🕯️🔮 szn of the witch 🐈‍⬛ 🌙

A/N: this came from a collection of drabbles, thank @opheliabbarnes @chateaubarnes and @heldbybarnes for posting the absolute best shit ever and feeding my brain ideas.

I may or may not have gone overboard.

Summary: Bucky is too old, too weathered, too scarred, and she’s soft, and happy, and deadly, and the way her mouth- yeah he really should stop thinking about her like that.

Word Count: 12.4k

Warnings: sparring, SMUT (18+ MNDI) (p in v, oral f&m receiving, fingering, metal arm kink if you squint), drinking. Bucky short circuits, reader kinda likes to fluster him, YEARNING. Nat, Steve and Tony are still alive because I said so. Manhandling.

warnings: 18+ MDNI, headcanons, smut (not too explicit but it's definitely there!), oral (f!recieving), fluff, angst (trauma responses, soothing, talks of death), a little ooc (im genuinely so sorry yall, i love autistic bucky with my whole being), talks of meltdowns/panic attacks (brief allusions to going nonverbal), steve mentioned once, comfort, soft talks, pervy!bucky if you squint, m!masturbation, mattress humping, sappy ending . . . - (wc: 2.4k)

a/n: something ab this is quite intimate and i love it so much :”) i think bucky is a good character for this kind of fetish !! theres a few other characters i kinda wanna explore with this fetish so keep an eye out lol :") im also laughing cus this got sad QUICK lmfaoo

also there may be some inaccuracies with pulse points and stuff idk i had google and a freaky dream im just a girlpervert

this was written on my phone and edited on my laptop, so apologies for any and all mistakes !! <3

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✴︎ cardiophilia is fetish (or paraphilia) in which one is sexually aroused by, or infatuated of, the heart or the heartbeat — those who have this interest are simply known as 'cardiophiles'

Roommate!Bucky X Reader

Summary: Take two roommates who drive each other up the wall, add one smutty book with a compelling premise, and watch them nearly kill each other. Or kiss. Or both, and then some.

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: SMUT (18+ MDNI) p in v, fingering, praise kink, use of a vibrator, softdom!bucky, a touch of perv!bucky because you know I can’t resist that man

A/N: Y’all, this was a bitch and a half to write, but the idea simply would not leave me alone. It took so many days that I wanted to be spending on other projects, but I rather like how this turned out. Proofread by only me and my human eyes. 

Your book is just starting to get good when Bucky walks into the apartment.

You let out a long-suffering sigh and lean forward, laying the book in your lap and doing your best to focus on the page. Not on the six-foot super soldier you share a wall with, who is currently wrapped like a present in one of those infuriatingly tight compression shirts, his hair still sweaty from his workout. 

“Morning, doll,” he greets you as he tosses his gym bag in the middle of the floor (where it certainly doesn’t belong) and moseys over to the kitchen.

“Morning. You lift those heavy things real good?” you ask, feigning disinterest as you turn a page. “Lift heavier things than the other guy?”

“Something like that,” he replies with a smirk before opening the fridge. “What’re you reading?”

You should have known he would ask. His favorite activity seemed to be bothering you with a million questions while you attempted to read in peace. But you’re sorely unprepared to field questions about this particular book. You already know he’ll give you endless shit if he gets wind of the… scandalous subject matter.

It certainly doesn’t help that you’ve been trying to picture anyone but your annoyingly hot roommate as you read it.

So you evade. “A critically acclaimed novel titled None of Your Business.”

Bucky snorts. “Let me guess. The protagonist is a real smartass.” His attention drifts back to the fridge, and he sighs in frustration. “Who forgot to buy more milk, again.”

You scold yourself internally and shoot him a remorseful look over the edge of the couch. “Oops?”

He rolls his eyes, sauntering into the living room to lean on the back of the couch. “Maybe if you didn’t have your head buried in a book all the time, you’d occasionally observe the things that need doing around our real-world apartment,” he chides.

Childishly, you roll your eyes right back. It keeps them from lingering on the way the veins stand out from his forearm, or how his biceps (flesh and metal) strain against the sleeves of his shirt, or how he’s looking down at you like you’re his favorite problem in the world.

And then he leans closer, peering over your shoulder to get a look at what you’re reading. 

Nope. You snap the book shut, tuck it under your arm, and head in the direction of your room. “I’ll leave the observing to the bionic staring machine, thank you very much.”

“Where you going?” he asks.

“To read in peace,” you say over your shoulder. “You talk too much.”

“Try not to miss me,” he calls after you as you shut the door. You can hear the smirk in it even if you don’t see it. Annoyance, followed by a heat that you don’t dare to examine, crawls under your skin, itchy and uncomfortable.

So much for peace, you think as you flop onto the bed and crack open your book again.

Bucky can tell when you’re hiding something from him. It’s really not hard - you’re a terrible liar, worse at keeping secrets. It's actually sort of adorable - almost as adorable as how mad you get when he finds you out.

And it would be a waste of his training in intelligence work if he didn’t try to figure out what you’re keeping from him.

The first step is to get your defenses down, so Bucky makes a stop on the way home from his briefing with Sam. 

When he unlocks the door and steps through the threshold, he finds you reclined on the couch, book in hand, the cover surreptitiously hidden behind your propped up knees. Bucky feigns innocence and places the bag from Din Soup on the counter with a flourish. “I got takeout.”

You groan in relief, pry yourself out of the you-shaped dent in the couch, and tuck your book under your arm. “Thank god, I'm starving.”

Bucky unpacks the order, and you both begin to fill your plates from the various containers. Unable to resist, he pokes you with a pair of chopsticks and asks, “Still reading your secret book?”

“It's not secret,” you reply, your tone suspiciously even. You have a terrible poker face.

“Oh yeah? What’s it about?” he prods, dropping a stray lo mein noodle into his mouth.

You shoot him a withering look. “It’s about the world’s most annoying roommate.”

“Sounds dumb,” he retorts with his mouth full. “Who’d write a book about you?”

“Hilarious. Pass the soup dumplings, idiot,” you demand, shoving his shoulder with all the strength of a malnourished chihuahua.

How can he not smile at that, when you call him ‘idiot’ like it’s a term of endearment? Still, he doesn’t allow it to distract him. “You didn’t answer my question,” he presses after handing you the requested container.

“Didn’t i?” Your eyes are on the takeout again, avoiding his.

“You don’t want me to know what you’re reading.” He says it less like an accusation and more like a statement of fact.

You let out that frustrated little huff he adores, the one you save for the special brand of exasperation only he can bring out in you. “God, you are just allergic to minding your own business, aren’t you?”

“Is it a romance?” he teases, looking for a reaction.

You roll your eyes. “Jesus.”

It’s not a denial, and you still won’t look at him, so Bucky suspects that he’s on the trail. “It is, isn’t it? That’s why you don’t wanna tell me.” 

He leans on the counter and gives you a devilish grin. “Let me guess, it’s some Pride and Prejudice-style romance with lots of yearning and accidental hand touching and quivering.”

You cock an eyebrow in response. “Quivering?”

“Lots.”

Again, you roll your eyes so hard, Bucky's surprised they don’t pop right out of your skull. “You know what? You got me. I'm a huge fan of the quiver genre.” 

You turn to carry your plate to the couch, and Bucky sees an opening. A metal hand flashes out and plucks the book from underneath your arm before you have time to react.

There’s a loud clatter as you drop your plate on the counter and whirl around to face him. “Hey!” you protest, reaching out to snatch it back, but it’s already too late. He jerks it away from you and examines the cover with curiosity.

And it’s not what he expected at all.

It’s better.

Emblazoned on the cover is an artist’s rendering of an attractive man with piercing blue eyes, his shirt unbuttoned scandalously low to reveal a muscular chest. The title is equally as interesting.

“Praise?” he reads off the cover, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

Your cheeks flush scarlet as you try again to grab the book out of his hands. “Bucky, give that back or I swear-“

Fortunately, Bucky is much faster and much taller than you, and he keeps the book out of your reach easily. “Oh my god, you’ve been reading smut. Right in the middle of our apartment.” 

The mere idea makes his cock twitch with interest - he’s only a man after all. And to think of all those times you sat in the same room as him while you read literary porn, trying to keep a straight face, maybe trying to keep from pressing your thighs together-

As compelling as that mental image is, the reality of you in front of him is even more entertaining. “Please stop,” you beg, covering your burning face with your hands.

But Bucky is having far too much fun to stop. 

“Is it any good?” he asks playfully, making a show of leafing through the pages.

“I- I haven’t formed an opinion yet,” you stammer, your blush turning impossibly deeper. You jump in an attempt to steal back the book. “Now give it back!”

Still he holds it out of your reach, then plants a palm on your head like a child to keep you away, laughing as you struggle uselessly against him. He squints to read the blurb on the back. The first line is so incriminating that he just has to read it aloud. 

“‘She's a good girl, but she’s falling for the wrong man’?” 

Vibrating with rage, you break free from his grip. “I will fucking kill you, I swear to god!” You lunge for the book, essentially climbing him like a furious monkey to get to it.

“Jesus, will you relax? I’m trying to read.” He plays nonchalant even as he tries to shake you off, enjoying himself immensely.

“James Buchanan Barnes, I will stab you with a pair of chopsticks!” You grab a pair off the counter, and you look so enraged that for a moment, Bucky believes you might actually try to use them.

“Okay, okay!” He holds up his hands in mock surrender. You make a move for the book, and he once again jerks it away. “Put down the utensils, take a breath, and I'll give it back.”

After a moment of consideration, you drop the chopsticks on the counter with a scowl. Bucky takes an exaggerated breath in, gesturing for you to follow. Even though the anger radiating off you is palpable, you take a deep breath anyway.

Bucky holds out the book in front of you, flashes his most disarming smile, and says, “Good girl.”

Your eyes widen, your face flushing all over again. You snatch the book, grab your plate from the counter, and hiss, “You are insufferable.” Then you turn on your heel and stomp off to your room, slamming the door like a teenager.

Bucky snickers under his breath.

You know that won’t be the end of it, before you even slam your door.

Bucky loves to torment you, and the bigger a reaction he gets, the more likely he is to continue. You shouldn’t have let yourself be so angry, so obviously embarrassed, but no one could get under your skin like him. In the months you’d been living together, he’d successfully located almost every single button you had and pressed them at will. Now that he’d found a new button, there was no way he’d leave it untouched.

By some stroke of luck, you manage to avoid him the following morning until you leave for work. Nothing to distract you like an absolutely punishing eight hour shift of work. When quitting time comes around, you feel dead on your feet, and probably look worse.

Your reward for a hard day’s work? Bucky, splayed out on the couch like an Epicurean figure in an Italian painting, eyes sparkling with mischief as soon as you walk in the door.

“The prodigal roommate returns.” 

“I’m not in the mood,” you deadpan as you drop your keys in the dish.

“In the mood for what?” he asks innocently. “I didn’t say anything.”

You suppress a sigh and open the fridge. “It’s only a matter of time.”

Bucky sits up, eyeing the grocery store bag in your hand. “You bought milk?”

“Yes, Bucky.” Unable to keep the snipe out of your voice, you all but toss the jug into the fridge and push the door shut. “I do remember to do the things you ask me to every once in a while.”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “Good girl.”

You’d been preparing for it mentally, but when the words fall from his lips, it’s like the first time he said it all over again. Your face superheats in record time, shame mixing with something else in your stomach. Something like arousal.

Because, despite your annoyance and embarrassment, you’d liked it.

“I - you -” Sputtering and angry and annoyingly turned on, you make an incoherent noise of frustration and stalk off to your room again.

You don’t slam the door this time. You don’t want to give him the satisfaction. But the image of his smirk as you close the door burns into your eyelids.

————————————

Bucky hasn’t had this much fun in a while.

This little discovery he’d made is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s just too easy. All it takes is a compliment, deliberately worded, and you whip around with a flush in your cheeks and a storm in your eyes. He gets the best reaction with those two little words that have become his favorite in the whole dictionary. Two little syllables that light you up like a match every single time.

The only drawback is that he can’t stop thinking about what you’d look like if he said those words to you in more… compromising positions. These brief, fleeting fantasies were becoming distracting, borderline problematic. He's had to stop wearing sweatpants around the apartment. Even still, he has no intention of letting this go.

Bucky's reverie is broken by the opening of your door. Whatever teasing jibe he’d been thinking up in the last five minutes while washing the dishes dissolves in his brain like soap in hot water. You’re wearing that little skirt he likes, the one with the slight flare that swishes when you walk and the hem that rides the line between appropriate and decidedly inappropriate.

“I’ll be back late,” you inform him casually as you attempt to keep your balance while slipping on your heels. “Don’t wait up.”

The motion causes the hem of your skirt to ride up. Bucky doesn’t even pretend not to stare. “Where you headed?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a date.” You pull out your phone to check your appearance, fiddling with an earring and adjusting your lipstick.

Bucky raises an eyebrow as he dries a plate. “A date, huh?”

“Easy with the tone of surprise, Barnes," you return playfully, though your expression betrays a hint of nerves as you try to get your hair to fall just so.

Though he’d never admit it, the idea of you going out on a date with some guy is doing complicated things to Bucky's head and heart. Both of you had gone on your fair share of failed dates since you moved in together. But that was before… well, before.

The way you frown at your reflection in the phone makes something twist in Bucky's chest. He dries his hands and faces you. “Stop fussing, doll. You look beautiful.”

That gets you to look up from your phone, surprised, then wary. “Are - are you making fun of me again?”

“No, I mean it,” he replies earnestly. “You always look beautiful.”

The words seem to break past your defenses. Your eyes widen, and you swallow nervously, but you put your phone into your purse and you stop touching your hair so much.

As you hunt for your wallet and keys, Bucky asks, because he has to. “So, who’s the guy?”

“Liam. From the corner store.”

And Bucky's good mood is officially ruined.

Liam. The corner store manager who flirts shamelessly with you every chance he gets, who has been sniffing after you for months now. The one who had made you blush last week when he complimented your smile, and had Bucky seeing red all the way from the drinks aisle.

“Yeah, I know who Liam is,” he mumbles, wadding up the dishtowel and tossing it on the counter childishly.

“Why are you making that face?” you ask, hooking your purse over your shoulder. "He's nice.”

Bucky starts putting away the dishes with a little more force than necessary. "He's nice to you, because he’s been trying to get in your pants since you moved in. He's a sleaze.”

You plant your hands on your hips stubbornly. “He is not. He’s single, he’s cute, he’s employed-”

“You have got to get higher standards than that,” he snipes. He hates how jealous he sounds, how pathetic.

“Okay, what’s got your panties in a twist?” you demand, voice sharpening.

That’s when Bucky snaps. Determined to get the upper hand, he steps in towards you and says in a deceptively calm voice, “I don't wear panties, but I'll bet five dollars that you’re wearing your date night panties right now.”

He knows he’s probably gone too far, but it works, because your jaw drops, and your cheeks turn an alarming shade of red. “Excuse me?”

Bucky smirks. “Y’know, the lacy blue ones you wear when you’re trying to get laid.” The little gasp that escapes your mouth tells him he’s right on the money, which only makes him grin wider. 

“You are such a pervert!” You grab the wadded up dishtowel off the counter and throw it at him. “You’ve been scoping out my underwear?”

“Can’t exactly help it when you parade around in those short little skirts while you’re getting ready,” he retorts.

Indignant, you tug down the hem of your skirt self-consciously and snarl, “You’re an asshole.” The sound of your heels pounding the hardwood echoes off the walls as you angrily stride to the front door.

Bucky can’t resist one more dig. “Don't worry, I'm sure Liam will love them. Maybe he’ll give you some of that praise you want so bad.”

You grab your coat and shoot one last fiery glance back at him. “Fuck. You.”

“You should let him borrow your book,” he calls after you, just to get the last word. “Have him take notes!”

But the door has already slammed, and he’s shouting at the coatrack. Bucky sighs and drags a frustrated hand over his face.

Pathetic.

You’re so angry you could spit.

Getting asked on a date was the one non-humiliating thing that happened to you all week, and Bucky managed to sour your mood before it even started. And now you are sitting across from a perfectly nice guy who is buying you dinner, and all you can think about is your goddamn roommate.

It's so completely unfair, because Liam is great. He's good-looking, and charming, and even occasionally funny. This might have been a really nice date, if you weren’t so hot under the collar and humiliatingly damp between your legs thinking about the argument you’d had with Bucky.

By the time you both finish your meals, it’s clear to the both of you that your mind is elsewhere and your heart isn’t in it. You apologize, twisting your napkin in your lap. Liam offers you a wan smile and pays the bill, and says something about next time.

You already know there won’t be a next time.

Fueled by two glasses of wine and the fury of a woman mocked too many times, you stomp down the hallway and throw open the apartment door, violently wrestling off your coat.

Predictably, Bucky is reclined on the couch, looking at his phone until your entrance startles him back to the present. “Thought you said you’d be back late.”

You huff angrily, freeing yourself from your coat and tossing it in the direction of the coatrack, and then turn on Bucky. “What the fuck is your problem?”

“Come again?” he asks, sitting up.

You kick off your heels and plant yourself firmly by the arm of the couch. “You know, what I read in the privacy of my own home is nobody’s business, especially not yours. It's perfectly healthy and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” He opens his mouth to throw some asinine comment back at you, but you steamroll him. “And I don’t appreciate you trying to constantly humiliate me in my own fucking apartment!”

Silence hangs in the air a moment as he absorbs your words and you catch your breath. 

“Finished?” Bucky asks patiently, like he’s got all the time in the world.

You toss your hair out of your eyes and try to regain some composure. “For the moment.”

He sits forward, deeply amused. “Good for you, standing up for yourself. Wasn’t sure you had it in you. I'm proud of you, sweetheart.”

That turns you nuclear. You rip your purse off your shoulder and huck it towards him. “Stop fucking praising me!”

He flinches back from the flying projectile. “Jesus, what’s gotten into you?” Bucky gets to his feet and walks towards you, that maddening smirk reappearing on his face. “I guess nothing, since you came home before ten p.m. just to scream at me. Is that the problem? Are we a little… frustrated?”

You refuse to take the bait. “Why are you fucking with me like this?” you demand.

His smirk turns wicked. “Because you’re cute when you’re so wound up.”

You will your cheeks not to flush. “I'm being serious, Bucky.”

“So am I,” he insists, walking even closer. You step back to try and put some space between you, but Bucky pursues you. “You scrunch up your nose and your eyes get all fiery. And you get this little crease between your eyebrows.” 

He reaches up a hand and gently strokes it across the space between your brows. “Right here. Drives me crazy.”

Your brain fully bluescreens for a moment. It occurs to you that you’ve been holding your breath, that your back is suddenly pressed to the wall. When had he backed you into the wall?

You swallow nervously. “You… what are you doing?” 

His eyes pin you to the spot. Everywhere you look, Bucky is there. He's so close he fills your vision, so close you can breathe in his cologne. What is happening right now? your brain practically screams.

His thumb moves, tracing along the edge of your jaw. “And the best part is watching you pretend you don’t like it,” he murmurs. “That it doesn’t turn you on when I tell you how good you’re being for me.”

That sends a wave of heat through your whole body, resolving in a demanding throb between your thighs. Half of you is sure that he’s still making fun of you, and the other half needs to hear him say it again.

“Tell me why you came home early from your date.” It's not a request, and the low rasp of his voice makes you want to do anything he tells you to.

“I… I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” you admit, because it’s impossible to think of a lie when he’s standing so close, when he’s touching you like this.

He hums to himself, pleased, his thumb stroking thoughtfully across your lower lip now. “You think about me when you’re reading that filthy little book of yours?”

You try to look anywhere but his face. “I-”

Bucky takes hold of your chin between his thumb and pointer finger, angling you up to look at him. “Tell the truth, doll.”

“…Yes.” 

“Good girl.”

You’re embarrassingly wet now, thighs shifting against each other to try and ease the building need. And he knows - you can see in his eyes that he knows exactly what he’s doing to you, and it’s not a game to him anymore.

Bucky’s hand wanders lower, down your arm, down the slope of your waist. It lingers there, tracing lazy circles through the material of your shirt. He leans dangerously close, his face inches from yours. “You picture me when you turn on that vibrator, thinkin’ I can't hear all those little noises you make?”

Your eyes go wide. white-hot humiliation and even hotter arousal races through your veins. “You- you can hear that?”

“Super soldier hearing, sweetheart,” he whispers in your ear. “I heard it every time. Surprised you couldn’t hear me fisting my cock on the other side of the wall just to the sound of you.” You can feel his lips against the shell of your ear, his breath against your neck as he purrs, “You sound so sweet when you come.”

Your knees might have given out if he didn’t have you pinned to the wall. “Oh my god,” you breathe, your head falling back against the wall.

You feel the ghost of his smile at your ear, even if you can’t see it. “It's not enough, is it? You need something real, don’t you?”

The slight shock of cold metal jolts you as his left hand brushes at the skin of your thigh, just below the hem of your skirt. Bucky pulls back just far enough to look you in the eye.

“Tell me what you want.”

You’re too far gone for denial or shame anymore. “Fuck, I- I want you,” you practically whimper. “Please.”

“Good girl,” he replies, and then his lips crash into yours.

It’s a claim, a promise, and a preview all rolled into one. His mouth is hot and commanding against yours, and his tongue easily parts your lips and slips between them like it was always meant to be there. Your hands fly to the back of his neck, to his hair, tugging at the nape without meaning to, just needing something to keep you upright. He doesn’t seem to mind - in fact, he groans into the kiss like he wants you to do it again.

His thigh slots between yours, easing your legs apart for him. You can feel him, rock hard and pressed against your hip. A gasp rips through your lungs, and you grind down onto his thigh on instinct. You cunt pulses gratefully, glad to finally have some semblance of contact. You rock against him again and again, the needy sounds you’re making swallowed by his mouth against yours.

Suddenly, Bucky breaks the kiss and his vibranium hand pins your hips to the wall. You whine, aching for more. You aren’t wanting for long, because his other hand slips beneath the hem of your skirt. When he strokes you through your damp underwear, he curses under his breath. You shudder and bite back a moan.

“Jesus, doll,” he mutters, forehead pressed against yours. “You've been like this since you walked in, haven’t you?”

“Since we fought,” you reply, breathless, trembling as he strokes you again.

Bucky lets out an almost pained groan and leans in, bypassing your lips to nip at your jaw. “You were on a date with another guy, soaked and thinking about me the whole time?” His fingers trace the edge of your panties.

“Yes,” you pant, your hips squirming uselessly against his grip. “Yes, please, Bucky, please just touch me.”

“Don’t worry, baby,” he murmurs in your ear, then plants a kiss in the hollow just below it. “I’ll take care of you.”

He nudges the dampened fabric to the side and you feel a warm, calloused finger drag through your folds. Your hips try and fail to chase his hand, still pinned in place by metal and gentle force. 

The hand between your legs keeps moving, teasing, and Bucky pulls back to look at you again. “You gonna be good for me?”

“Yes, god, please, I’ll be good,” you whine desperately.

He smiles, cruel and beautiful and devastating. “I know you will.”

Then he pushes a finger inside of you, and your brain shuts down completely. Mercifully, the heel of his hand offers some friction against your clit as he pumps his finger in and out. You cling to his shoulders for stability, forehead falling forward against his collarbone.

“That’s it, baby,” he encourages you. “Hold onto me. Christ, you’re tight. Can you take another one?”

“Please,” you whisper.

Another finger slides in along the first, and you gasp against his chest, the stretch delicious and consuming. Bucky keeps the same unhurried pace, but there’s a ragged quality to his breathing that tells you he’s not completely unaffected. 

“You feel like heaven,” he mumbles. “Can’t wait to be inside you, feel you squeeze my cock just like this.”

You hadn’t even thought that far ahead, and the prospect sends a thrill racing through you. He makes a come hither motion with his fingers that makes you cry out sharply.

“Close already?” he teases, and he does it again, humming his approval as your whole body tenses around it. “My sweet girl. So sensitive. So needy.”

His words draw a pathetic whimper from your throat. Bucky increases his pace, releases your hip in favor of placing his left hand at your throat. The cool metal only presses hard enough to ease you back against the wall, giving him room to look at you properly.

“Wanna see you fall apart on my fingers,” he rasps. “Wanna see if you look as pretty as you sound through the wall.”

Your hips buck into his hand, rolling with each stroke of his fingers inside you. He moves his thumb directly over your clit, circling it in time, and your orgasm burns through you, sudden and scorching.

Bucky’s hand keeps moving between you as you ride it out, the intensity of his gaze on your face warm like a heat lamp. Your incoherent cries of his name taper off to whimpers, and he carefully withdraws his fingers from you.

His lips find your temple. “Perfect. That was perfect, sweetheart.” He steadies you, since you can barely stand on your own, and kisses you tenderly, a stark contrast to everything that came before.

As infuriating as he can be sometimes, this is also a part of who Bucky is. He's the guy who cooks you dinner, who always lets you pick what movie to watch, who calls you beautiful and perfect like he really means it.

You melt against him, arms draping lazily around his neck as he kisses you. You'd be perfectly content to kiss him just like this for hours, but you can still feel his neglected erection between you, straining against the fabric of his jeans, and it sparks interest and want all over again.

