Yallternative Kitchen Witch in Her 30s

There is one thing many people know about the once Thunderbolts*, now appointed New Avengers, and no one knows it better than the team themselves: they get their asses kicked. A lot.

As a result, the team is now stuck trying to find a reliable healer who can patch up three super soldiers, a man who can turn into a void, an ex-widow, and a woman who can phase in and out of the visible spectrum.

“There’s this woman I know,” Alexei rambles for what feels like the fourth time today, despite it barely being noon. “Lovely lady. Lives in some... cottage somewhere.” He waves a hand like the gesture itself can fill in the blanks. “She crafts these strange potions that can mend pretty much anything!”

“What, like a wizard?” John asks, raising a brow from where he sits on the couch.

“Wizards don’t exist,” Bucky interjects matter of factly.

“No, not a wizard.” Alexei wags his fat finger. “Better than a wizard. She gathers all these herbs and plants and—”

“So... an apothecary?” Ava asks, one hand settling on her hip.

“What the hell is an apothecary?” Yelena squints, her gaze flicking between the group.

Alexei stands there, dumbfounded, mouth hanging slightly open at everyone else's audacity to interrupt. “If you people would actually listen to me and let me explain, then you would know.”

Bob, slouched lazily on the couch beside John, raises a finger with a guileless smile. “I’m listening.”

“Thank you, Bob—”

“I don’t need to hear any more,” Bucky interrupts, pushing himself off the seat with a groan. “We are not resorting to an apothecary.”

Alexei, dramatic as ever, throws his hands into the air in disbelief. He opens his mouth, ready to argue, but Bucky is just as ready to shut him down with a dismissive wave.

“I’m sure there are plenty of capable doctors out there with futuristic, high-quality equipment that can keep up with all of our abilities,” Bucky says gruffly, sweeping a wary gaze around the room as if daring someone to argue.

And John, of course, does.

“I don’t think that’s within our budget.”

“I can’t believe we’re the Avengers on a budget,” Bob mutters, disappointed.

“New Avengers,” Yelena corrects with a pointed look. “Don’t forget the New.”

Bucky can already feel himself aging the longer he stays in this room. “Regardless, we are not going to some old woman who plays with flowers and leaves and calls herself a healer.”

“She’s not an old woman,” Alexei mutters quietly, mostly because no one is listening to him anyway. “She’s quite beautiful, actually—”

“I don’t care,” Bucky cuts him off immediately, his face twisting into a muddled expression. “We’re going to find another healer—an actual licensed doctor who knows what they’re doing. And that’s final.”

Before anyone else can get a word in, he storms out of the room, his boots echoing against the floor. No one dares speak until the door clicks shut behind him.

Once the brooding soldier is gone, everyone finally lets out the breath they’ve been holding.

Yelena rolls her eyes. “Since when did he become the leader?”

Ava, John, and Bob shrug.

Yelena sighs before nodding at Alexei. “Tell us more about this apothecary friend of yours.”

It’s not often that you get visitors at your little cottage, tucked away beneath towering trees and overgrown grass. On the rare occasions you do expect someone, they already know your policy: all correspondence goes through mail-in letters. From there, you prepare whatever elixirs, salves, or tinctures they need—a process that usually takes days—before they stop by to collect their order and go on their merry way.

So you can only imagine your surprise when you open the door to find Alexei of all people standing on your front porch.

“Alexei?” you frown, making no effort to hide your confusion. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you.”

You peek past him, only to find what looks like a misfit party of five lingering at the foot of your steps like its Halloween and they’re waiting for their candy.

Most of them look... reasonably okay to be there. Or, at the very least, resigned to it. But one man in particular looks like he had been dragged across the country by his metal arm and held at gunpoint just to stand still and play nice.

“And I certainly wasn’t expecting visitors,” you add.

Alexei chuckles, scratching at his beard. “Yeah... well, you know how it is. When duty calls. Or something like that.”

You raise a brow. “And what exactly is your duty calling for?”

“Our team needs a healer.”

To your surprise, Bucky is the first to speak, despite being the most reluctant to come here in the first place.

“And Alexei vouched for you,” he continues. “Though I don’t know how much I trust his judgment.” He mutters the last part under his breath, but you hear him just fine.

Ava nudges him in the arm, a silent warning to show some class.

“We’re interested in working with you,” Yelena says, deciding to take over. She steps onto your porch, subtly nudging Alexei aside. “As the team’s medic. You’d be staying at the base—”

You blink before letting out a small chuckle, lifting a hand to stop her.

“I’m sorry. You must be mistaken,” you say, offering the group an awkward smile. “I don’t know what Alexei told you, or what you’ve heard, but I don’t work with groups.”

Yelena crosses her arms with a frown. “Why not?” she asks. It is ironic, considering everyone in this group was a lone wolf before they were forcibly lumped together.

You gesture to the lush greenery surrounding the cottage—to the bright red strawberry bushes and the carefully tended patch of soil near the front.

“Because everything my soul requires is right here, rooted in this very earth,” you say, your voice taking on a dreamy, sing-songy cadence that gives them goosebumps. Not in a good way. “The soil sings to me. I cannot possibly hear the secrets of my remedies if I am near danger. All the chaos disrupts their vibrations. It simply isn’t safe for me, or for my leafy little green children.”

“Oh my god,” Bucky groans, his face twisting into a sour cringe. “I’m meeting you guys back inside the Quinjet. This is pointless—”

“Bucky,” John warns over his shoulder. “We did not travel all this way just to turn around and leave. Let’s hear her out. Don’t be rude.”

That makes Bucky stop, his brow twitching in annoyance at being lectured by John Walker of all people. He mutters something grumpy under his breath, crossing his arms and staying put.

“Okay, fine,” Yelena shrugs, “but it’s just as my teammate said—we didn’t travel all this way for nothing. Can we maybe work something out? How about we try one of your elixirs that we can take on the go? Just to keep us from getting killed on our missions until we find a real doctor.” She winces slightly at her last phrase. “No offense.”

“None taken,” you say, dismissing it with a serene smile. “Though, my precious brews are not mere trinkets to be pulled from a dusty cabinet. Each tincture must be sung to, tailored specifically to the unique essence of the soul who drinks it.”

Your bottom lip catches between your teeth as you eye the team warily. You already know Alexei is a super soldier of some sort, and the man with the metal arm brings a whole host of concerns. Considering the rest of the group’s heavy gear, you assume they all have their own peculiar…. afflictions.

“I can make something for each of you, but it will take time.”

“And we’ll pay you for your time,” Ava speaks up. “How long?”

“There are six of you,” you say, gesturing across the group. “It will take about a week.”

John furrows his brows. “A week? That’s too long. We keep getting our asses kicked out there, and without proper medical care, it’s only a matter of time before we’re put into the ground for good.”

You tuck your hands behind your back, tilting your head slightly. You hate talking about money—you explicitly moved out to this isolated cottage to get away from modern society and capitalism—but everything comes with a price.

“I can get it done sooner. Maybe in about two days, max. But it will cost you extra.”

The team exchanges apprehensive glances before their eyes land on Bucky, the only one still openly against this. A silent debate seems to pass between the group until Bucky finally lets out a defeated sigh. The group nods in unison, reaching a quiet agreement.

“Fine,” Yelena says. “We’ll take it. What’s the process?”

Your smile widens. “Good. I don’t need much—just a list of each person’s specific powers and abilities. When I start brewing, I need to know exactly what I am working with.”

“Okay. Sure. That makes sense.” Yelena looks around the group, crossing her arms. “But if we want this done in two days instead of seven, she’s going to need an assistant. Someone to stay behind, write all this down, and help her keep the details straight.”

The team falls silent, everyone warily looking around to see who can get out of it.

Alexei is already shaking his head, gesturing to his massive hands. Ava looks away, unwilling to sit still in a remote cottage for forty-eight hours. Bob was out of the picture—they needed Bob. John looks like he’s about to volunteer, but Yelena cuts him off with a subtle warning look. Terrible idea.

Slowly, all eyes turn and lock onto Bucky.

It actually makes perfect sense.

Bucky Barnes was a literal U.S. Congressman. If anyone on this chaotic team knows how to organize information and keep a meticulous track record, it’s him.

Bucky realizes they are all staring at him and immediately shakes his head. “No.”

“Oh, come on, Bucky,” John says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I mean… despite the whole brainwashing thing, you’re pretty good at keeping track of details. You used to read policy packets for a living. You’re perfect for it.”

“What?” Bucky scowls. “No. I haven’t even touched a single policy packet since I was in office.”

“Either way, we need someone to stay, and you’re the best fit,” Yelena interjects.

Bucky hates this. He hates the plan, and he especially hates the whole idea of an apothecary healer thing.

“Think about it,” John adds, trying to sound enthusiastic to help his case. It doesn’t. “Being out here kind of reminds you of your time back in Wakanda, doesn’t it?”

Your eyes go wide with interest. “Wakanda? That’s wonderful! I import many of my rarest herbs and minerals from Wakanda. It’s a beautiful place.”

Alexei gives Bucky a heavy pat on the back, though it comes off more like a shove in your direction. “Perfect. Now you two have something to bond over.”

While you stand gleefully in the doorway, thrilled by the thought of having a personal assistant—especially one who lived in Wakanda—Bucky stands frozen, holding an energy so dark it feels like it might wither your nearby plants if he so much as glares at them.

“Yeah,” the grumpy soldier mumbles. “Perfect.”

Bucky has never seen anything like this before. When he spent time in Wakanda, it was the perfect blend of high technology and nature. Being here feels like he has been transported into a fairy tale book.

Except, you aren’t the princess. You are more like a witch, moving briskly around the cottage. You set down glass vials and stone mortars while Bucky stands by the wooden table, looking entirely out of place as he holds a blank notepad and a pen at your command.

“Alright, let’s begin with the blonde one—Yelena,” you say, tossing a handful of blue petals into a mortar. “Tell me of her physical trials. What are her abilities?”

Bucky is amused by the way veins pop out of your forearms as you work the stone pestle—likely from years of grinding and manual labor. He thinks the contradiction to the white dress and apron you are wearing is funny.

“She’s a Widow,” Bucky explains. “Came from the Red Room, so she has enhanced human conditioning—”

Before he can finish, you shoot him a look. He raises a brow in confusion, and your eyes point sharply down to the notepad in his hands to emphasize, why aren’t you writing this down?

With a reluctant sigh, he starts writing down everything he just said.

“Okay,” you huff. “And what of her endurance? Her cellular recovery?”

Bucky shrugs. “It’s good, I guess.”

You frown. You can’t tell if he’s purposefully being stubborn, or if he just isn’t understanding you.

“Can you please be a little bit more specific?”

“She recovers fine, alright?” Bucky grunts. “Just make a standard healing potion.”

You pause your work, blowing a stray strand of hair away from your face in mild frustration. You wipe your hands on your apron as you step closer to the table.

“I need you to listen to me very carefully,” you warn, meeting Bucky’s eyes. “It is incredibly important that I know these details. My elixirs are potent. If I balance the herbs incorrectly because you are being stubborn, the side effects will be disastrous. Do you want your teammate to drink a remedy for a flesh wound and end up vomiting neon green bile for a week? Or worse, having her lungs seize up because it clashed with her natural chemistry?”

Bucky makes a face, lifting his pen from the notepad as if preparing to say something smart back. But then he stops.

You furrow your brows. “What was that?”

“What was what?” he tries to play dumb, which only annoys you more.

“It looked like you had something to say,” you point out. “So, what is it?”

Bucky presses his lips together, his eyes looking innocent, and shakes his head. “I have nothing to say.”

You huff, pouring the freshly ground petals into a vial. Capping the lid, you give it a gentle shake before holding it out to Bucky.

“Here,” you say. “Try it.”

Bucky raises a brow, hesitantly taking the glass from your hands. “I thought this was for Yelena?”

“Based on the very vague details you’ve given me, it seems like you, Yelena, and John share similar capabilities. The tinctures I’m brewing for the three of you won’t differ by much—this is just the base.”

He hesitates, swirling the mysterious liquid and eyeing it with suspicion. “So, what, I’m your test subject?”

You give him a bright and serene smile that makes him visibly uncomfortable. “Well, we have to test them all eventually, don’t we? Don’t let a single drop go to waste.”

Bucky studies the smile on your face. Ever since he arrived, he’s felt like you’ve taken a personal delight in getting on his nerves. What started out as natural incompatibility has quickly turned into a deliberate effort to get him riled up. It is no wonder you work alone.

Knowing that arguing with you will accomplish nothing and only delay his sweet release from this cottage and your presence, he gives up. With a defeated sigh and a wary glance in your direction, he pops the cap and downs the vial in one gulp.

He sets the empty vial back down on the wooden table with a clink—just to emphasize that he did exactly as he was told.

“How do you feel?” you ask with a curious tilt of your head.

Bucky shrugs casually. “I didn’t have any injuries to begin with, so I feel fine.”

You nod with an approving hum. “Good.” Stepping back over to your station, you add, “Let me know if you experience any strange side effects. I’m going to prepare the rest of the vials using that same base, and then we’ll get down to the nitty-gritty.”

As you line up empty vials and neatly label each one with the team members’ names, Bucky nods in satisfaction. He’s pleased that things are moving much faster than he anticipated.

But as the minutes tick by, Bucky feels himself growing increasingly restless.

The air in the cottage suddenly feels thick, hot, and suffocating. It has nothing to do with the plants or the aromas—and yet he can smell every single note. He can pick up the faint, sweet scent of your sweat from across the room. Every grind of your pestle echoes in his ears, and he can hear every soft rustle of your clothes as you move.

He swallows hard, but his throat is bone-dry. He tries to focus on his own station—on anything else—but his eyes keep drifting back to you.

When you pause to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his breath hitches. His heart stutters. When you absently lick your dry lips while double-checking a label, a heavy ache coils tight in his gut.

What the hell is happening?

He grips the edge of the counter, fighting the dizziness consuming him. His clothes feel suffocating, his entire body is burning up, and his nerves are spiraling out of control. Every sense is firing on all cylinders, hypersensitive to the tiny cottage—and above all, to you.

He tries to adjust his hands, but his palm accidentally sweeps into an empty glass jar. It flies off the counter and shatters against the floor.

“Shit,” he curses, bending down to pick up the shards, only to prick his own fingers on a sharp edge.

When he swears again in pain, you turn sharply, gasping at the mess. “Bucky! Are you okay?”

You hurry over, catching his forearm to help him stand back up. You are surprised by how heavily he slumps against you, leaning his weight into yours just to keep his balance. You take his wrist, pulling his hand closer to inspect the slice dripping blood onto the floor.

“Let me see—you’re bleeding, hold still—”

With you standing so close, your fingers ghosting over his cut, he catches the faint scent of those blue petals on your skin—the very petals you made him consume just minutes ago.

The scent, the proximity, the gentleness of your touch—everything acts like gasoline poured onto the flame roaring in his gut. Every instinct in his mind screams at him to push you away, to bark at you to give him space, but his body rebels at the thought of losing your touch.

He breathes hard through his mouth, sweat beading at his temples as strands of dark hair fall over his face, partially shielding him from your sight.

“What—what the hell did you do to me?” he hisses, forcing himself to stare at the ground.

You blink at him, confused. “I didn’t do anything—”

You pause, a sudden thought striking you. “Oh. Oh, no. You must be experiencing a side effect from the base tincture.”

You lean closer, your soft, warm hand reaching up to brush the dark, damp strands of hair out of his face. As you rest your palm against his forehead to check his temperature, a growl rumbles deep in his chest. He flinches at the contact, but he doesn't pull away.

When he finally looks up, meeting your gaze head on, the intensity in his eyes sends a shiver straight down your spine. His bright blue irises are swallowed by his dark, blown out pupils.

“Your fever is spiking,” you breathe. “The properties in the blue petals... they must have reacted with the super soldier serum.”

“Properties?” Bucky rasps, sounding almost angry. “What properties?”

You swallow hard, worried about how he’ll react. “I’m talking aphrodisiac properties.”

Bucky’s hand tightens around your wrist. His fingers are molten, his grip strengthening in a way that keeps you in place, showing you just how frustrated he is with all this.

It is no wonder he feels so warm, his body coiled up so tight. His pants strain against his pelvis, trying to fight away the sudden tightness drawing up in his groin.

