escape the cage of your ribs and find a new home right next to his. You turned in his arms, careful not to stray too far, your face only inches from his on the pillow. You reached up and twined your fingers delicately into his hair, and it felt even better than you had imagined it would.

“Tell me more about her,” you whispered, his hand trailing up and down your back lusciously.

You made out his smile in the dim glow, the current of his endless irises cradling you farther out to sea with no way back.

***

You woke up to the sound of jazz music.

It was seeping out of the sound system, broadcasting over the entire store, filling the air with soft saxophone and notes of piano. It took you a moment to remember where you were until you recognized the broad chest under your cheek, the heavy arm splayed across your middle.

“Bruce has immaculate taste,” Steve said, his early morning timbre reverberating through you.

You hummed amusingly, letting yourself indulge in the soft cotton of his shirt before propping yourself up on your elbow, looking down at him. He smiled at you lazily, his eyes hooded as if he were still in the middle of a dream, reaching up to brush his thumb over your chin.

“Good news everyone,” Bruce’s voice crackled in, interrupting the music. “The plows came overnight, and your cars were dug out. Thanks for hanging in there with us here at your local IKEA. At this point, you’re all eligible for our friends-and-family discount,” he quipped before the jazz continued.

That should have been good news, but it made your stomach drop down to your toes, dread slowly rising through you.

The snow was gone, which meant that this whole thing was over, that everyone could walk away and leave the store, going on with their lives as if it all never happened, just an odd memory to keep in the back of their heads until they needed a cool story to tell at a party.

You weren’t ready for it to be over. You weren’t sure you had the strength to walk out those doors and leave this experience behind. To leave him behind.

“Looks like we made it,” Steve said, though he sounded more somber than he should have.

“Looks like we did,” you said back, tracing your thumb along his jaw, mirroring the path he made on your own skin.

There was too much to say, or perhaps too little, you couldn’t tell. Either way, the dream you had found yourself in since last afternoon was over, the enchantment broken, reality already setting in like a dark shroud over the morning. The two of you just looked at each other, studying every line and facet of each other, committing them to memory and tracing hidden messages on each other with your fingers, hoping the other could find a way to decipher them.

Someone cleared their throat. “Hate to intrude, but I feel the need to tell you the store has a ‘you bang on it, you buy it’ policy for the merchandise.”

You and Steve snapped away from each other, sitting up to find Wanda leaning in the false doorway of the room, an eyebrow raised at the two of you.

“Good morning, Wanda,” Steve grumbled, glaring at her as he got up and passed you your pants to slip on under the covers.

“I would say the same, but I know you’re having a good morning, Steven,” she said, sending you the most shit-eating grin you had ever seen. You glared at her too, but she was unaffected. “Breakfast is ready, if you two are interested. I warmed up the cinnamon rolls myself.”

“Sounds good, can’t wait to dig in,” you said, but you couldn’t recognize your own voice, standing to button your jeans and avoiding eye contact with Steve.

“You okay?” Wanda asked, far too perceptive, a wrinkle forming between her brows as she regarded you.

You looked at her and forced out a smile you hoped was convincing enough. “Of course I am. I’m right as rain,” you said, but she didn’t look like she was buying it. A quick glance at Steve told you he wasn’t buying it either, concern laced across both their faces.

You shook your head at the both of them, nudging Wanda with your hip as you scooted past her in the doorway. “I really am, now let’s go eat.”

And that’s exactly what the three of you did, sitting along with the others in the café, laughing off the last remaining moments of the weirdest night of all your lives. You could hardly taste the cinnamon rolls though, and you couldn’t find it in you to take a cup of coffee, the drink taking on a new meaning for you that left you feeling a bit hollow as the minutes passed.

It didn’t take long for everyone to find their way out, spilling out into the parking lot and packing their trunks with the things they had bought the day before. You, Steve, and Wanda loitered at the doors, saying your final goodbyes.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Wanda said, giving you a warm hug which you returned in kind.

