A Fangirl's Guide Through The Universe

You slammed your foot into his calf, making him stutter-step, stopping him long enough for the Sentry to arrive, a blurred ribbon of gold before he pulled up short, ripping the target off the ground. He threw him back down onto the concrete like he was an empty sack. The body rag-dolled, then rolled a few feet away, but he was alive. Alive enough.

John pelted up to you, not even winded. The Sentry floated gently down to hover between you and John, dusting off his hands.

“Thanks for joining us,” John muttered. There was something about them being together on a mission and Bob in the suit; the second he put it on, the old, scabbed wounds burst. Neither of them could resist school yard jabs, but John was usually the more aggressive offender.

“You had it handled,” Bob said mildly. His eyes, faintly gold, lingered on you, on where your chest pumped against your suit. Before it could become a tell, he met your gaze again. You never knew what to call him anymore—he was generally such a sweetheart, but something in him shifted when the suit went on. He stood taller. His responses were clear, fast, sometimes glib. “I did a sweep. Looks like we’re clear.”

“Smooth as silk, gentlemen,” you said, kneeling to check the guy for weapons. There was a suspicious keycard in one pocket, which you took, thanks much, before tossing his pistol somewhere he couldn’t reach.

“I just think you could contribute a bit more when we’re in the shit,” John was saying, launching in. “He was getting away. You can fly, for fuck’s sake.”

“Are you saying she’s slow?” Bob asked, and judging by his tone, with total knowledge that it would give John an aneurism. Either you were imagining things, or the vibe was particularly tense when it was just the three of you on missions. Like they were competing. Like every word of their charged exchanges was a fist beating on a chest.

“I’m not…no. Jesus, Bob, I would never say that.” John started pacing. He dodged closer to you, dipping down to make sure you heard the next bit clearly: “I would never say that.”

“It’s the Sentry,” Bob said, calm. You smiled down at your work; he never corrected you when you slipped up like that.

“It’s eat my fucking dick,” John snarled, arms crossed as he finished pacing, placing you directly in the crossfire between them.

“Down, boys,” you said. Your hands moved firmly over one pocket of the man’s cargo pants. Something bulged inside. They went on bickering. You dipped into the pocket, withdrawing a cylinder that looked like a cologne or spray. Before you could examine it further, the man lurched upward, hand closing over yours, forcing your fingers down around the latch mechanism. “Shit,” you managed to whisper. “Get back—”

The cylinder broke, the amber liquid inside exploding into gas as the dispersal apparatus fired.

Bob’s hands closed around your waist, yanking you away from the mushrooming cloud that erupted. John staggered out of that same cloud as Bob set you down gently a few yards away. Without hesitation, Bob went to collect John, too, carrying him back to where you waited. There was no point pretending you hadn’t inhaled the mystery gas; you could taste it in the back of your throat.

“What the hell was that?” John asked, wet coughing into his fist.

Bob frowned, backing away from the cloud as it thinned and spread, the color fading as it diluted. “Smelled like…turpentine,” he said.

“And cotton candy,” you added.

John stopped coughing long enough to turn pale and then slightly green. “Shit.”

“What?” you asked, following as he strode down the walkway between the old, moldering construction machines, double timing toward the arched doors leading out of the warehouse. “Do you know what that was?”

“We need to get back to the safehouse,” he said. “Now.” Then softer: “God, I hope I’m wrong.”

Minute by minute, John knew that the agent you had all inhaled was exactly what he feared it was. The smell, the symptoms, the method of deployment, it all added up. He was just trying to decide how to deliver the news to two colleagues that they were in for a very intense, very awkward night.

You and Bob went ahead into the safehouse, John lingering outside to grab a few more cold breaths of wintry air before barricading himself inside. His poker face was failing him, because you looked panicked as you swished the curtains aside on the front window and peered out at him. Just the sight of your face and how his body reacted was further evidence that his theory was right. He turned around, paranoid that you would see how tight his pants were becoming.

This is not how I wanted to do this.

For God’s sake, he had pictured a leisurely date, maybe a place with a dress code, flirting with you over a few drinks, a meandering stroll back to the tower with plenty of stops to make out like teenagers in the shadowy alcoves between buildings. Not this. Never this. You were going to turn into animals, all three of you; losing all inhibition with you was one thing, but now Bob was part of it. Fuck. His collar was choking him. The unnatural heat clawing its way across his chest was damn near unbearable. He scratched open the toggles on his uniform, pulling until he could expose his neck to the cool air.

There was no point prolonging the inevitable. It was still possible, he thought, to get through this without detonating a bomb in your personal and professional lives. Maybe you could tie each other up, separate yourselves in different rooms of the house, figure out some kind of quarantine system. This wasn’t defcon, not yet. John strode in through the front door, closed it, and spun to engage every bolt and lock. He went window to window, making sure the curtains were tightly closed.

It was a quaint two-story cottage, nondescript, white plaster walls and black roof, a working fireplace, the first story dominated by a cozy sitting room with two sofas and a coffee table, and an adjoining kitchen with a farmhouse dining table. Nestled in the French countryside, it didn’t exactly scream orgiastic sex frenzy.

John told himself it wasn’t going there. It couldn’t go there.

“Guys,” Bob murmured, decidedly more Bob than Sentry as he smoothed his hands down the front of his suit, fingers spreading across his stomach. “I don’t feel right.”

“I know,” John said, massaging his temples. He threw you a helpless look, maybe a preemptive, silent plea for understanding. You hovered in the no man’s land between living room and kitchen. Nobody seemed willing to sit down.

“I feel…I feel like I need to barf or jerk off,” Bob continued, squeezing his eyes shut, swaying. “Maybe both.”

That didn’t draw a snarky response from John, which made you instantly suspicious. John never missed an opportunity to get a lick in. You rounded on him, marching over and poking him in the chest. There was already a glaze over your eyes, like you were halfway to wasted, but you were holding on, pushing through it. “John. What the hell is happening to us?”

“Rapid breathing, heart palpitations, fever, sweats, sweats and then chills, sensitivity to light and touch, did I miss anything?” John asked, listing out the symptoms. As he named them out, he watched you get more and more withdrawn.

“Feels like my dick is growing another dick,” Bob muttered.

“And that. Yeah. Whatever that is,” John said with a loose gesture. “Does anyone read the mission briefs? The addendums in the back? You know, we print those out for a reason.”

Bob said nothing, still holding his stomach like he might puke on himself at any second. You shook your head, blinking too fast, like you were having trouble following a simple question. That tracked. You had taken a full blast in the face of the stuff, and he had no idea if the serum would slow things down or speed things up. Either way, you stumbled forward suddenly, grabbing his arm to stay upright.

John held you by the waist, but loosely, aware that any touch at any time could make things descend into chaos. “Jesus, you two. It’s experimental chemical warfare. It depresses your central nervous system, inhibits memory formation, rapid GABA deployment, prioritizes blood to erogenous zones—”

“Erogenous zones?” Bob covered his mouth, laughing.

“Yeah. What? Is that not the right term?”

“No, it is, I just didn’t realize you were a grandma.”

John’s mouth fell open in exasperation. He considered how much torque would be required to tear off a god’s head. Probably more than he could generate just with his bare hands. “Okay, wise ass, try this instead: it’s fuck dust.”

That shut him up.

Your grip tightened on John’s arm. You stared up at him, dazed. “Meaning what?”

John’s tone softened as he addressed you, his heart pounding in his ears as his attention snagged on your beautiful mouth, the way your pulse fluttered in your neck, how lickable you had become all covered in sweat… He shook his head, fighting the urge to press you against his body. “Meaning we’re about to experience a real HR nightmare, that’s what. If the lab tests I’ve read are accurate, then the…the need for stimulation is going to become painful. It will feel life or death.”

The silence was almost comical. John usually yearned for a minute of peace with the two of you around, but now he was desperate for someone to fill the void with a genius solution.