Trailing a hand down his chest and abdomen, you grasp the waistband of his jeans, your fingers curling inside and brushing against his skin. Bucky responds enthusiastically, nipping at your bottom lip before locking eyes with you. “Your bed or mine?” he asks breathlessly.

“Don’t care,” you reply, leaning forward to drag your lips across his throat. 

“Yours is closer.” He scoops you up, hitching your legs around his waist. Unable to resist, he takes advantage of the position to press you into the wall again, rutting himself against your ruined panties.

“Bucky, bed,” you remind him, even as the friction threatens to pull another moan out of you.

His throat works as he fights for composure. “Right. Bed.”

Bucky carries you to your room, nudges the door open with his foot, and makes his way to the bed. With the way he’s kissing you, you expect to be laid down like something fragile. Instead, he drops you unceremoniously onto the bed.

“Bucky!” you yelp, getting a few inches of air as you bounce on the mattress.

He grins boyishly and settles over you. Clothes are peeled away - first his shirt, followed by yours. He finds the zipper on the side of your skirt and lowers it slowly like he’s unwrapping a gift, then tugs the skirt down your legs and tosses it onto the floor. Bucky runs a finger along the inside of the waistband of your panties, the lacy blue ones, and playfully snaps the elastic. “I knew it.”

You huff in exasperation and reach for the button on his jeans. “Shut up and fuck me, Barnes.”

Bucky laughs out loud. “There she is.” He unzips his fly and shoves his jeans down and off. “First it’s ‘please touch me, Bucky, I’ll be good,’ and now it’s ‘shut up and fuck me’?”

He does shut up, finally, when you palm him through his boxers, a guttural groan falling from his lips.

“You talk too much,” you murmur, pulling him down to you.

Bucky makes short work of removing your bra, then runs his eyes over your chest in greedy appreciation. He palms both of your breasts, marveling at the way you arch up into his touch, the mewling sound that breaks out of your throat when he rolls a nipple between his fingers.

“Bucky, please hurry up,” you groan.

“So we’re back to ‘please’, then.” 

“I hate you.”

He presses his lips to the swell of your breast and begins to pull down your underwear. “No, you don’t.”

When your panties and his boxers are both removed, you finally get an eyeful of him. Truthfully (and irritatingly), it’s the prettiest dick you’ve ever seen. Fairly long, thick, with a well-groomed dusting of hair at the base. It’s flushed beautifully and beading with arousal. He catches you staring with your lower lip caught between your teeth and smirks. “See something you like?”

“Definitely.” You open your legs invitingly for him. “What about you?”

He stares, swallows, settles between your legs again and asks, “Condom?”

“Bedside table drawer,” you reply automatically, only realizing your error when he’s already pulling it open. “Wait-”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Bucky gasps as he pulls out the little pink vibrator that’s nestled between the box of condoms and your body lotion. He examines it with unbridled interest. “So this is what makes that buzzing sound, huh?”

You cover your face with your hands. “Please stop.”

“Absolutely not. This little guy and I are gonna get acquainted. Now, how do you -” He finds the button, and the machine hums to life in his hands. His eyes flash with mischief. “Huh.”

“Okay, you’ve had your fun. Put it back.” You reach for it, and he yanks it away.

“Doll, I've barely even started.” Bucky takes the vibrator and pushes it right against your clit.

It’s too much pleasure, too fast. You gasp like you’ve been electrocuted, your hand flying to his wrist. “Holy shit!” you cry, torn between pushing his hand away and keeping it there.

“Interesting,” he mutters as he watches your face with rapt attention. Your breath starts to come heavier, your hips start to shift and move under the little object in his hand. You see a lightbulb go off behind his eyes, and he takes your hand off his wrist and moves it to the vibrator. “Be a good girl and hold that there for me, huh?”

Your jaw practically drops, but god help you, you obey. Bucky takes his time reaching into the drawer for a condom, rolling it onto his cock, giving himself a few lazy strokes as he watches you squirm.

“Bucky,” you pant, “please.”

He moves close, replaces your hand with his own, but doesn’t remove the vibrator. You can feel the tip of him pressing at your entrance. “You ready for me, baby?”

“Yes, please, yes.”

Bucky begins to push in.

Once again, he takes his time, and some distant part of your brain wonders where all the seemingly endless patience and self-control comes from. But most of your brain whites out, consumed with the feeling of Bucky’s cock stretching you, compounded with the steady hum of the vibrator against your clit.

When he’s halfway inside and your nails start digging into his back, you feel his breath at your ear. “Easy, sweetheart. Almost there. You’re doing so good for me.”

You moan in reply, and like he’s spoken some kind of secret password, your body opens up for him, relaxes around him, and allows him to slide home. 

Bucky groans into your neck as you helplessly clench around him. “God, you’re fucking unreal.” 

When he starts to move, you are absolutely done for. He snaps his hips against yours like he has something to prove, and maybe he does. He doesn’t let up with the vibrator, either - he starts moving it in little circles against you.

You get close embarrassingly fast, yet again. Your hips rock up to meet his on every thrust, your body bowing against his. 

“You have no idea how much I've thought about this,” he whispers. “How many times I imagined you coming apart on my cock just like this.” You feel cold vibranium grasping behind your thigh, lifting your leg to open you even further for him. Your eyes roll back when the angle changes and his cock drags against that spot that had you unraveling against the wall earlier.

“Oh my god, Bucky,” you keen, your nails scratching lines up his shoulder blades.

“Come on, good girl, let me feel it,” he growls against your neck.

The buzz, the feeling of him slamming into you, those two little words in your ear - all of it breaks you. A loud moan claws its way out of you, and you lose control of your muscles, thighs shaking, walls clamping around him as pleasure surges through you. 

Above you, Bucky loses his grip on the vibrator and it falls somewhere in the rumpled sheets, still buzzing faintly. His hips stutter, then surge forward as he tries to get as deep as he can. “Oh, fuck, fuck-”

He buries his face in the crook of your neck, a groan bordering on a whimper in the shape of your name forcing itself from his lungs. He thrusts shallowly once, twice, and collapses against you, spent.

The two of you lay there for a moment, catching your breath, your bodies sweat-slick, Bucky softening inside you.

“Goddamn,” he mutters between breaths. “I didn't think I was gonna come that quick. I was planning to give you at least two more.”

You smile, giving him a condescending pat on the back. “Don't worry about it, champ. Happens to the best of us.”

“Says the girl who soaked my hand in the living room,” he retorts, scowling.

“Well, maybe next time, we’ll see if you can last longer, minuteman.”

Bucky picks his head up, eyes sparkling. “There’s gonna be a next time?”

Of course that’s the only part he heard. “Only if you’re very, very good.” You tap his nose affectionately, and he chuckles.

The denouement sets in as Bucky carefully pulls out of you and disposes of the condom, and you wobble to the bathroom to pee and throw on an oversized t-shirt. When you return, Bucky is sitting on the edge of your bed, looking a little pleased with himself, but mostly pleased with you.

“I think that’s my shirt,” he softly accuses you, his fingers toying with the hem.

“Super soldiers who don’t do their own laundry get their shirt rights revoked.” You stand between his knees and weave your fingers into his hair. “I'm sorry I threw my purse at you.”

“I’m sorry for teasing you,” he replies, hands brushing at the backs of your thighs.

“No, you’re not.”

Bucky grins. “No, I'm not. It got me into your bed, after all.”

You roll your eyes. “Speaking of my bed…” You flop down onto the mattress and stretch, a sleepy expression on your face. “I’m beat.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Is that my cue to go?”

“Doesn’t have to be.” You nudge his thigh with your foot. “Wanna have a sleepover?”

His grin widens, and he turns off the lamp before flopping down next to you. “Scoot over, doll, you’re hogging the whole mattress.”

It surprises you how easy, how playful things are between the two of you now. As he wraps his arms around you and draws you close, it occurs to you that you could have fucked him ages ago and saved the two of you a whole lot of arguing and frustration. The thought slips away from you as you drift off, bone-tired and satisfied and, for the first time all week, at peace.

Bucky feels the warmth of you next to him before he even opens his eyes, and he’s already smiling. Wrapped in sheets that smell of laundry soap and sex and you, he rolls over with a quiet groan and sees you in the morning light.

You’re reading your smutty little book, openly, without a care for the fact that he’s right beside you. You don’t look up at him yet, but the smallest of smiles tugs at the corner of your mouth, like you’ve been waiting for him to find you like this.

He shifts closer, snaking an arm around your waist and kissing your jaw. “Morning, good girl,” he rumbles.

You turn the page, pretending that it has no effect on you, but he watches your cheekbones tinge pink. “You gonna stop beating that dead horse any time soon?” 

“Only when it stops being funny,” he replies with a smirk. “Or when you stop liking it so much.”

“Stop talking. I'm reading.”

He sighs and lays his stubbled cheek against your shoulder, his eyes curiously scanning the page along with you. You decide to let him - there’s not exactly any harm in it now.

After about thirty seconds, he cringes. “Doll, this is awful.”

“I know. but it’s also really hot.” you elbow him playfully. “Kinda like you.”

Bucky hums thoughtfully, losing interest in the book and becoming much more interested in you. He begins to cover your neck in lazy, open-mouthed kisses, his hand slipping beneath the hem of your t-shirt to feel the warmth of your skin.

“Bucky,” you warn, “I said I'm reading.” The warning has no real conviction, and it’s even less believable when his hands begin to wander and your legs part on instinct,

He pulls back the covers and settles between your thighs. “So keep reading.” Bucky nudges up the hem of your t-shirt and kisses your navel, before trailing lower.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

Previous Chapter │Next Chapter │Back to Masterlist

There was no turning back after that.

Bucky’s sweet habit of shadowing you throughout the day evolved – if he wasn’t actively glued to your side or wrapped around you in some way, he looked as though he was seriously considering closing the distance and sweeping you up into his arms. Not that you minded in the least. When those strong arms circled your waist and he buried his face in the crook of your neck, you melted every time, without fail.

And now that you had fallen into bed together, he was almost constantly hounding you.You weren’t entirely sure if it was because he had gone so long without intimacy, or if it was a symptom of whatever his enhancement was, but a glance even a second too long in his direction could set him off. Then he would be crowding you against the nearest surface, his breath in your ear, his hands tugging at your clothes, his lips on yours. Once again, you weren’t really going to complain. Occasionally, you had to be the responsible one and remind him breathlessly that there was farmwork to be finished, earning you a long-suffering groan and a pair of puppy-dog eyes to rival the Sarah McLachlan commercials. Most days, dinner became a late-night affair, pushed later and later into the evening because once the chores were done, neither of you could keep your hands off each other.

The mattresses on the floor in the back room were abandoned, what with Bucky coming to prefer the warmth of your bed at night. Eventually, they were stripped and leaned up against the wall, the door closed on them permanently. Some days, Bucky forgot about the prospect of leaving altogether. He sometimes even dared to imagine what it would be like if the danger had passed completely, if he could just stay. Words like someday and always and forever prowled dangerously at the edge of his mind, tempting him to give in completely to his deepest wishes and desires. Some days, it felt frighteningly possible.

The end of a crisp autumn day found you and him tangled up in your sheets together, as the end of the day often found you. You had pulled his discarded henley on to keep off the chill, while Bucky reclined in his boxers. He sat up against the headboard, with you sitting between his knees, cradled against his chest and relishing in the warmth of him. He reached out and thoughtfully touched the gold pendant that hung against the lampshade beside your bed.

“Can I ask you about this?” he asked, his voice soft as the low light in the room.

You smiled against his skin. “It was my grandfather’s.” It was your turn to reach out a hand, slipping it off the lamp and holding it closer so he could examine it.

He examined the image raised in the metal, the inscription along the bottom.  “Saint Anthony,” he read aloud.

“Anthony of Padua,” you elaborated. “Patron saint of lost things.”

“Do you believe in things like this?” There was no judgment in his face, just curiosity. He had been asking you more questions like this, personal and probing, like he wanted to know every single hidden part of you.

“Not really,” you murmured. “My grandfather did. But he wanted Nathan and I to choose our own beliefs. So I believe in the sky at dawn and the smell of grass after it rains. And I believe in lost things that come back to you when the time is right.” 

You turned the pendant over in your hand before setting it carefully on the nightstand, looked up at him sweetly like you hadn’t just said the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. “Do you believe in something?”

He considered for a moment. His life hadn’t had any room for belief when he was just surviving, especially not when he had prayed to every god he knew the name of and not a single one had answered him. “I don’t know. My mother prayed the rosary. Took us to church on Sunday. But after…” Your hand settled against his chest, a grounding force against the pull of less pleasant memories, and he placed his hand on top of yours. “I don’t know what I believe. Maybe I believe in just trying to do the right thing.”

“I think that’s a wonderful thing to believe in,” you replied softly. The edges of your fingers rested against the ridges of scars extending from his shoulders, and you wanted to satisfy some of your own curiosity, perhaps even help to carry the weight of some of his pain. “Can I ask you about this?” you asked, your eyes flicking towards his metal arm.

Once he might have stiffened at the question, but now, there was nothing but trust in his eyes. While he still didn’t feel safe telling you every detail of what he had been before this, still worried that giving you that information might endanger you. But he understood now that he could tell you the spirit of the thing without it scaring you away. So he traced circles on the back of your hand with his thumb and asked in return, “What do you want to know?”

“Sometimes, the way you move…” Your brows knit together. “It looks like it hurts. Does it?”

It shouldn’t have surprised him, that your first question about the arm would be concern about his pain, instead of how he got it or what it could do. You always looked with your heart before anything else. 

He wouldn’t lie to you, but he didn’t wish to worry you. He had handled it for this long. “It aches when it rains,” he said lightly. You nodded – you had noticed this, how he rolled his shoulder and winced more frequently when clouds rolled in. 

“And it’s heavy,” he continued. “So I gotta compensate a little.”

“Hmm.” You worried your lip between your teeth, trying not to frown.

“I’m used to it,” he shrugged.

“What about this?” You moved your hand from underneath his to trace the scarring by his shoulder with a feather light touch. “What happened here?”

A silence stretched as Bucky worked to find the right words. You didn’t rush to apologize or withdraw your question, just patiently waited for whatever answer he was able to give you. 

“When they put it on me… they couldn’t sedate me for long. Took them a while to figure out how to best strap me down. I kept trying to… to take it off.” His voice shook almost imperceptibly.

Your heart splintered for him all over again. “Oh, Bucky,” you whispered as you wound your arms around his neck, pulling him tight against you.

“Sometimes I hate it,” he confessed, feeling a little pathetic as he did so.

After a minute or two of holding him, you withdrew a few inches to examine his face. “Does it hurt now?” His eyes darted down, but you chased them, lifting his chin slightly so he would look at you. “Be honest with me,” you pleaded.

“A bit,” he admitted sheepishly.

Shifting to a kneeling position, you took both of his hands in your own. “Will you let me take care of you?”

Bucky wasn’t entirely sure what you meant by that, but he trusted you implicitly, so he nodded his assent. You pulled him forward, shifted the two of you so that Bucky was sitting on the edge of the bed and you were kneeling behind him. Running your hands along his back, you could feel the knots in his muscles just beneath the surface, borne from years of carrying the extra weight on his left side. You started at his neck, working your fingers into each knot until it loosened, careful but firm. At first, he just breathed through it, but as you worked your way across his left shoulder and down his back, breath gave way to contented hums and quiet groans. 

He couldn’t help the way his body responded to your touch. As you worked his muscles, relief flooded him, along with fresh waves of arousal, despite the fact that he’d already had you less than an hour ago. He lost track of how long your hands were on him, coaxing his muscles into pliancy, but his reverie was broken when he felt the warm sensation of your mouth against his shoulder. You brushed your lips in a kiss against his scars, and then another, and another, drawing out of him a hitch in his breath, followed by a guttural moan.

All of a sudden, he turned, reaching for you, pulling you into his lap. You settled over his already achingly hard cock, straining against his boxers, and your lips found his. Gently, you urged him onto his back, your mouth trailing down across his jaw, his neck, down the front of his shoulder. His hips jerked up, seeking friction against you as you kissed his scars. They were still sensitive, even after all this time, and the warmth of your lips and tongue against them ignited him like a match. 

His need becoming urgent, he thrust his hips up against you again, his hands pushing up the fabric of his shirt that draped over your thighs. “Honey, please,” he moaned, and you wasted no time in freeing him from his boxers. 

You lowered yourself onto him, your mouth falling open in a gasp of pleasure. Bucky gripped your hips, fighting to not dig his fingers in too hard as you moved on top of him. At first, you rode him with purpose, wanting to take care of him, make him feel good. But when he began thrusting up from beneath you, reached beneath the hem of his shirt that you wore to find your clit, you started to chase your own pleasure, and he wanted you to. He relished the sight of you coming apart on top of him. 

When your head fell back and you cried out, he drew you close and rolled with you until he was on top, driving home over and over as you whimpered his name as you came. Bucky wasn’t long for the world after that, spilling into you with a grunt and a curse. 

Forever was a tempting prospect, that was for sure. As you drifted off that night, exhausted and content and full of him, Bucky held you close and dared to dream about it.

The only thing that could possibly spoil such a beautiful fall day, outside with his woman, was fucking Clarence.

Bucky visibly bristled as he caught sight of the truck turning down your drive. You gave him a look that said behave as you finished tying Buttercup to her tether, her calf (which Bucky had christened Daffodil) lingering at her side. He simply sighed and leaned up against the side of the barn, keeping his distance as Clarence parked and hopped out of the vehicle. 

“Hey, pretty lady,” he called out to you. Bucky couldn’t help but glare daggers at him. 

“Morning, Clarence,” you replied politely as you strode up to him. “What brings you down here?”

He lowered the back gate of his truck, revealing bags of dry feed. “Told Harold I’d drop off your order for you.”

It was a nice gesture, but it concerned you after your conversation with Bucky regarding Clarence’s possible… inclination towards you. Perhaps it hadn’t been mere jealousy. Perhaps Bucky was more perceptive than you had given him credit for. “You shouldn’t have.”

He grinned devilishly. “But I did. Where you want these bad boys?”

Just then, Bucky breezed past you towards the truck. “I got it,” he said gruffly. He lifted a fifty-pound bag onto each of his shoulders easily. You knew he could carry more, but you guessed he was holding back in front of Clarence.

Clarence straightened his spine as he greeted Bucky. “Hey, James, right? Clarence. How you doin’?” Bucky barely glanced in his direction, just offered him a grunt and walked back to the barn with the feed. 

Clarence raised an eyebrow. “He doesn’t talk much, does he?”

“He’s a man of few words,” you chuckled.

“I see you got yourself a fresh calf,” he remarked with a smile, nodding towards Daffodil.

“Yeah, about that. I thought you said you picked an ease bull for Buttercup.”

“Sure did.”

“We had to assist her. Wide shoulders,” you said pointedly.

He shrugged it off. “Happens sometimes. Genetics can be tricky. There’s no guarantees.”

“Well, I’d like to be a little more sure when November comes around.” You set your hands on your hips, your expression serious.

Clarence was totally unperturbed, regarded you with amusement, in fact. “Listen, sweetheart, I gotta be honest. I did have ulterior motives bringing this order around.” He stepped deliberately closer, and you stiffened automatically. “Was wondering if you would finally let me take you to dinner.”

You glanced away from him uncomfortably. “Clarence–”

“The crab place has a special on Thursdays,” he pushed, not seeming to get the hint. “I’d like to take you.”

You did your best to be respectful but firm. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. We’re neighbors. We do business. It would complicate things.”

“I don’t mind complicated.” His smile didn’t even flicker, and he didn’t leave your space.

“I do,” you retorted, your tone sharpening a bit. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw, and his eyes darted over your shoulder. “You sure that’s the reason? Nothing to do with that new farmhand you got?”

Okay, that pissed you off a bit. “I don’t think that’s any of your business, actually,” you shot back, crossing your arms.

He let out a humorless laugh. “That is so cliche. I thought you were better than that.”

It became clear to you that this would not be a productive conversation, so you decided to cut it off. “Have a nice day, Clarence,” you said coldly as you turned to head up to the house. “I’ll have your order on Saturday.”

“Don’t bother.” You felt his hand close around your arm, yanking you to a stop, whirling you back to face him. You froze, alarmed to see the angry expression he wore. “You know,  I’ve been putting in the work since you moved here. This guy shows up and throws around hay bales for a couple months, and that’s what gets your legs spreadin’?”

You couldn’t wrench yourself out of his grip, but you didn’t have to. In a flash, Bucky was on him, ripping him away from you and shoving him against the truck by the throat. Clarence’s eyes grew wide with fear. Shaken, you placed a hand on Bucky’s shoulder before he could do something stupid.

“James, don’t,” you pleaded. “It’s not worth it.”

There was a tense moment where Bucky flexed a gloved hand against Clarence’s throat. And then Bucky released him, not taking his eyes off him for a second. Clarence stumbled backwards, trying to create some distance, straightening out his clothes.

“Whatever,” he muttered weakly, throwing up the truck’s back gate, still with half of your feed order loaded in the back. “You’ll regret this, sweetheart.” Then he jumped into the cab to drive off.

Bucky immediately turned to you, his face softening from anger to concern. “Are you all right?” he asked, a steadying hand at your back.

You watched Clarence’s truck speed off down the drive. “I’m fine.” Once he turned the corner, you glanced up at Bucky, feeling inexplicably embarrassed and a little vulnerable. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” he murmured, pulling you into his arms and resting his chin on top of your head.

The two of you agreed: no gifts.

Winter had come, and you were approaching the holidays. It would be the first Christmas Bucky had experienced since the forties, and of course you wanted to make it special for him. But he had nothing to give you, hardly any money to his name (because he almost always refused his market share), and he insisted that you already gave him more than enough, that he required nothing. So you reluctantly agreed, promised to make it special in other ways.

The farm was admittedly beautiful, covered in a soft blanket of white. Bucky constantly grumbled about the cold anyway, despite being a man-shaped space heater in your bed. He complained when you pressed your icy toes against his calf, tried not to smile when your cold nose brushed underneath his jaw, and hummed contentedly whenever you snuggled up to keep each other warm. Bucky always thought you were beautiful, but there was something about you in the winter – your cheeks and nose turned rosy from the wind, flakes of snow caught in the rope of your braid.

The work was different in winter – quieter, less demanding. You still got up at the ass-crack of dawn to feed the animals, but then crept back to bed with Bucky to defrost for an hour before breakfast. There was budgeting and soil testing and equipment maintenance, but there were also quiet afternoons in a heated barn with you brushing Buttercup and Daffodil, quiet nights warmed by you and the radiator and steaming mugs of tea. And while the cold still stirred up unpleasant memories that he would rather forget, he found he didn’t mind it as much when you were near.

Christmas Eve was a lovely little affair. The two of you split a bottle of mulled wine and watched It’s A Wonderful Life on the couch. Bucky stroked your hair when you fell asleep halfway through, carried you to bed half-awake and softly protesting when it ended. The sunrise of Christmas morning brought little fanfare – you woke early as you always did to feed the animals, and Bucky remained in bed, face buried in your pillow as he tried to preserve the lingering warmth you left behind under the covers. When he did finally rise, he was temporarily put out that you hadn’t returned to bed, until he smelled cinnamon and baking dough wafting from the kitchen.

You greeted him in the kitchen with twin cups of coffee, steam curling invitingly over the rims. A glass dish of cinnamon rolls was baking in the oven, and you giggled as he kissed your cheek enthusiastically. Just as he was in the process of continuing that trail of kisses down your neck, he spotted it over your shoulder. A little paper bag with a jolly red string tied in a bow on the handle, resting on the kitchen table. He fixed his narrowed gaze on you, a playful glare with no real bite to it.

“I know, I know, we said no gifts,” you started, looking a little mischievous. “But this was more of a necessity than a gift. It’s cold out, and I can’t have my favorite farmhand losing a finger to frostbite.”

Curiosity winning out, he opened the bag to find a nice pair of black deerskin gloves, lined and insulated. Bucky looked at you softly before pressing a kiss to your temple.

“I made you something,” he murmured with a smile against your skin, and you looked at him in shock.

It was a secret he had kept for a while now, worked on surreptitiously with his knife and some borrowed sandpaper in private while you did budget work at the table. Bucky extracted from his pocket a small, light brown, circular object. When he placed it carefully in your palm, you realized it was a ring, carved and polished smooth, made from some natural material you didn’t recognize. You stared at it in wonder. 

“Bucky, this is beautiful,” you whispered. “What is it made of?”

He smiled pridefully. “You bought me a peach at the market in June. I made it from the pit. Used to make them for my sisters all the time.”

Carefully and reverently, you ran your fingers along the grooves in the ring before testing the size. It fit comfortably, securely, perfectly on your pointer finger. You marvelled at it as his words took root in your brain. He had been working on this since before you had even first kissed. 

“You were gonna let me give you nothing when you were working on this the whole time?” you accused him, your heart swelling like a balloon in your chest.

“I knew you would never hold up your end of the bargain,” he replied, taking you into his arms again.