There is no doubt about it—he’s aroused.

A feeling a man like him thought he’d never get to feel again, after everything. But one sip of your potion and one sniff of your scent, it’s enough to make his heart pound like an animal in heat.

“Fix it,” Bucky commands roughly. “Or so help me God, because I won’t be able to restrain myself.”

Instead of making the tinctures for the rest of the team, you spend the entire day coming up with a remedy for Bucky. You’ve never had an experience quite like this, and you find yourself stumbling over your own feet trying to reach a resolution.

Bucky sits on a wooden stool in the corner of the cottage, his head rolled back against the wall as he watches your every step.

His blue eyes follow you as you frantically scramble from counter to shelf, from glass jars to leather bound herbology books. The serene composure he was met with from the beginning is nothing like the woman he’s seeing now. You’re nervous, muttering under your breath and spilling dried leaves across the wooden table, fighting against your internal panic to heal him.

In another circumstance, seeing you flustered might have brought him a twisted sense of satisfaction, but right now, every passing second feels like torture.

The aphrodisiac courses violently through his bloodstream, amplifying every throb between his thighs, every drop of sweat slipping down his neck, and every scent that radiates off your smooth skin.

His jaw clenches so tight, his gums ache. Watching you stumble over your own feet, picking up the wrong vials and second-guessing your every move makes him unreasonably angry.

“You’re taking too long,” Bucky growls from where he sits.

You freeze, glancing over your shoulder with a look of impatience. “I’m trying, Bucky! The super-soldier serum is accelerating the chemical process, so I have to adjust the proportions carefully, or—”

“God,” he cuts you off with another groan, his fists tightening against his thighs. “You’re stumbling all over yourself.”

You try your best to ignore the clear outline throbbing against his pants in your direction. He gets up abruptly, pushing the stool back until it clatters onto the floor. His boots stomp over to you, each step heavy with frustration, causing the bottles on the shelf to rattle. He stops right before you, his chest heaving.

“Do you even know what you’re doing? Or are you doing this on purpose?”

You blink at his sudden outburst. A scoff escapes you, offended by his accusation.

“Excuse me? No—of course not. Why on earth would you think that?”

While Bucky towers over you, you feel the heat coming off his body and dance with your own warmth. He steps closer, closing what little space remains between you until your lower back hits the edge of the counter.

“You’re punishing me,” he snaps, hot breath ghosting across your cheeks. “This is payback for not cooperating with you earlier, isn’t it?”

Your brows furrow with frustration. Here you are, delaying your work to find a remedy for the angry man before you, and he dares to question your intentions.

“I can’t believe you would assume I’d be setting you up,” you snap back.

You raise your palm, a placating gesture meant to create distance between you two, but you might as well be holding the shovel for your own grave. Your hand rests on his chest, giving him a slight push that only does more damage to his self-control.

“I am trying to save your life—or at least your dignity! If I mess up this ratio, the reaction could be permanent, or worse. So excuse me if I want to get it right!”

Bucky huffs a harsh and bitter laugh. He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip before he bites down in annoyance. He steps back to you, but his snarky comeback dies in his throat once his throbbing length makes contact with your leg.

He chokes out a gasp, eyes flying wide as his forehead dips against yours. The mere contact of another human makes his cock beg desperately for some sort of release—it begs his hips to rock back and forth for any friction.

He watches, wide-eyed and a face burning with humiliation, as his cock rests heavy against your thigh. All he has to do is hike up your skirt, unbutton his pants, and…

“Bucky?” you whisper, leaning in closer.

That soft, gentle voice is broken with concern for him—yet all he wants is to hear it broken with moans in pain and bliss.

He pulls back sudden and fast, as if you hurt him.

You inhale deeply, swallowing your pride for him just this once. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Where’s your bathroom?” he interrupts. “I’m going to take care of this myself.”

You blink, momentarily stunned before pointing to the right, not wanting to elaborate any further. “Just down the hall. Make a left.”

Without another word, he pries himself away from you completely. He stomps down your hallway, his frame far too large for the narrow corridor, but he makes do by tilting his body to the side. The bathroom door shuts behind him roughly, making your glass vials shake on the counter.

As the minutes tick by, you try your best not to think about what he could be doing behind those closed doors.

Grunts of frustration and breathless curses echo from the bathroom and throughout your tiny cottage. You pound the pestle harder, trying to drown out his moans, but it’s futile. Your mind can’t help but wander.

You picture him standing large and imposing in the center of your bathroom. Shirtless, probably. Broad shoulders hunching over as he dips his head, beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face while his large hand circles around his length, stroking himself fast for any form of relief.

You remember the way he pressed himself up against you not that long ago—you felt how big he was, and you’re certain he wouldn’t be able to satisfy himself with just one hand.

“Fuck.” “God—fuck…” “Mmph—”

Moans and grunts continue to filter from your bathroom, and each sound and thought sends a wave of heat deep into your stomach to pool between your legs. You bite your lip hard, subconsciously pressing your thighs together, rubbing them against each other as a soft gasp slips past your lips.

You’re shamelessly wet, your mind running wild with filthy thoughts of what the brooding man could be doing just a room over. Your fingers trace down your body until they find the sweet spot between your legs. Rubbing your clit through the thin fabric of your dress, you begin to stroke yourself, moaning in time with Bucky’s.

You feel your legs growing weak, gripping onto the table for support as you play with yourself, but then a loud grunt echoes down the hall, followed by a hard thump that shakes the entire wall.

It doesn’t sound like pleasure.

It sounds like he’s in pain.

Eyes flying wide, you abandon everything at your station—including your own pleasure—and run down the hall to tend to Bucky.

“Bucky?” you call out with a frantic knock. “Bucky? Are you okay?”

Silence, save for his labored panting.

Panic takes over your senses. “I’m coming in!”

You throw the door open to a room that is suffocatingly hot. You smell his sweat and masculine musk from where you stand by the doorframe. Bucky is hunched over the edge of the sink, half-undressed, his pants shoved down past his hips. His cock is thick, red, and throbbing angrily in his flesh hand, slick and agonizingly unsated.

You gulp. He looks exactly as you imagined just seconds ago, and the sight is doing no favors for your heart rate.

You expect him to startle at your entry. You wait for him to bark at you to get out, but the order never comes. Breathing heavily with one arm propped on the sink to hold himself up—tricep muscles and forearm veins popping with frustration—he slowly glances over his shoulder.

He looks like a wild, untamed beast. His hair hangs in dark strings around his face, his blue eyes lost to lust, and a thin strand of drool leaks from the corner of his mouth and down his jaw.

Bucky catches you staring at his humiliating state, but he doesn’t point it out. You clear your throat awkwardly, already stepping back toward the doorway.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were hurt—”

“Where are you going?”

You pause. “I should leave you alone. Let you finish, or go back to working on the remedy.”

Before you can escape, Bucky turns his body to face you, not even bothering to cover himself up. His chest heaves, glistening with a light sheen of sweat. The sight of his heavy, veined length standing proud and untreated between his thighs makes your breath hitch in your throat.

“It’s not working,” he rasps, hungry eyes tracing your curves shamelessly. “I’ve been going at it for ten minutes, and it’s doing nothing.”

You’re terrified, but you can’t bring yourself to run, and the dampness between your legs gives you away. “Bucky, it’s your serum. I don’t think your hand would be enough to fix it. A normal remedy will take time—”

“I don’t have time,” he growls, grabbing your wrist tightly. “Look at me! I’m losing my fucking mind.”

You wince, the warmth of his skin burning yours.

“Did you just come in here to taunt me?” Bucky leans closer, baring his teeth as he snarls in your face, forcing you to look at him and nowhere else. “You tell me my hand isn’t enough. So what do you think I need, huh?”

He backs you up against the wall, pressing his legs between yours, forcing you to part for him. His cock rests heavy against your skirt. He reaches up to find your waistband, tugging it down in a rough motion that makes you gasp.

The fabric falls and pools uselessly around your ankles, baring your legs and panties under his hungry gaze. The sight makes him groan roughly—taking in the damp patch resting right over your center. Soaked, and ripe for the taking.

“Looks like you need more than just your hand, too,” he murmurs.

Releasing your wrist, his hand settles for your waist while the other guides the length of his cock against your soaked underwear. He rubs his leaking tip up and down, hissing at the sensation.

“Bucky,” you pant so helplessly, it comes as a moan. “We shouldn’t—”

“I need you to fix me,” he interrupts, gazing at you with desperate, pleading eyes. “I can’t—I can’t continue on with this ache. Especially if I’m going to be stuck here with you for two days, smelling you, looking at you…”

His head falls into the crook of your neck pathetically, breathing you in. His eyes flutter shut in bliss as he rocks his hips forward against your core.

“Fix me,” Bucky pleads. “Just let me slip it inside—just for a little bit. I’ll finish quick. Fuck, please. It hurts so bad.”

You’re holding your breath, your heart pounding so loudly in your chest that you’re certain he can hear it.

With vibranium resting on your hip, his right hand tickles the waistband of your panties before dipping beneath the fabric.

His warm fingers stroke your prodding clit gently, applying enough pressure to make you toss your head back with a gasp—giving him an even better opportunity to leave love bites all over your neck. He groans against your skin as his fingers move even lower, slipping against your slick folds and stroking back and forth, teasing the entrance.

“Christ,” he mutters. “You’re so wet—could easily slide my fingers right in. Bet you could take something bigger, too.” He rasps a laugh, his stubble tickling your skin. “There’s no way you could’ve gotten this wet just from hearing me.”

His cock twitches at the realization.

“You were touching yourself, weren’t you?”

Your face burns with a humiliation you don’t want to admit.

“No,” you try to deny it, but your breathless voice gives you away. “I was trying to make the remedy—”

Your voice cracks into a moan when two of his fingers slip past your entrance. Your walls tighten as he slowly eases himself in, just until his knuckles hit your opening.

“My remedy is right here,” he grunts, savoring the way you tighten up around his fingers. “Tight, wet, and already opening up just for me.”

Bucky’s nose tickles your neck again, closing the space with his lips. His tongue dances over your skin, warm lips sucking and tugging to leave his mark. While his fingers fuck your pussy, you can’t help but moan into the sensation, encouraging him to continue.

His cock trembles against your leg, his hips subtly rocking into your thigh. Just the sight of it terrifies you. Hard, engorged, red, and begging to be taken care of. You almost feel sorry for him, considering how long he’s had to deal with this up until now.

Your body works pliantly against his fingers, your hips rocking in subtle movements to meet his digits. He groans, relishing the way you leak around his fingertips. His thumb pads over your clit, working the sensitive bundle of nerves. You mewl helplessly into the air, panting his name and clawing his back for support.

The heat of his skin burns you. He’s so hot and sweaty, like he’s breaking a fever.

With your earlier ministrations, coupled with Bucky taking over your pleasure, your body tightens up as you get ridiculously close.

“Bucky,” you pant. “Don’t stop, please.”

He groans in frustration, forcing his hand to still. “I’m dying over here, and you want me to let you come?”

Bucky moves back just slightly, heaving and angrily glaring you down in a way that makes you feel like a cornered cat. You feel dirty and exposed right in your own home.

“You’re a healer, aren’t you?” His deep voice vibrates in his chest.

His hand finds your panties once more, tearing the soaked fabric easily and letting it slip down your hips to meet the discarded skirt on the floor.

“Then prove it to me. Show me that you can take care of a man in need.”

You tremble as the cool air embraces your skin after the sudden loss of his touch. His eyes rake over your body while he lazily strokes himself, trying to decipher where he wants to start. Blue orbs hone in on the space between your legs. He grunts, as if he’s made his decision, but his gaze slowly rises to your face, stopping at your mouth.

“On your knees,” he urges.

Your breath catches in your throat. At your hesitation, he steps closer to you, giving you a sudden thrill.

“You want me to say please?” he rasps in frustration, tugging at his cock. “Get on your knees, please.” The word comes out bitter.

Without breaking eye contact, you finally submit and sink to your knees. A low groan tears from his mouth at the sight of you kneeling before him—face feverish, lips parted in shock at his size, eyes burning with lust.

He steps closer, guiding his cock toward your plump lips.

“Thank you,” he says, though the words sound almost painful. “This’ll make me feel better. I know it.” He taps the tip gently against your lips. “Come on. Open.”

You slowly open your mouth, strings of saliva already beading between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Bucky’s breathing is heavy as he slowly guides his cock into the warm expanse.

His eyes roll and his head tosses back at the immediate pleasure he finds in your mouth.

“Oh, fuck,” he drawls, using his right hand to thread through your hair. “God, this feels—fuck. I don’t even know how to describe it—”

Slowly, he rocks his hips back and forth. His cock feels heavy against your tongue, your lips stretching obscenely around his length until your jaw aches.

“Yes, just like that. Fuck. That’s a good girl,” he groans, his hips increasing their pace. “My good little healer.”

Bucky stares down at you with heavy eyes, forcing himself to stick to a steady, medium pace so he doesn’t overwork your jaw. The dark, curly hair at the base of his shaft tickles the tip of your nose as he works his cock deeper into your mouth.

You gag and choke, drool dripping obscenely down his length and over your chin while he uses your mouth like his personal toy.

“Mmph,” you choke around him, and the vibration of your moan makes his cock twitch and his balls draw up tight.

“I don’t know how—” his voice cracks into a groan, “—but just fucking your mouth like this… is already gonna make me cum faster than when I tried to use my hand. Shit—”

Your hands rest on his strong thighs, your eyes watery as you peer up at the man who has his cock deep down your throat. His eyes flutter open, meeting yours, and he lets out a sound that comes off half growl and half choke.

“Stay like that,” he grunts. “Keep those pretty eyes on me.”

The words leave his mouth breathlessly. His hips stutter against your lips, his cock twitching heavily against your tongue. His balls slap against your wet chin, drawing tight and pulsing with every stroke inside your warm mouth.

You do exactly as you’re told and keep your eyes locked on his. Tears streak down your face from the ache of your jaw being stretched open, but your pain is Bucky’s pleasure. His jaw hangs loose as his hips pick up speed, fucking your mouth deeper and making you gag.

“God, those eyes,” he moans, his grip in your hair tightening. “Fuck—gonna cum. Look at me while I cum inside this tight little mouth.”

His hand tightens in your hair, holding your head completely still while he thrusts shallowly. A deep groan fills the air, his quad muscles tensing beneath your palms as his balls draw up tight.

His tip pulses against the back of your tongue until, finally, a thick release spills from the slit, coating the back of your throat with hot seed. He holds you still while you choke and gag around the sudden rush filling your mouth. He holds you there until you can’t take it anymore, and only then does he finally release your head.

You sputter and hack, his spunk coating your throat. Some of it dribbles down your lips as you heave to catch your breath.

He stands right before you, completely bare, taking in shallow, heavy breaths. But his cock still shadows over your face—still painfully hard and throbbing, even after his climax subsides.

“Shit,” he breathes, his right hand wrapping heavy around his length, stroking it furiously. “It won’t go down—why won’t it go down?”

“Bucky, wait—” you manage to choke out, wiping the back of your hand across your lips. “Listen to me—”

He staggers back, staring down at his fully erect and still throbbing length in absolute disbelief. His chest is slick with sweat, his eyes wild with confusion and a mounting frustration that tests his patience. His hand strokes the underside of his tip, trying to feel for any decrease in sensitivity, but it remains rock solid, flushed deep red and leaking. Again.

“I just came!” he growls in anger. “I just filled your fucking mouth, and it still feels like it’s going to burst. What the fuck did you put in that drink? What did you do to me?!”

A frustrated sound escapes you. “If you would just let me go back to my station, I could finish your remedy. I’ll make something strong enough to burn through your metabolism, and you can wait it out—”

“I can’t wait it out anymore. I’ve tried,” his wild eyes snap to you. “If your mouth didn’t work—then I’ll have to use something else.”

Before the last word even clears his teeth, his patience boils over completely. Bucky reaches down, his large hands gripping your arms. He lifts you effortlessly off your knees, hauling you up like you weigh nothing.

“Bucky—!”

You gasp as he spins you around, slamming your hips roughly against the edge of the sink counter hard enough to make the bottles on the shelves shake.