“For how long?” Bob asked, frowning, brow furrowed. He was clawing at his suit like it was full of fire ants, tugging at the collar.

“Hard to say.” John wiped his hand down his face; it was getting tougher to form a clear thought. You smelled so fucking good, fresh meat to a starving man. “Depends on length of exposure, metabolic rate…” He trailed off, begging his last available brain cells to have mercy, cooperate. It felt like a veil was closing over his vision and all he could see was you. “If we’re lucky, twelve hours. If we’re not lucky—”

“Twelve hours?” Bob shouted, startling you. “I can’t do this for twelve more minutes.” Before either of you could tell him to calm down, Bob detached his cape, tore away his gauntlets, then flipped the latch on the back of his rubbery black neck guard, yanking it off and tossing it across the room. The lights overhead flickered ominously. He wrestled with the zipper on the back of his suit until it gave, and with a grunt, he pulled his suit down, letting it hang loose over his belt.

John felt you twitch in his grasp.

“Holy shit, Bob,” you murmured, glassy-eyed and gawking. You pointed first at his well-developed pecs, then his washboard abs. Even John could admit the definition was insane. “That was hiding under there this entire time?”

He absorbed your appreciation with a little toss of his hair, then flicked his gaze from your face to Johns. “Why?” he asked, voice rough with desire, full of the arrogance that the serum tended to bring out in him. “Like what you see?”

“Oh shit,” John groaned. Knowing it was fruitless to try and stop you as you tugged out of his grip and drifted toward Bob. “It’s starting.” He watched you cuddle up to Bob’s side, the other man’s hands immediately tangling in the zipper on the back of your suit, tugging it down. You didn’t notice or didn’t fight him on it.

“Whoa. Hey wait, okay? Are we not going to even try and figure out a way to fight this?” John asked, tearing his gaze away from the sight of you running your fingers up Bob’s ripped stomach. He paced back toward the door, hands in his hair, but each idea that sprang to mind was dumber than the last. “We could…we could find rope. Rope. Yes. Tie each other up. Do we have rope?”

Bob was listening but not looking. His attention was fixed entirely on you, his fingers catching on the open back of your suit, pulling until you wiggled and your arms came free. “Rope,” he murmured, laughing, eyes gold and hot as he leaned in to brush his lips across yours. “Do you think a rope will hold me?” He touched your chin with his thumb, the sheen of sweat across his bare chest so strong it looked like he had been dipped in oil. “I’d chew through it to get to you.”

You shivered, arching against him as he gave one more firm tug and stripped you to the waist. Like him, your skin-tight suit caught on your belt, but John wasn’t thinking about that, he was thinking about the big hand closing over your breast, squeezing it, testing the weight.

“I’d burn it to get to you,” Bob added, the fabric of your bra shimmering before it was incinerated off your body, there and then nothing, a whisper of ash scattering to the ground.

John knew he had to do something, but it was like every thought was on a five second delay. He had become a bystander. Incidental. A flurry of crucial memories passed in front of his eyes just then—you and Bob playing scrabble in the common room long into the night, bickering over whether or not bongwater was a playable word; Barnes taking Bob aside after one of his first missions back to lecture about not shattering anyone’s spine, which had been Bob’s enraged reaction after a goon got a clean punch on you; Bob hearting absolutely everything you said in the group chat, even things like okay; Bob bringing you back tiny mementos from his missions abroad…

John crossed the room in three immense strides, hooking his arm around your waist and spinning you until you squeaked and teetered against him, hands propped on his chest.

“Stop. Everyone stop. Slow down.” Maybe it was because he was the oldest, maybe it was because he was a father, whatever it was, he felt like it was his responsibility to protect both you and Bob. John wiped the sweat out of his eyes, holding up a hand toward the other man, who straightened up and grimaced like John had coldcocked him in the training room. “Don’t square up to me, Bobby. If we’re not going to sequester ourselves or…or…”

“Go ahead, man, sequester yourself,” Bob suggested lightly.

John was trying to be patient and fair, he really was, and this time out was as much for him as it was for Bob. But you were the one he worried about. It didn’t matter what the dust was whispering, you could get hurt, emotionally and physically, if they weren’t careful. You were trapped in a house with two of the most dangerous men on the planet, super soldiers who were about to lose all common sense.

John was trying to be patient, but Bob’s annoying little suggestion punctured his resolve. He wrapped you up in both of his arms, holding you tight to his chest as he leaned toward Bob over your shoulder. “If you have something to prove, that’s fine. I’m not letting her get hurt tonight.”

“I would never hurt her,” Bob whispered. He seemed to come back to himself all at once, noticing his own suit draped around his waist, then yours.

“I know we don’t always get along, Reynolds, but we set that shit aside here and now. She’s priority one tonight.” John said, using a tone of command he reserved for dire situations. The use of Bob’s last name seemed to reach him in a different way, like they were brothers in arms, maybe not friends but on the same side.

“Everything runs through you,” John continued, shifting you to stand at arm’s length. He winced. “Bad…bad choice of words, sorry. You get final say. On everything. We—” He glared across your shoulder at Bob. “—can’t let this spin out of control. We’re still a team.”

“Okay,” you said, softly, down toward John’s chest. You glanced up, nodding. “Okay. I say no and it all stops?”

Bob’s expression softened. He touched the back of your head, the gold fading from his eyes as he swallowed visibly. How the fuck would John make a god stop doing anything, he wondered, realizing their only hope was that Bob’s affection for you was strong enough to keep him in check. The Sentry with no inhibition, with the brakes off, scared the shit out of him.

You closed your eyes sleepily at Bob’s touch, then nuzzled forward into John’s neck, lips moving across his throat as you reached for the zipper on his chest. “And what if I don’t want to stop?”

Then we go until the wheels come off.

Bob had done a lot of crazy shit in his life, but this was right up there. He had never ingested an evil, experimental biological agent but there were times when he probably would have, if it meant a single night of numbed out bliss. But he was a different man now, in recovery, working on things, and Walker’s words of warning broke through the dark, thick haze that had hemmed him in on every side. Things could get seriously messed up if the three of you weren’t careful—he had seen significantly less complicated dynamics fracture just after a night of heavy drinking, and this was…this was…

“Can we at least do this in a bedroom?” John was asking, his huge hands wrapped around your wrists, stopping you from undressing him just feet from the front door of the safehouse.

Bob snapped back into himself, or as much as he could, the heavy, honeyed feeling sliding through his body making every non-sex related thought a chore. There were two bedrooms upstairs; the night before, you and Bob had each taken one and John used the hide-a-bed in the living room couch.

This was the first test. Bob could see John getting impatient for your answer, but he needed that answer. His chest was rising and falling like an overworked bellows, his throat bobbing around a cumbersome swallow as you looked at him and then Bob.

You nodded, unsteady on your feet.

“Words,” John grunted out.

“Take me upstairs.”

That was the gun firing at the starting line. John swept you into his arms, bridal carrying you out of the living room and to the narrow stairs, his boots thundering through the house. Bob stumbled after the two of you, noticing a weird, pink halo at the edge of his vision, a technicolor fog. His legs only cooperated when he began picturing what was waiting in that bedroom. Naked skin. Willing fingers. He groaned, shivering, pawing at the oversized S of his belt, unhooking it and letting it fall wherever. The hand railing creaked as he pushed his weight down onto it, pulling himself to the second level like it was a triumph of the spirit.

Time wasn’t making sense. He had no idea how long it took him to go from living room to bedroom, but it felt like hours, every minute without touch driving him a little crazier, making that fog creeping in denser, harder to push back. He paused at the top of the stairs, the sweat on his hands making the removal of his suit almost impossible. He had been on some serious drugs but this was something new. Just the feeling of his own hands sliding down his legs, peeling the suit away, pulling off his boots, made him want to fall to his knees and cry out.