The rest of the morning was filled with coffee and cinnamon rolls and kissing and hummed Christmas carols, and it was the best Christmas Bucky’d had in quite a long, long time.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, smut, descriptions of animal birth (not graphic per se, but i don't mince words. If you want to skip this part, start reading after the second star divider!)

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

Previous Chapter │Next Chapter │Back to Masterlist

“Buttercup is calving today.” You made this observation to Bucky casually, as if you were telling him it would rain later. 

He looked at you, surprised. “How do you know?”

Stepping closer to Bucky, you pointed to Buttercup where she stood across the way, attached to her grazing tether. “Strutted teats, and you see how she’s hanging out over there, away from Stella? She’s getting ready.”

“What do we do?” he asked, feeling that edge of anxiety creeping in.

You were the picture of cool, calm, and collected, which eased his worries a bit. You simply shrugged and checked your watch. “We wait. We’ll have to check on her every half hour or so, so keep an eye on the clock.”

With that, you set about your day, alert but settled in a way that only someone who has done this a thousand times before could be. The daily tasks were ticked off the list one by one, feeding the chickens, weeding the garden beds and tending the autumn crops, harvesting the last of the dwindling sweet corn and the first mature heads of the cabbages. Intermittently, you would examine Buttercup, muttering encouragement and sweet nothings to her as the cow slowly paced by the western wall of the barn.

In the mid-afternoon, Bucky stood back as you approached Buttercup again, and you looked up excitedly, gestured for him to come closer. “You see that? That’s the water bag. It’s starting.”

There was a pink protrusion poking out from Buttercup’s hindquarters. The sight might have been a little alarming without context, but Bucky was reassured somewhat by your confidence. 

“What now?”

You sauntered off to sit in the grass, patted the ground beside you. “We wait some more, and watch. You ever see a calf birth?” 

Warily, he joined you to sit crosslegged on the dewy grass. “Can’t say I have.”

“Well, you’ve got a front row seat today,” you chuckled.

Bucky swallowed back his nerves. He was determined not to be a ‘city boy' that day. He had survived war and torture. Surely he could watch an animal give birth without flinching.

An hour went by, with no fanfare or fireworks or… anything at all, really. After the water bag dropped, Buttercup paced, occasionally grunted and strained, but no significant progress was made. She got up and laid down several times as her discomfort grew, and eventually the front hooves of the calf appeared, but not much beyond that. As one hour began to approach two, you checked your watch more often, your concern betrayed by the bounce of your leg and the deepening crease between your brows.

At the two hour mark, you stood up, taking off your flannel and tying it about your waist. “It’s taking too long. I gotta check her. Come on.” You walked with purpose off to the barn, not even checking to see if Bucky was following. He caught up and fell into step behind you. Once inside the barn, you headed for the water hookup, washed your hands vigorously, and then made tracks for the supply closet.

“Fill a bucket with warm water, then come back out,” you called to Bucky as you stuffed a few supplies in the front pocket of your overalls and stretched a pair of long latex gloves over your hands. Before he even had time to process your instructions, you were already on your way out again. Bucky had never seen you like this, moving with quickness and urgency but without panic, throwing orders over your shoulder like an experienced general heading into battle. Eager to assist however he could, Bucky grabbed a clean bucket and did as you told him.

By the time he jogged back outside with bucket in hand, you had set up shop, so to speak, with a milk crate upside down next to Buttercup holding everything you might need. You knelt down by her backside, and you held your hands out for the bucket as he approached. Once Bucky placed it beside you, you squirted what appeared to be some kind of antibacterial soap into the water and swirled your gloved hands in it until it frothed with suds. Your gloves wet and shining, you turned, and without a moment’s hesitation, slid your hands around the calf’s hooves and inside of Buttercup, practically up to your elbows. Bucky’s jaw nearly dropped, but he managed to school his features and focus.

Your face tensed with concentration, you muttered to yourself, “Presentation is right, so why–”

You shifted your hands a bit, and realization dawned in your eyes, followed by a whisper of worry. “Fuck. Its shoulders are too wide.” You eased your hands back out, huffed in frustration. “It was supposed to be an ease bull, I am gonna kill Clarence.”

Standing and holding your wet, gloved hands out in front of you, you turned to Bucky. “Can you get my phone out of my pocket and call the vet? It’s under ‘Andy’.” Bucky immediately reached to the side pocket of your overalls, retrieved your phone, pulled up the contact and dialed. You gestured with your head for him to place the phone between your shoulder and your ear. “Give it here.” He gingerly placed it against your shoulder, and you pinned it with the side of your head, speaking quickly and clearly as soon as the call was picked up.

“Hey Melinda, is Andy free? … Well, Buttercup is in labor, and the shoulders are stuck, I’m wondering if he can come by. … I know, it was supposed to be an ease bull… Yeah.” You listened carefully to the voice on the other end of the line, expression shifting to a calm acceptance. “…Okay. I understand. Yes. Thank you.” Eyes falling once again on Bucky, you lifted your chin slightly, and he took the phone back to disconnect the call.

“Andy’s in surgery for at least three more hours, so we are gonna have to handle this,” you explained as you knelt down beside Buttercup once again.

Bucky’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. “We?”

“Yes, we. I need a second pair of hands, so go wash up and get a pair of gloves,” you instructed him. He stood there a moment, seemingly stunned, looking between you and Buttercup. “Now, Bucky,” you urged him.

He jolted from his reverie and jogged off to the barn as you’d asked him. His hands shook slightly as he washed under the water tap in the barn. Of course he would do anything you asked of him, but he was utterly petrified. He was certain he would mess it up, that he could hurt Buttercup, or the life inside her that was so pure it hadn’t even breathed the world’s air yet. But the worst failure would be if he didn’t dare to try, and it went wrong anyway. He wouldn’t dare fail you like that. So he hardened his resolve, donned a pair of long latex gloves, and rejoined you outside.

When he was at your side again, kneeling down on the grass next to you, his jaw was set and his eyes were on you, focused, a soldier ready for orders. On the ground in front of you, Buttercup groaned and shifted uncomfortably.

“Okay, I’m gonna grab one of the legs. When I get it out, you are gonna hold onto it for me,” you said, eyes locked on Bucky’s to be sure that he understood. Once he nodded his assent, you turned your attention to Buttercup. You muscled in your hand, wrapped it around the calf’s leg, and pulled. Once it was out to the ankle, you looked to Bucky. “There. Grab hold of that. Good. Now I gotta get the other one.”

Bucky kept a firm grip on the calf’s ankle while you managed to free the second one. There was a flash of wriggling pink – the calf’s tongue, Bucky realized, followed by a glimpse of a wet, brown snout, just barely visible.

You locked in on Bucky’s face again. “Now, when she pushes, we are gonna pull. We are just helping her, so don’t yank too hard, just follow my lead.”

The ghost of panic manifested behind the blue of his iris, his gaze flitting between you and the emerging calf. “I don’t want to hurt it.”

“Bucky, look at me.” He gave you his attention, and you spoke in a firm, calm tone. “You’re not gonna hurt either of them. Buttercup knows what she’s doing. All we need to do is listen to what her body needs. Just wait for the push.”

He nodded, kept his eyes on you, even as you looked to Buttercup, soothing her with murmured praise and motivation. After a moment, Buttercup strained again. “Now. Pull.”

The two of you spurred into action, gripping the calf’s ankles and pulling through Buttercup’s contraction. You grunted with effort, trying to keep your hold on the calf’s slippery leg, and Bucky visually measured and matched your force without a word. With a wet sound, the calf’s head fully appeared, and you moved one of your hands to grasp the back of its neck. The calf squinted and blinked at the sudden light, its pink tongue lolling and flexing out of its mouth as it adjusted to the air. With the next push, the two of you managed to coax its shoulders out as well.

 “That’s it. Almost there,” you panted, sweating from the effort.

A few more contractions and pulls, and the calf slid all the way out onto the ground with a wet plop, and you collapsed back onto the grass in relief. For all the discomfort Buttercup had been in mere seconds before, she immediately stood up and turned to her baby, licking its snout clean. Bucky sat back next to you and watched them together, dumbfounded. 

You smiled proudly as you peeled the gloves off of your arms.”I told you, she knows what she’s doing.”

It felt a bit like witnessing a miracle. Not even just that – the two of you had facilitated one. Bucky’s hands, the ones that had committed so many atrocities that he feared the blood might never fully wash off, had helped pull a life into the world. 

You watched Buttercup and her calf with a blissful and victorious expression that can only come from a job well done, from hard work that you love. Bucky felt some mysterious, ancient, primal feeling settling over him, like he was connecting with something larger than himself. He was in awe of what had just occurred, of what it meant, and most of all, of you.

You gave him a knowing look, like you understood exactly what he was feeling, and squeezed his knee gently. “You did good. Let’s go wash up.”

All the humdrum tasks you performed for the rest of the day were made joyful by the clumsy little calf tripping over its own hooves in the background. The sun sank below the trees as it always did, and you threw something quick together for dinner, exhausted by the excitement of the day. You and Bucky settled back into your quiet, easy rhythm that you had developed over the last few months. Bucky did the dishes while you showered, and you tidied up around the house while he did. Eventually, the violet of the evening found you in your room, at your dresser selecting clothes to sleep in, when there was a soft knock at your door. 

When you answered the door, Bucky absorbed the sight of you clad in just your bathrobe, your damp hair loose and curling at the ends, without an ounce of shyness on your face. He supposed that after everything that had transpired in the last forty-eight hours, shyness was superfluous and unnecessary.

“Hey,” he said softly. 

“Hi,” you returned, pushing the door open for him as you returned to your dresser to leaf through your clothes. “You okay?”

“I wanted to thank you.” He stepped inside your room, the glow of your bedside lamp painting him almost golden as he leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

“For what?”

“For today. To be a part of that, it was… a gift.” His eyes were impossibly soft as they gazed across the space between him and you.

You smiled fondly, leaned your hips back against the dresser. “I remember my first calving. Nathan nearly passed out,” you chuckled. “I thought it was fascinating. Almost mythical.”

Bucky regarded you for a moment before moving across the room toward you at a deliberate pace. “You were incredible.”

“You didn’t do too bad yourself,” you replied, trying to play off the way your breath caught and your pulse picked up at the look on his face, at the shrinking distance between your bodies.

“I mean it. You were so .. in control. Strong.” Distance was a thing of the past as he came to stand in front of you, and he removed his hands from his pockets to gently take hold of your waist. “You knew exactly what to do. It was…”

“What?” you asked, your voice nearly a whisper.

You shivered just a little when his thumb traced a small circle in the dip of your waist, the touch hot as a brand even though your robe. “Mesmerizing,” he murmured.

Feeling suddenly bold, and unwilling to wait much longer to see you – all of you – Bucky carefully reached for the tie of your robe, taking the end of it between his fingers before pulling it taut, unraveling the knot slowly and with intent, giving you time to step back and change your mind if you so chose. His eyes flicked to yours, a question.

“Bucky,” you breathed, your barely there voice laced with longing, with a plea. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked quietly, the knot of your robe just one tug away from falling apart completely. 

You shook your head, held your breath as his fingers slipped under the robe’s tie and pulled until the knot fell away. Reverently, like he was unveiling a holy relic, he pushed aside the fabric of your robe so that he could finally see you. It had been quite a long time since anyone had seen you naked, and you felt a split-second flash of embarrassment, an impulse to cover yourself. But the unconcealed desire in his eyes as they raked over you replaced the feeling with a demanding throb of arousal. He pushed the robe off of your shoulders, sending it cascading to the floor.

It was only fair that you return the favor, and so you found yourself reaching for the hem of his henley, your fingers grazing the firmness of his abdomen. He raised his arms to accommodate its removal, and you were facing down the sight of his bare chest for the first time since that very first night. The rhythm of his breath picked up as you reached out to touch him, running your fingers over planes of muscle and scars, with devotion and desire instead of the careful clinical touch you had adopted back then. 

Tentatively, you went for the waistband of his sleep pants. This was where he had stopped you before, but he didn’t stop you this time. He just stared at you like he had finally fit the last puzzle piece of you into place. Your hands only shook a little as you slipped your fingers beneath the waistband of his pants and boxers, and Bucky suppressed a gasp as you kneeled before him to tug them down his legs. When he stepped out of them, then there was nothing left to separate the two of you, except for the air that hung between your body and his.

He was already half hard just from this, before you had even really touched him, and even just half hard it still took your breath away. There wasn’t long to appreciate the sight, however, because he was reaching for you, pulling you to your feet, leaning in to claim your mouth with his own. There was no shy preamble like there had been last time – his arms pulled you flush against him, and his tongue was already feeling for permission at the seam of your lips. You opened for him, earning a quiet groan from him as his tongue slid against yours. And then he was standing to full attention against your thigh, long and thick with the first drops of arousal beginning to bead and smear against your skin.

Urgency taking over, he pulled you in the direction of the bed, your bodies tumbling down and tangling together on top of the sheets. His mouth was everywhere, and his hands even more so, exploring and touching and tasting what he had only dared to dream about for so many months. Eventually, he had you on your back, and seemed determined to map every inch of your chest with his lips and tongue and teeth. You were already a goner, arching and sighing and whining with every touch, unconsciously grinding and seeking friction against his thigh set between yours. Even with his mouth occupied, he was almost as noisy as you, as if he was the one taking pleasure instead of giving it.

“Please, Bucky, please touch me,” you begged, and he immediately obliged.

His head raised from your chest to level himself with your face, and you felt his hand move down your stomach and between your thighs. When he traced his fingers between your folds and gently parted them, you both groaned almost in unison - him just from feeling how wet and warm you were, and you from the sensation of his calloused fingers so close to where you wanted him.

Bucky watched your face with fascination and unparalleled focus as he slipped the first finger inside of you, how your eyelids fluttered and your lips parted in a silent cry and tilted your head back, exposing your throat. There was a brief battle of urges – he wanted to see your face, see what his touch was doing to you, but the soft skin of your neck was far too enticing. So he pressed his mouth to the column of your throat, pleased with the sigh that escaped your lips as he did so. Your hips shifted impatiently against his hand, and he set an easy rhythm, pulling the digit out and pushing back in, thoroughly enjoying the way you whimpered and writhed underneath him.

One finger became two, his palm pressing against your clit with every thrust, and you were embarrassingly close already, just like the night before. The world was narrowing to the scrape of his stubble and teeth against your neck, to the way his fingers curled and searched and adjusted the angle until he found that spot that made your muscles lock.

“Fuck, there,” you cried in a broken moan, and his head snapped up, eyes locked on your face as he hit that spot again and again. You lost it, gasps and sobs of pleasure ripping out of your throat as the unrelenting press of his fingers coaxed wave after wave of your climax out of you. Soon enough, you were a limp and shaking mess, little moans and whines still climbing out from behind your lips as his fingers slowed.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, the first word he’d uttered since your clothes had come off.

Your trembling hands found their way to his face, angling his lips towards yours for a messy kiss. You could feel his need, the way he restlessly shifted against your thigh and sighed into your mouth, and it had you aching for him all over again. 

“Come here,” you murmured against his mouth, grasping at his waist and coaxing him to settle between your legs. When you reached down to take him in hand, he let out a tremulous breath that melted into a moan when you stroked him base to tip. You tilted your hips up invitingly beneath him, and without thinking he pressed himself against you, dragging himself through the slickness he wrought with his earlier efforts. 

“God, please,” he whimpered against your neck. “Is it okay? Can I–”

“Yes,” you whispered. “I want you to.”

That was all the permission he needed to align himself with your entrance and slowly push inside. A stab of discomfort pushed the air out of you through your teeth in a startled hiss – even after his fingers, even with the pooling wetness at your core, even though just the first few inches of him had breached you, it was still overwhelming and a little painful. It had been years since you had been with someone like this, and never anyone like Bucky. He reached up to cup your face gently, not moving an inch further. “Did I hurt you?”

You steadied your breathing, did your best to relax around him. “Just – slow.”

He was so, so patient, despite the barely caged hunger behind his eyes. Pulling from some hidden well of self-control that he hadn’t known was there, he slowly worked you open, always stopping when you tensed, never moving until he felt your body yield and melt again beneath him. When he finally bottomed out, you were both panting – him from the strain of holding back and the pleasure that already threatened to push him off the edge, and you from the effort to accommodate his size and the coil of desire that was beginning to tighten within you.

He stayed there for a moment, sweat rolling down his temple, gazing down at you. The last cues of pain and discomfort left your face, giving way to want and affection, and you tilted up your chin to brush your lips against his. Only then did Bucky dare to move, his pace deliberate, determined to be gentle with you. At first.

Making love wasn’t like he remembered at all. He used to be skilled, smooth, had prided himself on being a generous lover. But the years of cold and lack had made him into something else entirely. And no amount of dreaming or wanting or imagining could have prepared him for the feeling of being sheathed inside you, for the impossibly tight warmth that seemed to draw him in further with every thrust. 

You could feel him trembling from holding back, his jaw clenched and teeth grinding against each other. It drew the coil tighter in your abdomen, and you held him close, whispered in his ear. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Take what you need.”

He broke. His left hand gripped the sheets, a gesture born of the only reserve of caution he had left, and he shuddered as he thrust into you harder, faster. It only took a few to start driving moans and gasps out of you again, each sound you made only serving to increase his desperation. 

The two of you clutched at each other, like you were trying to fuse into one being. Your body bowed beneath him with every push, your head thrown back in ecstasy. In the background, you became vaguely aware of the protesting creak of the bed, and the relentless thunk of the headboard as it knocked into the wall behind it. You didn’t have it within you to care, especially as you both crept closer to climax. 

It hadn’t taken long at all. If Bucky had access to thought, he might have been dismayed by his lack of endurance, so to speak. But you didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, equally lost in the throes of pleasure. Your body spoke for you, fluttering and squeezing around him as you approached the edge again.

Bucky let out a strangled sound resembling your name, snapping his hips against yours at a fevered pace. “Honey, I can’t – fuck, I’m–”

“Yes, Bucky, yes, yes,” you gasped, your own orgasm seizing you in its demanding grip.

He grunted and whimpered and panted as he followed after you, burying himself as deep as he could. His cocked jerked inside of you, each clench of your muscles drawing more and more of his spend from him. He went boneless on top of you, not even bothering to pull out, and you lazily nosed at his neck, peppering kisses over every inch of skin you had access to in this position.

You both caught your breath. Once again, it was like the lights went back on in his brain, and only then could Bucky think. He realized what he had just done, without asking, remembered the risks and potential consequences, and he lifted his head to look at you with a mix of fading arousal and anxiety.

“Is it okay that I…” he began, heat flooding his cheeks. “I should have asked, shouldn’t have–”

“Bucky, it’s okay,” you assured him. “I’m covered.”

His brows furrowed in confusion. “But we didn’t have…”

It dawned on you that he might not know about the leaps and bounds birth control had made while he was captive. They, whoever they were, had kept much from him, and this kind of information would hardly be relevant to the things they had made him do. You pushed his hair back from his face gently and explained, “I have something called an IUD. It’s an implant. It makes it so I won’t get pregnant until it’s removed. So we’re all right.”

He still looked a little bewildered, but a hint of relief washed over his face, followed by wonder. You fought a smile as you felt him twitch just slightly inside you. “So this is… okay? Not just for tonight? We can…”

“Yes, we can,” you murmured, your nose brushing against his as you kissed him softly. “But you have to let me up for a second, because I have to go to the bathroom.”

Bucky nuzzled back into your neck and inhaled deeply, his cock twitching again. “Two minutes.”

You chuckled fondly. “Okay. Two minutes.”

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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It had been a long day. The temperature has finally begun to taper off, signaling the first whispers of early autumn in the distance. There was so much to do as summer came to a close, leaving you both drained at the end of the day. Bucky in particular felt the weight of his fatigue. The day following a nightmare always taxed him, left him feeling tender and exposed, like a raw nerve. You remained patient with him that day, like always, not pushing, not demanding. Underneath the fatigue, there was gratitude – for you, and for this life he had stumbled upon, however temporary it may turn out to be in the end.

As he dragged himself through the tasks that came before bed, he could hear you in the kitchen, doing your bookkeeping, humming along to the radio softly playing in the background. A tiny miracle occurred as Bucky realized that he recognized the tune, and it drew him to the kitchen doorway like a siren song.

When he saw you sitting at the kitchen table, it took him back in time just a bit. You were clad in that same nightdress you had worn that very first night you met, wrapped in the usual oversized cardigan you wore to stave off the evening draftiness of the house. Scribbling in your notepad and humming softly, it took you a second or two to notice his presence in the doorway.

You glanced up to see Bucky with that bittersweet expression he sometimes got when something pulled at the edges of a memory. “I know this song,” he remarked quietly.

“You do?” you asked, smiling a little.

“A version of it,” he amended.

It must have been an older song than you thought. You only knew this version, from the sixties, with the legendary Cass Elliot. “I love this song. My grandpa used to sing it to us when he tucked us into bed.” 

He could have called it delirium brought on by exhaustion, or perhaps his slowly deteriorating willpower, or the invisible string that was pulled taut between you – but some mysterious force moved Bucky across the kitchen, until he was standing over you, offering a hand.

You looked up at him quizzically for a moment, and then decided to take it, unsure exactly what he had in mind, but willing to follow him wherever he led you. He guided you to the middle of the kitchen floor, drew you close until the fronts of your bodies brushed together, and his right hand settled at your waist. His metal hand cradled your own at about chest level next to you. He began to sway ever so slightly, and only then did you realize what this was. He was dancing with you. Somewhere in the background, Cass Elliot was singing something about stars and a kiss.

“Is this all right?” he asked shyly.

You didn’t answer with words. Instead, you placed your hand on his shoulder, leaned in and rested your head on his chest. You could hear the quiet whir of his arm, and underneath, the fluttering beat of his heart, the way his breath hitched as you moved closer. His hand flexed at your waist and dared to hold you just a little tighter.

“It’s been a long time,” he admitted. “Since I… held someone like this.”

“For me, too,” you replied, although you guessed it had been much longer for him. “It’s nice.”

The two of you swayed together, hearts beating in time, even as the song played out and a new one resumed, more easy listening that Bucky did not recognize this time.

Bucky asked the question that had been circling his mind for months, since he had first settled in. “Are you… lonely out here?”

“Not lately.” Bucky could hear the smile in your voice without even having to look down to see it.

“When I go, you’ll be lonely again.” 

Your stomach dropped, as it always did when Bucky mentioned leaving. “Not planning your escape yet, are you?” You tried to sound playful, but you didn’t quite meet the mark.

“No,” he assured you. “But I worry. I… wonder.”

“Wonder what?” you asked, picking your head up off his chest.

His expression was soft, a little sad. “If you’ll find someone. Not be alone anymore.”

This was as openly as the two of you had ever discussed what had grown between you, since that day Bucky had taken the truck. You were a little afraid the moment might slip away from you, and you wanted more of this honesty. So you picked up your head to look at him and gently probed, “Does that idea bother you?”

“A little.” He frowned. “But that’s selfish.”

“Why is it selfish?”

Bucky took a deep breath, considered his words carefully. “You open your home to me. You make me…feel things.” His right hand left your waist and carefully touched the end of your braid, a gesture he had adopted more often lately. “Care. Desire. Things I haven’t felt in – in years.”

Your blood rushed in your veins as he spoke. Desire. It was out in the open now. No more circumventing the subject – he addressed it straight on. It felt like a significant step. But there was something in his eyes that told you he was still holding back.

“But I can’t give you the life you deserve,” he said softly, despairingly.

You shook your head in defiance. “I don’t need you to give me anything–”

“Like permanence,” he interrupted you gently, returning his hand to your waist. “Security. Family. I can’t give you those things.”

It wasn’t as if you had failed to consider this. You had been turning it over in your head for months now. But it didn’t seem like a good enough reason to maintain a distance between you two. You wanted each other. Someday he would be gone. You didn’t want to have any regrets of things left unspoken and undone when he did, even if it meant that it would hurt more when he left.

“I know. I’m not asking you to.” You shifted your hand from his shoulder to brush against the nape of his neck, eliciting the smallest of shivers from him. “You’re here right now. That’s what matters to me.”

He wore that same look from that day in the rain, the one where you had thought he might kiss you and then didn’t. He still didn’t, though he certainly looked like he wanted to. Your fingers just barely nestled into his hair as you attempted to broach the subject. “Can I ask you something?” Bucky nodded his response, and you continued. “You said that you… desire me. But you don’t touch me. In that way. Why?”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” It was almost a whisper, laced with shame and fear.

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do,” you insisted stubbornly. “In fact, I’m certain of it.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because you’ve never hurt me, even that first night when you were so scared. You’re gentle, when you want to be.” An idea occurred to you as you looked to where his left hand clasped yours. You had seen the way he usually kept his left arm angled away from you, how he hardly ever touched you with it. You manipulated your grip so that you could take hold of his wrist, and you guided his hand to rest his metal palm against your cheek. “You would never hurt me.” It was less of an assurance and more of a promise. 

He wasn’t sure how you could feel so confident in this, when he barely believed it himself. Of course, he would rather cut off his own arm than hurt you, but he didn’t trust himself to always be in control. He knew it was no use arguing with you, though. It was never any use trying to argue with you. So he swept his metal thumb carefully against your cheek, hoping it might communicate all that he couldn’t find the words for.