Coming eye to eye with your reflection in the mirror, your face heats up at how utterly debauched you look. Your cheeks are streaked with tears, your lips puffy and swollen, and a sheen of saliva and leftover cum reflects off your chin.

“H-how do you know if this will even work?” you stammer.

Bucky’s vibranium hand settles on your hip while the other finds the small of your back, forcing you to bend until your ass tilts up to him. He grabs your knee and hitches your leg up and over the counter, spreading your thighs wide.

“It’ll work,” he grunts deeply, aligning the head of his cock against your drenched entrance. “I’ll make sure it works.”

His relentless arousal is screaming at him to take what he wants. He doesn’t bother teasing or easing in; he knows you’re soaked enough to take it. He drives his hips forward, burying half of his length—forced to pause briefly from your tightness—before pushing the rest of his length deep inside from behind.

A high, breathless scream tears from your throat, your fingers desperately clawing at the wood for purchase. Your walls aren’t used to this size, forced to stretch wildly around his girth.

“Fuck!” Bucky roars out, his head falling forward between your shoulder blades.

The scorching heat of your body suffocating his angry, unsated length makes him shudder violently.

“Fuck, yes—right there. You’re gonna help me burn it off.”

The counter shakes in time with his thrusts.

With your leg propped up on the sink, it allows Bucky to drive deeper and deeper, his balls slapping against your wet folds with every move. You watch him pound into you relentlessly from behind through the reflection of the mirror.

Bucky’s face is twisted in a mix of both pleasure and frustration. He looks almost animalistic—sweaty, hot, and desperate for release.

A litany of moans and curses drifts from his mouth to fill the air while the mirror fogs up with your collective body heat. Bucky’s eyes watch your body from behind, and the sight makes him drive into you even harder. You look like a mess beneath him, your tits bouncing with every thrust.

He watches where his cock disappears in and out of your pussy, admiring the creamy white ring that sits at the base of his shaft and dampens the dark curls on his pelvis. Every sense is heightened to the max—every whimper that leaves your lips doesn’t go unnoticed, and your sweet scent fills his nostrils, swimming in his head like a drug.

Bucky reaches around your front with his flesh hand, wrapping his fingers around your neck to crane it and force you to look at yourself in the mirror.

“Look at what you’re doing to me,” he growls, meeting your eyes in the reflection. “Look at how good you take it.”

You whimper, your head tilting back against his broad chest. Through the fog on the glass, Bucky doesn’t look like himself at all. The aphrodisiac has turned him into a monster who won’t let you go until he gets what he wants.

“Bucky—”

“That’s it,” he grunts into your shoulder, his teeth nipping at the warm skin before licking over the bite mark. “Moan for me. Let me hear how wet you are for this. God—you’re squeezing me so tight I can barely breathe.”

He hitches your leg up even higher over the edge of the sink, opening you up completely. The new angle lets him hit that deep, aching sweet spot inside you with every single stroke.

“Fuck, look at you,” he groans, watching the reflection as his thick length disappears into your cream coated entrance, over and over. “You’re taking every inch of it. Right where you belong. You’re gonna milk every drop out of me until this fever breaks.”

His eyes roll back as his grip on your hip tightens. Every inch of him ravages your body like it belongs to him, every move delivering a kiss to your cervix and leaving a trail of pre-cum in its wake.

You’re stuffed completely full, and as his right hand circles around your hip to pad at your clit, it’s only a matter of time before you cum all over him.

“Oh my god! Right there, don’t stop!” you instinctively roll your hips against his palm, the movement sending lightning bolts of pleasure straight to Bucky’s gut.

Bucky groans, feeling your core clench up tight around his cock. You’re already impossibly tight, and he can only imagine how tight your body will squeeze him when you finally come.

His cock works shallowly inside you while his fingers rub over your clit. The mixture of his length stretching you open and his fingers grinding against your swollen nerves is enough to make you see stars.

Finally, a broken scream tears from your throat, your fingers scrambling against the counter for purchase as you come undone all over Bucky’s cock.

Your body spasms violently, clenching and milking him for everything he’s worth, and Bucky can’t hold back any longer.

“Oh, fucking hell,” he gasps. His entire body locks up as his cool metal digits dig into your hip, forcing you to take every drop of his second release.

A scalding rush of his seed erupts deep inside you, coating your cervix and spilling past his thick shaft. It’s heavier and thicker than the first time—so much that your body can’t hold it all, and it shamelessly drips down your entrance to pool on the floor.

He holds himself buried deep, gritting his teeth and groaning through the endless, pulsing wave of his climax. His cock throbs in time with your pulsing core while you both try to catch your breath.

Pants and heavy breathing fill the hot, humid bathroom. Bucky’s cock stays warm inside you, but because of how swollen and thoroughly used you feel, you can’t even tell if this remedy helped him or not.

“Bucky?” you ask breathlessly, glancing at him in the mirror as you catch your breath.

Bucky keeps his forehead rested against the back of your head, his hot breaths tickling the nape of your sweaty neck as he steadies himself.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes in a broken voice that catches you off guard. His big arms wrap around your bare waist, pulling you in closer.

That’s when you feel his cock throb inside you again.

“That felt so good—but dammit, I’m still hard.”

A week has passed since the Thunderbolts picked up the elixirs from your cottage. Between all the fighting, jobs, and unnecessary damage they’ve taken as a team, they went through every single one. Not a single drop remains.

John opens one cabinet, then the next, and the next, his brows furrowing with growing confusion when he realizes all the shelves are empty.

“Hey, did someone misplace that extra batch of potions we were supposed to hold onto?” he shouts to the rest of the team over his shoulder.

“You mean elixirs,” Bucky says, stepping out of the elevator with a grumpy look on his face, already mentally checked out for the day.

“Whatever,” John waves his hand dismissively. “Where are they?”

“We went through them all,” Ava answers from where she sits on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table.

Bob frowns at Ava. “I thought we agreed this would be a no-shoes indoor household.”

Ava ignores Bob, not even bothering to take her boots off. “Ask Walker. He’s the one who used three of them on a minor scrape because he panicked.”

“It was a deep laceration!” John snaps, slamming a cabinet door shut. “And it was infected! Regardless, we need more. We’re going on that operation next week, and I’m not going in without backup med supplies. Who’s making the run back to the cottage?”

Bucky remains still at the kitchen island. He slowly raises a glass of ice water to his lips to take a long gulp, hoping the cold liquid might flush out the sudden heat rising up his neck.

The second John utters the word cottage, Bucky’s mind floods with memories he had been trying desperately to suppress for the past seven days.

The scent of sweet herbs mixing with sweat. The sound of your breathless whimpers moaning his name as he pinned you to the sink counter, helpless against a fever that had nearly driven him out of his mind. Even now, just thinking about the way your body had squeezed him—over and over, completely ruined beneath him—made his jaw clench hard enough to crack a tooth.

“Okay,” Yelena huffs, looking around. “I don’t know where Alexei is, so he’s out of the picture. Who volunteers?” She asks, already opting herself out.

The room stays quiet. Bucky keeps his eyes glued to the glass in his hand, watching the ice cubes float.

“I’d go,” Bob offers gently, raising a hand. “Buuut I have that severe pollen allergy.”

“Well, Valentina is trying to arrange an interview with the press with me eventually, so..” John explains in a way that makes him sound more important than he actually is. “Gotta stay on call for that.”

Ava and Yelena glance at each other with a snort.

John turns around, leaning back against the empty pantry counter, and his eyes land on the other super soldier who hasn’t said a word.

John squints at him. “You’ve been suspiciously quiet.”

Bucky doesn’t break his stare with the water glass. “I’m drinking.”

Yelena raises a brow. “You know what? Yeah. Bucky, you should go. You two are already well acquainted, no?”

“And let’s be honest, you look like you need to get out of the tower. You’ve been moody all week.” Ava chimes in, finally releasing her feet off the coffee table, shifting on the couch to look over at him. Bob sighs in relief.

Bucky’s jaw clenches.

Going back means coming face-to-face with you for the first time after… everything.

His cheeks heat up at the sheer humiliation that’ll come with it, but his heart thumps with something he didn’t expect: anticipation. Ever since those two days he spent with you, you were the only thing playing in the back of his mind. And truthfully—a secret he would take to his grave—he’d been using more doses of the tinctures than normal just to have an excuse to see you, assuming he could build up the courage to actually do it.

You, and everything that transpired in your cottage, had been playing in his head like a movie on a loop. At night, he rolls around restless in his bed, thinking only of you. Even taking... sexual matters into his own hands isn’t enough anymore.

The room is awfully quiet as everyone stares at him. They expect him to fight back like he did the first time, maybe throw out a snarky remark.

Bucky lifts the glass to his lips with a indifferent shrug, trying to act as nonchalant as possible.

“I’ll go.”

this was kind of fun to write at first, but then i abandoned the draft for like two weeks and got back to it and was like "wtf did i write"

if you've made it this far, as always thank you so much for taking the time to read my work. interactions are always appreciated, I love reading every bit of them!

I do not have a tag list. to get notified for fic updates, please follow @notify-superbassbuck and turn on notifications.

Your family doesn't mean to hurt you. They just do.

It's the same every reunion, somebody's hand landing warm on your shoulder. When are you going to bring someone for us to meet? Are you ever gonna get married? That boat's sailed, hon. You missed your shot.

And their newest addition, just now: So, when's your turn? We really thought you'd be the next one walking down the aisle.

You're in your thirties now. Two cats, an apartment that's exactly how you want it, and you learned a long time ago to deflect, to laugh, to change the subject before anyone got too invested in your answer.

But those words stung.

Because god knows you've tried dating. You wanted the thing everyone kept asking you about, but you couldn't seem to hold onto it. Somewhere along the way you accepted that maybe you weren't meant to, just like the cards said once.

When the answer your cards gave you wasn't good enough, you tried something else: the oracle, rune-casting, pendulum, palmistry. You even ran the extra mile and paid someone to read your matrix destiny, but the answer remained the same: Not for you.

Apparently, the person meant for you was born over a hundred years ago, it wasn't meant to be in this life. Or at least, that's what the woman interpreted for you, it wasn't your line of work, but that night you pulled the cards alone and they confirmed it.

Your mom leans over, snapping you out of your thoughts. "They want you to say something."

You already knew this, you prepared days ago sitting in your apartment with your cats. You wrote and rewrote on your phone, trying to keep your words light and genuine.

"I've known Sarah since we were kids," you say. "She was always the one who knew exactly what she wanted. Not confused like the rest of us, not second-guessing. She just knew."

You can see her smiling, David's hand rest on her shoulder. You take a breath, your eyes are swelling with tears, but that's fine. That's normal at weddings.

"Sarah, David… you deserve each other, and you deserve the whole beautiful future you're about to have together. I hope you know how lucky you are, how blessed you are." Your voice wavers just slightly on that word. "Not everyone gets this, not everyone finds someone who loves them the way you love each other."

You're looking at Sarah and you mean every single word, even though it's cutting into you.

You raise your glass, trying to keep your hand steady despite the awful feeling sitting on your stomach. "To Sarah and David, and the future you deserve."

Later, when you're home at the outskirts of the city, with your cats curled on either side of you, you let yourself cry. Not angry tears, just the deep kind that come from watching someone else get the thing you've accepted you never will.

You think about the cards, about the woman who read your destiny and the words that have chased you since you were seventeen: The person meant for you was born out of time.

And your cousin's husband was born exactly at the right moment, in the right place, in the right life.

You're happy for her, you really are.

You're just so tired of helping everyone else find the life the cards promised would never belong to you.

The fair comes to the edge of your small town every spring, and you've been here for three years now. Your shop is small—just enough room for a folding table, two chairs, and the cards that you've been reading since you've been a teenager and decided to expand the gift you've inherited from your great grandmother.

The bell above the shop door chimes on a slow afternoon, and you look up from the velvet cloth you're arranging to find a couple standing in the doorway. The woman sees your altar in the corner, the crystals and the candles and her face lights up.

"Oh, this is perfect," she says, turning to him. "See? I told you we'd find someone authentic."

The man—dark hair, broad-shouldered, pierced-blue eyes and a very defined jawline— gives you a polite, slightly uncomfortable smile.

"Hey," he says. "She's been talking about you for weeks."

"Come in," you say, standing. You wipe your hands on your skirt. "Welcome to The Velvet Oracle, do you have an appointment?"

"I called yesterday," the woman says, stepping forward, hand extended. "I'm Hazel, this is Bucky. I want a couple's reading, we've been dating for four months and I just thought, you know, let's see what the future holds for us."

You gesture to the chairs across from you. "Sit, let's see what the cards have to say."

Hazel settles in, leans forward eagerly. Bucky sits back with his arms crossed. You don't let yourself look at him too long, because every time you do it you feel your stomach dropping, like when you miss a step in the dark.

You shuffle the deck, the familiar worn edges of the cards grounding you against your palms.

"Alright," you start. "For a couple's reading, I usually pull a few cards for each person individually, and then we'll look at the relationship as a whole. Sound good?"

Hazel nods enthusiastically, but Bucky's expression is somewhere between polite discomfort and outright skepticism.

"I gotta be honest," he says, glancing around the tent at the crystals and candles, "this isn't really my thing."

"I know, baby, but it'll be fun." Hazel tugs at his sleeve until he relents, uncrossing his arms. "Just let her do the reading, okay? For me."

He doesn't look convinced, but he nods and his expression softens for her. You don't know why, but that somehow makes you wanna cry.

You focus on Hazel, spreading the deck in a smooth arc across the velvet. "Go ahead and pull three cards when you're ready."

She leans forward, her fingers hovering dramatically before selecting. The first card makes you nod slowly—the Ace of Pentacles. A seed planted in rich soil. The second is the Empress, all abundance and growth. The third one is the World.

"Completion, fulfillment, a cycle coming to a close in the best possible way."

Hazel beams. "That's good, right?"

"Very good," you gesture at the Ace of Pentacles. "Pentacles are earth energy—practical, grounded, built to last. This is a new beginning with a solid foundation. The Empress suggests growth and nurturing, maybe even family, and the World is a major arcana card of fulfillment. Whatever you're building toward, the universe is supporting it."

"I'm a Taurus!" Hazel claps her hand together. "That's an earth sign. This is so accurate, oh my god! Earth energy for an earth sign, that has to mean something."

"It suggests alignment," you say carefully, because you've learned not to over-promise."The path you're on has stability written into it."

Hazel turns to Bucky with bright eyes. "See? I told you she was the real deal."

Bucky shifts in his chair, unmoved. "Great, so what about the rest of it?"

"Your turn," you say, trying to keep your voice light. "Three cards, same as before."

He looks at the deck like it might bite him. "I don't really believe in this stuff."

"It's just cards," you say. "They only have the power you give them."

Something shifts in his expression—not quite interest, but maybe a grudging willingness. Hazel nudges him with her elbow. "Just do it, Bucky. For me."

He sighs, leans forward and taps three cards with a soldier's precision. One, two, three. No hesitation, like he wants it over with.

You turn the first card: The Lovers.

Your breath catches. You force yourself to keep your expression neutral, but your fingers have gone cold against the velvet.

"The Lovers," you say, and your voice comes out steady, despite the static in your ears. "This card is about significant choices. A crossroad in a relationship or a deep connection that requires a decision."

Hazel practically squeals with excitement. "That's us! A deep connection!"

Bucky doesn't react. His eyes are on the card, but his face gives nothing away.

You turn the second card. The High Priestess.

The card you've pulled for yourself more times than you can count since you were seventeen. Intuition. The veil between worlds. The woman in the card stares at you from the table, and for a disorienting second you swear the woman on the card has your eyes.

"The High Priestess represents hidden knowledge," you manage. "Things beneath the surface, secrets, intuition… the parts of ourselves we don't fully understand yet."

"What does that have to do with Bucky?" Hazel asks, frowning slightly.

"I'm not sure yet," you lie, because you're suddenly horribly sure of exactly what's happening, and you want to sweep the cards off the table and pretend you never touched them.

You flip the third card with a trembling hand. The Ace of Cups.

The card of new love, emotional awakening. The beginning of something that fills the heart. It's the same card that you've always pulled up reversed for yourself every single time you ask the universe if there's anyone out there for you.

Now here it is, on his spread… along with your arcana.

"A new emotional beginning," you say after a moment of silence. "The Ace of Cups is the start of something in matters of the heart. It's a very powerful, personal card."