He left behind a pile of clothing on the landing, ping-ponging against the hallway walls as he tried to remember the layout of the extremely tiny, manageable house. The dust wasn’t just settling in now it was taking hold, taking him by the throat and shaking. He slammed against the open doorway to the bedroom, hands curled into claws as he panted like an animal and watched the last of your super suit hit the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” Bob whispered, wiping the wet hair off his forehead and the sweat out of his eyes.

“Still with us, Bobby?” John asked. To his credit, he sounded genuinely concerned. His suit was gone, too, the towering V of his torso rising behind you as he held you lightly by the waist. The room was dark. That wasn’t good for Bob. He squeezed his eyes shut until two different lamps flickered on, bathing you both in wholesome, golden light. But what those lights illuminated was anything but wholesome—you, perfect and naked, head falling back against John’s shoulder as you reached for Bob, silently imploring him to join.

The amount of floor between the door and the bedside felt insurmountable. It was only the guarantee of skin to skin contact that got him there. Fuck, you were beautiful, held in the light, held by John, his scarred hands moving up your ribs to cup your breasts and pinch your nipples, pulling them toward Bob like you were an offering, an offering to a god.

That’s you, dingdong.

Bob raked his eyes up and down your body, taking in every delicious inch. He had pictured this many, many times, though admittedly never with John’s hands on your boobs. He hated it less than he expected. That was probably the dust talking, but the contrast between Walker’s huge, chiseled body and your softer curves made Bob’s head spin like a top. He dragged himself across the room, watching John’s calloused fingers tease your nipples into stiff, swollen peaks.

“This for me?” Bob asked, hands smoothing across your waist, head dipping to pull one of those buds between his lips. His tongue rolled out along with a groan; John hissed through his teeth at the contact, but he didn’t move his hand completely out of the way.

“Yes, for you,” you whispered, arching, fingers tangling in Bob’s hair, pressing him harder against your chest. He latched on, telling himself you had twelve whole hours of this to go, stuffing down the urge to disintegrate his own underwear and fuck you on the spot. No, he needed you to last.

John’s hands let go, scraping down your sides to your hips, one moved lower; Bob was only too willing to replace John’s hands with his own, squeezing and massaging you until your fingernails scraped across his scalp in response. He heard a soft, mouthwatering, wet sound as John started playing with your slit, dipping one finger inside, making it even clearer he had given up any pretense of trying to fight the dust.

Caught between them, your skin roared with heat, feverish to the touch.

“How does she taste?” John asked in a rasp.

“So sweet,” Bob murmured, eyes fluttering shut as he switched one from nipple to the other.

“Yeah?” John vented a wry laugh. “Bet I know something sweeter…”

His big hand slid into Bob’s hair alongside yours, jerking Bob’s head back and off of your tit until he released it with a reluctant moan. His disappointment didn’t last long; John slipped his fingers out of your body, offering a taste to Bob. If John was going to be a little bossy, Bob could put up with it if it was going to be like this.

“Words,” John prompted gruffly.

“Oh, hell yes,” Bob whispered, opening his mouth. Your eyes were wide and glistening, your lips parted in pleasurable wonder as John Walker painted your slick across Bob’s waiting tongue.

You watched Bob suck the shine off of John’s finger with a full body shudder. Holy shit. You had worried briefly about John’s ability to play nice and share, but whatever setting had clicked on in his head was exactly the right speed. Everything was moving forward, but not too fast, and even with the crazy-making dust screaming through your system, it quieted the panic in your chest to have John in control. The heat was building, but for now it was a controlled burn. You had no idea how he was managing, just gratitude that he was.

Bob slid down in front of you, knees thumping against the hard wood, hands clamping around your thighs as he pushed his chin between your legs. John met him there, fingers spreading, parting your folds, the combined pressure and presence of Bob’s mouth and John’s hand making you sizzle and buck.

“Oh my God,” you whispered, grabbing harder onto Bob’s hair. “No. No, no, no, too much, I can’t—”

“Actual no or good no?” John asked.

“Good no, so good.”

His breath warmed across your neck; those breaths came faster as you worked your hips against Bob’s face and back against the thick, heavy erection rubbing against your ass.

“Then you can,” John growled, biting the shell of your ear, tugging it. He laughed softly as you whined and twisted. “And you will.”

John held you open, Bob went to work, eating you like he was born to do it. You felt the atmosphere charge around the three of you—before it had been foreplay, but now the room filled with the wet sound of Bob dragging his face against you and you sighing at a higher pitch; his tongue speared up into you; there was no going back. Even if you wanted them to stop, you weren’t convinced you could dredge up the words.

Every part of you was too sensitive. It usually took much longer to get where you wanted to go, but now just the lightest graze of his nose across your clit pinched the world into a single, narrow slice. You could see the open door and Bob’s trail of clothing out in the hall, and if you glanced down, a pair of liquid fire eyes gazing up at you, half-lidded and dust-addled. He was watching you intently, keen on every new sound and every twist of your hips.

“Keep going,” you heard John mumble. His left hand slid from your hip, disappearing to tangle in his shorts, push them down, free the hard column of heat he had been pushing against your ass. You felt the thick, weeping tip dodge lower, nudging against your entrance. “I’m going to fuck you now, baby,” he whispered, gasping, probably to keep from tackling you to the ground in a blind heat. “And Bobby’s going to make you cum, isn’t he? He’s going to suck your little clit until you scream.”

Bob logged no complaints at that, hands gripping your thighs tighter as he licked a broad stripe up your slit to refocus on just your aching clit. He held you there while you shook, grabbing Bob’s head with one hand, the other reaching back to hook around John’s neck. He bent low to get the angle right, rearranging his hold on you until you could lean onto his forearm.

“You have to tell us,” John said, words a jumble as he pulsed against your entrance, his cock twitching in anticipation, jumpy, needy. “Have to say it.”

It was the dust. Had to be. You would never do this otherwise, never let one of your crushes eat you out while the other fucked you from behind. “Please, yes, please,” you whined, so wet you could feel yourself opening for John despite his brutish size. Maybe because of it. Fuck, he was gigantic, it was going to change everything, satisfy the burn, satisfy the dust, satisfy you. Then the pounding in your head would go away and the voice shrieking at you to screw everything in sight would be silenced.

“Please, please, god, fuck me, make me cum,” you moaned, half-swallowing the last word as John pressed forward, his teeth closing over your shoulder as he roared out the sound of a man in agony.

“She’s tight, Bobby, fuck, she’s tight,” John whispered, broken, hips stuttering as he worked you open. You could imagine the immense restraint required on his end to keep from ramming into you like a freight train because you were faced with the same brutal gambit—obey the insane demands of the dust and potentially hurt yourself or focus harder than you had ever focused in your life and wait.

John caught his breath, sweating against your shoulder, easing forward on another controlled thrust, claiming more ground. But even as you wanted to concentrate your entire being on the feeling of that glorious stretch, Bob wouldn’t let you forget he had been given orders. His thumb joined his mouth, circling your clit with firm strokes, tongue handling the more direct stimulation. Whoever had taught him to do that deserved a hundred million dollars.

Bob’s hungry little hum, the vibrations, undid what weak shame remained. You couldn’t hold on, and John was right—you couldn’t control what came out of your mouth. For a terrifying second you thought you were losing your vision entirely. The room bent inward, squeezing until you couldn’t breathe, and without air, without sight, there was warmth and pleasure, the shocks of stimulation and the pressure of John filling you up. You felt him slide deeper, hilting you, just as your orgasm shuddered from your navel to your throat.

The relief was incredible, but painfully short. You slammed back down to silence, both men watchful and still.

“Are…are you okay?” Bob asked, gazing up at you with wide, terrified eyes. “Did we kill her?”

“She’s breathing,” John said, his hand closed over your chest, over your heart.