“I don’t need any promises or declarations. I just want you,” you confessed as you leaned your cheek into his hand. “For however long we have.”

You said that you wanted him, and Bucky promptly forgot all of the reasons why he shouldn’t be holding you like this. Even more forgotten were the all the reasons why he shouldn’t kiss you. He was too weak to keep fighting against wanting you, and by some miracle you wanted him back, so how could he turn away from you now?

Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, and you could feel his breath skim across your face. Everything felt suspended for a moment as he gave you one last opportunity to pull away. You didn’t. Instead, you leaned a centimeter closer, your nose brushing against his. And ultimately it was Bucky who closed the last bit of distance between your lips and his own.

He tried to be good. He really, really did – for about ten seconds. 

Your lips were so much softer than he imagined, and he had imagined quite a lot. The first attempt was cautious, tender, almost innocent, testing the waters to see if he would drown or not. When his lips parted from yours, you leaned in, chasing after it, your hands winding around his neck in an attempt to keep him close. 

That was the first crack in the floodgates. 

When your mouth touched his again, his left hand, still on your cheek, got other ideas independently of his brain. His palm shifted to cup your jaw, tilting you up to deepen the kiss, and your lips parted for him before he even tried anything. 

More cracks, spiderwebbing across the walls just barely holding him together. 

He eagerly slid his tongue into your mouth. You tasted sweet, like the last ripe fruit of summer, and the breathy sigh that escaped from the back of your throat was the final crack that brought everything tumbling down.

His right hand tightening at your waist, Bucky backed you across the kitchen, until your backside bumped into the edge of the kitchen table. You let out a surprised sound that was muffled by the press of his mouth, the demanding slide of his tongue against yours. And he didn’t stop there – suddenly, he gripped your waist with both hands and lifted you onto the table, without breaking the kiss. Already aching with need, you parted your knees for him, and something between a groan and a growl rumbled in his chest as he slotted himself between your legs. 

Bucky moved his mouth to your throat, needing to taste more, needing to pull more of those noises from you. You didn’t make him work for it, didn’t even try – the sounds falling from your lips as his teeth grazed below your ear might have been embarrassing, if you had found it within you to care. You didn’t. It had been so long since you had been touched, and you had been starving for him for months now. His hands at your waist migrated lower to your thighs, rucking up the hem of your nightdress as he sought the warmth of bare skin. You didn’t even realize you were reaching for his waistband until your fingers met warm skin and hardened muscle, until they curled beneath the band of fabric. 

All at once, Bucky stilled, his hands frozen on your thighs, his lips pulling away from your neck to mutter, “Wait.”

You did wait, looking up at him with a little concern and a lot of heat. ‘What is it?” you asked breathlessly.

“I don’t – I don’t know if I can.” He looked down, anxiety and shame written all over him, and he flexed his left hand against your thigh.

You moved your hands to his face, cradling his jaw. “That’s okay. We don’t have to.” Slowly, his eyes rose to meet yours, and you tried to get your body’s reaction under control so that you could tune in to what he needed. “Do you want to stop?” you asked.

Bucky couldn’t possibly pull away from you right now, with your lips swollen and inviting and your chest heaving just from him touching you. “No.” His response was immediate and firm. He leaned forward, his hands once again creeping to your waist, his lips just barely grazing yours. “Just… this.”

“Okay,” you breathed, your body thrumming underneath his touch. He kissed you again, immediately licking into your mouth, a satisfied hum resonating in his throat.

It didn’t take long for his hands to begin wandering again, instinctual, like he couldn’t help himself. His fingers trailed up the slope of your hips, brushing against the underside of your breasts, and he didn’t even have to look for your permission, because you were already arching into his touch. His left hand splayed against your spine to steady you, and pressed his right hand to one of your breasts, groaning against your lips when he felt the shape of you beneath the thin cotton of your nightdress.

As you arched further into the warmth of his palm, his thumb zeroed in on your hardening nipple and brushed across it experimentally. Immediately, you gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed it up greedily as he circled the nub. You couldn’t help the moans that began to spill out of you as warmth and wetness pooled between your legs, and your hands gathered fistfuls of his shirt to pull him closer to you.

It seemed that Bucky had forgotten his hesitation from before, because he pulled you by the hips until you were flush against him. The two of you gasped in unison, mouths just barely breaking apart as the hard evidence of his arousal pressed up against your panties. Fighting your every instinct to move, to press, to seek friction, you waited for him to decide what would happen next, afraid you might scare him off again. His eyes dark with desire, he ground himself hard against you, his forehead dropping to your shoulder as he revelled in the sensation through the thin layers of his sweatpants and your underwear. Your hands flew to his shoulders as a whimper tore from your throat, and you rocked your hips up to meet his. And then Bucky was officially gone, self-control shattered into pieces on the floor around him.

It was almost animal, the pure need that coursed through him as he rutted against you. Between the two of you, the room was a symphony of breath and moans and the creak of the kitchen table as you moved with each other. You clenched around nothing with every roll of his hips against yours, his erection grazing your clit through your soaked underwear with every pass, the friction delicious and too much and not enough. 

Your cardigan had slipped from your shoulders at some point - perhaps when he had begun touching you in earnest, or perhaps when you had begun wantonly grinding against him – and it dangled from your elbows like a shawl. Bucky took advantage of the new real estate and pressed hot, wet kisses against your collarbone. With every lathe of his tongue and drag of his teeth against your neck, every grunt in your ear, he was unraveling you, bringing you closer to the edge just from this, both of you still with all of your clothes on. Your fingers wound into his hair, and he groaned against your skin as you lightly pulled.

Somewhere in the back of Bucky’s mind, he knew that he wasn’t long for this world, but he was too far gone to stop. After so long deprived of touch, he was completely lost in you, in the sounds and sensations you were giving to him. He buried his face in the crook of your neck, inhaling the sweet scent of your lavender soap mingling with sweat and the heady bouquet of your arousal, and his thrusts against you grew harder, urgent, messy.

“Bucky,” you whined in his ear, your voice riding the edge between a moan and a desperate plea. The sound of it travelled straight to his cock, and when your fingers pulled at his hair again, harder this time, his balls drew up in his sweatpants and he grew frantic, mindless. Underneath the blood roaring in his ears, he could hear you crying out as his hips jerked against yours. Warmth filled the inside of his underwear as he came, shuddering against you, chest heaving with exertion.

There was a brief moment of stillness as you both went limp against each other, heart rates coming down, your fingers now gently carding through his hair. And then Bucky’s brain switched back on, flooding him with shame and embarrassment.

You felt his whole body stiffen against you, felt a tremble beginning in his shoulders, felt his breath change from the deep breaths of satisfaction to shallow, anxious pants. He lifted his head from your shoulder, unable to look you in the face.

“Bucky–” you started, but he was already shaking his head, pulling away

“I’m sorry,” he said in a broken whisper.

You reached for his arms, trying to keep him from going too far. You didn’t want him running off to his room alone to stew in needless shame. “Just hold on a second. It’s okay.” His feet didn’t move further, but his gaze remained firmly fixed on the floor, his breath even faster now. You released one of his arms to tilt his chin up. “Hey, look at me. It’s all right.”

His eyes were full of confusion and guilt. “But I–”

“It’s all right,” you murmured, drawing him close again, anchoring your hands at his neck and sweeping soothing arcs across his jaw with your thumbs. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” 

His breath began to slow, though he still trembled a little as he reached for your waist, his touch concerned now instead of heated. “Are you okay? I didn’t–”

“I’m fine,” you promised. “I’m more than fine.”

Bucky searched your expression, finding only affection and tenderness. “You’re not… upset?”

“Why would I be upset?” you asked softly, your eyebrows curving upwards in confusion of your own. “That was beautiful.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“I feel bad… leaving you wanting,” he muttered guiltily.

“You didn’t.”

His eyes widened as he scanned your face for a lie meant to spare his bruised pride. What he found instead was your cheeks flushed, a sleepy droop to your eyelids, and an easy smile playing at your lips. You certainly didn’t look unsatisfied. “You…” his voice trailed off as he struggled to compute this.

You chuckled and flushed a shade deeper. “Bucky, I haven’t been touched like that in over two years. It didn’t take much.”

“...oh.” Bucky realized that he had been so consumed with his own raw need that he had missed this completely. If he’d had the presence of mind to think about it, he would have liked to see you fall apart. He was determined not to miss it the next time. Please, God, let there be a next time, he thought.

You pressed a kiss to his temple. “Why don’t we get cleaned up and lay down for a little bit? Would you like that?” you murmured.

He nodded, his anxiety giving way to contented drowsiness. “Yes. Very much.”

When he had showered and changed, you surprised him by leading him into your room instead of the back room where he had been staying. He hadn’t been in your room much, never longer than a minute or two, never venturing far beyond the doorway. As you led him to your bed, he reacquainted himself with the soft blue paint on the walls, the threadbare curtains, the squat little nightstand with a squat little lamp, casting warm light in a halo around it. On the shade of the nightstand was a tarnished gold pendant, one that had caught his eye before and made him curious, but he had never asked about.

You drew back your comforter and laid down on the bed, patting the space next to you, and he gingerly eased onto the mattress beside your body. The bed smelled strongly, inescapably of you, like his pillow had when you first lent it to him, but worse. Or better, Bucky wasn’t sure yet. 

You leaned over to turn off the bedside lamp for the night, and were about to turn back to wrap your arms around Bucky as you usually did when you laid together. But your shoulder met resistance as Bucky’s chest pressed to your back, a strong arm wrapping around your waist as he settled in behind you. You smiled and relaxed into it instantly, hummed contentedly as his nose pressed into your hair. Your hand wrapped around his where it rested at your stomach, and once again the two of you breathed together as you gradually drifted off.

The first thing he laid eyes on when he woke was your back.

You were sitting on the edge of the bed when Bucky’s eyelids drifted open. You had already changed into workclothes, a ratty pair of overalls over a tanktop. He watched with sleepy fascination as you deftly wove your hair into its usual braid, silken strands laid over top of one another in a hypnotic pattern. He slowly eased himself up to a sitting position behind you, and when your braid was tied off and your arms lowered to your sides, he dared to press his mouth to the juncture where your neck met your shoulder. After having spent so long without this, after having been awakened to the possibility of intimacy, it was all he craved. Especially the simple things, like the brush of lips on skin. 

You hummed your approval and turned over your shoulder to smile at him. “Morning.”

“Morning,” he returned, his arms snaking around your waist, an attempt at persuasion to return to the warmth of the bed.

“Nope,” you laughed softly. “Work to do.” As if it were conspiring with you, your watch beeped its alarm from where it sat on the nightstand. You killed the alarm and strapped it to your wrist.

Bucky groaned dramatically and rolled onto his stomach, like he had been personally and grievously injured.

“Up and at ‘em, city boy,” you sang, patting his calf before grabbing a flannel off the closet doorknob and setting off to start the day.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, eventual smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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Summer was setting in, and Bucky was defrosting.

It was a season of plenty. Everything you were growing in your garden was coming to fruition, and the boughs of the plum trees grew heavy with their prizes. It was plentiful enough that some of the delicious, homegrown produce made it into lunch and dinner instead of being sold or preserved. The smells and the colors and the tastes were unbelievable. Bucky had never eaten so well in his life.

It also meant that the work never finished, and it was getting hot. Sometimes sweltering. Working in long sleeves and gloves was getting pretty old for Bucky. And you seemed rather intent on torturing him. The unbearable temperatures led to the inescapable sight of you, clad in tank-tops and cutoff shorts, revealing expanses of freckled and glowing skin that made it extremely difficult for Bucky to focus on chores. Occasionally, you wore loose house dresses on light work days, and it made Bucky a little insane. 

The situation with you two was… nebulous. You shared nearly everything with each other. When Bucky's nightmares got out of hand, crawling into bed next to him became a semi-regular occurrence. You both flirted, sometimes touched, albeit innocently. But Bucky still wouldn’t kiss you, wouldn’t push past whatever imagined boundary he had put up in his mind.

It was still nice. You tried to tell yourself not to be selfish, that you should be grateful that Bucky was even sticking around in the first place. The two of you would share a cold beer in the afternoon, or laugh over dinner, and you would touch his hand, and it was almost enough. But your heart was greedy, your body even more so, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore the way you wanted him. 

It wasn’t that you were opposed to making the first move in general. But it had been a long time since you had made any moves at all, and this was Bucky. He was important to you. You cared about his well-being. And you weren't entirely sure what he was ready for. You had made your feelings pretty obvious at this point - you had never really tried to hide them. Still, he held back from you. If all that he wanted from you was a hand to hold and a soft, comforting touch - you could come to terms with that. But it didn’t feel like that was the case.

It was a scorcher, and the day found you and Bucky kneeling in the garden, removing weeds and harvesting the fruits of your labor. The distant hum of a motor caught Bucky’s attention before it caught yours, and soon enough a jacked-up truck began to slowly pull down your drive. It wasn’t uncommon in summer for your neighbors to swing by your place, and vice versa. Bucky pulled his hat low and adjusted his gloves as a precaution, then continued to work, watching out of the corner of his eye as you got to your feet, brushed off your hands, and waved at the truck.

A broad-shouldered man with the beginnings of a beer gut hopped out of the truck’s cab and greeted you with a smile. “Well, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”

“Hi, Clarence,” you replied amicably, walking up to meet him.

Bucky scowled at the carrots he was pulling up. He recognized this man from the monthly market. He was a frequent patron of your stand, and when Bucky had nonchalantly asked about him in passing, you had told him Clarence was a livestock farmer from down the way, and that you often traded him your products for stew meat or steak. Bucky could guess from the way Clarence always looked at you at the market, and the way he was looking at you now, that he wanted to be much more than neighbors.

“You haven’t been up to see me in a while.” Clarence removed his Stetson and ran a hand through sweat-dampened hair. “Thought you forgot about me.” 

You didn’t acknowledge his flirtation. It seemed that you didn’t even notice it. “Things have been a little crazy around here, sorry,” you explained apologetically.

He crossed to the other side of his cab to fetch a cooler from the passenger seat. “Trade you some strip loin for a dozen eggs, some cheese, and some produce. I’ll throw in a pork shoulder for a couple jars of those glorious fruit preserves of yours,” he said with a wink. 

Bucky clenched his jaw and took a deep breath.

“Just the strip loin is fine, Clarence,” you said with a friendly smile. “Thanks.”

As Clarence pulled a sealed package of meat out of the cooler and handed it off to you, his eyes fell on Bucky, who returned his attention to his garden work. “Didn’t know you got a farmhand,” Clarence commented casually.

“That’s James. He’s been a big help around here.” It was the name Bucky had asked you to call him in front of others, just in case. Bucky wasn’t a common nickname, and he didn’t want anyone to make the connection. He didn’t share this information with you, but you had guessed that was the reason anyway.

“If you told me you were struggling, I woulda checked on you sooner.” Clarence stepped closer to you, leaned on the hood of his truck. “Woman out here on her own, it’s gotta be hard.” The concern in his voice didn’t sound authentic in the slightest, barely masking the real root of his interest.

You moved out of his space and headed up towards the house. “Let me stick this in the fridge and make you up a box. I’ll be right back.”

As you bounded up the porch steps and disappeared into the house, Clarence gave Bucky a nod. “Hey, man. Good to meet you.”

Bucky barely met his eyes, grunted his reply, then continued snipping zucchini from the vine and placing them in the box next to him.

After a few minutes, you re-emerged from the house with a cardboard box in hand, full of Clarence’s requested products. “Here you are,” you chirped as you placed the box into his arms.

“You’re an angel.” His tone was sickeningly sweet, his grin bordering on lecherous, and Bucky wanted to punch his teeth in. “You need anything at all, you come by and see me, okay?”

“Have a good day, Clarence,” you said, beginning to turn back towards the garden. “Drive safe.”

Clarence deposited his produce in the cab of the truck and called, “Adios, sweetheart,” his gaze lingering on the back of you before he jumped back into the cab and turned the truck back down the drive.

You returned to kneel in the garden again across from Bucky. As usual, you could feel his eyes on you, but he said nothing, so you didn’t either, just worked in silence for a few minutes. You both finished up harvesting the last of the ripened produce, and you began to collect the pulled weeds into a bag for Buttercup and Stella.

“Is he always like that?” Bucky eventually asked, his voice suspiciously even.

“Like what?” you asked, quirking up an eyebrow.

“So… forward.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, please, that’s just Clarence. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”

Bucky gave you a skeptical look. “You must be joking.”

“What do you mean? “

“He was breathing down your neck.” A frustrated edge crept into his voice bit by bit.

You rolled your eyes. “Bucky, come on.”

“No, you come on,” he shot back, straightening up to stand. “It was obvious.”

“What was obvious?” you demanded.

He suddenly had a little difficulty meeting your eyes, and he struggled to get the words out from his intermittently clenching jaw. “That he … wants you.” 

You might have burst out laughing at that, but there was nothing funny about the expression on Bucky’s face. His eyes were a little dark and hard to read, and his hands were clenching into fists at his side. Slowly, you got to your feet as well, wiping the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand and brushing your dirty hands against your thighs.

“You should go inside. Clearly you’re experiencing heat stroke, because that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” you replied dismissively as you picked up the plastic bag of weeds and began to head in the direction of the barn.

“What’s ridiculous about it?” Bucky retorted, stepping into your path.

You scoffed as you gestured to the state of yourself, limbs dotted and smeared with soil, your cheeks flushed tomato red and your hair a frizzy mess from the heat. “Well, for one thing, I’m not exactly Miss America at the moment.”

Bucky shook his head. “Now you’re being ridiculous, woman.”

“I’m sweaty and covered with dirt,” you protested.

“You’re beautiful.” Bucky’s statement snatched whatever argument you were going to make next right from your lips. His voice was soft, careful, like speaking his thoughts into existence might break something. “And he’s only a man.” He looked down at his boots, and you wondered briefly if he was still talking about Clarence.

You let his words hang in the air between you for a moment. When you felt brave enough, you stepped a little closer to him. “You’ve been staying here for months now, and this is the first I’m hearing about me being ‘beautiful’,” you stated calmly. Bucky still looked towards the ground and he made no reply, so you pressed on. “All because my neighbor was ‘breathing down my neck’, according to you.”

Daring a few steps closer, you found yourself looking up into his face, feeling the heat radiating off him, compounding with the sun beating down on your face and shoulders. “Would that upset you? If he was interested in me?”

“There’s no if. He was,” Bucky insisted, the set of his jaw turning stubborn.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He evaded, “Why would I be upset?”

“You tell me.” Both your voices were growing sharp, almost angry. Perhaps the heat was to blame, turning the two of you irritable and petty. Or more than likely, it was because the anger was easier to examine than the other feeling, the one that always leapt out when you were standing this close. 

Bucky finally turned his gaze fully up to yours, icy blue glaciers somehow lit aflame. “Are you interested in him?”

“No.” You said it with finality, with significance, and you could have sworn you saw a flash of relief in his eyes, maybe even satisfaction.

His voice was still edged with annoyance when he spoke. “Okay. Fine.” He leaned down to pick up the box of produce to bring into the house. Before he walked away, without looking at you, he muttered in that same exasperated tone, “Good.”

You didn’t know whether to smile or throw something at his head, with how the heat was getting to you. In the end, you just huffed with vexation and stalked off toward the barn.

Bucky’s voice cut through the staticky melody coming from the truck’s radio while you were on the way home from the market. “Stop.”

You briefly glanced away from the road and towards him in confusion, wondering if there was something wrong, something in the road that his sharp eyes could see and you couldn’t. “What?”

“Can you stop here?” he asked, a glimmer of something in his eyes that you couldn’t yet identify.

You started to reduce your speed and nodded to the shoulder of the road. “Here?”

“Yeah.”

The truck rolled to a stop just across the road from your neighbors’ house. You hit your hazards and looked to Bucky expectantly. “What is it?”

“The bike,” he murmured, looking with curiosity across the road. 

You followed his gaze and saw that near Gerald and Sandra’s mailbox, there was a dusty motorbike with a for sale sign tied to the handlebars. When you looked back at Bucky, there was something soft and pensive in his expression. It was the look he got when he was remembering something good, you had learned.

It made you smile to see it. Another piece of the puzzle revealed. “So you’re a bike guy, huh?” you teased gently. “Looks like it’s for sale. Should we go ask about it?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t pay for it.”

“I could,” you replied thoughtfully. “Depending on what they’re asking.” It wasn’t a lie. You had been doing well lately - summer was always a good season for you. And you made out well at the market earlier that day. Perhaps Gerald would even be willing to cut you a deal.

Bucky looked at you in shock. “No.”

“Why not? You’re allowed to do essentially free labor for me, but I can’t even ask the price of a bike you’re looking at?” you challenged him. 

“It’s different,” he said quietly, frowning.

This was one fight you did not intend to let Bucky win. “Stay in the truck,” you instructed him with a mischievous grin as you pushed open your door and slid out of the seat.

“What?” 

You ignored him, already nudging your door shut and walking up to your neighbor’s house. You didn’t even have to knock - the door opened as you approached to reveal Gerald’s dark, freckled face lit up with a thousand watt smile.

“Hey Gerry, how’s tricks?” you greeted him, bouncing up to his front step.

“Can’t complain. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I was looking at your bike out there.” You gestured with your head in the direction of the vehicle. “What are you asking for it?”

He crossed his arms and leaned on the doorjamb, looking a little surprised. “You ride?”

“My friend does,” you clarified.

He peered over your shoulder towards your truck, a knowing glint in his eye. “This your friend from the market?”

You smiled good-naturedly and ignored the comment. Sandra was probably roping him into all her gossip. “How much?” you pressed him again.

“She needs a little work I can’t give her. New throttle cable and spark plugs. Plus the wife doesn’t want me riding anymore after my hip replacement. We’re asking four hundred bucks,” he explained, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Yeesh,” you muttered, considering. You pulled out your wallet, counting out bills from the market. “I could do three.”

He pressed a hand fondly to your shoulder. “It’s yours if you can haul it, sweet pea.”

You weren’t terribly concerned about the hauling. “We’ll figure it out,” you assured him as you handed him the wad of cash.

“Quite a gift for a friend,” Gerald prodded you, clearly amused, as he unhooked the motorcycle keys from his carabiner and placed them in your palm.

“Well, I happen to be an excellent friend,” you replied sweetly.

“I hope he knows how lucky he is.”

“I think he’s got an inkling.”  You leaned in for a quick goodbye hug. “Give Sandra a kiss for me.”

“You know I will,” he called after you as you flounced back to the truck.

“James,” you sang when you were in earshot of the truck. Bucky opened the door and stuck his head out. “You better come lift this thing,” you told him as you pointed your thumb in the direction of the bike.

His jaw practically hit the ground as he hopped out of the cab. “You didn’t.”

“I did, and it’s done and dusted, so it’s no use trying to talk me out of it,” you replied firmly. “Get moving.”

Disbelief briefly crossed his face, quickly replaced by affection as he shook his head and marched off towards the bike.  “Bossy.”

“Damn right.” You lowered the truck’s back gate and watched with immense satisfaction as Bucky lifted the bike into the truck bed. Once done, you dangled the keys in front of him. “It’s all yours. Gerry says there’s a few things that need fixing. I reckon you could handle that.”

Bucky didn’t reach for the keys, just looked a little stunned as he peered down at you. “Why?” he asked softly.

“Because this is the first thing outside of farm work that you’ve shown interest in since I’ve known you.” You tossed the keys into the air, and he caught them on reflex. As you walked around the truck to the driver’s side door, you added, “And I think it’s cute when men have their little hobbies.”

He laughed at that, shaking his head again as he returned to the passenger side.

All things considered, it turned out to be a rather valuable investment in your eyes. You would estimate his work on the farm made it a worthy trade off, and you wouldn’t be hurting for the money this season. It would allow him some independence and agency if he needed to go somewhere when it was fixed, and it would give him something to do that was just his.

The following day, Bucky set up shop with his bike behind the barn, out of view of the road. You took him into town to obtain the few parts he needed, him with his cap pulled low and you with your sunny smile drawing the attention off him. And when you were operating the tractor or doing other work that didn’t require his help, Bucky worked on his bike. He would work in just an undershirt, wanting to avoid getting motor oil on the clothes you had lent him. You certainly weren’t going to complain about that when you saw him stretched out on his back underneath the bike. When he pulled himself out from underneath it, his face would be flushed and happy, and you considered that to be worth every penny.

When the bike was drivable, he asked you if you wanted to help him test it out. The two of you flew down the country road, your arms wrapped tightly around him, and you laughed gleefully as the trees flew by. A worthy investment, indeed.

The month of July came and did not temper the godforsaken heat, but it brought with it a blessing. The plums were ready. And Bucky discovered that if heaven existed, it probably looked a lot like plucking ripe, sweet fruit from a tree with a beautiful woman.

He walked along the trees with you, you with your house dress fluttering in the rare light breeze and your hand adjusting your sun hat. Bucky held the box to collect the fruit, and you examined each purple treasure with care and attention, pressing it to your nose to inhale its scent or squeezing it to feel its particular firmness. Bucky would reach up and obtain the fruit you pointed out to him that was out of your reach, and you would smile when he offered it to you for inspection. 