Hazel turns to Bucky, her earlier enthusiasm dimming. "Is that about us? Wait— water and earth complement each other, right? Bucky's a Pisces, that's a water sign, I'm earth. That's good isn't it? They balance."

"Water and earth can be very nurturing together," you say, because it's true, even if the cards aren't saying that. "But these cards feel more like a personal message for Bucky, something individual, not necessarily about the relationship."

You don't remember what you say after that. Something about water signs and intuition, something about the cards reflecting individual journeys within partnerships. You're very good at small talk, at telling people something they might want to hear while the cards tell you something else entirely.

Hazel pays you in cash, and she leaves with her hand tucked into Bucky's elbow, already chattering about dinner reservations. He lingers in the doorway for half a second, looking back at you with an expression you can't read. Then the bell chimes, and they're gone.

You sit in silence for a long time, staring at the three cards, still laid out on the velvet. You gather them up with shaking hands and slip them back into the deck, but you can feel them there, warm against the others, like embers buried in ash.

That night, you pull your own cards for the first time in months. You stopped asking about love a year ago, because the answer never changed—the reversed Ace of Cups, Ten of Swords, the Tower. But tonight, you need to know if you imagined it, if the shop was too warm, if you simply wanted something so badly your mind bent the cards to fit.

You shuffle the deck until your fingers ache and cut the deck three times before pulling: The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.

Exactly the same spread from earlier.

You throw the deck across your kitchen table and watch the cards scatter like birds. You don't read them, you don't need to.

The dreams start three nights later.

You're in the shop, but once you pay enough attention you realize it's not your shop—it's larger, older, with windows that look out onto a street you've never seen, snow falling in thick, silent curtains. Bucky is there, sitting across from you, but he's different. Younger, somehow, though you can't explain how you know that. He's smiling at you, and he reaches across the table to take your hand.

You wake up gasping, your sheets are twisted around your legs, your heart hammering against your ribs.

The second time you dream of him, you're dancing. You're not able to see if it's anywhere specific. It's a dark room, there is music playing from somewhere distant, his hand on your waist, his cheek pressed against your temple. He smells like cedar and leather. You can feel the calluses on his fingers through the fabric of your dress. When you wake up, you can still feel them.

You start drinking chamomile tea before bed. You burn sage. You place an amethyst under your pillow and a black tourmaline at your door, but nothing works. The dreams continue, threading themselves through your sleep like a second life you're living in parallel, and in every single one, he seems like the answer to a question you've been asking for a very long time.

You don't tell anyone. Who would believe you? What would you even tell them? I had a tarot reading go wrong and now I'm psychically stalking my client's boyfriend in my dreams. You'd sound insane. Worse, you'd sound desperate.

You don't hear from Hazel or him again. You tell yourself it's a good thing. You tell yourself the dreams will fade, that the thread between you dissolves with distance and time… except they don't fade, they get worse.

In your dreams you're now in Brooklyn, walking down streets lined with brownstones, and he's beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. He's telling you about his day, about his past, and you listen until his words start to fade. When you wake up, you can smell his cologne in the air.

You start taking walks in the afternoon, though you don't know why. You pull your cards again, desperate for something—anything—to change.

The Tower. The Star. The World.

Disaster, then hope, then completion. The cycle you've been trapped in for years, except this time the Tower doesn't feel like another heartbreak waiting to happen. It feels like change—the kind you can't stop even if you wanted to.

You don't sleep that night. You sit on your kitchen floor with your cats weaving between your legs, and you rearrange the cards in every configuration you know: Celtic cross, three card spread, relationship spread, past-present-future. Every single time, the same arc emerges: something is ending, something is beginning. And whatever comes next will leave you irrevocably changed.

Your aunt Margaret—Maggie, as you've called her since you were little—tells the family that she has broken her hip on the cellar stairs, that the surgery went fine, but she doesn't want a nurse or a help aide. She wants someone from the family who can come stay with her or she'll manage alone.

The call gets passed down through the entire family, but nobody offers to go take care of her. Your cousins have husbands, kids, mortgages, school pickups… Meanwhile, you have two cats and a tarot shop you can shutter for a season, and nobody says it out loud, but everybody means it: you're the one with nothing to leave behind.

You arrive on a Tuesday with your two cat carriers, three suitcases and the deck wrapped in a scarf at the bottom of your tote. Maggie is waiting in the front room of the brownstone, sat in a wingback chair with a cane across her knees.

"There she is, I knew you would come," she says. "Come kiss me."

You oblige before setting the carriers on the floor and opening them to let your cats wander around and recognize the place you'd be staying for a few weeks.

"I got two rules," Maggie starts, taking off her reading glasses. "The thermostat stays where I put it, and no cards in my house."

"Maggie—"

"I know what you carry around, I have enough ghosts in this old apartment, so there's no way I'm letting you welcome more through…that."

"They're just cards."

"Then it won't kill you to leave them in the bag," she settles back into the chair and picks her crossword up off the side table, and that is the end of it. "The kettle's on, you can take the room at the top of the stairs."

You know arguing with her would be useless, so you go and install yourself in that cramped old room and decide you'll read when she's asleep.

It becomes a ritual within the first week: you wait for the apartment to go quiet, wait for her snoring to even out and you sit at the kitchen table with the deck and a single candle as if you were a teenager sneaking cigarettes. Your cats take turns supervising from the counter, but you keep one ear on the ceiling the whole time, just in case.

Every single time, the same cards you pull at your shop with Bucky keep coming.

The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.

The dreams don't fade with the distance from home, they sharpen. Now the businesses have names, because you've walked past it every time you go run errands for your aunt Maggie. The stoop where he sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders touched, you know it. You've seen the exact iron railing, three blocks east. In one dream he laughs at something, and you wake up missing something you haven't even seen in real life.

You try to build a reasonable conclusion: You've been here previously, you know this neighborhood. You just did one reading to a ridiculous handsome man eight months ago and your lonely, overworked brain latched on, and now it's trying to dress a crush in destiny because it's something you've been trying to change your whole life. That's all this is. A simple crush and a reader's block. It happens sometimes to some people, right?

At least that's what Reddit said last time you checked.

You've almost convinced yourself by the third Saturday in October, which is when you see him at the green market, standing at a fruit stall with a paper bag in one gloved hand. You stop so fast a woman with a stroller clips your heel.

Eight months and four hundred miles, and he's right here, wearing a canvas jacket with his hair shorter than you remember, frowning at the fruit, and your first coherent thought is run, but your feet are refusing to move.

He must've felt your eyes on him, because he looks up.

"You," he says it flat.

"Hi," your voice comes out steadier than you expect, and you silently thank god, the universe and every existent deity. "Bucky, right?"

He crosses the few feet between you, and up close you notice a tension in him that you don't remember from the shop. "What are you doing here?"

"Buying some groceries." You lift the bag as evidence. "I'm here taking care of my aunt and—"

"Right, so now your aunt happens to live here. Funny."

"You can come with me and check if you don't believe me," the bite gets into your voice before you can stop it. "Is there a problem?"

He laughs once, but there's no humor in it. "Is there a problem, you ask? Why don't you pull your cards and figure it out?"

"Okay—"

"Hazel broke up with me," he watches your face while he says it. "Three weeks after that reading, you want to know why?"

The market noise keeps going around you, crates and gulls and a vendor calling out prices, but everything is reducing to background noise while you feel the cold coming up from through your boots.

"She couldn't let it go," he continues. "You said something about a new beginning, some big personal message and she turned it over until there was nothing left. Every conversation we had circled back to it, who is she? When did it start? The cards don't lie. Four months, gone, because you laid out three stupid pieces of laminated paper and made it sound like some stupid prophecy."

"That isn't what I said— "

"Well, it's what she heard."

"I told her those cards were about you, individually. I was careful—"

"You were vague," he says, "which is the whole trick, isn't it? Say something soft enough to fit any shape, take the cash, let people destroy themselves filling in the blanks… there's a word for that." He shifts the bag of groceries to his other hand. "You're a fraud. The polite version is intuitive, a fraud with esoteric words."

You should let it go. He's a stranger, he's grieving a relationship, the market is crowded and you have other things to do, but you don't let it go.

"I didn't make those cards come up." You step in instead of back, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, that you didn't fold. "I shuffled, you pulled three cards, it was your own hands, no hesitation. I read what was on the table and I softened it more than I should have, for her sake. What she did with it afterward isn't mine to carry, and neither is what you do with it."

A muscle moves in his jaw. For a second neither of you says anything, and you notice—stupidly, uselessly—that his eyes are exactly the color they are in your dreams.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about Hazel."

"Yeah, you sure do." He steps around you. "Enjoy Brooklyn and stay the hell away from me."

You stand there with your own groceries until your hands stop shaking.

That night you don't pull cards. You lie awake instead, replaying it, building better arguments hours too late, and when you finally sleep, he's there—sitting across a kitchen table that doesn't exist, pushing a cup of coffee toward you, smiling at you the way he has never smiled once in real life.

You wake up furious at your own mind.

The radiator in the front room dies the last week of October, the same week the temperature does.

You find Maggie in her wingback with a blanket over her knees and the phone already against her ear. "It's the front one again," she's saying. "It clanks like the devil and gives nothing… No, don't be silly, after lunch is fine. You'll eat here anyway." She hangs up before whoever it is can argue.

"I could've called someone," you say. "There's a service the pharmacy recommends—"

"A service?" She huffs a laugh, like you've said something completely irrational. "I have James, he does the whole block—the Russo's gutters, Mrs. Ferreira's stairs… he won't take a dime, but I tuck it in his jacket when he isn't looking."

"James," you repeat.

"You'll like him," she says, returning to her crossword. "He's a serious boy, it's good with hands, single…"

The doorbell rings at one. You open the door and there he is, on your aunt's stoop, a tool bag over his shoulder, and you watch the exact moment his face goes through the market all over again.

"You gotta be shitting me," he mutters.

"Yeah, well, I'm not excited either, but I told you I was taking care of my aunt."

From the front room, your aunt's voice: "James! Don't let the heat out, it's the one radiator still working in here!"

You look at each other and there's a long moment where you genuinely cannot tell whether he's going to turn around and walk back down the steps, and then he exhales through his nose and crosses the threshold, being painfully obvious at avoiding brushing your shoulder in the narrow hall.

What follows is the strangest two hours of your autumn. Because the man at the market and the shop doesn't appear. With your aunt, he's somebody else entirely—patient, dry, gentle in an odd way for the way he's treated you. He kneels on the floor and bleeds the radiator and lets her direct him with her cane without complaining. Asks about her hip, and actually listens to the answer.

You stay in the kitchen, mostly. You make the coffee she orders you to make and when you bring it in, Nova—the bolder of your two cats—has installed herself on the tool bag, paws tucked underneath him, supervising, and for your surprise, Bucky is working around her rather than moving her.

He glances up when you set the cup down near him, just out of his way.

"Thanks," it's dry, but it's not nothing.

"You take your coffee black, right?" you say, and then bite your own tongue off, because you don't know that. You've been dreaming of that.

He pauses with the wrench mid-turn. "Lucky guess."

"Well, you look like a man who likes to keep it simple." You say it lightly and walk away before your face can do anything stupid, and behind you, Maggie says something about you reading people, and then you hear the small clank of metal as something in his hands slips.

He doesn't stay to eat, despite your aunt's best efforts. At the door, shrugging the tool bag back up, he stops with his hand on the frame. He doesn't quite look at you.

"Her hip," he murmurs. "If she needs anything lifted, or any errands to run, whatever… Maggie has my number."

"Okay."

"For her," he clarifies.

"I understood you the first time," you say sweetly and shut the door on whatever his face does next.

In the front room, Maggie has watched this entire exchange over her glasses.

"You didn't tell me you know James."

"Barely."

"Mm." She picks up her pen. "It seemed like more than barely to me. But if that's how you treat men no wonder why you're still single."

You gasped audibly and she winked an eye at you before going back to her crossword.

You start running into him in an almost daily basis. The neighborhood is small—twenty thousand people and somehow the same six faces every single day— and now that you know he's in it, he's everywhere. Outside the hardware store with a length of pipe over his shoulder. At the pharmacy counter, when you go pick up Maggie's medications and he's talking to an Asian man. Across the green market, where you both pretend with great commitment that the other one is invisible.

But there's no real conversation until now.

You've misjudged the sky and the distance, so you're hauling two grocery bags and a sack of cat litter up Pierrepont when the cold drizzle turns serious. You stop under sycamore to redistribute everything you're carrying, water running off the end of your nose, and a shadow falls over you. You lift your gaze and he's there, hood up, his hand already out reaching for you.

"What? Your cards didn't tell you there would be a storm?"

"Ha-ha. Very funny."

"Give me the litter."

"I've got it."

"You're going to put your shoulder out being stubborn. I said give me the damn litter."

You could protest, but you know it's pointless to fight with him, so you give him the litter and walk the last two blocks side by side without speaking, rain hissing on the pavement, his boots and your boots out of step.

He sets the sack on the second stair of your aunt's gate, but he doesn't leave immediately.

"At the market," he murmurs, to the gate rather than to you. "When I— when I said those things to you… I was out of line."

"You were rude."

"I was out of line," he repeats.

"You called me a fraud, and you said my intuition was exactly that, a fraud with esoteric words."

"Well, if you were so intuitive, wouldn't you have known about the rain?" It takes you a second to hear it, the dry shift under the flat delivery, and you laugh before you decide to. He looks surprised, like he wasn't expecting the sound either.

"Go home, Bucky," you say. "You'll catch a cold."

"Is that a prediction?"

You rolled your eyes. "There's no need for that, it's logical."

"Tell Maggie I left the wrench in the bin by the door… for the sink." He's already turning. "Don't let her do the sink herself, she'll try."

"I know my aunt."

"Then you know she'll try." And he's gone into the rain, shoulders up, and you stand at the gate watching him go for longer than you should.

That night you dream of him again, except the dream is just this: the two of you under a sycamore, rain coming down, but this time he's laughing—really laughing, head tipped, the whole architecture of his face rearranged by it— at something you can't hear yourself say.

You wake before dawn with your heart going hard and the echo of his laugh still in your ears.

It's a crush, you remind yourself staring at the ceiling.

Then why does your heart feel so heavy?

By November, your aunt has invented a maintenance schedule that no brownstone in history has ever required. The storm windows, the cellar light, a cabinet hinge you're fairly sure she loosened herself, because you watched her test it with her cane the day before she called him.

"You're matchmaking," you accuse, setting her tea down.

"I'm maintaining my property." She doesn't look up from the crossword. "Seven across, six letters. Foreseen by the stars."

"Fated."

"That's five."

"Destined is eight. Fated is five." You count it on your fingers. "What's six?"

Maggie hums thoughtfully and writes something down where you can't see it.

Bucky comes back on Thursday to check the storm windows. It's the fourth time, not that you're counting, and something has shifted in the dynamic between you—the hostility has burned down to a kind of wariness, and that wariness keep springing leaks.

He lets you hold the frame steady while he drives the screws, close enough that you can smell the cedar on his jacket. He answers your aunt's interrogation about his week in actual sentences. When Nova bolts for the open window, Bucky catches her one-handed without looking, absorbs the betrayed yowl and deposits her on the sofa with a flat "No". You expect retaliation, but Nova—who has never once obeyed you—stays.

"Traitor," you tell the cat.

"She respects the chain of command."

Maggie goes up for her nap at three with a theatrical yawning that should embarrass her. Bucky's packing up the drill in the kitchen and you're making coffee because it's cold and the radio on the counter—her ancient radio, permanently tuned to an AM station that plays classics—is murmuring under everything.

And you go still.

It takes you a moment to realize, and another to find why: he's humming. Barely, under his breath, and the song sounds pretty familiar.

The mug slips, you catch it against the counter, there's coffee slopping over your knuckles, and the burn makes you realize that song was playing in the dream where he danced with you in a dark room. You've never heard it awake in your life until right now. You don't know its name either, you only knew the next three notes after he hummed them.

"You okay?" He's looking at you now.

"It's nothing," you run your hand under the tap. "Just… wanted to heat my hands a little bit."

It's just an old song, it's an old radio station. Men hum old songs; it's logical. You repeat it in your head twice but your hands don't believe any of it. And god forbid you, you neither.