“I…I…” You had gone completely boneless in John’s grasp, your toes dragging against the floor. You stirred upright with a shudder, clenching around John’s dick with a gasp. “Fuck, I’m good. So good. Don’t stop.”

With Bob sitting back on his haunches, chin slick and shiny, John took advantage, turning you to the right, toward the bed, hauling you onto it until you were on all fours. He did it so fast, so easily, you didn’t have time to overthink it or even react. John shoved his knees against the edge of the mattress behind you and fisted his hand in your hair, pulling just enough to send electricity across your scalp.

“God, you’re beautiful like this,” he rumbled, stealing your breath away with a dragging thrust in and out. “Can’t…can’t last, not when you look like this…”

The dust was hitting him as hard as it was hitting you. Your ass slapped against his thighs as he drove home once, twice, a sound of strangled surprise preempting what felt like a volcanic eruption, his fingers tightening in your hair as he burst against your depths. You didn’t expect it to feel like that, but then you’d never been fucked by someone juiced to the gills with serum. You cried out too, shocked by the sensation, he let go of your hair and your head dropped forward. It was so warm inside, so good; you squeezed around his half-limp dick, milking it, gifting yourself another little whined out orgasm.

John staggered back from the bed on heavy steps, shaking the house, leaving you sensitive and swollen but nowhere near satisfied. Your knees buckled; you rolled onto your side, eyes closing on heavy blinks as Bob gave John a good natured shove and climbed onto the bed beside you. He smiled at you, gentle, hand smoothing down your cheek, stroking away tears you hadn’t realized had slipped out.

“How’s my girl? Happy?” he asked, smile deepening at your frantic nod. You didn’t know how you could still want more, but Bob was so beautiful, shining with sweat, eyes deep and blue and sweet as he stroked his hand down your face to your shoulder, tracing the lines of your arm, transferring to your hip, over the curve of your ass before his fingers danced between your thighs. He rolled you onto your back carefully, shifting closer. At some point he had taken off his shorts. His dick was hard and throbbing, curved against his stomach, pulsing faintly with his heartbeat.

You heard John sink onto a chair somewhere behind Bob with a fwoomp and a groan. Bob didn’t notice, his eyes following your line of sight. He looked down at himself, fisted his cock, gave a few lazy pumps while you watched. He read the hunger in your gaze, fingers pushing between your thighs and dipping into your cunt, fingering you with the same unhurried pace of his jerking off. 

“Is this okay?” he asked, shivering as he stroked himself faster, still watching you closely.

“Mmhm.”

“Words,” John grunted from across the room.

“Don’t stop touching me there,” you told them both, opening your thighs to give him better access. “I want it. I want you.”

Bob nodded, licking his lips, trying to gather his next thought into something coherent. “John got you all messy,” he said, fingers sliding deeper, fucking John’s cum back into you. “Are you our messy girl tonight?”

You closed your eyes, circling your hips and humping against his hand. “Yes.”

“You’re going to get a lot messier,” Bob murmured, but he sounded pleased about it. Excited. Curious. “Want to taste me? I’m kinda messy, too.”

His cheeks darkened, deep pink as he showed you how much precum was bubbling out of his tip. You whimpered, pulling yourself closer to him by his knee, flopping up partially onto his lap, resting your head on his thigh. Bob didn’t pull his fingers out of you, just shifted you around so he had a better vantage. With his free hand, he drove his thumb into your mouth, opening it, then urged his cock toward your widened lips, feeding himself to you.

Just the smell of him made your body flutter, made it feel like you could cum again. His salt musk taste pooled on your tongue while you licked him like a sweet. He groaned, abs clenched, stomach tensing while he let you take him in at your own pace. And your pace was eager but fascinated, tongue mapping the ridges and veins, the delicious length. You craned up suddenly, licking a smeared wet spot off of his stomach.

Bob laughed at that, cupping your cheek, just holding you, not pressuring you to go back to what you were doing. He knew you would; the crazed heat that burned in him still flamed high in your chest, in your abdomen. He inhaled through his teeth as you closed your lips around his tip, gliding over him, hollowing your cheeks and sucking experimentally, tongue rolling back and forth, teasing him.

“Shit,” he whispered, caving in slightly, shoulders slumping forward as he fought something off. “This is…I could fire off right now…shit.”

John huffed out a knowing laugh.

“Not yet, not yet,” Bob cautioned, shaking as he gently pried your jaw open, easing out of your mouth with a sigh. He pulled his fingers out of your puss and almost wiped his hand on the coverlet, then thought better of it and offered his hand to you. His eyes gleamed as you wrapped your lips around his fore and middle fingers and cleaned off your own arousal and what John had left behind.

“God, fuck yes,” he murmured, pulling his lip between his teeth. “Taste good?”

“Mmhm.”

“Want more?” he asked, scraping his fingers along your lower teeth as he shifted to reposition you on the bed, draping you across the mattress the short way, ass toward him and the wall, head dangling toward the rest of the room.

“Yes,” you said, knowing John would bark at you if you didn’t vocalize the answer. “More. I’m not…I can’t…”

“I know,” Bob said, voice full of sympathy. “It’s eating you alive.”

You whimpered, nodded, heat rocketing down toward your core as Bob settled on his knees between your legs, teasing his cock head up and down your sex. His gaze flicked from your heaving tits to the chair across the room, where John was seated beneath the glow of a golden and green stained-glass lamp.

“Look at that,” Bob whispered. “You’ve got Walker all worked up again.”

Upside down, you took in the harrowing vision of John Walker fisting his dick from base to tip, using a bruising grip as if punishing himself for liking what was happening on the bed. His face was red, his hair slick with sweat, eyes blue flames as he nodded and groaned with you as Bob dipped lower and fucked into you.

His path was smoother than John’s, your body so relaxed and ready for him, lubricated with your seemingly endless hunger and John’s cream. That didn’t lessen the pleasure, in fact, you couldn’t keep your eyes open or your mouth shut as Bob took his time on each devastating pump, fists pushed into the mattress on either side of your waist. What he lacked in sheer girth he made up for in length. And you felt it, scratching your fingernails across the blankets, meeting his thrusts with desperate shakes of your hips.

“More. Please more. Fuck me,” you urged him, a stranger to your own voice. Something deep inside you still longed to be dealt with, fed. If anything, your grip on sense and reality was only loosening. You didn’t know if this was the apex of the drug; you trembled to consider there was worse to withstand and what you would do to survive it.

“You heard her.” John’s voice was closer now, much closer. He had crossed the distance from the chair to the bed. Even before you opened your eyes, you knew he was close—you could smell yourself on him, and the heady scent of your mingled sex clinging to his skin. When you did open your eyes, you were greeted with the underside of John’s hard dick. His head tilted to the side in playful inquiry as he took up one of your hands and brushed your knuckles across the heated flesh.

“More,” you said, both to him and to Bob. Your hand closed around him, John’s fist still closed tightly around the base as he fucked against your palm.

“Give it to her, Bobby,” he said through clenched teeth. “She wants it. Give her—fuck—give her whatever she wants.”

“More, yeah, sounds good,” Bob repeated, prompting himself. He leaned down, taking your legs and bending them back until your knees almost touched your tits. You cried out, struggling to catch your breath as he opened you up and found that much more of you to pound. “How’s that? Is that the spot?” he asked, eager, giving you a taste of the angle. Your eyes rolled back, hand numb around John’s dick as Bob lowered his weight onto your thighs; your hamstrings burned as he leaned down to kiss you, folding you into the mating press.

“I’m gonna die,” you whispered, laughing.

“Relax, baby, he’s going to make you feel good,” John said, smoothing the hair back from your face. Something about his encouragement made you shiver and loosen, another wave of honeyed pleasure rolling up from where your body met Bob’s. John gazed down at you so lovingly, eyes watery as if he had never been this proud of anyone in his life. “He’s gonna fill you up again, is that what you want? Is that what you need?” John’s pale eyes flickered as he glanced down your sweaty torso to Bob. “It’s what he needs. It’s what we both need, to fill you up until you can’t take anymore, until you tell us to stop.”