Unable to resist, the both of you ate one of every three plums, it felt like. The juice burst sweet and tangy on his tongue, the flesh yielding beneath his lips and teeth. He watched the purple drip from your lips down the column of your throat, stared at your stained mouth, and the whole experience felt exceptionally erotic despite seeming so innocent on the surface. Bucky felt a bit like a teenager again, the way that just the sight of you raising a globe of fruit to your lips made his blood run hot. And it seemed that you watched him with the same intensity and desire.

Fortunately for you, Bucky had developed a valiant sense of self-control. Or rather unfortunately, from your perspective. But like you had said, you were stubborn. 

You called Bucky’s name from behind him, and as he turned, he felt an impact as you pegged him right in the chest with a soft, overly ripe plum. You giggled like a fool at the stunned expression on his face, as he looked down at the purple splotch now emblazoned over his heart.

“What’s wrong, city boy?” you teased. “Got something on your shirt?”

You were baiting him, and he knew it. You probably just wanted to see what he would do. Maybe it was the heat, or the sweet nectar of fruit in the air, or the mischievous glint in your eye, but suddenly Bucky felt just a little reckless. He wouldn't return your throw – he was too afraid of hurting you, or staining your pretty housedress and its lovely little daffodil print. Instead, he set down his box and approached you, slowly.

The look on his face and the shrinking distance between his body and yours rooted you to the spot. There was the smallest hint of danger in his eyes – not the kind that inspired fear, but the kind that thrilled, the kind that you wanted to say yes to. When he entered your space, it felt a little hard to breathe. And then he reached up with a careful, gentle hand, and he painted a stripe of pulp and juice across your cheek with his thumb.

For a moment, you stared at him in shock, and a devilish grin crept across Bucky's face. Then you shoved him uselessly, laughing and turning pink as you exclaimed, “You dick!”

He had the audacity to smirk. “You started it, woman.”

The two of you laughed breathlessly and with barely concealed wanting, and you wiped the back of your hand across your cheek. After one more playful shove that did absolutely nothing to move Bucky, the two of you returned to your task, and Bucky pretended not to watch as you licked the smear of juice from the back of your hand.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, eventual smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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“Fuck!”

Your curse rang out from the barn as Bucky was returning from bringing a pail of milk inside to store. The shout was not just one of frustration or anger – he recognized it as a yelp of pain. His legs were already taking long, quick strides towards the barn as a cold shard of panic lodged itself in his heart.

When he made it to the doorway, he saw you leaning against the support beam closest to the goat’s stall, face contorted in pain as you clutched your thigh. He was at your side in an instant.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Stella happened. I was trying to file her horns for this exact reason.” You shot a glare over your shoulder to the agitated old goat in the stall. “I should make you into a stew.”

When you looked back at Bucky, he was suddenly kneeling in front of you and examining your injured leg. He quickly removed your hands from your thigh so he could see properly, placing his hands firmly on either side of your knee. If you weren’t so focused on the immediacy of your pain, you might have gotten hung up on the fact that for the first time, he was touching you without you initiating the contact first.

Bucky examined your leg closely. There was a rip in the fabric of your jeans above the knee, through which he could see a long, angry cut that was beginning to drip blood down your leg. “You’re bleeding,” he murmured.

You pushed his hands away, wincing as you began to hobble towards the barn door. “I’ll be fine, I just need to–“ Suddenly, your legs were swept out from under you and you were being hauled into the air. You gasped and scrambled for purchase on something, anything, and that something happened to be Bucky’s neck and shoulders, because he was carrying you bridal-style out of the barn. “Holy shit!” you exclaimed in shock. “What are you doing?”

His jaw was set and his eyes stayed aimed forward as he replied, “Taking you to the house.”

A nervous giggle threatened to bubble out of your throat when your body registered his firm grip around your waist and under your knees, but you tamped it down and said, “Bucky, this is a little overkill. It’s just a scratch. I can walk.”

“You were limping. This is faster.” He walked with purpose through the barn doors and across the way to the front steps of the farmhouse porch, where he sat you down. “Stay here.”

While your stubborn streak had flared up a little in the barn when you pushed his hands away, you found it extinguished like a candle flame between wet fingertips now, just from the particular tone in his voice. So you stayed put, your heartbeat hammering in your chest in a way that had nothing to do with the wound on your leg. You only realized retroactively that even though his picking you up had been jarring initially, it was also a little… thrilling. How he walked across the lawn with you in his arms like it was nothing to him. A demonstration of his strength, all the while still managing to be gentle with you.

When Bucky re-emerged from the front door with the first aid kit in one hand and a washcloth in the other, his hands freshly washed and his gloves removed, you blinked hard and tried to get ahold of yourself. He kneeled in front of you and reached for your leg, and you pulled away, protesting nervously, “Bucky, you really don’t have to do this, I can–“

He looked up at you, and his icy blue eyes cut off your speech before his words did. “Let me take care of you.” There was that tone again – there was a decisive, firm edge to it, but there was a subtle undercurrent, almost like a plea. It tugged something loose in your chest, and alarmingly, it sent a flash of arousal racing through your body to settle in your lower abdomen. You felt heat rise to your cheeks, and you nodded your permission, mostly so that he would stop looking at your face. 

He reached again for you, his fingers curling into the rip of your jeans. Your jaw nearly dropped as he tore the hole wider. Suddenly, the bottom half of the pant leg was completely severed and dropped to your ankle, revealing the fresh wound on your thigh and the trails of blood oozing from it. You almost scolded him –  they were good jeans, dammit, they could have been patched. But then Bucky pushed up the ripped fabric on your thigh to better examine the wound, and the thought left your brain completely, along with most others. 

Whatever, you had other pairs of jeans.

You watched, frozen, as he pressed a pad of gauze over your wound, took your hand and carefully placed it on top, and wrapped his hand around the back of your calf to keep you still as he began to wipe the blood from your leg with the washcloth. It was achingly intimate, despite the fact that there was a fair amount of blood involved. You did your very best to think of anything but his warm hand on your leg, his eyes sharply focused on you, the words he’d said a moment ago. You even tried to focus on the pain of your injury to try and keep you from spinning out, but everything else became background noise when he was this close. 

This wasn’t harmless flirtation and friendly banter. This was desire. You wanted him. It was a sudden and undeniable revelation.

And Bucky wasn’t made of stone either. He maintained his focus on cleaning the blood from your skin as best he could, but touching you like this, without the barrier of cloth between you, just the warm, yielding flesh of your leg under his palm – it stirred something in him that had long been asleep. It was all he could do to ignore it and concentrate on the task at hand.

Once your leg had been wiped clean, Bucky turned his attention back to your wound. He nudged your hand away and peeled away the gauze, relieved to see that the pressure had slowed the bleed. Reaching into the kit, he obtained an antiseptic wipe and started to clean your wound. You flinched and hissed quietly, and he paused his efforts to glance up apologetically. “I’m sorry.”

His hand kept its firm grip on your calf, and his thumb swept a soothing arc across your skin, and you thought he had to be doing this on purpose. But it seemed he didn’t, because his eyes were still so earnest and concerned as he peered up at you from underneath his lashes.

“It’s- it’s okay,” you stammered, and he continued to clean the wound. 

Both of you grew quiet as he worked, gently applying antibiotic ointment and covering the cut with a large square bandage. When it was done, he moved to sit beside you on the steps as he put the first aid kit back in order, and you felt like you could finally breathe again.

“Are you all right?” he asked, a twinge of concern still coloring his voice.

“Yes,” you assured him.

“You’re quiet.”

Concerned that maybe you had been caught, you tried to evade. “Just thinking.”

“What are you thinking?”

This man and his unrelenting curiosity. You sighed and scrambled for something to say, landing on what had been running through your mind when Stella attacked you in the first place. “Stella’s been ornery, since Nathan…” Your voice trailed off as you tugged the severed pant leg from around your ankle and tossed it to the side on the porch. “She gets worse every year. But I can’t bear to rehome her, she’s spent practically her whole life here. I just feel bad, I guess.”

Bucky shook his head and chuckled. It puzzled you – this was not a particularly funny topic, as far as you were concerned. 

“What?” you asked.

“A goat skewered you, and you feel bad for the goat.” He looked at you fondly. “That’s you all over, woman.”

Woman. That did things to you that you didn’t have the presence of mind to examine. You felt your cheeks flame up again, and you shoved at his shoulder. He didn’t budge. “Skewered? You’re freaking out over a scratch, city boy. This is nothing,” you scoffed, indicating the bandage. “My grandfather used to mow grass with a scythe. One time he split open his shin, and he superglued the wound shut so he could keep mowing.”

He patted his thighs and stood up, offering you a hand. “No superglue needed here. You should be fine.”

Your previous mortification almost forgotten, you took his hand and allowed him to pull you to your feet. “My hero,” you teased, breezing past him before you could clock the flush creeping up from beneath the collar of his henley. As you walked up the steps, you turned back for one last volley.  “Are you gonna let me walk now, or are you gonna throw me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes again?”

Bucky actually smirked, which you didn’t even know his face was capable of doing. “Don’t tempt me,” he called after you, and you grinned at him before heading inside to find a new pair of jeans.

Bucky wasn’t a great sleeper. You knew this. The walls were thin, and you could hear him get up in the middle of the night, or occasionally wake with a gasp and a whimper, likely due to some nightmare plaguing him. Sometimes, after particularly bad nights, the circles underneath his eyes were more pronounced, and you would pour him an extra cup of coffee without a word. Truthfully, it wasn’t all that different from when you lived with your grandfather.

None of this information occurred to you at one in the morning, when a huge crash from Bucky’s room jolted you from your slumber. Your only thought, only concern was for Bucky’s safety. Before you could even process what the sound might have been, you flung yourself out of bed and down the hall, throwing open the door to the back room.

The bookshelf had been knocked to the floor, books and miscellaneous items scattered in the middle of the room. The mattress on the floor was a tangle of sheets, and Bucky was huddled in the corner on the opposite side of the room, pale and shaking.

At first, you didn’t realize what you were looking at, and you stumbled into the room, tired and confused and a little panicked. “Bucky, what the hell happened in here?”

When you entered the space, Bucky pressed himself against the wall, protesting and pleading in a language that wasn’t English. Suddenly, it clicked into place for you. This was a particularly bad nightmare, perhaps even bordering on a night terror.

You took a deep breath, slowly moved to the lamp in the opposite corner, and flicked it on so that it bathed the room in a warm glow. Next, you crouched down across from Bucky, giving him plenty of space, trying to show him that you weren’t a threat. “Bucky?” you gently called to him.

His eyes were still full of fear and confusion, and he flinched hard when you reached a hand out towards him, palm open and facing him.

“It’s okay, it’s me,” you stated calmly. “It’s just me. You’re in a farmhouse in south Maryland. You were just having a nightmare.”

His chest still heaved and his hands still shook, but recognition flashed across his face. He spoke your name, his voice a broken rasp.

“I’m here,” you assured him, inching closer to him, unsure how he might react to the proximity.

Bucky brought up a shaking hand and ran it through his sweat-dampened hair. “I-I’m sorry, I–”

“Don’t apologize,” you stopped him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “You have nothing to apologize for.’

His eyes found yours, some unspoken plea contained in the depths of them. Neither of you were sure who exactly moved first, but in the next moment you were reaching for each other. Bucky buried his face in the crook of your neck, his hands trembling at your waist as he pulled you close. You wrapped one arm around his shoulders to steady him, and your other hand found the back of his head, softly stroking his hair. “You’re safe,” you murmured. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

As you carded your fingers through his hair, a sound spilled from his throat, something between a whimper and a sob, and it cracked you open.

You held him like that for a while, the two of you kneeling in the corner of the room wrapped around one another, you whispering gentle affirmation into his hair. Even when your feet began to fall asleep underneath you, you held him until his breathing slowed, until his trembling subsided a little. You didn’t ask what he had dreamt, understanding that it was likely beyond words for him.

Once he was a little calmer, and his grip on your waist had loosened slightly, you pulled back a few inches to brush the hair out of his eyes and take his face in your hands. “Do you want to try to get some rest? Off the floor, on the bed where it’s warm and comfortable?”

He could barely meet your eyes, his lip trembling a little, but he gave you a small nod in reply.

“Come on.” Taking both of his hands in yours, you gradually got to your feet and guided him back to the mattresses pushed together on the floor. With hands on his shoulders, you helped him ease back down to lay on top of the sheets. He lay facing the door, and his hand shot out to take hold of yours. It wasn’t a painful grip, but there was something desperate in it.

“Can you… will you stay? Please?” he begged.

You knew that if you did, it would shift things between you, in a way that could be hard to… unshift. But when he looked up at you with those sad, trusting blue eyes, you didn’t have it in you to say no.

“Of course.”

You knelt on the mattress behind him, untangling the mess of sheets and blanket at the foot of his bed and pulling it up over the two of you. In the dim light cast by the lamp, you could see the lingering tension in his shoulders, and you could feel him gripping the sheets so hard they pulled taught across the bed. With no regard for consequences and fallout, simply because he needed you, you shifted closer, your chest pressed to his back, and snaked an arm around him to rest against his chest. For a few seconds, he stopped breathing, and you worried that you had misstepped, until he took hold of your hand and slowly melted against you. 

Bucky was beginning to think the well of your kindness had no bottom to it. Never had he been held like this in his life, even before the train and the war and the pain and the arm. Your arm around him was more than just comforting, protective – it put a kind of invisible boundary around his hurt and his lingering fear, made it less nebulous and endless. He could feel your every breath as your chest rose and fell against his back,l the minute shifts in your body’s musculature as you edged closer to sleep.

He was also grateful that you were pressed to his back rather than his front. Despite his mind’s turmoil, the flesh was weak and quick to respond to the sensation of your body molded to his back, the warmth of you radiating through the thin layers of fabric that separated you from him. He would ignore it, as he usually did, and hope that by the time you woke that he would not have embarrassed himself. He lingered instead on the feel of your forehead nestled between his shoulder blades, the soft thrum of your heartbeat against his back, and he tried to rest.

In the morning, you woke to the sound of late spring rain pattering against the farmhouse roof.

The clock on the wall told you that you had slept almost an hour later than you normally would. You had left your watch with its morning alarm in your room, and your body clearly needed to make up for the time spent awake last night after Bucky's nightmare. No harm in that today – it would be a short, muddy workday if the rain persisted. The mattress was empty beside you, empty of Bucky, who had likely gotten restless and had found something to do. So you stretched, joints cracking and popping in a symphony of relief, and you left the back room to see about making coffee.

He wasn’t anywhere in the farmhouse, which struck you as odd considering the weather. You glanced out the window to see if he might have braved the rain and gone out to start chores, and your blood turned to ice. Your truck was gone.

A few seconds were spent staring in shock, and then you sprang into action like a reanimated robot. You checked the rest of your belongings, and Bucky’s as well – the belongings you’d lent to him, at least. Your laptop and your rifle both remained in the house, and no cash was missing from your purse or the cash box. He hadn't taken extra clothes with him, but the money you had given him from the market was gone. At least he hadn’t properly robbed you. But how could he have taken your grandfather’s truck? 

You were beginning to feel queasy. The rational thing to do would be to report the truck stolen to the authorities, but how could you do that when you knew Bucky was running from something big, some entity that could be alerted to his presence if he was pulled over by the cops? 

Your eyes fell on the laptop on the living room coffee table. He had been using it in his leisure time in the last few days. Perhaps it contained a clue to where he would have gone. How you would get there if you found out was a separate issue, one to consider later. You stumbled to the couch, yanked open the laptop and navigated to the search history. You breathed a brief sigh of relief that he hadn’t bothered to clear it.

You expected to see maybe the purchase of a train or bus ticket, or searches pointing to some sort of location. That wasn’t what you encountered at all. What you found was searches of various names and a few results that had been perused. Rebecca Barnes. Winnifred Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes.

Wait.

You had been rather terrible in history class back in school, but that name rang familiar to you. When you clicked on one of the results he had selected, a Wikipedia entry shined on the screen, containing information on a soldier who fought alongside Captain America in the Howling Commandos. Beside it was a picture of Bucky. 

It was old and grainy, and his hair was cropped short, but it was unmistakably him. You had been staring into that face for over a month, had seen it broken into a smile and seen it stricken with hurt and terror. It wasn't a mere resemblance. It was him.

You looked at the birthdate, and the death date. How could this be possible? But then you recalled Captain America, how you had been taught about his death in school, and a few years ago he reappeared in the invasion of New York, looking alive and well and young as he ever did. Perhaps Bucky underwent a similar circumstance to whatever brought the Captain back.

The Captain, Steven Rogers. Steve. That cemented your certainty. Bucky was a man out of time. 

But what did this mean? What could you do with this information? The rest of the research contained in the browser history didn’t point to a particular location. You closed the laptop, frustrated and hurt and confused and overwhelmed. Your palms met your face, your elbows kissing your knees. Tears pricked at your eyes beneath your palms, and you took a steadying breath.

There was no time to sit around feeling sorry for yourself on a farm. So you shook it off, clenched your jaw, donned your raincoat and went out to feed the animals.

Many hours later, Bucky was rattling around in the driver’s seat as the truck rolled over the dirt road leading back to the farmhouse, trying to ignore the ache in his shoulder brought on by the rain. He had hoped in vain that the trip to the Smithsonian might resolve some of the confusion and turmoil he felt. Sure, he had remembered a few things, some of them pleasant, but mostly he felt bitterness and anger. Anger that his life had been stolen from him and shaped into something impossible and horrific. Bitterness that he would never lead the life he had imagined for himself, that he would always be fighting, always be running, always looking over his shoulder. He cursed the unfairness of it all. 

The rain had lightened to a drizzle by the time he turned down the long drive leading back to the house. As he approached, he saw your form running out from the barn into the rain, staring in disbelief at the truck. As he parked, he watched you cross your arms and set your jaw, anger flaring up in your eyes. He knew he was in trouble, and he knew that he deserved it. He had wanted to ask, maybe bring you with him, but there would be too much explanation needed, Explanation he didn’t know how to give without endangering you. So he had snuck out in the early morning, feeling guilty and shameful. But he needed to do it, needed to see it for himself.

Still, how to begin to apologize to you? As he removed his gloves and hat, he found that words were lost to him under the furious heat of your gaze. And so when he shut off the truck and stepped out of the cab, he just awkwardly greeted you. “Afternoon.”

You were visibly fuming, drops of rain collecting in the flyaways framing your face. “Are you fucking serious? You run off for almost eight hours without telling me, and all you have to say for yourself is ‘afternoon’?” Your voice, normally tender and sweet when you spoke to him, was sharp with anger. Bucky just looked at the ground, unable to respond. “Where the hell were you?” you snapped.

He replied quietly, “D.C.”

You shook your head, moving your hands to your hips in a frustrated gesture. “Okay, do you wanna tell me why?” Another question he found himself unable to answer.

Vibrating with rage, you started in on him. “You steal my truck, you don’t say a word to me, you don’t bother to write a note, and you can’t even give me an explanation?”

“I’m sorry,” he said pathetically. “The truck is all right. I filled up the tank.” He had used the last of the money you’d given him doing so, but it only seemed right after borrowing it without permission.

“For god’s sake, Bucky, I don’t give a damn about the truck!” Your voice went a little shrill.

As usual, Bucky found himself confused. It was your grandfather’s truck. Was that somehow not the source of your ire? He wondered if he had missed something. “Then why are you so upset?” he asked.

“You disappeared. I was worried sick.” 

“Why?”

“Why?” you repeated. “Because I care about you, you idiot!” You briefly laughed, the kind of laughter that wasn’t funny in the slightest, the kind that was rooted in anxiety and frustration and insecurity. “I thought – I thought maybe you cared about me too, at least enough to leave me a goddamn note.”

Bucky realized with a shock that he had missed something. He had missed this. He had always thought your kindness was just who you were, given freely and without thought, and you might show the same generosity of spirit with anyone who knocked on your door. It was what he had to believe, because he knew he didn’t deserve it. But you said it yourself –  you cared about him. He had been so absorbed in his own feelings he hadn’t noticed your own. Had been so convinced he was unworthy of you caring for him that he had written it off as a possibility altogether.

He stepped closer to you until you were within arm’s reach. “I do care,” he insisted. ‘It was… important. But I should have told you.”

And then a sight he never expected and hoped never to see – tears welled up in the corners of your eyes, threatening to spill over. Your lower lip trembled and you looked away from him, embarrassed. “You scared me,” you confessed, voice wavering at the edges. “I didn’t know if you were coming back. I thought–”

Bucky panicked and moved even closer, his hands finding your shoulders. “I’m here. I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

Suddenly you surged forward, wrapping your arms around his waist and burying your face in his chest. His heart stuttered and his brain recalibrated for half a beat, and then he returned your embrace, your raincoat crinkling as he drew you close against him.

“Don’t do that again,” you pleaded.

“I won’t,” he murmured against your damp hair. As he continued to hold you, a troubling thought entered his mind, one he had to speak aloud. He didn’t want to hurt you, but he already had, and he would again, if the depth of your feeling was as you said. “You know I’ll have to go eventually,” he gently reminded you.

You sniffled and withdrew from him, almost pushing him away. “I know that. I’m not stupid.”

It was his turn for a plea. “Don’t do that.” He took hold of your arms, keeping you from going too far. He didn’t grip you hard, didn’t have to – your efforts were weak, unmotivated.

“Do what?” Your voice had grown sharp again, but from hurt this time, not from anger.

“Pull away.”

“Why not?” you asked bitterly. “You just said one day you’ll have to go.”

He pulled you close again, thoughtfully touching the end of your braid where it fell over your shoulder. “I don’t want to. But the longer I stay, the less safe it is for you. I’ve been selfish.”

“No one has come looking for you. Maybe it’s safer than you think.”

He spoke your name, softly, another plea. He wished he knew what to say to make this better.

Your expression crumpling like tissue paper, you dropped your head forward to rest against his chest again. “It’s not fair.”

“I know.” For all the world’s unfairness, this was perhaps even crueller than the torture, the arm, the mess that had been made of his mind. Because after all of it, he had found you, had been given a taste of softness, of what a normal life could be like, and he knew that he couldn’t hold onto it. And just as unfair was the fact that after your immense loss and your years of loneliness, you would be left alone again at the end of it.

“I understand that you have to go,” you said as you pulled back to look at him. “Someday. Just… promise me that you’ll give me some time. That you’ll say goodbye.” The tears broke free as your voice shook, your breath threatening to give way to sobs. “I can’t handle having the rug pulled out from under me again, I just can’t.”

Desperate to make it right, Bucky’s right hand flew to your face, cupping your cheek. “I promise.” He wiped away a tear with a sweep of his thumb. “Tell me how to make this stop.”

Your shoulders caved in on themselves as you collapsed into him again, holding him impossibly tighter. The rain began to pick up from a light drizzle to a steady rhythm, but neither of you moved, unwilling to break the embrace.

“What was so important in DC?” you mumbled into his chest.

“An exhibit. I thought it would… help me remember.”

“Did it?” you asked, peering up at him.

“Some things,” he replied thoughtfully.

“Anything of note?”

He fished through his swirling pond of memories for something worth sharing. Something safe, something good. “Coney Island. Riding the Cyclone with Steve. Before… everything.”

For the first time that morning, the slightest hint of a real smile touched your lips. “That sounds like a good one.”

“It was.” He looked down at you, pressing his right hand to your cheek again. “I would’ve…I would’ve liked to take you there.”

All at once, something shifted. A different kind of energy crackled between the two of you as you looked up from underneath your lashes. A tear or a drop of rain – it was impossible to tell which at this point – trailed towards the corner of your mouth, and he wiped it away. He lingered there, and unable to stop himself, he touched your lower lip, just barely, reverently. Your lips parted in surprise, and then, perhaps, longing. And Bucky realized that he wanted to kiss you, and that you very probably wanted him to.

But it wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right, not when you were so fragile, not when you were beginning to shiver from the cold of the rain. Not when he had hurt you in his carelessness, and not when he could hurt you worse, physically, irreversibly. It was always a possibility, one he could never run away from.

“We should go inside,” he rumbled, a beat passing between the words leaving his lips and him wrapping an arm around your shoulder to usher you up the porch steps.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, eventual smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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Time passed. A day, a week, two weeks. And Bucky stayed.

For a little while, it felt tenuous, fragile. Bucky wondered when you’d ask him to leave, and you wondered when he’d tell you that he had to go. Both of you wondered if and when danger might arise. But none of those things happened. And a kind of… settling in occurred.

The first week went by with the two of you dipping in and out of each other’s orbits. You didn’t press him for information he wasn’t ready or able to give you. He watched you perform your daily tasks with a level of interest usually reserved for miracles and well-executed magic tricks. Occasionally you left the farm for a few hours to drop off orders to neighbors or stop by the market for a few things, and Bucky whiled away the hours with a novel selected from your shelf, or found some task to execute. You came home one day to find the pantry door was no longer sticking. It had annoyed you for months, and you had never bothered to fix it. Bucky had clearly noticed. It made you smile for the rest of the afternoon.