“I won’t be,” you said, giving her a squeeze before letting go.

“Do you need a ride too?” Steve jumped in, his hands stuffed in his pockets, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “Or I could walk you to your car...”

“No, I can manage,” you assured him, smiling even though your heart was tying a noose for itself with your small intestine.

There was an awkward, heavy beat where no one said anything, You and Steve just looking at each other, Wanda looking at the two of you looking at each other. You were the first to gather yourself, adjusting the strap of your bag and giving them a small wave.

“Bye, guys. Maybe I’ll see you around during another blizzard,” you joked, though it fell flat.

“Yeah, maybe,” Steve said, his jaw clenching as he waved back.

You gave them both one last smile, turning and finally stepping outside, the cold air nipping at your ears and cheeks. You were aware of every step you took, each one taking you closer to your car, to you your apartment, to your home, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that home was no longer a place for you, that you had accidentally laid your roots down at the feet of an angel you would never see again.

“Y/n, wait!”

You turned to find Steve jogging to catch up to you, the tip of his nose already pink from the cold. He stopped a few feet in front of you, sighing with a sort of helpless expression, his shoulders sagging as if he wanted to make himself smaller somehow. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally spoke.

“I’m an idiot,” he blurted out, shaking his head more at himself than you. “A smack on the back of the head from Wanda reminded me of that,” he added, rubbing at the spot with a cringe.

The tips of your fingers felt numb, but it had nothing to do with the cold. “And why are you an idiot?” you asked him quietly, cursing the hope that rose in your belly.

“For letting you walk away from me like that,” he said earnestly, taking a few steps closer to you. His hand twitched a little, clenching into a fist as if he were stopping himself from reaching out to you. “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want us to end, if there even is an ‘us.’ But I want there to be,” he said unsteadily, lifting his shoulders towards his ears. “I really want to see you again. Is that crazy?”

Suddenly, you couldn’t feel the cold anymore, warmth blooming through you like a furnace. You took a few steps back towards him, your heart tugging you along. “No, it’s not crazy. I want to see you again, too,” you told him, your cheeks aching from the way your lips stretched into them.

He smiled back at you, and you swore the clouds parted just a little, the sky becoming just a little brighter. “Really?”

“Really,” you laughed, shaking your head at him.

He let out a long huff of air, glancing up at you through his lashes. “I should probably get your number then, before Wanda tackles me to the ground,” he said, extending his phone towards you.

You put it in, adding ‘from IKEA’ next to your name for good measure, though you had a feeling he wouldn’t need it. You handed it back to him, and your fingers lingered together for a second longer than necessary.

“I’ll call you,” he promised, stuffing it back into his pocket.

“I look forward to it,” you said, grinning at him. “Bye, Steve.”

“Bye, Y/n,” he repeated, giving you another small wave.

You turned reluctantly, your feet feeling so light that you might have floated off into the sky if it weren’t for the weight of your shoes. You stopped short, turning back to face the store. Steve was still there, standing where you had left him.

“Forgot something,” you said, gesturing towards the store.

“Yeah, I did,” he said tightly, his jaw set, his expression determined. With three long strides, he gathered you into his arms, bracketing your face between his hands and placing his lips over yours.

The kiss was soft and slow, wisps of cinnamon and sugar mingling between your tongues. His lips moved eagerly over yours, though not without gentleness, taking in as much of you as he could, consuming entirely as if you were the first breath of air after drowning.

It was a while before he pulled away, his forehead resting on yours, both of you gasping for breath.

“I meant,” you said when you trusted your voice, looking up at him. “I just meant that I forgot the mail basket I paid for yesterday.”

He smiled, his eyes inventing the color blue right before you, a laugh dancing at the edge of his lips, one that you caught with your own.

The French translates to (according to Google): I think as long as I'm with you, I'll always be home.