“Don’t stop, John,” you said, so fast it made them both chuckle.

“No, baby, nobody’s stopping,” John assured you. Bob started dragging himself in and out, groaning like he was in pain. “Bob’s not going to last very long in that tight pussy.”

“N-No,” Bob muttered, shaking the wet strands of his hair as he almost collapsed on his next thrust. He kept going somehow, brushing an absent kiss across your lips, eyes screwed shut as he picked up speed. “Shit, John, she’s soaking.”

As if to prove him right, his next thrust came with a filthy squelch. You arched, your own slick and John’s dripping down between your cheeks, pooling on the bed.

“Jesus Christ, did you hear that?” John worked himself against your hand faster, moving his fist up to tighten around your fingers and make a combined sleeve for him to fuck. You could feel him swelling, getting close…

“Wet, tight, fuck,” Bob whimpered, lost, somewhere else entirely as he rocked into you. He dropped his hips lower, angling his dick to scrape a spot you could feel in your teeth.       

“Oh god, Bob, oh god, oh god—” You blurted out words to the rhythm of his thrusts, sawed back and forth by the snap in his hips. John ran his thumb along the seam of your lips.

“Can you open up for me, baby? Wanna cum, wanna cum right now…”

You groaned, doing as he asked, drunk and dazed and fucked as Bob seized up, still for an instant before pounding into you on three quick strokes. Thick, salted heat poured down your throat from John as Bob finished, his face pressed against your throat as it worked to swallow John’s release. You felt Bob’s as the head rush ebbed, as you sputtered and coughed, John holding your head up and steady while Bob’s dick jerked against your depths. It was too much heat. It was just the right amount. It was on you and inside you and incinerating you from the inside out.

The come down nearly plunged you into a blackout. You couldn’t remember how all three of you wound up in the bed together, one bedraggled sheet slung over your bodies, Bob curled around your back, spooning you, the furred wall of John’s chest against your cheek. You could feel Bob’s erection pulsing against your lower back, his fingers toying idly with your nipples, his lips worrying along the ridge of your shoulder.

“Just relax, that’s it,” John was saying. You didn’t know what had come before that. Had you fallen asleep? It could be midnight or dawn, you had no idea. The burn in your chest was a simmer, but not completely gone. John reached down, feeling between your legs; you shivered, rubbing your face back and forth against his chest. “Are you done?” he asked, almost shy.

You tossed your head.

“Are you sure?”

“Come on, man, don't be an asshole, just give it to her,” Bob said, half impatient, half annoyed. “She likes it, she’s our messy girl. Aren’t you?” His tone changed, light and loving when he nuzzled into your neck, rutting slowly against your back. “If he won’t help you I will. I can go again. I can go again right now—”

John’s hand closed over the back of your head possessively, his long fingers still exploring you, as if searching for some physical sign it was time to call it quits.

“She gets to decide,” John said, firm. “Not you.”

You wiggled closer to John, hooking your thigh around his, inviting him in.

It just felt good when he slid into you, his erection as hard as the first time, far more controlled now, easy, like you were two lovers alone, tangled up in bed before going to sleep. He kissed you deeply, holding on like you could slip away. Time warped around you again, you remembered that kiss, not tipped with drugged fire but romantic, full of longing. And Bob’s steady heat against your back, his kisses along your shoulder tickling as his evening stubble scratched your skin. John held your waist while you ground against his pubic bone, shuddering and blissful and full.

When you opened your eyes again, John was holding your back to his chest, the steel bands of his arms anchored around your waist. Bob was crawling down the mattress, kissing his way down your body, detouring to suck and bite your nipples for so long John grumbled something at him.

“It’s all coming out, can’t have that,” Bob was saying, three fingers pushing into you like it was nothing. “Gotta keep us inside, can you do that?”

You wanted it, you supposed, anything to keep the pleasure coasting through your body. Anything to satisfy the demon, even if it was getting quieter, going to sleep. You came back to yourself minutes later, Bob fucking you against John’s chest. It felt like you were going to break, but it was too much in all the right ways. Every thrust sent you closer to yourself. Your arms fell back, looped loosely around John’s neck.

“One more time,” John murmured, nose against your temple as Bob shuddered and bucked. “Let us take you there one more time, baby. Have you ever been fucked like this? Have you ever felt this good?”

You shook your head, whispering nonsense.

You remembered a light clicking on, brighter. Someone carrying you. The cold bite of tiles on your bare feet. Soap that smelled like rosewater. Two hard bodies holding you up in the shower, gentle hands touching you everywhere, washing, caring. The towel was like a cloud. The bed was different, smaller, but you didn’t ask about it or complain.

Morning crackled behind your eyes like a seam of sunlight on the horizon.

You breathed into consciousness with a gasp, warm as bread in a toaster. You groaned; it felt like you had gone ten rounds with a grizzly bear. There was a persistent, intense ache between your legs. Someone had put your panties back on, but you could tell the crotch was wet. Fear lanced through you like a cold spike as you realized this wasn’t your bedroom back in the Watchtower.

What was the last thing you remembered? John and Bob fighting, bickering on the job. A white house with a black roof. France. Right. You tried to move, finding it very difficult indeed with two bodies pressed tight against you on either side.

What. The. Fuck.

Your bleary eyes traveled up a column of skin dusted with freckles, landing on a russet beard and the calm, angelic face of John Walker fast asleep. His arm was slung across your waist. It felt like a barbell pressing you into the mattress. Judging by the way your nipples were pillowed against wiry hair, he wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing.

“No, I’ll do it tomorrow,” someone slurred behind you.

Bob.

You carefully turned your head like a turret on a wheel, catching sight of Bob’s golden brown hair mussed against your shoulder. His nose was buried between your shoulder blades, his arm nestled just under John’s. They were naked. They were naked and they were touching.

The hyperventilating had just begun when John’s eyes blinked open.

“Whoa. Whoa. Look at me. Breathe.” He lifted his hand from your waist, cupping your jaw firmly until you did as he instructed. Worry tugged his brow down as he inspected you. “Do you remember last night?”

“N-No. John. John. What the fuck is going on?” you asked, trying not to scream. This was insane. A disaster. You were in bed with both of your crushes, with absolutely no memory of how things had progressed this far.

“When we were in the warehouse, when you chased down that guy, do you remember the cannister in his pocket?” John asked.

The specificity of the question lowered your panic. “I…Yes. Yeah. Something exploded. There was gas everywhere, it smelled like shit.”

“It was a chemical agent,” he explained, slow and clear. His thumb stroked gently across your cheekbone. “We all inhaled it. There’s really no professional or easy way to say this, but it made us all want to…” He closed his mouth, opened it, closed it, tried again. “We had a lot of sex. A lot.”

Memories started to percolate. Bob mumbled in his sleep, restless and shifting against you. His morning wood poked against your back. You closed your eyes and told yourself to breathe exactly sixteen times before saying anything else.

You remembered Bob’s suit piled in the hallway. The tremor in the usually unflappable John Walker’s hands as he helped you undress. Your own voice begging for more, more, more.

“Oh my fucking God,” you whispered.

“Yeah. Yep.”

“John, this is a catastrophe,” you added. Your eyes filled with tears as you forced yours to meet his. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t…I don’t know…”

“Sh-hh, hey, don’t apologize,” he said, voice just as careful and low. What was with him? Why did he care or not whether Bob Reynolds of all people had his peace disturbed? Bob was drooling down your back in his sleep. You were going to puke.