He mostly stayed inside, until the end of the week arrived and he emerged from the front door as you fed the chickens, baseball cap pulled low and gloves covering his hands. He spent most of the day sitting on the front porch, enjoying the feel of the sun warming his limbs and the wind on his face, and observing you pulling weeds, letting your animals out to graze and explore, watering plants and checking the progress of various fruits and vegetables. 

The following week, it was a little bit like having a second shadow. Bucky followed you around the farm, keeping a safe distance, wordlessly stepping in to assist with tasks he felt confident doing. Filling water troughs, collecting pulled weeds for disposal, helping to hang laundry on the line, and lifting all manner of heavy things. At this rate, your arm muscles were bound to atrophy. Some might have found this hovering annoying, but you found it rather sweet.

In turn, you found yourself explaining things to fill the quiet. You explained how you watered cabbages at the base of the plant to prevent powdery mildew. You told him which fruit trees were the Chickasaw plums and which were the imported Black Rubies, and what time of year each would be ready. You told him the names you’d given all your chickens, and their individual personalities. You told him the names of the native birds that came to visit in the trees, pointed out formations of geese overhead and explained their migration patterns. You showed him each of the things you fed the animals and how they fit into their respective diets. And Bucky listened every time, with rapt attention.

To your delight, he began to occasionally ask questions. Sometimes about farm tasks, or the name of a particular weed or a breed of chicken. And sometimes, he asked questions about you. Asking you where you learned something, or about your favorite recipe, or what time you rose in the morning. Having his attention felt a bit like being under a spotlight, warm and bright and with nowhere to hide.

He stared. A lot. It made you a little uncomfortable at first, but you quickly got used to it. It wasn't a stare meant to intimidate - in fact, he might have been staring for any number of reasons. He stared when he was paying attention, when he needed more information, sometimes when he needed something and he didn’t know how to ask for it. Mostly, he stared at you like you were a puzzle that he was slowly assembling in his mind. 

That was the look he wore as he watched you milk Buttercup one morning, leaning against a wooden support column. You had a feeling a question was behind those stormy blue eyes, but you waited patiently for him to form the words. Eventually, he did.

“Why are you alone out here?”

This question caught you a little off guard. It was more personal than he had ever gotten with his inquiries before. And the answer to his question was a little complicated, a little painful. You weren’t sure how to begin. 

“This farm belongs to my family. Has for a while now,” you said simply. It wasn’t a direct answer, or a complete one, but more words wouldn’t come yet. 

“Where’s your family?”

You took a moment to breathe through the punch in the chest brought on by the question. Sensing your distress, Bucky attempted to backpedal. “I’m sorry if I–”

“Don’t be,” you interrupted him with a wan smile. “It’s okay.”

Even through the hurt, you found that you wanted to tell him. Even though he hadn’t been able to tell you anything about his past, you recognized loss in him as well. It was something both of you wore like a brand, like a weight dragged behind you.

You kept your eyes on Buttercup as you spoke, working through the easier part of the story, the beginning. “My grandfather ran this farm for a long time. He basically raised my brother and I here, taught us everything he knew. My mother stepped out of the picture once I turned ten. My father wasn’t ever really in the picture in the first place. They were both addicts, and it wasn’t great being around them, so ultimately it was for the best.”

Bucky’s eyebrows knitted together as he listened, but he remained quiet.

“Anyway, my grandfather passed away five years ago. Left the farm to Nathan. My brother. It was his dream to run this place. I never really wanted to be a farmer, believe it or not.” You glanced up at him briefly and he looked a little surprised. You shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta play the hand dealt to you.”

“What did you want to do? Instead of this?” he asked with a bit of curiosity in his voice. 

Once again, the question took you by surprise. “I wanted to be a veterinarian. Animal husbandry was always my favorite part of farm life, and being a vet seemed like a natural extension of my skills.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched. You would have been good at that, he thought.

“Went to school for it and everything,” you continued. “Almost finished. This close,” you said lightly, holding up your finger and thumb with an inch of space between them.

“What happened?” His voice was soft, like he knew the answer wouldn’t be pretty.

Another pause and you worked yourself up to an answer. You couldn’t bear it if you embarrassed yourself with a cracked voice when you finally spoke. “Nathan ran this place like the Navy for three years.” A carefully controlled, even breath. “And then one Tuesday, he got out of his tractor, fell down in the middle of the field, and he didn’t get back up.”

Bucky’s eyes widened by a fraction, and he pushed up off the column he’d been leaning against. 

“They said it was a brain aneurysm,” you elaborated weakly. “One of those freak things that couldn’t have been predicted and won’t ever make sense.”

He was struck momentarily by the urge to reach out and touch you. There hadn’t been much touch since that first morning, nothing more than the occasional brushing of fingers when he took a pail from your hands or you passed him a mug. He had secretly, shamefully longed for you to touch him in quiet, idle moments, but this was the first time he had felt the urge to be the one who touched, to offer comfort, warmth. But he didn’t know how well that might be received, and you were at work, and there was the fact of the large animal between you. So he stayed where he was, and mumbled, “I know what you mean.”

You suspected he did, that he wasn’t just speaking in generalities. You leaned over to finish up with Buttercup, the worst of the tale behind you. “I couldn’t just sell this place, or let it run to ruin. So I quit school, left my tiny city apartment, and I came out here. Rest is history.”

“Brave.” The word was so quiet, you weren’t sure you had heard him correctly.

“Hmm?”

“That was brave,” he repeated somewhat shyly. “To do that on your own.”

Despite the ache in your chest, a smile tugged at your lips at his remark. “My ex thought it was a pretty stupid idea. Which is why he got stuck with a subletter, and why my social circle now consists of a cow, a goat that hates me, and a cat that is indifferent to me. And you now, I guess.”

You stood up from your stool, wiped your hands on the rag in your back pocket, picked up your pail, and looked at Bucky with something that he might have mistaken for fondness if he didn’t know better. He fell into step a few feet behind you as you led Buttercup out of her stall and attached her to her grazing lead outside. He wrapped his hand around the pail’s handle when you set it down, preparing to bring it inside for you.

“I had sisters,” he said suddenly. He hadn’t even known he was going to say it until the words were coming out of his mouth. “Three of them.”

You were nearly blown back on your heels. Bucky almost never volunteered information unprompted. “What happened to them?” you asked gently.

“I don’t know. I was told…” His expression darkened. “I was told that my family was dead. But I was told a lot of things that weren’t true.”

Your heart broke for him a little. “We should look for information on them. There could be records online. You can use my computer, if you like,” you offered.

“I’d like that,” said Bucky.

Almost a month had passed,and the weather was warming slightly. You had given up on the dishes argument weeks ago, and Bucky washed dishes contentedly every morning while you took care of other business. This morning was no different. Bucky finished drying when you re-emerged from the hall and walked back into the kitchen. His motions with the dishtowel slowly came to a halt as you rounded the corner, because you were wearing a dress.

A really pretty dress. Navy blue, dotted with tiny white flowers and with a row of buttons running down the front. Your hair was not in its usual braid either - instead, it hung in soft waves around your face and fell over your shoulders.

Bucky watched as you grabbed your checkbook, your receipt pad and calculator, and your little notebook where you kept track of your finances, and he struggled to contextualize this image of you. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed your beauty before. In fact, he spent most of his days lately trying not to notice it. Even in stained and shabby work clothes, you still managed to leave him speechless. But this was a different side of you he now had to factor into the whole, like turning over a tapestry and finding a completely different but equally beautiful design underneath. 

Once you slipped your things into the tote bag on your arm, you looked up at Bucky, catching him staring but seeming to be completely unbothered by it. 

Bucky forced his eyes back to the dish in his hand and cleared his throat. “You look… nice.”

“Thank you.” You smiled, and it was devastating.

“Where are you going?” Bucky asked as he began to put the dishes away.

“Market day, remember?” you reminded him.

Of course. You had spent all week making inventory lists, checking supplies, setting prices, and baking up a storm. How could he have forgotten? His brain seemed to have stopped working, and seemed only capable of wondering if your hair was as soft to touch as it looked. Bucky found himself still somewhat confused by your attire. Why would running a stand at the farmer’s market warrant… this? It hadn’t seemed like a dress-up event when you had described it.

You saw the question mark in his eyes as you passed him to collect the baked goods from the fridge. “Unfortunately, product sells better when I wear a dress,” you explained with a grimace. “Gross, I know, but it does get me a few extra bucks. Gotta hustle where you can.”

Bucky fought off a frown. The idea of you getting ogled by strange men with hungry eyes as you peddled your wares stirred an unpleasant feeling in his gut. But was Bucky any better than these hypothetical men, with the way his eyes kept landing on your waist and the way the fabric fell over your hips? He scolded himself and kept his eyes firmly above your collarbone.

“Do you need any help?” he asked, as the stack of pies and traybakes grew on the counter.

“Sure. Let’s get this loaded into the truck.” You took a few pie boxes into your arms and headed for the front door.

He held the door for you, then donned his gloves, hat, and boots, and stepped out after you with his own armful of deliciousness.

The two of you loaded up the backseat of the truck with coolers filled with various cheeses and baked goods. Bucky handled moving your collapsed tent and your folding table from the shed to the bed of the truck. Last to be loaded was a box containing your display supplies. Having become somewhat attuned to Bucky’s moods, you could sense something was brewing in his mind, although you couldn’t tell the nature of it. As you closed the door of the truck’s cab, you suggested, “You could come with, if you wanted.”

He looked surprised by the offer, but there was no immediate denial, so you continued. “There can be a lot of people, but you can always just wait in the truck if it’s too much. I don’t want you going stir crazy and feeling like you’re stuck here or anything–”

“All right,” he responded, hands in his pockets. “I’ll stay in the truck.”

A wide smile broke out on your face. “Great. Hop in.”

The truck’s cab was clearly well over a few decades old. It smelled of old tobacco and earth, underneath the smell of you that filled that cab as soon as you slid into the driver’s seat. Bucky sat stiffly in the passenger seat next to you. Nerves were settling in after his impulsive agreement to your proposal. He hadn’t left the farm once since he’d arrived. There would be people, and therefore potential danger for him. The only reason that he had agreed to it was to be of help to you, and admittedly, watch over you as well. The image of you alone at the market, getting hit on by ill-intentioned strangers just to sell a couple of pies, wouldn’t leave his mind. So he swallowed his nerves as you turned the key in the ignition and headed down the drive.

The radio hissed to life, playing some song he didn’t recognize, which was most songs these days. He tried to remember your words. No one would know to look for him here. His arm was covered, his hat pulled low, his beard grown out a bit. He would be hard to recognize, even if someone there knew him in the first place. And he could just stay in the truck. He recalled your smile when he agreed to come along, turned it over in his mind like a medal of service.

You could feel the energy of him growing sharper beside you, like a wire being pulled taut. You recognized that he was pushing himself beyond his comfort zone, in ways he might not have if you hadn’t offered. If your presence wasn’t part of the deal. So you removed one hand from the steering wheel and placed it on top of his, gloved as it was and flexing against his thigh.

He stilled immediately. No one had ever held his titanium hand before. He was confident of that, even with his memory splintered as it was. Perhaps you had forgotten it wasn’t flesh in the first place, with the work glove separating your skin from the metal. But even if it was nothing to you, it was everything to him. This part of him he despised, that had only ever been used as a weapon, with your hand wrapped firmly around it. You brushed your thumb reassuringly over the back of his hand, and his breath hitched quietly in response. 

That was how you spent the rest of the half hour drive into town, your hand on top of his, you humming along softly to the radio. Halfway through the drive, he turned his hand in yours so that your palms were pressed together, and you made an effort to focus on the road.

When you arrived, it wasn’t too crowded - only the smattering of vendors setting up their respective tents filled the lot. Bucky helped you get the tent and table up – ‘help’ obviously meant that he did most of the work while you supervised and directed. Once all of your product was deposited on the table, you began to organize and sort while Bucky retreated to the truck with his head ducked slightly. Once he was back in the cab, he slumped in the seat and breathed deeply, tried to shake off the paranoia, the imagined sensation of eyes on his back.

From where the truck was parked, he could see your profile from a distance, could watch you brush your hands across your skirt as market patrons began to file in. Soon enough it was a bustling little affair, with customers coming and going from your table, talking amicably and taking free samples and exchanging money for bags of goodies.

He couldn’t help but notice when men lingered by your stand to chat you up. It was too far a distance to see where exactly their eyes were, but the edge to their leering smiles told him he didn’t have to guess. The sight made something ugly and possessive take root in his chest. Of course men would be interested in you. Why wouldn’t they be? But in his weeks of isolation on the farm with you, without any awareness that it was happening, he had begun to regard you as his. Not something he owned – he owned nothing, and you weren’t a thing – but someone worth protecting. Someone worth keeping close. Someone he didn’t like watching other men get close to.

The worst part was that he knew it was unwarranted, knew that it was unfair. In reality, you did not belong to him. Something like that wouldn’t be possible. Even if you felt a fraction of what he felt for you, how could he pursue you in good conscience when he would have to leave someday, when you had no idea what atrocities those hands of his had committed? How could he even begin to pursue you, when he was so alienated from the concepts of softness and romance? 

The spiral of thought stole his breath and raised his shoulders to his ears and gathered his hands into fists against his thighs. Still, he watched as you offered a polite smile to the man across from you, took the cash from his hand, and handed him a paper bag. Once he walked away, you turned, glanced across the lot towards his truck. When you laid eyes on him, your smile turned from polite to something warm and real, and you waggled your fingers in a small wave towards him.

In an instant, the panic and the jealousy melted away, and Bucky shyly waved back. He supposed these men could think what they wanted – there was still a table between you and them, and they didn’t have your hands on theirs or your soft smile that was just for him.

The hours dragged by, and lunch was calling your name, so you asked your neighbor Sandra if she could watch your stand for twenty minutes or so. The sweet older woman graciously agreed, kissed her husband’s cheek, and set herself up behind your table. You trolled the nearby stands and food trucks for something to eat. In the end, you settled on some juicy-looking and delicious-smelling lamb skewers and grilled veggie kebabs. You bought enough for two, along with two cans of beer that you slipped into your tote before traipsing across the parking lot.

As you approached the truck’s cab, you could see the question mark on Bucky's face from ten feet away. “Lunch break,” you called, flouncing up to the open window and waving the basket of goodness under his nose. “Hungry?”

Thoroughly enticed by the smell of the cooked lamb, Bucky reached for a skewer, but you pulled the basket away playfully. “Grandpa said no eating in the truck. Rule still applies. Come on.” And you rounded the back of the truck, pulled the back gate down, and sat on the edge of the truck bed.

Bucky was a little nervous to be leaving the safety of the cab, but the lot was mostly empty of people, most of them congregated by the tents. So he pulled his hat down and pushed open the door to join you. 

Sitting side by side on the truck bed, you both pulled kebabs from the basket between you and drank your beers in easy silence. Bucky was the first to break it.

“Business looks good,” he commented idly, setting his empty skewers in the basket.

You nodded. “Not too bad. We'll make a pretty penny today, I reckon. Helps that the weather’s nice.” Nudging him playfully with your shoulder, you asked, “Enjoying your people-watching?”

For a moment Bucky was unsure what possessed him, because he coolly corrected your statement. “Person watching.” He didn’t dare look at you when he said it. But out of his periphery, he saw you failing to fight a smile, heard you exhaling a laugh out of your nose.

If you didn’t know Bucky better, you might have considered that a flirtation. You didn’t acknowledge it, out of concern that the spell might be broken. “We’ll start closing up shop at four. Think you can stand a couple more hours of boredom without me?” you inquired. 

Bucky took a sip of his beer before replying. “I'll survive.”

“Good.” You hopped off the back of the truck, smoothed out your skirt, and huffed out a sigh. “Duty calls, I'm afraid.”

Bucky thought he noticed an nearly imperceptible extra bounce in your step as you walked back to your table.

When you returned, Sandra handed you some copies of receipts and bumped your hip. “He's cute. What's the story there?”

You rolled your eyes, snatched the receipts and tried not to blush. “Oh, stop. Go back to your husband.”

As the afternoon drew to a close and the market’s population began to dwindle, you started packing up your supplies, only to look up and see Bucky approaching to help break everything down. When he made his first trip with the coolers back to the truck, you reached into the cash box, counted what you could reasonably spare, and held it out to Bucky's when he returned.

‘Here you go.” He looked at you, confused, and you pushed the cash towards him, explaining, “It’s your cut.”

He frowned and pushed your hand back. “No.”

“Bucky, I can’t very well make you work without pay, that’s not fair.”

“You let me stay at your place and eat your food. That’s enough.”

You sighed dramatically. “Will you just take it, for Chrissakes?” When he didn’t answer and didn’t move, you reached for his hand, pressed the wad of cash into it, and dropped it. “There. Was that so hard?” you teased as you grabbed another cooler and sauntered off towards the truck.

As Buttercup grazed one lazy afternoon, you were struck with an idea.

“Come over here,” you said to Bucky as he walked back outside from moving the bags of feed to storage.

You stood a few feet away from Buttercup, who was hooked up to her grazing lead. Bucky usually kept a decently wide berth from all the animals, except Barnaby. You had noticed. You didn’t think that he was afraid of them, but he was certainly wary of his proximity to them, at least. Buttercup was in a particularly good mood today, and you could sense there was a learning opportunity at play.

Bucky followed your eyeline to Buttercup and immediately looked nervous.

You rolled your eyes good-naturedly. “Do you trust me or not?” You waved him over, and he came to heel, albeit a little reluctantly. Once he was standing next to you, you nodded towards Buttercup. “Do you see how she’s chewing? She’s ruminating. Means she’s relaxed.” Bucky’s eyes followed the slow, circular drag of Buttercup’s jaw.

“You can tell by her ears, too,” you added, gesturing to the loose droop of the cow’s ears. “Do you want to say hi to her?”

Bucky had avoided the animals mostly out of concern for their safety rather than his own. But after around a month on the farm, he supposed it was reasonable that he wouldn’t hurt them if he remained careful. So instead of declining, he asked apprehensively, “What do I do?”

“You can walk up to her from the side, to her shoulder,” you instructed him. “Slowly. And try to stay relaxed, because she’ll get nervous if you’re nervous.”

You almost laughed when his shoulders raised a fraction of an inch. “Great. Easy. Just don’t be nervous,” he muttered.

You guessed giving him as much information as possible would likely ease his nerves, so you told him, “If she starts bobbing her head or flicking her tail a lot, back off. Those are stress signals.” When he turned to you, looking a little like a nervous puppy meeting a stranger, you smiled and generously asked, “Do you want to watch me do it first?”

“Yes,” he replied gratefully.

“Okay.” You slowly and easily walked up to Buttercup’s shoulder and gently placed a hand on her neck, stroking gently. “Hey there, gorgeous. Enjoying the sun?” you murmured to her, and she made a low, contented hum in her throat. “Yeah, she’s feeling good,” you assured Bucky, and then crossed to lean against the barn a few yards away, and nodded to Bucky. “Go ahead.”

You observed with amusement and affection as he took a deep breath to settle himself, and then approached Buttercup, slowly, as you had.

“You can talk to her, if you want,” you suggested. “She likes that.”

When he arrived next to her, he reached his gloved hand up and gently laid it on her neck. “Hello, Buttercup.” He heard you fight a giggle at the formal greeting and shot you a look before softly stroking the back of her neck, imitating your movements. “We’ve… met before. I’m sorry I turned over your trough.” 

Buttercup curiously turned her head towards Bucky, and she raised her snout to nose at his jaw. Bucky kept very still and did his best not to telegraph nerves, and Buttercup snaked her tongue out to lick a stripe across his neck. Across the way, you laughed heartily at the way Bucky tried to crane his head out of the way of the cow’s huge snout as she tried to groom him. 

When the bright sound of your laughter reached his ears, Bucky could have been knocked over with a feather. Was this the first time you had laughed this hard in front of him? It must have been, because surely if he had heard this sound before, he would have remembered it. He would have bottled it, if he could.

“I think she forgives you.” you managed to say as your laughter subsided.

He placed a hand on Buttercup’s snout, admiring her large, trusting brown eyes. “She’s… sort of beautiful.”

Your face practically beamed with pride. “Isn’t she? She was Nathan’s baby. Raised her himself. She was born right here, three years ago.”

Bucky glanced around at the wide open space, at the last of the plum blossoms fluttering in the breeze, at you. You with your braid slung over your shoulder and your dimpled cheek and your freckles that grew darker in the sun. As pretty a sight as any found on this farm.

“Not a bad place to grow up,” he mused. “‘I reckon,’” he added playfully, in your distinctive drawl.

Your jaw fell open in mock offense. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Maybe.” He smiled, a real smile, with teeth. It was completely disarming, and it nearly stole your breath to see it. 

Before you could stare too long, you pushed off the wall and placed your hands on your hips. “You better watch yourself, city boy. Don’t make me put you on stall mucking duty.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “‘City boy’?”

“Yup, it’s written all over you. But you’re learning,” you conceded.

He looked pensive for a moment, mulling something over in that mysterious head of his. “I was born in Brooklyn.”

Your eyes widened in surprise at this new information. Bucky. Born in Brooklyn, with three sisters. More parts of the picture revealed, no longer obfuscated in shadow. You kept your smile teasing. “I knew it. I could smell it on you.” You approached Buttercup, unclipped her lead, and began to guide her in the direction of the barn, “Come on, city boy. We got work to do.”

On this particular afternoon, work consisted of baling. You had cut grass the other day, and it was finally dry enough to get started, so Bucky helped you hook up your baler to your tractor and you went to work across your few humble rows of alfalfa. When all was said and done, you had four lovely and large hay bales, ready for storage. You pulled the tractor back to the barn entrance and swung down onto the ground, expecting Bucky to be ready to unhook the baler so you could hook up the spears, as you had discussed, but instead he walked directly past you and the tractor.

“Where are you going?” you called after him.

“I’m getting those hay bales.”

“I have equipment, we just need to hook it up,” you called again, not quite understanding what he was doing.

“Don’t bother. I got it,” he hollered back, sidling up to one of the bales.

You crossed your arms. “Bucky, those are like a hundred pounds each–” And then your protests died on your lips as he lifted the bale of hay onto his shoulder as easily as if it were made of feathers. He shouldered another bale, and then walked back in the direction of the barn. Your mouth went a little dry at this spectacle. The flex of his shoulders, the swell of his biceps beneath his shirt, the way he wasn’t even breaking a sweat–

“Still a ‘city boy’?” he taunted you as he passed by. Fuck him, he wasn’t even breathing heavy.

“You… are such a show off,” you huffed before stalking off to the front steps and sitting down. After all, he had two more bales to lift, and you weren’t going to miss the show.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, eventual smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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When morning came, you rose early as you normally did, in spite of the late night. Farm life waited for no woman. You pried yourself from the warm embrace of your bed, crept down the hall and peeked around the corner into the living room. There he lay, still completely passed out, his limbs dangling off the couch at awkward angles, occasionally murmuring quietly.

There was work to be done, and you guessed he might still sleep for a few hours yet, considering the shape he was in when you found him. So you made a pot of coffee and locked up your laptop, which was the most expensive thing you owned other than the rifle and some farm equipment that was too large to steal. Another concession, not that you really feared that he would rob you and run. But if you hadn’t done it and something did happen, you would only have yourself to blame.

He continued to sleep until you finished your coffee and left the house. You made your morning rounds to feed the animals, gather eggs, and milk Buttercup. Thankfully, last night’s rainfall was sufficient to water the plants and gave you some of your time back. By the time you strolled back up the porch steps and into the living room, it was almost mid-morning, and your guest was awake.

It seemed he had been up for a bit - his face was washed, his hair arranged into some semblance of order after his deep sleep, and his eyes were bright and alert. He looked much improved, to say the least. He stood as soon as you walked back in, either out of some kind of old-fashioned politeness or an expectation that you would be asking him to leave shortly.

He regarded you in return as you stepped through the door - clad in worn jeans covered in ancient mud stains, hair once again wrangled into a braid, carrying a basket in one hand and a pail in the other. You were a little flushed from working outside, with a stray piece of dried grass stubbornly clinging to the end of your braid. 

“Morning,” you greeted him as you toed off your boots. Casual, like this was a perfectly normal morning, and it was perfectly normal to have a stranger standing in your living room.

“Morning,” he repeated back to you, looking a little unsure.

“Did you sleep all right?” you asked. 

“Yes. Thank you.” 

Refusing to let this exchange be awkward, you summoned a pleasant but neutral expression and held up your basket. “Are you hungry? I’ve got eggs, fresh from the coop.”

He examined the basket with a little curiosity, eyeing the speckled eggs inside. Had he ever eaten fresh eggs before? He wasn’t entirely sure. But it was a compelling idea, and he certainly was hungry, so he nodded.

You gestured with your head towards the kitchen. “Come on.” He followed you through the doorway, sitting down at the kitchen table to remain out of your way as you flitted about performing your various tasks. He watched with unconcealed interest as you washed the eggs and poured the milk into a glass jug for refrigerating, pulled a loaf of bread from the breadbox and jars from the fridge.