When you turn around, he's leaning against the counter, watching you with an expression you can't quite read.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he starts. "About the cards. Why do you do it? And I don't want the speech, I want the real answer."

You dry your hands slowly, deciding how much truth he's earned.

"My great grandmother read cards," you start, leaning against the counter across from him. "She read for people in her village back in the old country. My mom said she could look at someone and see the shape of their life, like… like they were made of glass. She tried to teach my mother, but the gift skipped her and landed on me instead."

You take a pause, watching the radio, the floor, anything but him.

"I was seven the first time I saw something I couldn't explain. I touched my grandmother's deck and I knew things about her neighbor who was sitting at the kitchen table. That she'd lost a baby the year before, that her husband was sleeping with her sister, that she was going to leave him by spring." You swallow. "I said all of it out loud, like an idiot child, because I didn't know you weren't supposed to just say those things."

Bucky's quiet. You can feel him listening, like he's cataloguing every word.

"My mother was horrified. My grandmother on the other hand wasn't. She said the cards chose me, and that I should learn to read them properly so I'd stop blurting out unfiltered truth at dinner parties." A small, humorless laugh leaves you. "So I learned. By the time I was a teenager, I was pulling cards for friends, for strangers, for anyone who asked. And most of the time, it's just… pattern recognition and intuition working together. The cards are a tool, not a magic trick, but sometimes—"

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes they show you something that doesn't fit any pattern you know. And you have to decide whether to believe what you're seeing or pretend you didn't see it."

The radio changes songs.

"Is that what happened with my reading?" he asks quietly.

No, you think. It's worse than that.

"I read what was on the table," you say instead, because it's the truth, even if it's not all of it. "I didn't make it up, Bucky. I've never fabricated a reading in my life. The cards that came up for you were clear… unusually clear. And I softened them because Hazel was sitting right there and I didn't want to hurt her, but I didn't lie."

He studies you for a long moment, and you can see the war happening behind his eyes—the part of him that wants to believe you fighting the part that needs to think you're a con artist, because the alternative is harder.

"Okay," he says finally.

"O—Okay?"

"I'm not saying I believe in it. I'm saying I believe you believe it, and that's… different."

It's the most generous thing he's said to you since the market, and it lands somewhere under your ribs.

It's a Tuesday in late November, and Maggie has sent him to fix a leak under the kitchen sink that you both suspect she caused by hitting the pipe with her cane. He's on his back under the counter and you're handling him tools, trying not to notice the way his shirt rides up when he reaches for the wrench.

When he slides out, wiping his hands on a rag, he looks at you for a while.

"There's a place two blocks over. They make decent coffee, if you're done pretending you don't need a break."

"That's the worst invitation I've ever heard. You're just observing that I look tired."

"You do look tired."

"Wow, thank you. A true gentleman."

His mouth twitches. "Do you want coffee or not?"

You want to say no, because saying yes feels too much like stepping off a cliff, but the word comes out before you can stop it. "Fine, but only because you're paying."

Maggie, from the front room calls out: "Take your time! I'm perfectly fine!"

You both know she's been listening to every word.

The walk to the café is silent.

The place looks cozy—it's small, warm and smells like cinnamon and cardamom. He orders black coffee and you order a latte and a slice of walnut cake. You sit t a table by the window where the afternoon light comes in, and for a few minutes neither of you says anything.

It should be awkward, being here without Maggie or your cats between you, but it isn't.

"Would you mind if I ask you something?"

"You're going to ask whether I say yes or not."

"Smart man." You turn the cup slowly. "Why do you do this? The handyman thing… Maggie says you work for the whole block. But you don't charge, you won't take money—"

"I take money, I just don't like to ask for it, besides, Maggie always invites me to eat."

"She tucks money in your jacket while you're not seeing."

"She's not as subtle as she thinks." He takes a sip of his coffee and ten looks at you. "I like fixing things, always have. When something's broken, there's a right way to fix it, and when it's done, it's done, it's done. You can see the result, it's not…"

"Ambiguous?"

"Yeah, exactly. It's not ambiguous."

You understand suddenly why he hated the reading and everything related to it. You gave him a puzzle with no solution, a fix with no steps… you made him sit with something unfixable.

The conversation moves easier after that. He tells you about the neighborhood, about Mrs. Ferreira, about Yori—the Asian man you saw the other day who feeds pigeons from his window, about the old man on the fourth who swears at everyone in Italian. You tell him about your shop, about your cats—Nova and Salem, about the time you accidentally read cards for a man who turned out to be an undercover cop investigating a psychic scam two towns over, and how you spent forty-five minutes proving your cards weren't marked.

You see him laughing, not the polite sound from always, but a real one. You drink your coffee and eat your cake and try to not think about the dreams.

It becomes a thing. He finishes a repair at Maggie's or passes by to eat and you end up at the café, or walking the two blocks to the park where the benches face the water, or simply sitting on her stoop in the last cold light of the afternoon while you both drink coffee.

You learn things about him in pieces. He's from Brooklyn—born and raised, he says, but the tone on his voice tells you it's partly a lie. He has a best friend named Sam who's a pain in the ass. He doesn't talk about his family, but you don't push. He served in the military, a long time ago.

He learns things about you too, like the fact you talk with your hands when you're passionate about something, or that you hum when you're thinking and that hum is always off-key. He learns about your habit of reading strangers on the street and narrating your observations under your breath.

The first week of December arrives with an ugly wind that rattles Maggie's windows and makes your cats burrow under the blankets. Maggie has graduated from the cane to limping short distances without it, which means she's mobile enough to meddle full-time.

Bucky comes by Wednesday to check a draft Maggie swears she can feel coming from the baseboards. You both know there's no draft, but he comes by anyway.

You open the door and he's standing on the stoop with his hands in his jacket pockets, his tool bag over one shoulder, and there's snow in his hair—not much, just dust, but it's there, melting against the dark of it—and your heart does something complicated because of how good he looks.

"Maggie's napping," you say.

His hand comes out of his pocket. He's holding a folded napkin, and he holds it out to you like it's a wrench.

"I made reservations," he murmurs. "At Valentino's, this Friday, seven o'clock."

You stare at the napkin. "Did you just… write it on a napkin?"

"I didn't have a paper." He shifts his weight. "Sam says you're supposed to give the person a specific time and place, so… there it is."

"You asked your friend how to ask someone on a date?"

"Well, he tells me a lot of things, more of it is useless." He's looking at the doorframe while he speaks, then he glances at you. "This part seemed right."

You unfold the napkin. His handwriting is surprisingly neat—small, precise letters. Friday, 7 pm- Valentino's on Henry St. —B

"Is this because Maggie put you up to it?" you ask, because if this is charity or pity or Maggie's matchmaking you'd rather know now and bleed later.

"No. She might take credit for it, but no. I was going to ask you at the café last week, but then you started reading people and I lost my nerve."

Bucky lost his nerve.

"So, Friday… at seven."

"Is that a yes?"

"That's a yes."

He nods once, and you can see his shoulders drop half an inch. You want to laugh, or cry, or both, so you just fold the napkin carefully and put it in your pocket.

"Are you going to come in and check the nonexistent draft, or…?"

"Might as well, just to keep the appearances."

He brushes past you in the doorway, and unlike the first time, he doesn't avoid your shoulder.

When Friday night comes, you don't understand why you're so damn nervous, but here you are, changing your outfit twice before settling with a blue dress and a pair of boots that Maggie claims make your legs look like they go on forever. You're halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rings.

He cleans up well. That's the first thought you have when you open the door. He's wearing a dark jacket over a sweater, and his hair is pulled back in a way that shows the sharp lines of his face, and he smells so good you have to resist the urge to lean closer and breathe him in again.

"You look nice," he says when you open the door.

"You too." You grab your coat from the hook. "Don't wait up, Maggie."

"Go. Don't come back before ten, I have a television program."

"We're going to dinner, Maggie, not—"

"Door will be locked before ten o'clock," she insists, and shuts the door on your face before you can answer, letting you at the bottom of the stairs.

You turn to face Bucky and the way he looks at you makes you forget every argument you've ever had with yourself about why this is a bad idea.

"Ready?" he asks.

"It depends. Are you going to accuse me of fraud tonight?"

"Not tonight."

"Then I'm ready."

Valentino's is tucked between a laundromat and a bookshop. The hostess greets Bucky by name and leads you to a corner booth where the candlelight flickers against the red-checkered tablecloth.

"Fancy," you tease.

"I said it wasn't fancy."

"Exactly," you unfold your napkin and look around—warm brick walls, fairy lights strung along the ceiling, and and old man at the bar arguing with the bartender about baseball. "I like it."

He orders wine for the table without asking, but it's the good kind, the kind that tastes likes blackberries, and when he catches you watching him over the rim of your glass, he doesn't look away.

You're talking about the shop—what you'll do when you go back, whether you'll reopen at all—when he leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. "I want to ask you something, but I don't want to fight."

"That's a promising start."

"Why do you believe in it? The cards, destiny, all of it. You're smart. You read people like they're open books. How do you also believe that pieces of cardboard can tell the future?"

It's not hostile. It's genuine curiosity, and that's worse, because you owe him a real answer. You down the rest of your wine for a bit of liquid courage.

"When I was seventeen," you start, and your voice is careful, like you're walking on ice, " my great grandmother died. She'd been sick for a while, and when I went to see her in the hospital she… she told me she'd been reading my cards since I was born. That she'd asked about my future every year on my birthday, the way she did for everyone in the family. And every year, the same cards came up."

The restaurant noise fills the silence—the clink of glasses, a murmur of conversation from the next table—but you're hyper aware of him.

"She said love wasn't meant for me." You trace the rim of your glass with your finger. "I didn't believe her, I was seventeen, I thought she was a dramatic old woman who loved tragedy, or that maybe she was way too high on her meds. So I started reading for myself, I pulled my own cards every week, every month, every time I met someone I thought could be something. And every single time, the same answer. Reversed Ace of Cups. Ten of Swords. The Tower. Not for you, not in this life."

You laugh, but it comes out humorless.

"I even paid a woman to read my destiny matrix, I tried runes, I tried everything because I wanted so badly for the answer to be different; but it never was. I tried dating, I did. I wanted so bad to be loved. Apparently, the person meant for me was born over a hundred years ago, and I was born now, so the timing was wrong, and that's it."

Bucky is very still across the table. He hasn't moved, hasn't reached for his glass, hasn't done anything except listen with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. The silence between you stretches. He's looking at you with an expression you can't decode.

"Bucky?"

He exhales slowly, and his jaw works twice. Then he leans forward, resting both forearms on the table. "You don't have any idea of who I am?"

"Should I?" you ask, confused.

He stares at you for a long moment like he's looking for some sign that you're joking. "You really don't."

"Bucky, you're freaking me out a little. Are you in the mob? A famous musician? Because I have to be honest, I don't really follow the news, and history was never my strong subject. I know the major stuff, but—"

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, sliding something across the table toward you.

It's his driver's license. You pick it up, squinting at the tiny photo—he looks exactly the same, of course he does, that hot bastard—and then your eyes drop to the birth date.

March 10, 1917.

You read it three times, but the numbers don't change. You look up at him, and he's watching at you with an expression you can't read.

"I was born in 1917," he says quietly. "Here in Brooklyn. I went to war in '43 and… I didn't come back the way I left. They did things to me, changed me. I don't age the way normal people do, and there's a lot of years in between that I'd rather not talk about in a restaurant."

Your hands are shaking. You set the license down on the table between you like it might burn you.

"The matrix destiny," you whisper. "It said a hundred years ago. You were born a hundred years ago."

"Yeah." He leans forward. "And here's the thing. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in stars writing our stories for us, because if I did—" His voice breaks, just slightly, and he catches it. "If I did, then I'd have to believe that what happened to me was determined. That the things that I did, the things that were done to me, they were written in stone before I was even born. And that's too cruel, that's a crueler god than I'm willing to worship."

He's breathing harder now, and you realize with a start that he's scared. Bucky Barnes, who caught your cat mid-air and argued with you in the rain, is scared of what you might say next.

"But you," he continues, softer now. "You showed up in my neighborhood reading cards and talking about things you shouldn't know. And I kept seeing you everywhere, and I kept telling myself it was a coincidence, that Brooklyn is small and you were just… there. But there's something here. I feel it every time I'm in the same room as you, and I don't know if that's fate or if it's just—" He stops, running a hand over his face. "I don't know what it is. But I know I haven't wanted to spend time with someone like this in a long time. And if that means the stars finally decided to do something kind for once, then maybe… maybe I'm not as angry at them as I thought."

You don't know what to say. The pasta arrives and sits cooling between you, forgotten. You think about every card you've ever pulled, every spread that ended in the same lonely answer, every time you accepted that love wasn't meant for you. And now, he's sitting across from you, born in 1917, a hundred-year-old soul in a young man's body, and the math is so simple it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

"You're quiet," he says.

"I'm not quiet," you manage, but your voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "I'm just… I don't know what to say. You don't— you don't just drop 'I was born in 1917' into a conversation and expect someone to have a response ready."

The corner of his mouth twitches. "Fair."

"You fought in World War II."

"Yeah."

"And you're telling me you don't believe in fate, but you just handed me proof that the answer I've been getting my whole life wasn't wrong."

"I'm telling you that I don't care what the cards said," he reaches across the table, his hand hovering over yours for a moment before he covers your fingers with his palm. His skin is warm, calloused, and you feel it everywhere. "I care that you're here, right now. And I'm here. That's enough for me."

You look down at your hand under his, at the candlelight pooling in the hollow of his palm, and you think about the High Priestess card, the one you've pulled for yourself a hundred times. Hidden knowledge, the veil between worlds, secrets.

Maybe the secret was that you weren't waiting for a ghost after all.

You eat eventually, though you barely taste it. He tells you about Sam, about the boat they worked on together, about the neighborhood changing and staying the same all at once. You tell him about your cats, about the way Maggie pretends to be asleep every time he comes over so you'll have to answer the door alone.

But mostly, you sit in the candlelight and let yourself have this. Whatever this is.

He insists on walking you home. It's not far—five blocks, maybe six—and the December air is sharp enough to make you tuck your hands into your coat pockets. He walks on the outside of the sidewalk, closest to the street, the way men used to do when he was young, and something about that makes your chest ache.

"You okay?" he asks as you turn onto Maggie's block.

"Yeah." But you're not, not really. You're overwhelmed, full of things you don't know how to say. You want to tell him that you've dreamed about him, that you've known the shape of his laugh before you ever heard it, that you pulled his cards in your kitchen and you threw the deck across the room because it was too much to believe. You want to ask him if he feels it too, this gravity, this sense of falling into something you never expected to find.

But you don't say any of that. You just walk beside him in the dark, and when you reach Maggie's stoop, you turn to face him.

The streetlamp behind him casts a halo around his shoulders. You think about all the years he's lived, all the winters he's seen, and you can't believe any of them led him here. To you. To this moment in your aunt's cracked concrete steps.

"I had a good time," he says.

"Me too."

He steps closer. You can smell the wine on his breath, the cedar of his jacket, the cold night air clinging to his air. He's close enough that you have to tilt your head back to look at him, and his eyes are darker in the shadows.

"I don't think I need to." Your voice is barely above a whisper. "I think I already know how this goes."

"Yeah?" His hand finds your waist, tentative, asking permission. "How's it go?"

And then he kisses you.

It's soft at first, careful, like he's giving you time to pull away. But you don't pull away. You reach up and curl your fingers into the front of his jacket, and he makes a sound against your mouth before deepening the kiss. His hand slides to the small of your back, pulling you closer, and you can feel the warmth of him through every layer between you that suddenly feels like too many.

He tastes like red wine, and his jaw is rough under your palm, and when you break apart you're both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.

"Okay," you whisper. "Okay."

"Okay," he repeats, and he sounds almost drunk with it. He kisses you again, lighter this time, on the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your temple. His lips brush your ear as he murmurs, "I don't care about fate. But if you want to tell me what the stars said, I'll listen."

You laugh, a little watery, and push at his chest. "Go home, Bucky. It's cold."

"I know." But he doesn't move. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your jaw. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

He finally steps back, down one step, then two. He's smiling, the kind that reaches his eyes and rearranges his whole face into something boyish and new. "Night, then."