“No, you don’t get it,” you hurried on, scalding tears blistering down your cheeks. John hurried to wipe them away. “I…like both of you. Fuck. Like is such a stupid word. I mean I respect both of you, too, although I’m sure that’s fucked now…”

John suppressed a rumbled laugh. “Nothing is fucked.”

You stared at him. “How? You must think I’m some crazed slut…” You got up the courage to slip your hand down between your legs. The evidence was actually confounding. How was that possible? “Jesus Christ, John, how much sex did we have exactly?”

“A lot,” he said, cryptic, clearing his throat. His blue eyes searched every inch of your face. “Do…do you want the details? You’re owed them, obviously, I just--”

“How do you remember it all? My memory is gone…”

“The serum, I would guess,” he said. “Which, uh, means Bobby over there will also probably remember.”

“Oh my God.” You couldn’t breathe. You actually couldn’t breathe. “Yes. Details. Now. Tell me.”

John sighed, gathering himself. “You and me, um…” He turned a shade of red you weren’t sure until that moment was biologically plausible. “Four times, although once was—fuck, okay this is harder than I thought—”

“Once was what.”

“Once was in your mouth,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut.

“You and I had sex three times?” Your heart sank for reasons that were perhaps more embarrassing than the effects of the sex gas. Now you would never remember your first time with him. Them. More tears slipped down your face. John, as ever, was ready to catch them. “I don’t remember. I don’t…I can’t…”

“Hey, hey, hey.” John surged against you, pressing his forehead to yours. “Breathe. You have to breathe. You have to breathe and you have to believe me when I say that this doesn’t change anything between us, I’m still—” He caught himself, biting off the end of that confession.

“You’re still what?” you asked, hands curling against his chest.

“I’m still crazy about you,” he said. “Crazier, maybe.”

“Yeah, last night certainly sounds like it was fucking crazy.”

John laughed, and you thumped your fist on his chest. “I’m not going to speak for Bob, but I bet he’s going to say the same thing.” His eyes fluttered over your shoulder to where Bob was still peacefully drooling on your back. “We’re both crazy about you. I thought I was going to tear him in half when he touched you, but…I don’t know. I don’t know anything yet, I just know I’m not going to forget the way you said my name. And if you tell me to fuck off and die, I will, but I’m…here. Here and not going anywhere.”

It didn’t fix everything, but at least you could breathe again.

“Are there pancakes?” Bob asked in his sleep, flopping away from you and into the wall so hard he hit his head with a wheezed: “Ow.”

John looked at the ceiling for help, sighing. “Guess you can ask him yourself. Good morning, Bob,” he said, exasperated.

“Whoa. Hey. Morning?” Bob rolled back toward you both, his face appearing next to yours as he propped it on your right shoulder. “Is this, uh, the debrief? Does she—”

“She doesn’t remember much,” John said, and you were grateful for the assist. “I was just telling her how much we are not judging her for what occurred here.”

Bob snorted, ruffling your hair, his strong hands smoothing down your side to curve over your hip. “You were incredible.”

You raised your eyebrows at John, who raised his right back.

“Say: I told you so,” you muttered. “I dare you.”

“How’s our messy girl this morning? Sore? Tired? Fuck, you’re so beautiful…” Bob kissed your neck, hand sliding down your hip to your stomach, lower, playing in the absolute filth they had left inside you the night before. Judging by how otherwise pleasant you all smelled, they had tried to clean you up and done a very half-assed job of it. “God, you’re wet again, or is that us? Both, maybe? Shit, my dick has been poking you all morning, hasn’t it?”

“Bobby.” John’s voice sliced through the horny stream of conscious monologue Bob had decided to unleash first thing in the morning. “She’s still…figuring this out. Give her a break for God’s sake.”

“S-Sorry.” Bob’s hand stilled, his jaw tense against your neck.

But the fucked up part was, you didn’t want him to stop. Your mind raced, your traitorous fucking nipples hardening against John’s chest, your stomach unwinding, pooling toward the sensation of Bob’s hand cupping your sex.

“No, it’s okay,” you stammered out, licking your lips nervously.

John studied you, brows still at his hairline. “Baby—”

“Baby?” You snort-laughed, sizing him up. “Is that what you like calling me?”

His next blink was drowsy, his lips parting. “Next best thing after mine.”

“Ours,” Bob suggested, hand flexing around your pussy. When you twitched your thighs apart, his fingers slid right in. He groaned. “You’re ours.”

John leaned down to kiss your forehead, hands closing over yours where they rested on his chest. Bob went to work, John held you tight. “Everything runs through you,” he whispered. “Just say the word and it all stops.”

Your voice was your own voice as you arched against him, against Bob’s sweet touch, murmuring, “Don’t stop.”

"I know it's not really your guys' thing," Eddie said. "Which is why I didn't wanna pressure you. And I know we're taking it slow, so…"

"I don't think you need to take introducing us to your metalheads that slow, Munson," Steve said. "We can handle it."

"Steve should wear your vest," you suggested, wiggling your brows. 

"Me? No, no, you'd wear it way better than me," insisted Steve. 

"How 'bout," Eddie said, shrugging off said vest. "The prince takes the vest and the fair maiden gets my bandana. As a token of gratitude."

Your heart fluttered as Eddie gently wrapped the fabric around your forehead. You helped him tie it in the back, his fingers brushing yours. The bandana was soft and smelled like his cologne, patterned with multicolored skulls. 

"Sure we're metal enough for you and your crew?" you asked, trying to push down the butterflies in your belly. 

Eddie grinned. "Without a doubt. Better than Ozzy."

"I think Steve should throw it back to eighty-six and show off the sternum bush," you said, playfully poking his chest. "That bare chest was the highlight of my year, Harrington."

"Yeah, yeah," Steve said, lightly swatting your hand. "Take a picture."

"Oh no, I wouldn't wanna make anybody jealous."

"Jealous? Never!" Steve said dramatically. "Eddie knows my adoring fans mean nothing to me!" 

"Imagine my relief," Eddie said, draping an arm over you, then Steve. "Can't have anybody looking at my guy. Or my girl."

You squirmed under his arm, sliding out of his grip as smoothly as possible. 

"Um, yeah. Well, I don't think you'll have to worry. You steal the show every time, Eds."

"Sweetheart, you've gotta wait till I actually start playing before you gas me up," Eddie said, grinning. 

You shoved his arm, attempting vainly to mask your nerves. 

"No gas! It’ll be great."

You left Eddie’s room, heading out the front door. Steve followed you down the steps.

“Show starts at eight!” Eddie called after you. 

“We’ll be there, superstar,” you said, giving a thumbs up. “Dress pretty—Steve’s not easily impressed.”

“Hilarious,” Steve said. “Maybe you can follow his act with some of those jokes.”

You stuck out your tongue and got into the passenger side of his Beemer. 

“Isn’t Eddie giving you a ride?” he asked, getting into the driver’s seat.

“Why would Eddie give me a ride? Doesn’t he have a rehearsal?”

Steve shrugged. “How would I know? He’d tell you before me.”

“What? No way. You’d be the first to know. You’re the one who brought up Corroded Coffin.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’ve never been to a show,” Steve said, pulling out of the trailer park.

“You haven’t?”

“No. When would I have gone?”

“I mean… anytime, really." You frowned. “I thought Eddie would’ve invited you by now.”

Steve gave you an incredulous look. “Me?”

“Yes?” You scoffed. “Why are you acting so weird?”

“Why are you?” Steve shot back. 

“I’m not…”

He remained quiet, so you dropped the subject. You rested your head against the seat and watched Steve from the corner of your eye. Eddie was lucky. Nancy had been too. You’d always thought so.

The metal infinity ring was on Steve’s right middle finger. You were there when Eddie gave it to him. Eddie had given you a ring too, days before that. For a moment, you’d hoped and wondered. Wondered if maybe Eddie felt the same as you did. 