“How do you like your eggs?” you asked over your shoulder as you pulled a frying pan off of a hook. “I can’t poach, but I can scramble, fry, or sunny-side.”

He was a little overwhelmed by the question. “I… I don’t know,” he muttered, feeling embarrassed.

You realized your error and felt a bit guilty, throwing all those choices at him like that. He had barely managed asking for tea last night. You lit the burner under the pan and shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, I’ve got plenty of eggs. Why don’t I make you one of each, and we can find out together?” You kept your tone cheerful, trying to ease his embarrassment.

Something in his expression softened, and after a moment, he replied, “All right.”

You set to work, popping slices of bread into the toaster and cracking eggs in the pan once it was brought up to heat. You had questions to ask him, but you wanted to keep it light to prevent scaring him off. “I just realized I’ve been terribly rude,” you said apologetically. “I asked you your name yesterday, and I didn’t even bother introducing myself.”

You gave him your name, and he carefully repeated it back to you, like it was important information to be memorized and logged away.

Keeping your eyes on the pan, you gently pressed further. “I wondered if you couldn’t tell me your name because you were frightened, or if maybe you couldn’t remember.”

He was silent for a few beats as you poked at the eggs with your spatula. His voice was quiet, a little vulnerable when he spoke. “Someone… someone called me Bucky.”

More progress. You turned to look at him, resting your hip against the counter. “Would you like for me to call you that?”

“…Yes.”

“All right, Bucky.” 

He found himself struck by how correct it sounded. Bread popped up from the toaster, startling him just a little, and the moment passed. 

“These will be ready in a few minutes,” you told him, gesturing towards the pan. “Do you want coffee?” He nodded curtly, and you reached for the coffee pot. “I’ll make enough for two, then.”

His eyes followed you as you scooped grounds into a coffee machine that looked almost older than you were, spread butter and what appeared to be jam on slices of toast, flipped the eggs in the pan. The whole affair was painfully domestic. The smell of brewing coffee floated across the kitchen, enticing and familiar. He remembered with a start his mug in the living room, and he stood up from the table to fetch it.

You were puzzled as you watched him exit the kitchen, his steps uncannily quiet. When he returned with your mug in hand, the blue one with the chip on the rim, he crossed to place it in front of the coffee machine. It made you smile a little again - you guessed he didn’t wish to create more housework for you by dirtying another mug.

He should have sat back down, but he found himself lingering a little, observing as you began to plate the eggs. He watched your hands with fascination as you worked, and flashes ran through his mind of your hands on his chest, on his face, the way they had been last night. Perhaps if things went well today, you might touch him again before he had to leave, and he would be able to tuck the memory away in the secret corner of his brain where he kept everything else that felt significant, even when he didn’t know why.

Your voice broke him from his reverie. “You were talking a little, in your sleep. You said a name. Steve.” You looked up at him with curious eyes, no longer seeming so intimidated by the size of him, even in your tiny kitchen. “Is that a friend of yours, maybe someone we can call?”

“No,” he responded firmly. Then, less certain, “I don’t know. We can’t call him.”

Sensing the beginnings of his distress, you tried to calm him. “Okay. That’s okay. We’re just figuring things out right now.”

You motioned towards the table for him to sit, and he obeyed immediately, sinking down into his chair with an eerie, almost cat-like grace. You could feel him staring, as he often did, while you poured coffee, brought over his mug along with a pitcher of cream and a jar of sugar. You suspected another question, such as ‘how do you like your coffee’ could cause him to short-circuit.

HIs mouth practically watered as you set a plate in front of him, loaded with three differently prepared eggs and two slices of toast - one generously spread with butter, and the other with a rich, dark purple fruit preserve. You gently placed a fork beside his plate and he clutched it eagerly, though he waited patiently until you sat down as well to dig in. 

“Thank you,” he murmured as he scooped up a forkful of egg.

“My pleasure.” It was your turn to observe him over the rim of your coffee cup. He ate with zeal, but also with a strange kind of militaristic focus as he worked through the three different eggs. It was a little endearing to watch him weigh the three against each other, prod the yolk of the fried egg and respond with enthusiasm when it burst and began to run enticingly across the plate.

Something began to nag at you as you began to work through your own breakfast. You realized what it was when he took his napkin and wiped a smear of fruit preserves from his chin. He had removed his bandages, and the cuts seemed to have faded to barely visible pink lines. Which you would have thought completely impossible a few years ago, until you saw the footage of aliens wreaking havoc in New York and a large green man tossing a Buick like a toy car. These days, there was very little that seemed impossible.

You eyed the metal hand with this new context. Perhaps it wasn’t just a prosthetic. Perhaps he was – what was the government calling it these days? An ‘enhanced individual’? It would explain much of what you had seen in the last eight hours. 

As the contents of his plate dwindled, you decided it was time to press for more information again. “Your cuts look… good.”

Bucky’s chewing slowed. It had been foolish to not replace the bandages after washing his face. How to navigate this topic without exposing himself, he wondered. He simply responded, “I heal fast.”

“I noticed.” You fidgeted with the handle of your coffee cup. “Is that why you didn’t want to go to a hospital?”

They were approaching dangerous territory now, Bucky realized. Unsure of how to respond, he chose silence instead. 

You tried again. “Do you remember how you got hurt?”

This he supposed he could answer, a simple yes or no question. “Yes.”

“Did it…” You steeled yourself. Just ask. “Did it have anything to do with what happened at the Potomac?”

His blue eyes flicked up to yours, filled with a mix of surprise, alarm, and guilt. His hands on the tabletop curled into tense fists, not as a threat, but merely trying to contain whatever storm was building in his chest. You surprised him, and yourself, by reaching across the table and placing your hand on top of his. He grew very still when you touched him, but he didn’t flinch this time.

“Bucky. Would you believe me if I told you that you can trust me?” You used that same tone, low, soothing.

An even greater surprise was that he did, Bucky realized. He had been vulnerable last night, more vulnerable than he should have allowed himself to be. But when he asked you not to call anyone, you didn't. You fed him, clothed him, sheltered him when he had nothing to offer you in return. You touched him, the first person to touch him in years without inflicting pain. 

“I trust you,” he breathed.

The admission made your chest tighten a little. “So why won’t you tell me anything?”

He frowned. “Some of it is… fuzzy. Hard to remember. Some of it… it’s not safe to tell you.”

“I thought you said you trusted me.”

“Not safe for you.”

Bucky watched understanding flicker across your face, and for a moment he was terrified that you would pull away. He made an effort to relax his hand from its tense posture, and he was relieved when you didn’t remove yours. Instead, you curled your fingers underneath his palm. You were holding his hand. His pulse raced, and he did his very best to keep his breathing even.

He spoke slowly. “You’ve been… very kind. I don’t want to put you in more danger.”

“More?” you asked, eyes widening a bit.

“Me being here… could be dangerous for you. If the wrong people found out,” he said carefully.

Silence stretched between the two of you as you struggled to parse this new information.

“I understand if you want me to leave now,” he muttered. “I should.”

“People are looking for you.” You didn’t phrase it as a question, but it felt like one.

“I’m not sure. But it’s… probable,” said Bucky.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know.”

The thoughts and emotions swirling around in your brain were ill-advised, impractical, borderline reckless. But you couldn’t help it. Inside of you, there still lived the little girl who had begged her grandfather to take in stray after stray that wandered down the road, who nursed birds with broken wings back to health in cardboard boxes and cried when they flew away. Deeper still, there was the wounded and broken woman who woke up one morning to the news that her brother was gone from her world, without warning, sudden as a lightning strike. A woman who was so alone out here that she had reached for a stranger’s hand because she needed it just as much as he did. In spite of all the reasons why Bucky should leave, you didn’t want him to. 

“These people looking for you… would they have any reason to look for you here?” you asked.

He looked puzzled by the question. Treading lightly, you elaborated. “My closest neighbor is two miles down the road. We’re right up against a state forest. No one will stumble across you out here. I reckon it’s safer for you to stay, for now. Until the heat dies down a little. Don’t you think?”

Bucky was a little stunned. This wasn’t the reaction he had expected at all. “I can’t ask you to do that,” he softly protested.

“You’re not. I’m offering.”

“Why?”

The reasons were complex, and even you didn’t fully understand your own motives. So you settled for a version of the truth. “You’ve clearly been through… something. And it doesn’t feel right to let you walk off into the sunset without a friend in the world to help you.” Trying to lighten things a bit, you added, “Plus, it gets pretty boring out here, and you’re probably the most interesting thing that has happened in the last two years. Forgive me for wanting to see this through a little.”

Bucky knew you had no idea what you were even offering, what could be brought down onto your head if his presence here was discovered. You didn’t even know who you were offering it to, what horrific things he had done. If he told you, you would never have let him stay this long in the first place. He was taking advantage of you and your kind heart, and he knew it. But Bucky was weak, wanted things he couldn't have and didn’t deserve.

Seeing his hesitation, you leaned an inch closer and said, “Word of warning: I’m pretty stubborn, so you should probably just let me win this one.”

You gently squeezed his hand, and Bucky’s resolve crumbled underneath the weight of your touch, the curve of the corner of your mouth, and the warmth in your eyes. “Okay.”

Satisfied, you withdrew your hand, and Bucky attempted to reign in his disappointment at the loss of your touch. “I do have one more question,” you stated with a glint of something in your eye. He looked at you expectantly, and you nodded in the direction of his plate. “Eggs. What’s the consensus?”

He carefully considered, like he was taking a test, and then said, “Fried.”

“Good to know.” You took a bite of your toast, and Bucky’s eyes tracked the movement. 

“Is there … more of that?” he asked, looking a little shy to be inquiring.

You looked down, confused for a moment, until you realized what he meant. “The preserves?” He nodded, and you couldn’t help the smile that bloomed across your face. He liked the plum preserves, and he was asking for more. It was the first thing he had requested specifically. “Yeah, gimme a sec.”

Your smile struck him in the chest with the force of a freight train. The way it lit up your whole face, how your eyes crinkled at the edges, how your cheeks dimpled. It was a little like looking into the sun, and he felt almost blinded as you rose up out of your chair, walked to the fridge, and retrieved the jar of preserves.

“Here.” You placed the jar in front of him, along with a butterknife, and he began to spread it on his other piece of toast, on top of the butter.

“Thank you,” he muttered sheepishly.

From the back door, there was a flapping sound followed by a gentle jingle, and Bucky watched your eyes light up. “Oh, there he is!” You scurried over to the back door and scooped up an orange cat with chubby tomcat cheeks, who let out a disgruntled and raspy meow as he was lifted into your arms.

“This is Barnaby. He was born in a barn. Keeps the rats away.” The cat looked completely non-plussed at Bucky’s presence, and vaguely annoyed to be held. You kissed the top of the cat’s head before setting him back down on the floor. 

Both of you finished the last bites of breakfast as Barnaby sniffed around the kitchen, then the floor by the table, and finally perched on his hind legs and pressed a paw to Bucky’s thigh as he tried to get a look over the edge of the table.

You wiped your mouth with a napkin. “Sorry, he has terrible table manners.”

Bucky looked down at the animal with curiosity, a little wariness. “What‘s he doing?”

“Begging,” you replied with a smirk. “You can give him a piece of egg, if you want. But fair warning, he’ll never leave you alone again.”

More as an experiment than anything else, Bucky took a small piece of cooked egg from the edge of his plate and held it out towards the cat, who sniffed excitedly and licked the piece of egg off his finger. You watched the exchange, captivated, and held back a laugh at Bucky’s bewildered expression. Dropping your napkin onto your empty plate, you stood up to get Barnaby a can of food. “All right, you panhandler. I’ll feed you.”

As you busied yourself with the can opener, Bucky suddenly stood and began to bring dishes from the table to the sink to wash. You began to protest, “Oh, Bucky, you don’t have to do that, you’re my guest –”

“Let me.” He said it firmly, but there was a kind of vulnerability behind it, almost a plea. It conveyed what he was unable to say aloud - that he couldn’t completely repay your kindness, but he could be useful. He nodded to the can of food in your hand. “Go feed Barnaby.”

Your protest lost its steam, and you gave in, stepping back from the sink and setting the can on the floor for Barnaby. As he washed the dishes carefully and methodically, you put the cream back in the fridge and returned the sugar to its home in the pantry. You muttered with mock annoyance, “Giving me orders in my own house. A little too comfortable already, if you ask me.”

And out of the corner of your eye, you could have sworn you saw the corner of Bucky’s mouth twitch upwards.

After breakfast, the day had further demands for you. You had stalls to muck and weeds to pull from the garden. Buttercup and Stella had to get out to graze. But before you resumed your to-do list, you had host duties to fulfill. Bucky would likely want to shower at some point, considering he had lain facedown and shirtless on a barn floor last night. And you wanted him to have fresh clothes when he did. So you took a deep breath and resumed digging through Nathan’s old things, looking for a few suitable items.

Bucky, meanwhile, had taken his time with handwashing and drying the dishes, and found himself at a little bit of a loss for what should happen next. You had a farm to run, your attention likely pulled a million different ways, and he didn’t wish to get in your way. So he would have to figure out what to do with himself. 

With no orders or instructions given, but still wishing to feel useful, he looked for small, executable tasks. He assessed the locations of your various dishware so he could put everything back in its proper place. He wiped down the kitchen table and counters. He folded the blanket you’d left him on the couch and straightened the cushions. And this was how you found him when you emerged from the back room, carrying a small storage tote of clothes.

“I pulled these out of storage for you,” you announced, placing it on the living room floor. “Should all fit okay, I reckon.”

He liked that – ‘I reckon’. You’d said it before once or twice. It felt exactly like the kind of thing a woman living on a farm would say.

He nodded in gratitude. “Thank you.”

“A couple items of note.” You reached into the bin and pulled out a baseball cap and a pair of work gloves. “I figured if you want to go outside, these might make you feel safer. Less… conspicuous.” Next, you pulled out a dark-colored work jacket. “And this, for when it gets cold and rainy.”

He didn’t miss the way your fingers brushed reverently over the jacket before handing it out to him. At that moment, several things clicked into place. A storage box full of men’s clothing. Your apparent distress last night, when he emerged from the bathroom wearing the clothes you’d offered him. You, alone on this farm. You had lost someone. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before.

He carefully took the jacket from your hands. “This… Are you sure?” The last thing he wanted was to stir up painful memories for you.

You nodded firmly. “Positive. What good are they to anyone sitting in a box?”

Bucky was still somewhat troubled by this discovery, but he decided to let the matter drop. If you said it was fine, he would take you at your word.

You glanced at the watch on your wrist. “I’ve got some work outside that I’ve gotta get done. Will you be all right here by yourself?” He nodded his response, and you went to the door to pull your boots back on. “Good. I’ll see you in a couple hours. Feel free to use the facilities, eat whatever you want, and try not to break anything,” you added, somewhat playfully. “Holler out the door if you need me.”

After you let the door swing shut behind you, he laid the jacket across the arm of the couch and began to gingerly look through the clothes you’d brought him. You had been thorough, even including several pairs of clean socks and underwear. He was well aware that he needed to bathe. He’d managed to wash up a little last night before exhaustion overtook him, but a proper scrub was necessary. He selected a few items of clothing and headed off to the bathroom.

It was the first time in quite a while that Bucky was able to choose the temperature of a shower. No handlers to hose him down with icy cold water after a mission. It was just him, an old standing shower, a shabby curtain with a checkmark pattern, and a bar of soap. He set the water to nearly scalding, peeled off his clothes while he waited for it to come up to temperature. And when he stepped under the hot stream of water, he could have cried. A long, rumbling groan left his chest as his eyes fluttered closed. He stood like that for maybe ten minutes before actually beginning to wash.

With all that you had offered him, he very much doubted that you would draw the line at shampoo, and so he helped himself to a small dollop of it. It was a lovely fragrance, like rosemary and mint. Like herbs from the window box of a girl he courted before the war. Another piece of his memory returned to him. He pressed his nose to the soap you gave him. Lavender and honey. You.

By the time he stepped out of the bathroom, after a thirty-minute shower that assuredly depleted your hot water supply, he felt almost human again.

At the end of the day, dinner was carried by a humble can of soup from your pantry, accompanied by a few rolls you had frozen last week and a couple potatoes from the root cellar. You chopped a few extra potatoes for roasting, keeping in mind Bucky’s larger frame. It wasn’t anything fancy, but of course Bucky ate eagerly and gratefully. And Barnaby, little criminal that he was, waited patiently at Bucky’s feet for something to be dropped or benevolently offered to him.

Dinner was a quiet affair, with you stewing on the things you wanted to say, and Bucky struggling to think of anything to fill the silence. As the food in front of you dwindled, you set down your spoon, finished chewing, and spoke. “So I was thinking.”

Bucky looked up from his soup, nodded to indicate he was listening. 

“If you’re going to be here at least a couple more days,” you continued, “the couch isn’t great for sleeping. I have a spare room you can use. It’s small, and it needs a little attention before it’s ready for a guest. But I can spruce it up, if you’d like to use it.”

“The couch is fine,” he insisted, frowning.

“Bucky, you can barely fit on it. Take the room.”

“I–”

“Please.”

Once again, Bucky found his resolve to be no match for you and your soft eyes. So he surrendered with another nod, and you turned back to your potatoes. 

“I can help,” Bucky said after a moment. “If it needs… cleaning.” Slowly, he hoped he might chip away at the mounting debt he owed to you if he offered his service.

Your mouth curved up at the corner. “Okay. We can do it together.”

With dinner done and dusted, you once again lost the fight over the dishes as Bucky firmly planted himself by the sink. Stubborn as you were, you insisted on drying the dishes and putting them away. And then the evening found the two of you standing just inside the doorway of the back room. You felt just a little sheepish as he looked over the neglected space.

What he saw was two stacked bunkbeds in the corner, a standing lamp that had accumulated a generous amount of dust, ancient wallpaper covered with little sailboats, a bookshelf filled with books of all varieties, from picture books meant for small children to full length novels. He saw memories. A life lived. Every small detail piqued his curiosity. His sharp eyes caught on the closet doorframe, where there were pencil marks on the wood, small lines with numbers and letters. Height markers, he guessed. One letter jumped out over and over - your first initial. Had you been a child here, grown up in this room? Interspersed was another repeated letter – ‘N’. Perhaps the other former resident of the bunkbed. Where were they now?

You gave him a moment to absorb the room in silence, and then when you grew too self-conscious, words began to spill out. “I was thinking, we can take the mattresses off the bunk beds and put them on the floor for now. If we fit them together, it’s like a queen size. Doesn’t leave a ton of space in the room, but we can take apart the bunk beds if it’s too crowded.”

Bucky turned to you, his face soft and sympathetic. “Are you sure this is… all right?” It was like he already knew the significance of the space. Perhaps he had already guessed some of the story just based on his surroundings and your demeanor. 

“I wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t,” you assured him. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

And the two of you did. First, with you lifting one end and Bucky lifting the other, the first mattress was taken off the top bunk bed and stacked against the wall, followed by the second. As you turned around after adjusting the mattresses to lie flat against the wall, Bucky was already lifting the top twin bed off of its pegs completely on his own, barely even struggling with the weight and the awkward shape as he set it down onto the floor next to the other bed. Your grandfather had built those beds, and they weren’t light. He had built them to last you and Nathan through all of your schooling. But you shouldn’t have been surprised, really, considering Bucky’s physique. He looked like he could bench press your couch.

Bucky turned and looked at you expectantly, and you realized, first, that you had been staring. And second, that the two of you would need a tool to dismantle the beds. You had to dig around in your junk drawer in the kitchen for a moment before returning with an allen wrench. Bucky took it on as his personal mission to handle the bedframes himself, while you dusted the windowsills, the bookshelf, the lamp. You considered the height of the ceiling fan and were about to go fetch the step stool, when Bucky wordlessly took the dust rag from your hands, reached up and began to wipe down the blades. You had to admit, having someone of Bucky’s size and stature around was convenient - what would have taken you at least a few hours to do yourself was accomplished in less than thirty minutes.

With the bedframes broken down to flat pieces of wood stacked against the wall, there was room for the mattresses on the floor. You brought in fresh linens and made up the two mattresses lined up side-by-side while Bucky gathered all the bolts from the bedframes and laid them to rest on the bookshelf. And with that, the space was livable. The mattresses on the floor were not ideal, but at least together they would comfortably fit Bucky, and he wouldn’t be on the couch with his legs sprawled over the side again.

“All right, that should do for now, I reckon,” you muttered, wiping your hands on your jeans. “I’m calling it for tonight. I’ll be on the other side of the hall if you need me.”

As you turned to go, Bucky called your name to stop you. You paused in the doorway and gave him your attention. “Yes?”

He seemed to be wrestling with something. Truthfully, he had looked like he was wrestling with something the entire time he had been silently disassembling the bed. “I have to tell you something.”

“I’m listening,” you replied, shoving your hands in your pockets and leaning against the doorframe.

“I don’t… deserve your kindness.”

“Bucky–” you started, about to dismiss his concerns.

“I’m not a good person,” he cut in as he looked at the floor dejectedly. “I’ve… hurt people.”

Quiet seeped into the room as you took in his words. Once again, Bucky was sure that this would be the moment. The moment that your kindness would run out, and that he would be asked to leave. He wouldn’t hold it against you. In your position, most people would have turned him away that very first night. He couldn’t, in good conscience, continue to sleep under your roof, eat your food, and breathe in the warmth of your presence without at least attempting to be honest about what he was.

The only word that left your lips to break the silence was, “Why?”

He looked up, confused. “Does it matter?”

“I think so. People hurt other people for all kinds of reasons.” Pushing off the doorway and taking a few steps into the room, you looked at the wallpaper as you spoke. “My grandfather got drafted and fought in Vietnam. He told me he hurt people, that it haunted him when he slept. He did what he had to do to survive, not because he wanted to hurt anyone.” 

Then you leveled your gaze at him. Your eyes hadn’t hardened in the slightest in response to what he had told you. They were still warm, still trusting. “You don’t strike me as someone who wants to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t,” he whispered. 

“Those people you hurt,” you said carefully as you took another step forward. “Did you want to hurt them?”

His voice broke pathetically on his answer. “No. But I had to.”

“Are you going to hurt anyone else?” you pressed.

He didn’t want to lie to you, and it would be a lie if he said no. HYDRA would eventually come for him, one way or another, whether it was here or halfway across the world. And if not HYDRA, then some other organization who wanted to claim one of the greatest weapons ever built. And he would not go quietly, would not allow himself to be used again as long as he still had his mind. But he was tired, and if he could go the rest of his life without a fight, he would. 

So he quietly answered, “Not if I can help it.”

“Then that’s all I need to know,” you said firmly, like that settled the matter completely. “Thank you for telling me, Bucky.” You turned and left him to his rest for the night. Bucky sat on his makeshift bed, once again feeling disbelief and a strange sense of comfort in equal measure. He found himself thanking whatever forces that governed the universe that he happened to have stumbled into your barn.

Bucky x Farmer!Reader

Summary: After the helicarrier crash into the Potomac, Bucky Barnes ran. In rural south Maryland, he stumbles across a quaint little farm and the gentle, sad, yet stubborn woman who tends it. A temporary shelter becomes a soft place to land for Bucky, as he slowly recovers his memory and relearns what it is to be human.

Content: 18+ (MDNI). Slow burn, fluff, occasional angst, eventual smut

A/N: Takes place immediately following CATWS. Reader has hair long enough to braid. Hop in the replies to be added to the taglist for this series!

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He no longer knew how long he had been walking.

After he pulled the man from the river - the man he somehow remembered and somehow didn’t, the man he felt he needed to protect - he had just started walking. No directive guiding him and no location in mind. His only objective was to put distance between himself and those who had tried to keep him wiped and compliant and nameless. The city gave way to suburbs gave way to rural farmland, and the day gave way to night gave way to day again. He kept to the shadows, to the forests, off the beaten path, avoiding detection. The leather and kevlar that had been sopping with silt and river water dried on his body, began to chafe and bite into his skin. His legs burned and his stomach growled and fatigue was beginning to sink its teeth into him. 

When night fell again and his exhaustion gave way to delirium, he had no concept of time anymore. In the dark of the night, the vast starry sky above him, it began to feel endless, like he had been walking for weeks, like he had always been walking. It had been so long since he had eaten, longer since he had slept - the asset didn’t sleep until the mission was complete - and it was getting difficult to distinguish memory from dream from reality. Was it really raining, or was it just in his head? Was that thunder, or the memory of the horrible crash leaking into his waking mind?

He began to sway and stumble as he walked, and he noted with passive interest that he was going to faint, would fall unconscious in a matter of minutes, if not sooner. He needed to find some place he would be concealed and sheltered from the elements. Breaking through the tree line, there was a shabby farmhouse and barn in the middle of a clearing, miles away from any other structure. The farmhouse could have witnesses, civilians, but if he was quiet, he could pass the rest of the night in the barn until the sun came up and he regained his senses. His body rebelled against him, cried out for rest, and he found himself shuffling in the direction of the barn doors.