"Night."

You watch him walk down the block, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed in a way you haven't seen before. You watch until he turns the corner and disappears, and you stand there for a long moment with your fingers pressed to your mouth, trying to remember how to breathe.

The front door opens behind you.

"You're welcome," Maggie says.

You jump so hard you nearly fall off the stoop. "Jesus, Maggie!"

She's standing in the doorway in her robe and slippers, her crossword in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. She looks entirely too pleased with herself.

"You were watching!" You accuse.

"I was observing, there's a difference." She steps back to let you in. "I told you he was a good boy, serious, good with his hands." She winks. "And now you know for sure."

"Maggie!"

"Don't 'Maggie' me. I didn't raise you to be ungrateful." She shuffles toward the stairs. "You can thank me properly at breakfast. And don't think I didn't notice you sneaking cards at my kitchen table for three months straight. I may be old, but I'm not blind."

You stand in the hallway, coat still on, cheeks burning, and listen to her cackle all the way up the stairs.

Your cats appear from the front room, twining around your ankles, and you bend down to scoop Nova up, burying your face in her fur. She purrs, loud and indignant, and you laugh against her soft orange head.

"Okay," you whisper to him, to the empty hallway, to no one in particular. "Okay."

You don't know what happens next. You don't know how any of this works, a tarot reader and a century-old soldier, two people the universe apparently decided to throw together just to see what would happen.

But as you climb the stairs to your cramped little room, you think about the spread you pulled the night before you left for Brooklyn. The Tower. The Star. The World.

Disaster, then hope, then completion.

Maybe The Tower wasn't heartbreak after all. Maybe it was just the world rearranging itself to make room for something you never dared to ask for.

You fall asleep that night without pulling any cards, without any dreams at all, and when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you hear is Bucky's voice downstairs, asking Maggie if she takes one sugar or two, and the sound it's better than any spread you've ever read.

June.

The summer breeze at Coney Island smells like salt and fried dough, and you were wearing the jacket Bucky lent you because you misjudged the wind off the water. It's still too big, the sleeves past your knuckles, and he keeps reaching over to roll them back up for you, his thumb brushing your wrist every time.

You can't remember whose idea it was to come here. Maybe yours, maybe his. Maybe it doesn't matter, because Bucky's hand is wrapped around yours. You've been official since January, though the line between before and after has blurred into something that feels like it started long before either of you were brave enough to name it.

The boardwalk is crowded with families and couples and teenagers laughing too loud, but Bucky moves through them like he was made for this—for cotton candy and carnival lights, for the easy joy of a Brooklyn summer night. He fits here, you realize. He fits now. A hundred-year-old soul learning how to be young again.

"Step right up! Test your luck!" A barker's voice cuts through the noise, and you follow it to a row of old arcade machines tucked beneath a stripped awning. Skee-ball, claw machines, a racing game with a faded steering wheel—and then you see it.

A fortune teller machine.

It sits in the corner like something out of another era, which, you suppose, it is. Madam Zola's Mystical Fortune Cards, the peeling gold paint reads. Insert coin. Receive Your Destiny. The mechanical woman inside has painted glass eyes and a silk scarf draped over her plastic hair, and her hand rests on a deck of cards that probably haven't been mystical a day in their life.

Bucky follows your gaze and laughs. "You're kidding me."

"I'm absolutely not kidding you." You're already digging in your pocket for a quarter. "Madam Zola and I are colleagues, I need to know if she's legitimate."

"She's made of plywood."

"So judgmental." You find two quarters and press one into his palm, your fingers lingering against his. "For you, professional courtesy."

He looks down at the quarter, then back at you, and something softens in his expression. "Alright," he says. "But if this thing tells me I'm gonna die alone, I'm blaming you."

"Fair."

You drop your quarter in first. The machine whirs to life with a dramatic creak. Madam Zola's hand moves across the cards in jerky, mechanical motions, and after a moment, a small white card drops into the brass tray below.

You pick it up. It's not a real tarot card—just cardstock, cheap, the edges already soft from humidity—but the image printed on it makes your breath catch. Two hands clasped, reaching across a starfield. Beneath it, in gold script: The Lovers.

And underneath that, smaller: You've found the one. Don't waste time doubting it.

You stare at it. Bucky leans over your shoulder to read it, and you feel him go still.

"Huh."

"Your turn!"

"I don't need a card to tell me—"

"Your turn, Barnes."

He huffs, but he drops in the quarter you gave him. The machine grinds and another card falls. He picks it up. You don't see it at first, but you see his face—the way his jaw loosens, the way his eyes soften at the corners.

It's the same image, but the text beneath reads: What was written in the stars has come to pass. Trust the path, trust your heart.

The noise of the fair fades to a distant hum. You look up at him, and he's already looking at you.

"Bucky—"

"I don't care if it's rigged. I don't care if every card in that thing says the same thing. You're—" He stops, swallowing thickly. "You're it for me. You know that, right?"

Your heart is doing that complicated thing again, the thing it does every time he looks at you like you're the only person in the world.

"I know," you whisper. "Me too."

He kisses you then, right there in front of Madam Zola and half of Brooklyn, his hand cradling your jaw like you're something precious. When you pull apart, you're both breathless, and someone's wolf-whistled from the skee-ball line, but none of you seem to care at all.

"Come on," he says, lacing his fingers through yours. "I saw a ring toss on the way in, I need to win you something."

It takes him four tries and an embarrassing amount of money, and by the end he's swearing at the rigged bottles while you laugh so hard you have to lean against the counter for support. But on the fifth throw, the last ring catches, and the barker hands over the prize with a grudging nod.

It's a ridiculous bear, oversized and caramel-colored, wearing a tiny red bow tie. Bucky presents it to you as if he was handing you over the Holy Grail.

"For you. I was gonna go for the giant panda, but this one looked like it needed you more."

You crush it against your chest, burying your face in its soft synthetic fur. "I love him. I'm naming him James."

"You're not naming him after me."

"I'm absolutely naming him after you. Look at him, he has your expression."

Bucky stares at the bear's blank button eyes and then at you, and then he laughs, tilting his head back and you want to take a picture of him like this—careless, happy.

"Let's go to the photobooth," you demand, grabbing his hand. "Before the light changes."

"Bossy."

"You love when I'm bossy."

He doesn't agree, but he doesn't deny it either.

The photobooth is tucked behind the funhouse, a vintage four-strip model with a faded red curtain and a sign that flashes OUT OF ORDER every third flicker. But when you slide your money in, it whirs to life, and the first bulb flashes before you're ready.

"Wait—" you laugh, still adjusting the bear on your lap.

Too late. The first picture capture you mid-laugh, Bucky leaning in with his mouth open, probably saying something sarcastic.

"Okay, okay, be serious," you say, turning toward him.

"Serious," he repeats, but his eyes are dancing.

The second flash catches you pressing a kiss to his cheek, his hand coming up to rest on your waist. The third finds him turning his head at the last second so your lips meet his instead, his fingers threading into your hair. The fourth flash finds you both laughing into each other's mouths, your foreheads touching, the bear crushed between you. You don't remember who kissed who, but you don't care.

When the strip slides out of the machine, you hold it up to the light, watching the images develop in slow motion. Four tiny windows into a perfect moment. You look at them, and you think about al the cards you've ever pulled, all the lonely spreads and reversed cups, all the years you believed love wasn't meant for you.

And here you are. Here he is. A love out of time.

"I'm putting these on the fridge," you say. "When we get back to the apartment."

"Our apartment," he corrects and your heart flips.

You're moving in together next month. You found a place in Brooklyn with a windowsill wide enough for two cats and a fire escape that gets morning sun. He's already planning on building a spare room for your appointments, and built a shelf for your cards. You told him he didn't have to, that you'd find another place to do your readings and keep the cards in the closet if he wanted, and he looked at you like you'd suggested drowning a kitten.

"It's your gift," he said. "Why would I want you to hide it?"

Later, when the moon is high and the fair lights are starting to dim, you sit together on the boardwalk with your shoes off, toes buried in cool sand, sharing a funnel cake.

"We should get home," you say, but you don't move. "Salem and Nova are probably destroying something."

"They're fine, Nova's probably sleeping on my tool bag, and Salem's judging her from the windowsill."

"How do you know that?"

"Because that's what they do every time I'm there." He licks powdered sugar off his thumb. "Those cats have a very established routine. Nova loves me, Salem tolerates me… it's a good system."

You smile, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Salem tolerates everyone, that's just his personality. Nova loves anyone who gives her attention. They're not a good benchmark."

"Okay." He pauses. "Then you love me. And you're a much better benchmark."

You go still. The word hangs in the air between you, but he doesn't take it back. He just turns his head and looks at you, waiting, his eyes reflecting the last of the carnival lights.

"I do," you whisper. "I love you."

His smile is small and yet so full of hope it makes your chest ache. "I love you too. I think I started loving you the day you shut the door on my face."

"You have terrible taste."

"Must be the century I was born in, we liked 'em feisty."

You laugh, pushing at his chest, and he catches your hand and presses a kiss to your knuckles. You sit like that for a long time, watching the tide come in, his thumb tracing slow circles in your palm. Eventually, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the fortune card from Madam Zola's machine.

"Do you think it's true?" he asks quietly. "The whole destiny thing. Do you really believe we were supposed to find each other?"

You look at the card, then at him—the man who was born over a hundred years ago, who fought a war and survived things you can't imagine, that sometimes admit not knowing how to do any of this, but that tries anyway for you.

"I believe," you start, "that the cards pointed me in a direction. They told me to wait, to not settle for something that wasn't right." You turn his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm—his life line, long and unbroken; the heart line, deep and sure. "But I don't think they made this happen, Bucky. I think we did. I think you showed up at my shop and you were rude and impossible and I couldn't stop thinking about you anyway. I think we let Maggie manipulate us into falling in love. The cards didn't do that, we did."

"Okay," he says. "I like that better anyway."

"Me too."

He folds the car again and tucks it back into his pocket, over his heart. "I'm keeping this, though. As evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

"That sometimes the universe gets it right."

You don't pull cards that night, haven't done it for a while, because you don't need to. You fall asleep with Bucky's heartbeat against your back, Salem purring at your feet, Nova curled on the pillow between you like a furry chaperone, and you dream of nothing at all—just the deep, peaceful dark of a life that's finally exactly where it's meant to be.

He had a system at home.

A good system.

Coffee. Silence. Alpine curled beside him on the couch like a tiny judgmental loaf of bread. Maybe a movie he wouldn’t pay attention to. Minimal human interaction.

Peace.

Instead, Sam showed up at his apartment an hour ago carrying cupcakes and bad intentions.

“You can’t stay inside that apartment forever with Alpine,” Sam says now, like he’s continuing an old argument. “That cat is starting to absorb your personality.”

“She likes me.”

“She bites everyone else.”

“That sounds like a them problem.”

Steve hides a smile.

Bucky leans his head back against the seat with a groan. “Why am I even needed at this thing?”

“It’s Morgan’s birthday,” Steve says.

Sam grins. “Family event. It will be good for you.”

Bucky flips him off without looking.

The car goes quiet for a minute.

Not awkward quiet. Just familiar.

The kind built over years of near-death experiences and too many shared memories.

Outside, the city slowly shifts into larger houses, quieter streets, cleaner sidewalks.

Rich people territory.

Bucky already hates it.

“You could try having fun,” Steve says eventually.

Bucky stares at him like he personally insulted his ancestors.

“Why are you saying that like it’s easy?”

Steve glances at him briefly. “Because staying miserable on purpose gets exhausting after a while.”

That lands harder than Bucky wants it to. He crosses his arms, glaring out the window again while they pull through the massive Stark gates.

Lights glow across the property ahead, warm against the dark evening sky.

Music drifts faintly through the air.

Too many people.

Too much noise.

He already wants to leave.

Sam unbuckles first and points at him before he can move. “And no disappearing after ten minutes.”

“I never do that.”

“You vanished through a bathroom window last time.”

“It was efficient.”

“You’re impossible.”

Bucky pushes the car door open. “Yet here you are. Voluntarily spending time with me.”

Sam throws an arm around his shoulders immediately, dragging him toward the house despite his complaints.

“That’s because underneath all the grumpy murder grandpa stuff,” Sam says, “you secretly love us.”

“I could bench press you into traffic.”

“But you won’t.”

Bucky doesn’t answer.

Mostly because Steve opens the front doors right then—

And somewhere inside the house, faint and warm and distant, he hears someone singing.

— 15 minutes earlier —

The dressing room is chaos.

Cheap rhinestones scattered across the counter. Someone in the hallway yelling about balloons. Someone else asking where the cake table went.

And Dylan is pacing.

“No, no, no,” he mutters, tugging at the ridiculous blue Beast jacket stretched across his shoulders. “I can’t do this.”

You pause halfway through putting on your gloves. “Dylan—”

“I’m serious.” He points toward the door like the answer is waiting outside. “Do you know whose house this is?”

“Yes,” you say carefully.

“It’s the Starks.”

You stare at him through the mirror. “Tony Stark is literally paying us to sing to children, not dismantle a bomb.”

“That’s worse.”

You snort despite yourself, adjusting the off-the-shoulder yellow gown. It’s prettier than you expected when the agency shoved the costume bag into your arms this morning. Layers of gold satin spill around your feet, catching the light every time you move.

For one stupid second, you almost feel like Belle.

Dylan doesn’t.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“You’re not gonna throw up.”

“What if the Avengers are there?”

You stop.

Okay. Fair point.

The knot in your stomach tightens instantly.

You need this job. Rent is due in four days, your audition last week went nowhere, and the commercial you filmed still hasn’t paid you. Which means you absolutely cannot afford to panic now.

So you grab Dylan by the shoulders.

“Listen to me,” you say firmly. “You need to calm down. Do you know how much we’re getting paid for this?”

“Yes, but—”

“And if you ruin this for me, I will personally feed you to the Hulk.”

That earns a weak laugh.

“Pretty sure he’s off-world,” Dylan mutters.

“Then I’ll wait.”

Another laugh. Better this time.

You smooth nonexistent wrinkles from his jacket. “We go in there, smile, sing, wave at rich children, and leave with enough money to survive another month. That’s it.”

A knock hits the door before he can answer.

“Princess Belle? They’re ready for you.”

Your stomach flips.

Dylan immediately pales again.

You squeeze his arm once before stepping away. “Breathe.”

Then you lift your chin, paste on a princess smile, and walk out.

The Stark house looks less like a house and more like a museum designed by someone with unlimited money and zero restraint.

Everything gleams.

Soft golden lights wrap around the enormous backyard. Staff members move through the crowd carrying trays of tiny desserts that probably cost more than your electric bill. Children run across the lawn wearing paper crowns and superhero masks.

And near the center of it all—

“Mama! Belle’s here!”

Morgan Stark barrels toward you at full speed.

You barely have time to crouch before she crashes into your arms, giggling wildly.

“Oh my gosh,” you say in your best princess voice, warm and bright. “Princess Morgan! I’ve heard so much about you.”

Her gasp is immediate. “Really?”

“Of course. The castle talks about little else.”

She beams.

And just like that, the nerves disappear.

Because this part—you know this part.

You know how to soften your voice until children lean closer to hear you. You know how to make wonder feel real. You know how to turn exhaustion into magic for two hours at a time.

Morgan takes your hand immediately and drags you toward the other kids.

“Belle, can you sing?”

“Can you dance?”

“Where’s Beast?”

“Oh, he’ll join us later,” you say smoothly, praying Dylan survives the next ten minutes. “But for now…” You straighten dramatically. “Who would like to hear a story?”

A chorus of screams answers you.

Then you start singing.

And the entire party quiets.

Not because you’re loud.

Because you’re good.

Your voice carries softly through the backyard while the kids sit cross-legged around you, completely enchanted. You smile at each of them like they matter individually. Like this isn’t just another exhausting gig at the end of a long week.

Across the lawn, Bucky looks up almost by accident.

And immediately regrets it.

Because now he’s looking at you.

Fairy lights glow softly above your head while children crowd around your skirts, completely enchanted by every word that leaves your mouth. You laugh at something one of them says, bright and easy and real enough that it reaches him even from across the yard.

And for one strange second—

You don’t look like someone pretending to be a princess.