You wore yours on a thin chain around your neck. That was how pathetic you were—if it was a ring from Eddie Munson, you’d wear it close to your heart, even when it was painfully obvious yours meant something different from Steve’s. 

“Wanna stop by BK before I drop you?” Steve asked.

You smiled softly. “Sure. Thanks, Steve.”

He nodded, mirroring your smile. His veins were stark lines against his skin. You stared unabashedly at how his hands curled around the steering wheel. How could anybody blame Eddie? You’d give Steve pretty rings too. 

Steve ordered your regular at the Burger King drive-though. You reclined in the seat.

“Should’ve brought Eddie something,” you said, eyes closed.

“He likes BK?”

“His stomach is a bottomless pit. He’ll literally eat anything.”

“Anything, huh?”

“Gross, Steve!” You thwack his arm. “Don’t be a perv.”

He cackled as he pulled up to the next drive-through window. The girl at the window took the money, then leaned in while waiting for the food. 

“Hi,” she said, fluttering her lashes.

“Hey,” Steve said. “How are you?”

“Good. Want extra sauce?”

“I do!” you interrupted, sticking your head next to Steve’s.

She shot you a dirty look. You wiggled your fingers in a wave, practically in Steve's lap.

“Can I get extra sauce? Or does he only get extra sauce?”

Her face twisted into a mix of jealousy and disgust. She shoved the bag through the window, then slammed the screen closed. You burst into giggles as Steve drove off.

“Was that really necessary?” he asked, passing you the food.

“What? Not like you’re interested. She’s not your type.”

“I—my type?”

“Yeah?” 

You shoveled a few fries in your mouth. 

“And what exactly is my type, Y/N?”

“Not her." Not me, either.

“That’s specific.”

“I know," you said. "My mysterious feminine wiles are irresistible.”

“Ah, yes. What drew Eddie to you in the first place,” Steve said, nodding sarcastically.

He didn’t mean anything by it. That didn’t stop the ache. 

“Yeah,” you mumbled, shoving more fries into your mouth. “Right.”

"So I'll see you tomorrow?" he asked, slowing down in front of your house.

"See you then," you confirmed, closing the door.

"Wear something nice for Munson."

"You first!"

You watched him drive off, dejectedly chomping down on a chicken strip. Oh God. What were you doing?

The club was loud. You’d tried to dress a little closer to the demographic but you weren’t sure you’d accomplished such a thing. Still, it was better than Steve, who looked like he’d just gotten a callback for Grease.

“Steve, what the hell are you wearing?”

“This is cool!”

“Tell me about it, stud.”

“You wore overalls to a metal concert and you wanna make fun of me?” 

“I look cute,” you said, sticking your nose up. “And there’s no denying you do too, Steve, but jeez. What happened to wearing Eddie’s vest?”

“It’s under the jacket,” he said, unzipping the black leather jacket. “Did you just call me cute?”

“Don’t let it go to your head, T-Bird.”

He huffed. “How many Grease references are you gonna make?”

“How long is the performance?”

“I’m telling Eddie on you,” Steve said as you found your seats.

“Ooh, I’m really sca—”

A pair of hardcore fans knocked into you. You stumbled, nearly falling over a chair. But Steve was quick to catch you by your arm.

“Whoa, you okay? Assholes!” he yelled after them, holding your waist.

“It’s fine,” you said, hyperaware of Steve’s hands on you. “People are just excited. C’mon, let’s get close to the stage.”

The warmth from Steve’s hands slipped away. You felt dirty for missing it. 

The emcee made a brief introduction and got a few claps. You and Steve both cheered when he announced Corroded Coffin. 

“Go, Eds!” you whooped, clapping obnoxiously. “C’mon, Steve, show a little enthusiasm. That’s your guy up there.”

Steve sighed, rolling his eyes. Then he stuck his pinkies into his mouth, whistling loudly. You squealed in laughter, nudging his side. Steve grinned back, accepting your head on his shoulder.

“Whoa! Hidden talent, Harrington! That from your jock days?”

“Yes, actually. The pool gets loud and I had to get my team’s attention somehow.”

“Coach Steve, huh? No wonder you’re so bossy with the kids.”

“I’m bossy so none of those jerkwads get eaten by faceless monsters. There’s a difference.”

“Yes, dear,” you said seriously, patting his hand. “And you parent them so well.”

“You know what—”

“Shush! Show’s starting!”

The lights dimmed. Eddie came out first, then the rest of the band. He stepped up to the mic.

“How’s everybody doing tonight?”

“Wooo!” you cheered in reply.

“Let’s go, Eddie!” added Steve.

Eddie found you immediately, grinning widely. 

“Glad you guys are excited,” he continued, eyes never leaving you and Steve. “I see some pretty faces in the crowd. Hope you enjoy.”

The set was energetic, bass vibrating through your body. You and Steve took your cues from the sparse audience, headbanging and air-guitaring through the whole show. He took off the jacket after the first song, leaving him in Eddie’s vest and a white tank. You tried not to stare.

The most important thing was that Eddie had fun. Regardless of your feelings, you and Steve were there to be supportive. Steve and Eddie had never changed how they treated you. There was no reason you couldn’t act the same.

Your chain jumped when you did, ring hitting your chest. When you strayed too far from your seat towards the end of the set, Steve took your hand, steering you back so you wouldn’t get lost amongst the drunks. He didn’t let go until the music finished.

“Thank you! We are Corroded Coffin, good night!”

The band disappeared backstage. You and Steve were the first ones to the stage entrance, which was really just a ragged, faux velvet curtain. Gareth and Jeff chatted among themselves. A few girls had also come in—mostly to fawn over Eddie. 

“Hiiii, Eddie!” said one, a little tipsy. “You played a great show!”

“Thanks, ladies,” Eddie said politely, easily slipping through the gaggle of girls. 

He made a beeline for you and Steve, guitar still strapped across his back. He pulled you both into a sweaty hug, still on a performance high. Eddie’s freshly shaven cheek slid against yours. Your heart did a swan dive to your shoes.

“You guys made it!” 

“Of course we did,” you said. “We wouldn’t miss your show for anything. Steve’s dedicated.”

“So I see." Eddie grinned, giving Steve a onceover. “Looking good, Greased Lightning.”

“That’s it. I’m never wearing leather again,” Steve said, tucking his jacket under his arm. His mouth was pulled into a pout. You hid a laugh.

“No no, it’s hot! Swear it. Tell ‘im, Y/N.”

You rolled your eyes. “His head’s already big enough, Eds.”

“See how mean she is to me?” Steve whined. 

“Poor baby,” Eddie cooed, patting Steve’s neck. “What were we thinking, pledging our love to her?”

You turned your head, throat tightening. Neither one seemed to notice.

“You could make it up to me,” said Steve. “I accept pizza.”

“Pizza it is,” Eddie said, taking off his guitar. “Lemme just pack up my stuff and we’ll head back to the shire. Just us, promise. Sound good?”

Eddie goaded Steve ahead, arm around his back. You hung behind them, that pang in your chest returning. 

“Hey,” Eddie said, turning. “Where’d you go? C’mere.”

“Huh?” 

“You’re all the way back there. Here.”

They slowed for a beat so you caught up. Then Eddie tugged you to his other side, arm hanging over your shoulders. You couldn’t even fight him. Eddie was always tactile and once you became friends, all sense of personal space was thrown out the window. It felt good, even if it was temporary. 

You rode back in the van. It was rowdy but Eddie thankfully dropped off the rest of his band early in the drive. 

“So which pizzeria? Fredo’s or Mikey’s?”

“Fredo’s!” you said.

“Mikey’s!” Steve voted.

You gasped in horror. “Mikey’s? They give you approximately three drops of sauce. It’s like eating cardboard with cheese.”

“Mikey’s way better than Fredo’s. Mikey’s doesn’t have sixteen health violations, for one.”