Shoving the door to the side, he encountered a darkened space with hay littering the floor and stalls built for livestock. The moonlight reflected off the wide eyes of a cow and a goat. It also bounced off a trough of water in the closest stall, inhabited by the doe-eyed cow. In his haste, he nearly yanked the stall door off its hinges and plunged his hands into the trough, gulping down handfuls of water like he had just come through the desert. 

Suddenly, his tactical jacket felt so tight he could barely breathe. He ripped at the straps securing it in place, muscled the rain-slick leather off his body so he could try to fill his lungs all the way again. The world went sideways, and his vision went white. He thought he heard some loud crash, felt some hard impact on the side of his head, something wet soaking into his gear again, and then he was no longer aware.

It was a good thing sleep had avoided your company that night, or you might not have heard it.

You had sat at your kitchen table, steaming mug of tea in hand, staring at the corner where the wallpaper was beginning to peel. This wasn’t an uncommon practice - sleep was a longtime fickle lover, coming and going as it pleased these days. You had readjusted to the silence in the last two years, but you had not adjusted to the emptiness, all the negative space that left room for memory and ache and anxiety.

The silence was broken by a distant crash from outside. You startled, then cursed and grabbed your coat off the hook and slipped on your boots. If that damn fox was back, you were gonna get him this time. You only hoped he hadn’t managed to get into the coop again. You had reinforced the latch on the door with a lock, but foxes were tricky little bastards. You grabbed the shotgun and the flashlight from the cupboard and went stomping out into the rain.

The beam of your flashlight passed over the coop, finding it undisturbed. As you shuddered a little against the cold bite of the rain, you swept the light over your property. When you saw that the barn door was open, your chest tightened. “No no no,” you muttered as you tripped over your untied boots to get to the doorway. Buttercup spooked easily, and with the thunder she might have spooked hard enough to kick her stall door open and run loose again. It had taken three days to find her last time, three days you couldn’t afford to spend chasing a cow all over the county when there were rows to tend and orders to fill.

You flipped the switch for the overhead lights. To your relief, Buttercup was still in her stall, though she looked spooked and her stall door was indeed open. It appeared she had overturned her trough in her distress. When you approached her stall to right it, a gasp ripped out of your throat. A man was lying facedown on the ground in Buttercup’s stall.

Instantly, you slung the rifle off your shoulder and aimed it at the man, your flashlight clattering to the floor. This was one of those times you had been warned about when you told your friends you would be living alone at a farmhouse in the middle of Nowheresville, Maryland. You should have taken their advice and gotten a guard dog. Still, you were tough, maybe tough enough to scare the stranger off. He was probably some hapless drunkard who strayed too far during a bender. He wasn’t ever wearing a shirt, for Chrissake.

“Hey,” you called out, keeping the barrel of the gun pointed at his back. The man did not stir, so you barked louder, “Hey!”

He groaned in pain and rolled over onto his back, but his eyes didn’t open. He must have been in pretty bad shape. You rounded the corner of the stall to get a better look at him, and once again the air was sucked from your lungs. His form had been partially obscured by the overturned trough, but now you saw all of him. Saw the gleam of his metal prosthetic arm, the cuts on his face, the wet strands of hair clinging to his forehead, the large and angry bruise blooming over his ribs. You saw the ropes of scarring at his shoulder, ancient and painful-looking.

Clearly this man had been in some kind of accident. For a moment, you weighed the potential threat of him against his apparent suffering. In the end, your heart won out over your mind. You slung the rifle back over your shoulder and knelt down next to him.

“Are you all right?” you asked urgently, reaching a hand out to his intact shoulder. As soon as your fingers grazed his skin, he flinched, eyes fluttering open and locking onto yours. They immediately filled with confusion, fear, suspicion, and he jerked back, pressing his body against the boards of Buttercup’s stall.

You held up your hands non-threateningly. “It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m not gonna hurt you,” you gently assured him.

His chest heaved as he ran his eyes over you in assessment. You didn’t appear to be a threat. You appeared to be more or less a normal woman, clad in a cotton nightdress underneath a duffel coat. The way you knelt before him was muddying the hem of the dress, and your hair was woven into a braid dampened by the rain. Your voice was soft and gentle, but this could merely have been manipulation, to lull him into a sense of false security. His eyes flicked to the rifle over your shoulder and he stiffened, calculating. It wouldn’t be hard to get the rifle from you, if he needed to. He may have been out of sorts, but even weakened as he was, he still had reserves of strength.

You noticed the way his gaze zeroed in on the firearm, mistaking his calculation for mere wariness, and you gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry, I thought you were a fox. I’ll put this down over there, so we can talk.” Slowly and carefully, telegraphing every movement, you shrugged off the strap of the rifle, leaned over and placed it on the ground out of both of your immediate reach. “There. Better?”

The tension in his shoulders loosened by a fraction as he allowed himself to take his eyes off the gun and look back to you. 

“Can you tell me your name?” you prompted him, and he didn’t respond. It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard you, but rather like he wasn’t sure what to say. You furrowed your brow - maybe head trauma was a concern, possibly brain damage. There was a smear of blood by his temple that worried you almost as much as the purpling bruise across his torso. “You’re hurt. We need to get you to a hospital or something. I’ll call - "

You started to stand, determined to head to the house and use the phone to summon an ambulance, when his real hand zipped out to close around your forearm. He held you in a firm grip, not hard enough to bruise, but you were definitely not going anywhere. You looked back at him in shock, and there was apology and terror in his face as he frantically shook his head.

You knew you ought to have insisted. You weren’t a doctor, but you could tell he wasn’t looking good. His features were pale and a little gaunt, there were circles under his eyes, and he was trembling - perhaps from the cold and the damp, perhaps from fear, or a combination of all three. He clearly needed help, help you weren’t sure you were best equipped to provide. But there was something in his expression that made you pause.

“Okay,” you conceded. “No hospitals.” He let out a tremulous breath and released your arm. You continued, “But there must be someone I can call for you. Someone who can maybe take you home?” The confusion that had been on his face earlier was back with a vengeance. He shook his head again, slower this time. You sighed and worried your lower lip between your teeth.

He had no idea what to make of this concern you were showing him. He had intruded on your property, probably frightened you. No husband had been sent out to inspect the suspicious noises from within this structure. You were all on your own out here, he realized. But there was no fear in your face at all, no contempt or annoyance for the inconvenience of his intrusion.

“Can you move at all?” you asked gently, feeling the impulse to reach for him again, but recognizing this was probably not the best idea. He nodded once. “Good. Let’s get you inside before you freeze out here.”

Inside. You were going to let him into your home. It was a bewildering prospect, but he wasn’t in a position to refuse. His body had already given out on him once. Who knew how much longer he would push it without rest?

You got to your feet and held out a hand to him that he did not take. Instead, he used the sides of the stall as support to pull himself to his feet. As he pulled himself up to his full height, you felt a flicker of intimidation. He was tall, and he was well-built, a wall of muscle clad in dark tactical pants and heavy boots. The muscles of his torso shifted and tensed as he breathed heavily, damp from rainwater and sweat, stray pieces of hay and speckles of dirt sticking to him. The intimidation faded back to concern as his posture flagged, even as he attempted to stay upright.

Buttercup, who had been watching warily from the opposite end of her stall, let out a lowing, distressed sound. You calmly went to her side and pressed a hand to her snout. “It’s okay, girl. You’re all right,” you murmured to her, stroking her snout and scratching behind her ears to settle her. 

His traitorous, fractured mind conjured images at the sight. An older woman with his eyes, gently brushing the hair of a young girl who shared his same nose. A hand, delicate and feminine, on his uniformed arm. Lullabies. Softness. He had to tear his eyes away from your hands. Weapons didn’t crave softness - it wasn’t what he had been built for. He really needed to get some sleep. 

You grabbed a clean bucket and filled it at the water tap, dropping it off with Buttercup to get her through the morning if she was thirsty. Gingerly, you picked up his jacket from the barn floor, tucking it under your arm when he didn’t bother reaching for it. The man watched you, eyes tracking your every move as he leaned his shoulder against the wooden support column by the stall.

You paused by the rifle on the floor, turned to him. “I have to bring this back to the house and lock it up.” Cautiously bending down to pick it up, you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickle as his attention intensified. You tried to shake it off as you slung it over your shoulder again, keeping both your hands visibly off the firearm as you turned back to him. “Come on.” You gestured for him to follow you as you pulled up your hood and headed back up to the house.

He stood just inside the doorway, dripping onto the welcome mat, and watched with rapt attention as you moved throughout the space. You hung your coat and his tactical jacket on the set of hooks by the door, toed off your boots, padded in socked feet to the kitchen to stow the rifle and turn the key in the cabinet lock. Stopping at the sink to fill a kettle, you turned and set it on the stove, ignited the burner. “Let me grab you a towel,” you called over your shoulder as you disappeared through the kitchen doorway into another room.

He stood bewildered for a moment. His training told him he ought to keep his eyes on you, ensuring that you weren’t phoning for help or locating another weapon. But he felt an inexplicable trust that you were telling the truth, that you were fetching him a towel and nothing more. He took in the unfamiliar domesticity of this environment. The warmth of the space began to leak into his skin, and his eyes landed on your muddy boots left by the door. He crouched down, wavering slightly as he untied his laces and peeled the boots off his feet. The relief was immediate after so long spent walking in them, and he nearly collapsed again onto the hardwood floor.

Just then, you returned with a dark grey towel folded over your arm. He noticed you had thrown an oversized cardigan over your nightdress, which probably had less to do with warmth and more to do with preserving some level of modesty in front of a stranger. 

You handed him the towel, clocking the appearance of his boots next to yours on the floor. The fact that he had bothered to take them off out of politeness, combined with the exhausted, hangdog expression on his face, tugged at something in your chest. You pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. “Sit.”

He wrapped the towel around his shoulders and cautiously stepped into the kitchen, lowered himself stiffly into the chair. The towel was soft and warm against his skin, and he began to feel an unidentifiable ache that had nothing to do with muscle strain or fatigue. To his surprise, you moved to sit in the chair across from him, leaning forward on your elbows.

“Can you tell me what happened to you?” you gently probed, eyes lingering over the bruising that peeked through the folds of the towel wrapped around him. Once again, he shook his head, unable to meet your eyes. You sighed again, and he felt the need to apologize, but the words still would not reach his lips.

You leaned forward an inch, your voice low and soothing, like trying to placate a spooked animal. “I want to help you. But I can’t do that if you don’t tell me anything. I need a little more information here.” Past the edge of the towel, those painful looking scars at his shoulder were just barely visible, but they drew your eye anyway. You broached the subject carefully. “Did somebody … hurt you?”

When he didn’t respond, you shifted your gaze back to his face and found him staring with a dazed look at the bowl of apples in the middle of the table. From the expression he wore, you would guess it had been quite some time since he had eaten, but he still didn’t reach for them, didn’t even speak up to ask.

So you spoke instead. “Are you hungry?” His attention returned to your face, his eyes starved and ashamed. You slid the bowl an inch towards him. ‘You can have one. Go ahead.”

Once permission was granted, he eagerly grabbed an apple from the bowl and sank his teeth into it. He only bothered chewing enough to get it down without choking, and the apple quickly began to disappear as he devoured it. A little shocked at the severity of his hunger, you slowly eased yourself up from the chair to grab a tupperware container off the counter. His eyes followed you as you moved, more out of curiosity than wariness. You pried the lid off the tupperware and slid it towards him as well.

“Leftover cornbread. All yours, if you want it.”

His eyes widened at the gift you’d offered, and he dropped the core of the apple to the table and reached for a piece of the soft bread inside the container. He couldn’t recall the last time he had eaten something that wasn’t purely utilitarian, protein pills and ration bars and other, even less traditional fare. As he took a bite of the cornbread, an involuntary, pathetic sound leapt from his throat, something between a groan and a sob. It was sweet and a little salty and it melted in his mouth. It summoned incomplete, swirling memories of a fragrant kitchen, that same woman with his eyes - his mother, he either guessed or remembered - wrapped in an apron and pulling something delicious out of the oven. He devoured the bread even more quickly.

You could only watch in a kind of morbid fascination as he crammed down the cornbread. You tried to contextualize all that you had seen - the arm, the scars, his apparent starvation and fatigue. Perhaps he had escaped some kind of cult, which might explain the unusual scarring, his aversion to speaking, and his fearful response to touch.

You tried to press the issue further. “That bruise looks bad. You could be bleeding internally. Are you sure I can’t take you to a hospital?” Doctors trained in dealing with trauma might be able to pull some answers out of him, you thought. 

His chewing slowed down, and he carefully swallowed before opening his mouth and uttering the first words he had spoken in over twenty four hours. “No hospitals,” he rasped, echoing your words from earlier in the barn.

Even though it was a denial, he had spoken. At least you seemed to be making some kind of headway with him. You decided to keep going. “Will you at least let me take a look at you? Once you’re finished eating, of course,” you amended. “I’m not a doctor, but I have some… medical knowledge, I guess.”

He reached for another piece of cornbread and frowned. Your concern was unnecessary, from his perspective. Once he let his body rest, the bruise would begin to fade, his injuries would heal. This was hardly the worst he’d come out of a mission. 

You saw his hesitation, and tried a different approach. “It would ease my mind about the ‘no hospitals’ thing. Just to make sure you’re okay.”

As soon as you framed it as more of a favor to you than him, he decided he could concede to this, and he nodded curtly before taking another bite. Satisfied, you stood up out of your chair again to take the kettle off of the heat, pouring a bit of hot water in your mug to refresh your tea that had gone cold. 

“Would you like some tea?” you offered, turning back to him with your mug in hand.

You expected another nod or shake of the head, but he surprised you by speaking. “Yes. Please.” The ‘please’ was an afterthought, brought on by an unusual impulse to be polite.   

He was surprised as well by the small smile that crept across your face. “Would you like to pick what kind, or do you just want what I’m having?”

He found himself intimidated by the prospect of choosing, so he nodded his head toward your mug. “...What you’re having.” He listened to the gurgle of hot water being poured into ceramic, and watched you return to the table and place the mug in front of him. Wrapping his hands around it and watching the steam drift over the rim, he felt that indescribable ache again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you replied, the ghost of the smile still playing at your lips as you sat across from him again. It was a ghost that was haunting him, too. When was the last time anyone had smiled at him?

This whole situation felt bizarre to him. The part of him that had been turned weapon regarded his surroundings as completely alien, but that stubborn and tender part of him that they hadn’t managed to scrub out recognized them as familiar, almost comforting. Calling back to another time when he had been a man and not a machine. The two of you drank your tea in silence for a few minutes, and he finished another piece of cornbread. He did not reach for another - he was still hungry, but the supply in the container was dwindling, and he did not wish to deny you the last few pieces.

Once he had drunk about a third of the mug's contents, he turned in his chair to face away from the table, into the kitchen. “You can… look.”

“Okay.” Setting down your mug again, you rose to your feet, stepped in front of him, and knelt so that your face was level with his chest. His posture was ramrod straight, his hands resting on his knees, his jaw set and his eyes forward. You eyed the bruise, the most immediately concerning injury. “Can I touch you?”

He looked down at you, puzzled, his eyes betraying a hint of anxiety.

“I just want to check for rib fractures or signs of internal bleeding,” you explained. “I’ll be gentle.”

He considered for a moment. Even if he had cracked ribs under the metal beam, they would be mended by morning. But if it would make you feel better, he supposed he could endure a physical examination. “Yes.”

You slowly reached your hands out and placed them on his torso - one placed against his chest to steady him and keep him in place, the other gingerly brushing the edges of his bruise. He stiffened immediately at your touch, but he didn’t pull away, so you didn’t either. “Tell me if any place feels especially tender.” 

His skin was quite warm, almost feverish, but he didn’t appear to be sweating. Your mind immediately went through lists of warning signs of serious infection, sepsis - he did seem disoriented, weak, and you could feel the rapid thrum of his heartbeat under your hand. But he didn’t appear to be in excessive pain, despite the severity of his bruising, and there was no swelling, no redness of the skin. Perhaps he just ran warm, and had been through some kind of ordeal. The muscles of his abdomen twitched under your hand as you began to feel for tender spots.

You kept your mind and your affect clinical, like you were calving or checking Buttercup for a blockage. Gently probing his torso with your fingers, you watched his face for any sign of pain or distress. What you saw there, instead, was conflict. He looked about ready to bolt from the chair, and he swallowed nervously as he tried to keep his breathing even. But there was also a softness and a vulnerability behind his eyes, like a neglected animal being offered an open palm.

He could feel himself beginning to tremble a little underneath your touch, and he cursed his traitorous body. This kind of touch was foreign to him - touch from his handlers usually meant punishment, or at the very least it meant preparations for cryo or the shocks. But your hands were warm and soft, slightly calloused in places. Every touch was made with great care and caution. His nervous system, expecting pain, told him to flee. But the soft animal that still lived inside him longed to lean into your touch.

He watched your every move, just to be safe. The exhaustion must have been getting to him, because his attention kept snagging on small details. The lock of hair that escaped your braid  and the way it spiraled over your ear. The particular constellation of freckles that dotted your cheekbones and the bridge of your nose. The way your cardigan shifted as you moved your hand to reveal a sliver of your collarbone. 

“Feel okay?” you asked tentatively. 

“Yes,” he managed to whisper.

You finished palpating around the edges of the bruise, and there was no flinch of pain or anything else to indicate grievous injury, so you removed your hands from him. “No cause for concern here, I reckon. Just a nasty bruise.” You looked up into his face, at the cut on his jaw and the smudge of blood at his temple. “Those cuts will need cleaning, though.”

His brows knitted together. “They’ll heal.”

“You were just facedown on my barn floor. If I don’t clean them, they’re sure to get infected,” you insisted.

He knew your concern was unfounded, but he realized that you had no way of knowing that. His healing and viral immunity weren't things he could explain to you without opening up a Pandora’s box of questions he was not ready to answer, questions that could put you in danger if he gave the answers to them. And selfishly, shamefully, he didn’t want you to stop touching him. But still, he hesitated.

“I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to do,” you promised, still kneeling in front of him. “But I really think you should let me clean those up. I would sleep a lot better knowing you didn’t catch staph from my barn.”

This seemed to be the best approach with him, framing it this way. He nodded his permission, and you stood to fetch the first aid kit from underneath the sink.

He forced himself to look at the floor instead of the suggestion of your shape beneath your cardigan and nightgown as you moved. He realized with a start that this was the first time he had been in close quarters with a woman outside of combat or a lab in quite some time. Of course he wasn’t sure where to look or how to act normal. He tried very hard to think nothing of it, to think of anything else as you laid the kit on the table and stood in front of him with a disinfectant wipe in your hand.

“This might sting a bit,” you said apologetically before gently lifting his chin up towards you, into the light. It was only then that you really noticed how beautiful he was. Of course, he still looked haggard, but underneath the exhaustion and the rain-soaked locks of hair were full lips, a strong jaw defined by his grown-in stubble, a handsome brow. 

The most distracting element of all was a pair of startlingly blue eyes. Eyes that were locked on you as you cleaned the cut by his chin. It was difficult not to be at least a little nervous when he watched you like that. It was even harder not to steal glances at the metal arm when you were this close to him. The forearm was covered with intricate, articulating plates, and his palm was wrapped in a fingerless leather glove, likely for improved grip. It seemed to be emitting a low hum, like some internal engine was powering it. It was the most bizarre and fascinating thing you had ever seen, and you had to remind yourself not to stare.

You removed your hand from his chin and reached up to brush his hair away from his forehead, in order to better determine the source of the blood by his temple. He flinched slightly at this, and your stomach dropped. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw as he shook his head. “No.” Once again, he was struggling to find a normal rhythm for his breath. It had been a kneejerk reaction, born from the expectation of his hair being grasped and yanked roughly, which was the only way it had been touched for years. But once again, explanation was impossible for him to give you.

Settling for his assurance, you lightly moved his hair off his forehead, where you saw a small cut just below his hairline. Once both cuts were cleaned, you applied small bandages to them and then closed the kit. “There. That should do for now. Thank you for putting up with my nurse routine.”

Once again, you bewildered him. He should be the one thanking you. But words were a little hard to come by when you were still lingering so close.

“It’s late,” you commented, glancing at the clock on the wall. “Are you staying somewhere nearby?” You suspected that you knew the answer already, and your suspicions were confirmed when he looked at the floor and didn’t speak.

What you did next was ill-advised, to be sure. But you couldn't send this man out into the rain and the dark, especially when he had clearly gone through something horrible. And if he had any desire to hurt you, wouldn’t he have done so already?

So you said firmly, “You can stay here for the night. We’ll talk some more in the morning about what you want to do next.” You nudged the tupperware with the last few pieces of cornbread in his direction. “Eat as much as you like, if you’re still hungry. I’ll go find you something dry to wear.”

He watched in shock as you turned and walked back out of the kitchen doorway. Was this some kind of bizarre wish-fulfillment dream, when in reality he was still face down, shivering and unconscious in the barn outside? You had absolutely no reason to open your home to him. In fact, you had several reasons not to. And now you were going to unknowingly sleep under the same roof as one of the world’s most dangerous individuals. Guilt and gratitude swirled around in his gut as he drank the rest of his tea and took just one more piece of cornbread.

In the back room, you dug through a storage bin of Nathan’s old clothes that you hadn’t yet found the courage to donate. The man down the hall was bigger than he had been, but luckily Nathan preferred baggier clothes, and so you suspected you could find something that would work. You selected a warm thermal shirt, a pair of sweatpants, and a thick pair of socks, then stopped in the bathroom to lay out a fresh towel and washcloth for him, in case he wanted to shower tonight or in the morning. Digging around in the cabinet under the sink, you managed to find a spare unopened toothbrush from your most recent dentist visit, and a bar of goat’s milk soap from the last batch that hadn’t sold as well as you thought. You laid them on top of the folded towel by the sink and returned to the kitchen. The man hadn’t even moved from his seat.

“Here.” You held the stack of clothes out to him. “You can get changed in the bathroom down the hall, the one with the light on. I’ll set up the couch for you.”

He took the clothes with a grateful look and shuffled down the hall. Once the bathroom door closed behind him, you set to work in the living room. You pulled a quilt from the rack in the corner and laid it out for him, fetched a pillow off your bed so he wouldn’t destroy his neck on one of the pathetic throw pillows. You turned on the lamp in the corner, and it cast a warm light over the room. Back in the kitchen, you threw the top back on the tupperware and deposited your mug in the sink. After a moment of consideration, you washed out his mug and filled it with water before setting it on the coffee table in the living room.

As you walked back down the hall to return to your own room, the bathroom door opened and the man stepped out. His hair was ruffled and towel-dried, his bundle of wet clothes tucked under his arm. The sight of your brother’s clothes on his back made your heart seize up a little bit.

“Everything fit okay?” you asked, trying to play off the sudden hoarseness in your throat.

He nodded, brows furrowing again. You seemed a little upset suddenly, and for a moment he wanted to ask the source of your distress. But it was too personal a question. You were an extremely generous stranger, and he an unusual guest, and it was not his place to pry.

You swallowed and assembled your face into something more normal. “I’ll be in here.” You indicated your bedroom door a few feet away. “Call if you need anything, okay?”

You turned to go, and paused when you heard him murmur, “Thank you.”

“Of course. Sleep well.” Your braid slipped off your shoulder and swung against your back as you disappeared into your bedroom and shut the door quietly. He was left in the hallway, feeling a little dazed. But rest began its siren call again, so he trudged into the living room, marked the couch made up specifically for him, and collapsed onto it gratefully. The pillow was soft beneath his head, smelled faintly of the scent he had picked up when you stood close to him, floral but also earthy, with an undercurrent of something sweet like honey. It was dangerous, and he breathed it in without caution before long overdue sleep swept over him like a wave, dragging him along with the undertow.

Back in your room, you were far from resting. You sat cross-legged on your bed with your laptop, after deciding to lock your bedroom door just in case. You very much doubted that he would be doing anything but sleeping tonight, but he was still a stranger. You had been very trusting letting him stay the night in the first place, so you tried not to feel guilty about this one concession.

You pulled up your search engine and typed in “metal arm”. The results were a mess of anime stills and video game cosplay websites. You sighed and decided to regroup by checking the news for local accidents. You were chronically uninformed out there in the boonies, and you didn’t check the news nearly as often as you should. Thus, you were probably the last person in Maryland to find out about the accident in DC two days ago, involving several SHIELD helicarriers opening fire on each other and crashing into the Potomac. There were linked articles regarding a massive leak of SHIELD information, revealing that they had long been infiltrated by a terrorist organization called HYDRA. The group’s origins were cult-like in nature, and when you read that, your blood froze in your veins.

pairing. boyfriend!bucky x fem!reader

summary. when bucky sees you babysitting walker’s kid, something stirs inside him.

word count. 5.9k

warnings. smut, 18+, mdni, unprotected pnv, breeding kink, mentions of lactation kink, no use of y/n. reader likes kids and is good with them (work with me)

notes. this has been unfinished for weeks now. lowkey hate the smut towards the end, but it was all i could come up with 😭 im sorry i just had to get smth out before i go on this break. (if there are any mistakes, look the other way please)

lately sundays have been slow, tangled up in sheets with bucky’s metal arm slung heavy over your waist and his breath soft against the back of your neck.