You look like one.

Then your eyes lift suddenly.

Find his across the crowd.

Bucky expects the usual reaction instantly.

The hesitation. The recognition. That brief flicker people always get when they realize who he is.

Instead, your expression softens.

Just slightly.

Like seeing him standing there alone somehow matters to you more than it should.

And the smile you give him—

God.

It’s small.

Almost shy.

But warm enough that he actually feels it.

Like sunlight slipping through something cracked open.

You hold his gaze for one tiny, suspended second longer than necessary before turning back to the children beside you.

But now your heartbeat feels different too.

Because there was something unexpectedly gentle in the way he looked at you.

Bucky watches Morgan stare at you like you hung the damn moon.

Watches you stay perfectly in character when another kid spills juice on the hem of your dress.

You don’t even flinch.

“Accidents happen,” you tell the horrified child gently. “Even in castles.”

Something in his chest shifts unpleasantly.

Or pleasantly.

He hasn’t decided yet.

Because normally, people trying too hard to be sweet annoys him.

But you kneel to talk to the children at eye level. You remember every single name they tell you. When Morgan grabs your hand during the story, you squeeze back automatically without breaking character once.

None of it feels fake.

Which is exactly the problem.

Bucky exhales slowly through his nose, already irritated with himself.

You’re midway through teaching Morgan and three other children how to properly curtsy when your phone starts vibrating inside the hidden pocket sewn into your dress.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Your stomach drops instantly.

Because only one person would call you repeatedly during a job.

“Princess Belle,” Morgan says seriously, tugging your glove, “Amelia says princesses aren’t allowed to eat chicken nuggets.”

You crouch slightly. “Amelia has clearly never met a princess after a long day.”

Morgan gasps. “You eat nuggets?”

“In alarming quantities.”

The children dissolve into laughter.

Your phone buzzes again.

Definitely Dylan.

“Excuse me one moment,” you say gently. “The castle may be under attack.”

Morgan grabs your skirt dramatically. “By who?”

You glance at the phone screen.

Dylan: I THINK IM DYING

“…the French.”

You slip away before the kids can ask further questions.

The second you push through the side doors into the hallway, you answer.

“What happened?”

“I threw up.”

You stop walking. “What?”

“I told you I was gonna throw up.”

“Oh my God.”

“Also,” he says weakly, “I think I have a fever.”

You press your fingers to your forehead.

Of course he does.

Of course this happens at Tony Stark’s house.

“Can you still come out for the photos at least?”

A miserable pause.

“…if I move too fast I think I’ll see God.”

“Great.”

“I’m so sorry.”

And the worst part?

He genuinely sounds devastated.

You sigh, leaning against the wall. “It’s okay. Stay in the dressing room. Drink water. Don’t die before I get paid.”

“That’s fair.”

You hang up.

Then immediately turn and nearly collide with Pepper Potts.

“Oh!” she says. “There you are. Morgan’s asking for—” She stops instantly. “What’s wrong?”

You try to smile professionally.

It must fail horribly.

“The Beast actor is sick.”

Pepper blinks once.

“Oh no.”

“Yeah.”

“He can’t come out at all?”

“He’s currently fighting for his life in the dressing room bathroom.”

Pepper’s face cycles rapidly through concern, stress, and the specific exhaustion only rich parents hosting children’s parties can achieve.

Because unfortunately, the timing is terrible.

Kids are already gathering near the photo backdrop.

Morgan keeps asking when Beast is coming.

And somewhere nearby, you hear Tony Stark loudly saying, “I can absolutely do it.”

Pepper turns sharply. “No.”

From the other room: “Why not? I have range.”

“You have an ego.”

“I can roar.”

“You have to greet people.”

“I can greet people as Beast.”

Pepper pinches the bridge of her nose.

You almost laugh despite yourself.

Then another voice joins in.

“…Tony’s right, though.”

You glance toward the doorway and nearly choke on your own heartbeat.

Because standing there casually like this is a completely normal Tuesday are two actual Avengers.

Captain America himself stands beside a man you recognize from the News. Sam Wilson.

You suddenly become intensely aware that you’re dressed as a Disney princess while holding a phone that still has Dylan: I THINK IM DYING on the screen.

This cannot be your life.

Sam leans against the doorway easily, looking far too entertained by the situation already.

But it’s the man beside him that catches your attention.

The same man from earlier.

The one who looked at you across the backyard like he’d forgotten, for a second, where he was.

Dark hair. Tall. Broad shoulders filling out a black Henley. Arms crossed tightly over his chest like he already wants no part in whatever conversation this is.

And yet somehow, standing this close to him now, you still feel that strange little pull from earlier.

Unlike the others, he isn’t smiling. If anything, he looks like he’d rather walk directly back out the door.

Sam’s eyes flick briefly toward you before landing on Pepper.

“All due respect,” he says, “I think we found a better option.”

Bucky narrows his eyes immediately, like he already knows where this is going.

Steve nods slowly, already betraying him. “Actually…”

Pepper looks between them hopefully. “Wait.”

Sam grins.

“Oh, this is perfect.”

Bucky straightens immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“You’re tall,” Sam says helpfully.

“So is Steve.”

Almost on cue, Morgan’s voice suddenly rings through the backyard.

“UNCLE AMERICA!”

Steve barely has time to react before a tiny blur in pink slams into his legs.

“There he is,” Bucky mutters.

Morgan grabs Steve’s hand immediately. “Come see my castle!”

And Steve actually lets himself get dragged away.

“You’re abandoning me?” Bucky calls after him.

Steve only throws him an apologetic smile over his shoulder before disappearing outside with Morgan.

Bucky looks deeply betrayed.

Sam looks delighted.

“You were saying?” Sam asks.

Bucky glares at him. “I hope your wings fall off.”

Pepper is visibly trying not to laugh now.

Meanwhile, you’re standing there clutching your phone like your entire career is collapsing in front of you.

“I really don’t want to cause trouble,” you say quickly. “I can just explain to Morgan that Beast got delayed—”

“Morgan’s seven,” Pepper says softly. “She’s been talking about this dance all week.”

Guilt hits instantly.

Bucky notices.

And unfortunately for him, Sam notices Bucky noticing.

Which means it’s over.

“Buck,” Sam says, suddenly far too smug, “you wouldn’t even have to talk much.”

“No.”

“You’d just stand there looking grumpy.”

“No.”

“You already do that recreationally.”

 “Why don’t you do it?” Bucky shoots back immediately.

Sam places a hand dramatically over his chest. “Because I’m beautiful in a completely different genre.”

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“See? Beast energy.”

Bucky looks at you then.

Really looks at you for the first time up close.

The gold dress.

The nervous expression you’re trying to hide.

The way your hands twist together for half a second before you force yourself still again.

You look exhausted.

But somehow you’re still worried about disappointing a little girl.

And that annoying feeling in his chest returns.

Stronger this time.

Pepper steps closer carefully. “Bucky,” she says softly, “could you help us out? Just for a little while.”

He exhales slowly.

Looks toward the backyard where Morgan’s laughter drifts through the open doors.

Then back at you.

“…I hate all of you,” he mutters.

Sam lights up instantly. “That’s not a no.”

“It should be.”

Pepper smiles hopefully. “Bucky?”

He closes his eyes briefly like a man accepting his fate.

“…fine.”

The room goes silent.

You blink. “Wait. Really?”

Bucky points at you immediately. “This doesn’t leave this house.”

Sam nearly folds in half laughing.

And ten minutes later, you’re backstage beside a very grumpy Beast while trying to adjust the dark blue coat around his shoulders.

The costume department clearly did not account for super soldiers.

The fabric pulls tight across his chest every time he moves.

Bucky notices you staring immediately.

You step closer carefully, adjusting the fur near the collar.

“I’m sorry if the costume’s too tight,” you murmur. “The actor who usually plays Beast is… significantly less built.”

Bucky huffs quietly.

“That’s one way to say it.”

Up close, he’s unfairly intimidating.

Dark blue fabric stretched over muscle. Gloves hiding the metal hand completely.

Even the ridiculous Beast mask somehow makes him look dangerous.

Which feels deeply unfair for a Disney prince.

“You know,” you say gently while fixing one of the gold buttons, “you really don’t have to do this.”

Bucky looks down at you.

Then toward the backyard where Morgan’s excited voice carries faintly through the doors.

“…yeah,” he says quietly.

A pause.

“I kinda do.”

Before either of you can say anything else, the dressing room door swings open and Morgan storms in dramatically.

“BEAST!”

The little girl launches herself directly at Bucky.

Every muscle in his body visibly locks.

You almost panic for him.

But then, carefully, awkwardly, he catches her before she can crash face-first into the costume.

Morgan gasps, completely enchanted. “You’re so tall.”

Bucky looks at you, and somehow you know that beneath the mask, he looks completely helpless.

You grin. “That’s Beast.”

Morgan grabs his gloved hand immediately. “Belle said you were late because of a curse.”

Bucky looks down at her.

“…yeah,” he says after a second. “Traffic curse.”

You snort so suddenly you choke on air.

Morgan is already dragging him toward the doors with alarming strength for a seven-year-old.

You smooth your dress quickly before following after them, trying to slip back into character.

But it’s harder now for some reason.

Because this doesn’t feel like part of the performance anymore.

You barely know him.

You know he looks permanently annoyed at the world. You know children somehow trust him instantly despite the terrifying resting expression.

And you know he agreed to wear a giant Beast costume for a little girl he clearly adores.

Which is doing unfortunate things to your brain.

The backyard erupts the second Morgan reappears with him.

“BEAST!”

Children swarm immediately.

Bucky freezes.

Again.

You quickly step beside him before the poor man fully short-circuits.

“Oh dear,” you say brightly in Belle’s voice, slipping naturally into the scene. “The Beast seems overwhelmed.”

“I wonder why,” he mutters under his breath.

You hide another smile.

The next twenty minutes become complete chaos.

Children asking Bucky impossible questions.

“Do you live in the castle?”

“Can you roar?”

“Why are your hands so big?”

One tiny girl stares at him suspiciously before asking, “Are you hairy everywhere?”

You nearly inhale your own tongue trying not to laugh.

Bucky looks ready to walk directly into the ocean.

But somehow he stays.

He does the photos.

Lets kids hold his hands.

Even growls once after Morgan begs him to.

The children lose their minds.

Across the yard, Sam is recording the whole thing while Steve laughs so hard he has to sit down.

You catch Pepper wiping tears from her eyes at one point.

Probably from laughing.

Probably.

Then the music changes.

Soft piano drifting through the speakers.

Your stomach drops instantly.

The dance scene.

Morgan gasps dramatically. “NOW!”

Bucky goes still beside you.

“No.”

“Oh yes,” you say, smiling at him through clenched teeth.

“I don’t dance.”

“You’re literally a prince.”

“I’m literally not.”

Morgan grabs both your hands and shoves them together before either of you can react.

And suddenly—

Oh.

Your gloved hand lands against his.

His hand settles carefully at your waist.

The other wraps around your fingers.

You feel him hesitate.

Not because he doesn’t know how to dance.

Because he’s trying not to hurt you.

The realization hits instantly.

“It’s okay,” you say softly before thinking better of it.

His gaze flicks down to yours through the mask.

The world around you keeps moving, kids laughing, phones taking pictures, Sam yelling something obnoxious in the background, but for one strange second, it narrows into just this.

The warmth of his hand.

The carefulness in the way he’s holding you.

The fact that he smells faintly like coffee under all the costume fabric.

“You trust people too easy,” he says quietly.

You blink.

“That’s a weird thing to say during a Disney dance.”

“You didn’t answer.”

You should probably make a joke.

Instead, your eyes catch briefly on his gloved fingers resting against your waist.

Gentle despite the strength behind them.

Then Morgan yells, “KISS HER!”

Both of you jump apart instantly.

“Nope,” Bucky says immediately.

“Absolutely not,” you add at the exact same time.

The music softens around you, warm piano drifting through the backyard while fairy lights glow overhead.

Bucky Barnes keeps one hand at your waist, the other holding yours carefully as he guides you through the slow steps.

Too carefully.

Like he’s afraid to press too hard.

Like he’s constantly aware of himself.

His hand tightens at your waist without warning, pulling you just a little closer each time. Close enough that you can feel the heat of him even through the heavy costume layers. And whenever he leans down to hear you over the music, a shiver runs all the way down your spine.

The music softens around you, warm piano drifting through the backyard while fairy lights glow overhead.

You glance up at him just as he looks down at your feet.

“…am I doin’ this right?” he asks quietly.

His voice comes out rough and muffled beneath the Beast mask, low enough that you almost don’t hear it over the music.

The question catches you completely off guard.

Because he sounds genuinely unsure.

You blink once. “You know how to dance.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

Something warm twists painfully in your chest.

His grip tightens slightly at your waist.

“Don’t wanna mess this up.”

You smile softly. “You know, most princes are a little more confident during the ballroom scene.”

“Yeah, well.” He exhales quietly. “Pretty sure this prince skipped rehearsal.”

That pulls a laugh out of you.

Bucky’s gaze lifts at the sound immediately.

Not to the children.

Not to the crowd.

Just you.

And for one strange second, the dance stops feeling like part of the performance at all.

Then, quieter this time:

“…seriously, though,” he murmurs, thumb shifting faintly against your waist, “I’m not crushin’ your feet, am I?”

Your heartbeat stumbles embarrassingly hard.

“No,” you whisper. “You’re perfect.”

This is getting dangerous. Because somewhere between the dancing and the quiet way he keeps looking at you, this stopped feeling like part of the job.

You clear your throat quickly and pull back just enough to look over his shoulder.

“Morgan!” you call brightly.

Across the dance floor, Morgan gasps dramatically like she’s been summoned by destiny itself.

“Princess Morgan,” you say sweetly, already stepping away from Bucky before your brain completely melts, “I believe the Beast owes you a dance.”

Morgan screams.

Actually screams.

Bucky looks at you immediately.

You give him your most innocent Belle smile.

His eyes narrow under the mask. “You’re ditching me.”

“I would never.”

“You literally are right now.”

Morgan crashes into him before he can argue further, grabbing both his hands excitedly.

“C’MON BEAST!”

Bucky looks at you one last time over her head.

“You’re trouble,” he says flatly.

Your pulse jumps embarrassingly hard.

Before you can answer, Morgan drags him away into the crowd of children demanding another dance.

The second he’s gone, you exhale.

Hard.

Then across the dance floor, Morgan spins dramatically beneath Bucky’s arm while he awkwardly tries to keep up without stepping on tiny children.

And despite the giant Beast costume and permanent grumpy expression he’s laughing.

You watch him crouch slightly when she talks so he can hear her better through the music. Watch him steady her automatically every time she nearly trips over her dress. Watch one huge gloved hand settle carefully at her back while she spins herself dizzy.

The Beast mask should make him look ridiculous.

Instead, somehow, it only makes the contrast worse.

Big and intimidating and visibly dangerous even under layers of fake fur—

Yet impossibly gentle with her.

Your chest tightens unexpectedly.

“Well,” a voice says beside you, “you’re lookin’ at him exactly the same way the kids are.”

You nearly jump.

Sam Wilson grins knowingly as he reaches for a cupcake from the dessert table.

“I am not.”

“Hm.”

“I don’t even know him.”

“That’s never stopped anybody before.”

You glare at him.

He grins wider.

Somehow, hours later, Morgan Stark still has enough energy to power a small country.

“Belle,” she says for what must be the twentieth time that night, “are you gonna stay forever?”

You smile tiredly, smoothing a hand over her hair. “I don’t think your dad has enough snacks for that.”

Tony points from across the yard. “I absolutely do.”

Pepper immediately says, “No, we don’t.”

Morgan giggles.

And beside her, the Beast exhales dramatically before lowering himself onto one knee with the exhaustion of a war veteran returning from battle.

“I’m old,” he mutters.

You laugh softly. “You danced with children for two hours.”

“I fought in actual wars that were easier than this.”

“You’re doing amazing, sweetie,” Sam calls from somewhere behind him.

The Beast lifts a gloved hand without looking and flips him off.

Morgan gasps.

You gasp louder. “Beast!”

Sam nearly collapses laughing.

“Sorry,” the Beast says flatly. “The curse slipped.”

Morgan thinks this is the funniest thing she’s ever heard in her life.

Honestly?

You do too.

A little later, Pepper gently steals Morgan away, leaving you alone beside the Beast for the first time all evening.

And suddenly the silence feels… different.

Not awkward exactly.

Just noticeable.

You become very aware of the night air against your skin. Of the weight of the wig pinned to your head. Of him sitting beside you with the Beast mask pushed up, revealing his face.

Which turns out to be a mistake.

Because he’s unfairly handsome.

You look away immediately.

“So,” you say, mostly to stop your brain from malfunctioning, “thanks again for saving my job tonight.”

He huffs quietly beside you. “Wasn’t for your job.”

Your eyes flick back to him.

“Morgan?”

“Morgan,” he confirms.

A beat passes.

Then, quieter:

“…you too, I guess.”

Your heart does something deeply irritating.

The corners of his mouth twitch slightly like he regrets admitting it already.

You smile before you can stop yourself.

“Careful,” you murmur. “You’re almost being nice to me.”

“That’s the mask.”

“Oh, right. Of course.”

“The fur changes a man.”

That earns another laugh out of you.

And again, that look crosses his face.

That brief pause like he wasn’t expecting the sound but likes it anyway.

You notice it this time.

From across the yard, Steve walks by carrying three children at once somehow.

“You surviving?” he asks.

The Beast sighs. “Barely.”

Steve grins, eyes flicking briefly between the two of you.

You suddenly get the horrible feeling everyone here knows each other too well.

Including whatever this weird thing currently happening between you and the grumpy fake prince is.

“So,” you say carefully after Steve leaves, “do you always volunteer for emergency Disney prince duty?”

He snorts softly.

“First time.”

“You seemed pretty experienced.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You handled the kids well.”

For a second, he doesn’t answer.

His gaze drifts toward Morgan laughing beside Pepper near the cake table.

Then he shrugs slightly.

“They’re easier than adults.”

You blink.

“…that’s actually the most concerning thing anyone’s said to me tonight.”

That finally gets a real smile out of him. Small. Crooked. Gone almost instantly.

But you saw it.

And unfortunately for your sanity, now you want to see it again.

“Cake!” Morgan announces like a war cry.

The children erupt instantly.

You barely have time to laugh before Morgan grabs both your hand and the Beast’s clawed one at the same time.

“C’mon!”

Bucky visibly braces himself.

Morgan leads you directly toward a tiny plastic table surrounded by miniature pink chairs.

Bucky stops walking immediately.

“No.”

Morgan gasps. “What?”

“I can’t fit in that.”

“You have to sit with Belle!”

Children nearby immediately begin chanting:

“BEAST! BEAST! BEAST!”

Bucky looks personally betrayed by every child present.

You press your lips together hard, trying not to laugh while lowering yourself carefully into one of the tiny chairs.

The skirt of your dress spills around you in soft yellow satin.

Across from you, Bucky stares at the chair like it insulted his family.

“You’re doing great,” you tell him helpfully.

“I hate you.”

“That’s not very princely.”

“That’s because I’m not a prince.”

Morgan points dramatically at the seat.

Bucky sighs like a man moments from death.

Then lowers himself carefully into the tiny chair.

The plastic creaks ominously.

Every child at the table gasps.

You fully choke on a laugh.

Bucky turns toward you slowly through the Beast mask.

Morgan shoves paper plates toward both of you proudly while Pepper begins passing out cake.

And honestly?

It’s cute.

Ridiculously cute.

Children talking over each other excitedly. Frosting everywhere. Morgan sitting between you and Bucky like she personally arranged a royal wedding.

Then Morgan accidentally gets blue frosting across her own cheek.

“Oh no!” she gasps.

You laugh softly, grabbing a napkin. “Hold still, princess.”

While you wipe frosting from Morgan’s face, you completely miss the tiny streak of blue icing that ended up on your own cheek.

Bucky notices immediately.

And unfortunately—

Now he can’t stop looking at it.

You’re talking to Morgan about castles or books or something, but he’s not listening anymore.

Because there’s frosting on your face, near the corner of your mouth.

And somehow that feels more distracting than the dress.

Than the dancing.

Than literally anything else tonight.

“You got somethin’ there,” he says suddenly.

You blink. “What?”

He gestures vaguely toward his own cheek with one giant clawed glove.

“…there.”

You try wiping it away blindly.

“Did I get it?”

“No.”

“Great.”

Bucky stares at the stupid oversized Beast gloves for a second like he’s reconsidering every decision that led him here tonight.

Then, carefully, he reaches across the tiny table.

His claw brushes softly against your cheek.

Warm despite the gloves.

You stop breathing entirely.

He tries wiping the frosting away—

Except the giant fake claw only smears it worse across your skin.

You stare at him.

He stares at the disaster he just created.

Then, very flatly:

“…I made it worse.”

From somewhere behind him, you hear Sam make a noise suspiciously close to choking.

Your laugh slips out before you can stop it.

Soft at first.

Then brighter.

“It’s okay,” you manage between laughs. “You tried.”

And before you can think better of it, you lean forward slightly.

“There,” you murmur.

Your fingers brush gently against the corner of his mouth, wiping away a streak of blue frosting Morgan must’ve gotten on him earlier.

The second you touch him—

He freezes.

Completely.

Your smile falters just slightly.

Because suddenly you’re very aware of how quiet he got.

How still.

How carefully he’s looking at you now.

Like your hand against his face means something bigger than it should.

Morgan looks between both of you while happily shoving cake into her mouth.

“…you guys are weird.”

Sam immediately loses his mind laughing somewhere behind the table.

And Bucky?

Bucky can’t even argue with her.

The party finally begins to quiet down sometime after cake.

Children are asleep on couches inside the house. Half-deflated balloons drift lazily across the backyard. Someone turned the music low enough that it blends into the warm night air instead of filling it.

And Morgan Stark is fully asleep in Bucky Barnes’s arms.

It happens slowly.

One minute she’s still talking sleepily about whether Belle and Beast would survive a zombie apocalypse and the next, her head slips against his shoulder mid-sentence.

Out cold.

You smile before you can stop yourself.

Bucky looks down at her carefully, adjusting his hold automatically so she settles more comfortably against his chest.

The Beast gloves are gone now.

The mask too.

And without them, he somehow looks softer and more dangerous at the same time.

Dark hair messy from wearing the costume all night. Sleeves pushed up slightly. Tired eyes watching Morgan with this quiet kind of patience that makes something ache in your chest.

Pepper appears beside you with the expression of a woman who’s one minor inconvenience away from sleeping for three days.

“Oh no,” she whispers fondly. “She’s done.”

Bucky huffs quietly. “Yeah.”

Pepper reaches for Morgan carefully. “I’ll take her upstairs.”

For a second, Morgan stirs slightly against him.

Then tiny fingers grab weakly at the front of his shirt.

“No,” she mumbles sleepily. “Beast stays.”

Your heart actually hurts.

Bucky goes very still.

Pepper looks dangerously close to emotional already.

And after a tiny pause, Bucky murmurs:

“Alright. I’m stayin’.”

Morgan settles instantly.

You swear Pepper might love him a little for that.

Eventually, between the three of you, Morgan is successfully transferred upstairs without waking again.

And then—

The silence.

Just you and him standing alone beneath strings of warm lights while the last few party guests drift out through the gates.

The yellow skirts of your dress brush softly against your legs every time the wind moves.

Bucky looks at you for a second too long.

Then looks away.

Then back again.

“You know,” he says quietly, voice rougher now without the mask muffling it, “that dress is kinda unfair.”

Your breath catches embarrassingly fast.

Because he says it like it slipped out accidentally.

Like he didn’t mean to say it aloud.

Heat crawls up your neck immediately.

So naturally, you deflect.

“Good thing the costume covered your face then.”

A tiny smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

Then his gaze shifts briefly past you.

Toward the tables scattered across the backyard.

Most of the candles have burned low by now. Half-empty glasses abandoned beside crumpled napkins. Flower centerpieces beginning to droop after hours in the heat.

And right in the middle of one arrangement there is a single rose.

Bucky tilts his head slightly. “Thought Belle was supposed to have a rose.”

You blink, caught off guard by the comment.

Then laugh softly. “You know the story?”

He gives you a look.

“Steve made me watch animated movies for cultural rehabilitation.”

A laugh slips out of you instantly. “That cannot be a real sentence.”

“It absolutely is.”

“You poor thing.”

“I survived.”

“Barely.”

You laugh again.

One large hand closes around the stem of a red rose tucked between candles and gold ribbon.

And without ceremony he pulls it free.

You stare as he turns back toward you, holding it out casually like this isn’t doing very dangerous things to your heartbeat. You shake your head, smiling as you take the rose carefully from his hand.

His fingers brush yours for half a second.

Warm.

Gentle.

And somehow that tiny touch feels worse than the dancing did.

 “You just stole from Tony Stark,” you murmur.

“He’ll survive.”

“You’re a criminal.”

“I’ve been told.”

And for one soft, dangerous second the fairy tale feels a little too real.

And suddenly the air feels too warm.

The fairy lights above you blur softly while your heartbeat pounds hard enough to be embarrassing.

Because there’s something very unfair about the way he looks at you now.

Not like Belle.

Not like part of the performance.

Like you.

And the worst part?

You think maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.

A nervous laugh escapes you quietly. “You flirt a lot for someone who looked physically offended to be here earlier.”

“I was physically offended.”

“You’re doing better now.”

“That’s debatable.”

You smile.

His eyes drop briefly to your mouth.

And there it is.

That terrible, dangerous pause.

The kind that changes things.

Your heartbeat stumbles.

One more inch and—

Bucky steps back first.

Like the thought alone startled him. He glances toward the house, jaw tightening once when he realizes he doesn’t know how to do this anymore.

Doesn’t know how to stand in soft light with a beautiful girl dressed like a princess smiling at him like he’s someone safe to be around.

Not after everything.

Not when she still looks at him with warmth instead of caution.

Someone like you should probably meet someone normal.

Someone uncomplicated.

Not a man who spent half the evening hiding behind a Beast mask because it somehow felt easier than being himself.

And maybe that’s why, after a long pause, he just says quietly:

“You should get home. It’s late.”

The words hit harder than they should.

But you still smile softly. “Yeah. Probably.”

Neither of you move right away.

Then finally, you step back.

“Goodnight,” you say gently.

Bucky nods once.

“Goodnight, sweetheart.”

The nickname lands directly in your chest.

And then you leave.

Just like that.

No number exchanged.

No big moment.

Bucky watches until your taillights disappear through the gates.

And something in his chest feels suddenly, violently empty.

“…you are the dumbest man alive.”

Bucky closes his eyes immediately.

Of course Sam Wilson is still here.

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“You didn’t even ask for her number!”

Bucky drags a hand down his face tiredly. “Sam.”

“No, seriously,” Sam says, horrified. “What was your plan here? Just suffer forever?”

Bucky glares at him. “I’m serious.”

“And I’m devastated for you.”

“I don’t—” He exhales sharply. “She’s sweet.”

Sam blinks once.

“…that’s your argument?”

“She deserves someone normal.”

“None of us are normal.”

“That’s different.”

Sam opens his mouth—

Then pauses suddenly.

His eyes drop toward the patio floor near Bucky’s boots.

“…hold on.”

Bucky frowns. “What.”

Sam points dramatically.

And there, half-hidden beneath one of the chairs, sits a pair of gold heels.

Tiny.

Definitely not his.

Bucky stares at them for a second.

Then something in his expression shifts almost immediately.

Because he remembers you wincing every few steps near the end of the party. Remembers you carrying the shoes in one hand while walking barefoot through the grass. Remembers the yellow dress brushing around your ankles while fairy lights reflected softly against your skin.

A quiet laugh escapes him before he can stop it.

Sam looks deeply offended by the existence of this emotion.

“Oh my God,” he says. “I thought she was Belle, not Cinderella.”

Bucky shoots him a look while bending to pick up the heels carefully.

They’re ridiculously delicate in his hands.

Sam watches the whole thing with growing horror.

“You are gone,” he says.

Bucky ignores him, thumb brushing absently over the gold strap.

Then, before he can think too hard about why he’s doing it, he glances toward the gates one last time.

Like maybe you’ll magically come running back for them.

Sam stares at him for a long moment.

Then slowly reaches into his pocket.

Bucky narrows his eyes immediately. “What’s that.”

Without answering, Sam holds out a small business card.

The princess company logo printed across the front.

Bucky looks at it.

Then at Sam.

Then back at the card.

“…you stole this?”

“I networked.”

“That’s not what networking is.”

Sam grins.

And after a long, dangerous pause—

"Shit."

"What now."

Taking a last hit, you flicked the cigarette to the ground and crushed it with a heavy black boot. Yelena looked to where you nodded, turning to see Sam Wilson and worse, Bucky Barnes soldiering right towards the two of you. She groaned outward, rolling her eyes.

"Don't they have their own shit to do."

Avoiding Bucky's glaring stare, you nearly pinched the bridge of your nose out of frustration and nerves. It had been about six months since you last seen Bucky, leaving him rolled up in a thin sheet as you escaped the hotel room. See, the thing was, you liked fucking Bucky Barnes - you were human after all, but things were complicated at best. Plus, Sam sorta severely disliked Yelena and your antics; always interrupting their investigations but was it your fault that you were simply better at espionage?

"Of course the two of you would be here." Sam was annoyed and you could only smile at the man, hands on your hips. Yelena examined her nails and shrugged. "Well, the job needs to get done and you two idiots are about three days late..."

Holding back a smile, you finally braved a look at Bucky and nearly flinched at how focused he was on you. Giving him a slight nod, you listened to Sam and Yelena bickered until a peace offering was given by Bucky. Yelena began to protest but you spoke to her in her native tongue and she practically pouted. Bucky inserted himself into the conversation and Sam demanded everyone speak in a language he too could understand.

You smirked. "Fine, we'll play nice...for now but my sister gets the kill."

Sam said no one was getting killed but he was naïve to what was really going on and you gave Bucky a look that questioned if he understand. Without Sam noticing, he gave a slight nod and you knew he got it.

"This is Red Room business, so we'll handle the asshole." Yelena spoke quietly and it sent a shiver down your spine - her tone left no room for objections and Sam dropped it. He mentioned the hotel they were staying at and you agreed to meet them to trade intel.

"We'll be there in two hours, we have some sisterly business to do."

Once everyone was satisfied with the arrangements, Yelena started toward the car but Bucky asked to speak to you...alone. Sam took the hint, drifted away down the street as you turned to your sometimes booty call. He looked good as always and it sent sinking feelings down your stomach. Hands in his pockets, he asked how you were.

"Shit hotels, but I always enjoy spending time with my sister."

He gave a small smile but it quickly faded. "How are you really?"

The interior wall you built fell when he reached down to your hand; his warmth filled all the little corners of coldest in your heart and you felt weak. He made you feel weak all because he made you feel wanted. Bucky was your downfall and that's why you kept him at a distance but he was the king of distance and downfalls. Yet, he stood there with the warmest touch a person had ever placed on you. It made you desperate to give in and even Yelena had pointed out the personal torture you were putting yourself through.

"You two are alive, why not?"

What a poet, your sister.

"I want some alone time with you, later..."

Feigning slickness, you purred at him. "Miss my body that much?"

Bucky didn't take the bait, inside he pulled you roughly against him. His hands held yours down at your side and he looked, no, he stared deep into your eyes. "I don't want you just like that, don't be stupid."

That should have pissed you off but it didn't. Instead you softened under his touch and you whispered okay. That's all you could say and when he released you, he touched the side of your face before kissing you gently on the lips. "Six months is too long..."

"...I know, I'm sorry."

He smiled then and kissed you on the forehead. The lightness reappeared in his eyes and he smirked. "Not so tough for an former assassin, are you?"

"Takes one to know one," you snapped back, smiling as he held your hand. He gave it a squeeze and promised to see you later. "Go spend time with your sister, I'll see you soon."

"Promise?"

The childlike air in your tone would have made you flinch months ago but it felt good to indulge. It felt good to be wanted and to have what you truly want - and that was the man in front of you.

"Promise," he smiled, giving your hand a kiss before departing to where Sam had disappeared. Watching him until he was no longer in sight, you felt an arm move around your shoulder and Yelena whistled.

"Oh you got it bad."