“Everyone knows that was a story the paper cooked up because Fredo wouldn’t sell to Kline,” you said. “Open your eyes, Steven.”

“Fine, we’ll have Eddie decide.”

You both turned expectantly to Eddie, who glanced at you in the rearview mirror. 

“Oh. Uh, well, I really don’t have a preference…”

“No, no. You’ve gotta choose, Eds,” you said. “Steve has apparently decided to go insane.”

“Me? You’re eating rat droppings, Y/N.”

“You are such a freakazoid, Steve, what the hell—”

“Guys! Okay, okay, how ‘bout this: Y/N chooses the pizza and Steve, you can choose what movie we watch. Deal?” 

You tilted your head at Steve. He crossed his arms.

“Fine. But I know you’re biased, Munson.”

“Am not! I’m totally impartial.”

“If he was biased, he’d side with you,” you said.

“Uh, no, he’d totally side with you,” Steve said, scoffing. “But, y’know, I guess if I were in his shoes I’d side with you too.”

Before you could ask what that meant, Steve was sliding open the door to the van and climbing out. After a minute, you did the same, taking Eddie’s proffered hand. 

“Hey. You know he’s not really mad, right?” he murmured, squeezing your hand.

“I know. I wasn’t worried. Were you?”

“No, no. Just don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

You smiled confusedly. “Um, okay. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t, like, get in between you two or anything.” 

Eddie looked appalled by that. “I know you wouldn’t, baby. I love you both, you know that.”

“I—” You swallowed, overwhelmed. “Oh. I l-love you too, Eds.”

Eddie beamed and kissed your knuckles. You felt your face grow hot. 

“I’m going inside,” you rushed out, scurrying up the steps. 

You slammed the door shut behind you, letting out a slow breath. What was that?! Were you tripping or had Eddie been flirting with you?

“Hey—”

“Ahh!”

You jumped, startled. Steve froze, brows to his hairline. 

“Uh,” he began. “You good?”

“Yeah, s-sorry. I’m fine. What’s up?”

“I was gonna order the pizza, what toppings did you—”

“I’ll do it!” you said, snatching the phone and shooing him out of the kitchen. “Go pick a movie. I’ll order.”

“No mushrooms,” Steve reminded as you herded him out. “And Eddie is allergic to—”

“Olives, yeah, I know, Steve. This isn’t the first time we’ve had pizza together.”

“Dunno why you’re so snappy when we have to eat sewer pizza,” he mumbled. 

You ignored him, returning to the phone. Wayne had most of the takeout numbers posted near the phone, so it was easy to dial. 

“Hello, pickup or delivery?”

“Hi, delivery. Can I get two large pies. One with pepperoni and…”

“Get some mozzarella sticks too,” Eddie said, walking into the kitchen. “My treat.”

“It’s actually my treat,” came Steve’s voice from the living room.

You rolled your eyes. “And one order of mozzarella sticks. On the other pie can we get peppers and white sauce?” You gave the address. 

“Twenty minutes,” said the delivery person.

“Okay, thanks,” you replied. “Twenty minutes, guys!”

“‘Kay, I’m gonna shower, baby. Don’t let Steve put on a crappy movie.”

Then, gentle as he could be, Eddie lightly took your chin in hand and kissed the corner of your mouth. 

You freaked. 

“Hey!” you shouted, slamming the phone back on the receiver. “Hey, what the fuck was that?!”

Eddie’s eyes were wide. “What was what?”

“You kissed me! What the hell, Eddie? Steve is ten feet away from us!”

“I know…” he said weakly. “What does that have to do—”

“You know?” you screeched. “You know? What the fuck does that mean? Oh, fuck this. Steve, come ‘ere!”

You pointed an accusatory finger at Eddie. 

Steve groaned, rising from the VCR. “Jesus, what’s with all the yelling, Y/N? Did you get into Eddie’s stash?”

“He kissed me.”

“Okay,” Steve said slowly. “Was it a bad kiss or something?”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary to ask,” Eddie said.

“Steve!” You frowned, waving your hands. “Why are you not upset about this?”

“Well, because I figured you guys would’ve kissed a lot by now? You’re together after all.”

“What? Eddie and I aren’t together! That doesn’t even make sense. You’re his boyfriend.”

“Me?” Steve balked. “I—what?”

“Yeah-huh, you guys have been dating since Eddie gave you that ring.”

Steve’s mouth fell open. “We have not.”

“Have too!”

“You guys have been dating since Eddie came back from the Upside Down,” Steve said. “Remember, you had that heartfelt reunion, you cried in his arms, et cetera.”

“You two are so in love with each other it’s not funny,” you argued, stomping your foot. “You’re always flirting and cracking jokes and talking about how handsome you are.”

“Well, yeah, but I flirt with you too!” Steve cried. 

That stopped you in your tracks. 

“You… what?”

“Wow, okay,” Eddie interrupted, rubbing his face. “Okay, alright. Wow. Uh, so here’s the thing. I actually thought we’ve all been dating for about a month now, but, turns out I’m an even bigger dumbass than I thought.”

Steve looked like you’d just asked him to do calculus. You weren’t faring much better.

“Now, that can’t be right,” said Steve.

Eddie’s hands fluttered. “I gave you guys rings! And I said how I, y’know, really cared about you both.”

“Right, you said you cared about Y/N as more than a friend and that if I was okay with it, you wanted us to spend more time together and get to know each other… oh.”

Steve glanced at you, grimacing.

“Whoops,” you said. 

“Big whoops."

Eddie sighed, twisting his rings round and round. “It’s cool. I guess I should’ve said something earlier, made it clear. I understand if you two don’t wanna do that. It was… hasty to assume that from you, especially both—”

“Eds, Eddie,” you cut him off. “Honey, I’m like, really in love with both of you. I was losing my mind with jealousy every time we hung out.”

He brightened. “Really?”

You laugh. “Okay, you don’t have to sound so excited."

“Sorry,” Eddie said, having the decency to look chastened. “Sorry, sweetheart, I’m just—God, you don’t know how happy that makes me. That is—I mean, Steve?”

“I—” Steve looked shellshocked. “You like me? Both of you?”

“A little more like love, actually,” Eddie said. 

“Yes, Steve, it would seem that in spite of you dressing like one of The Outsiders, we are both head over heels for you.” 

“Well, I’m in love with you too, Y/N. Even after you’ve helped Pa bring in the harvest.”

“Oh, now you’re gonna get it, Harrington. Confessing your love won’t stop me and my overalls from waging war!”

You sprung forward, fully intending to tackle Steve. However, you sorely underestimated his jock phase and ended up landing on the ground instead, Steve hovering over you.

“Get her!” he ordered and then there were two pairs of hands tickling you.

“That’s not f-fair, it’s two against o-one!” you squealed between peals of laughter. “You were supposed to be my a-ally, Eds!”

Eddie relented after a moment, collapsing on the floor and pulling you to the side. He locked you in a deep kiss: a proper one. You slung an arm around his neck, playing with some of his curls. Kissing him was better than you could’ve imagined. Eddie surrounded you, holding your face.

Steve had taken mercy as well, fitted into your other side. And as soon as Eddie let go of you, he swooped in. Steve kissed differently from Eddie, preferring to hold onto your hip instead, thumb drawing circles. He gasped into your mouth, teeth just barely catching your lip. You made a soft noise as he pulled away, drunk on both of them.

Finally, Eddie surged up to meet Steve in a kiss. They were a little rougher with each other, wrestling around as they hummed into each other. But eventually, they settled with Eddie on his back next to you. You watched happily, curling up next to him. Steve let go after a couple seconds, rolling onto Eddie’s other side. 

“You know, you wanna talk about health code violations... This carpet would not pass any sort of inspection if its life depended on it.”

You cackled as Steve whined, scrambling onto the couch.

“Oh, come on! That’s disgusting, man.”

“Kidding!” Eddie laughed. “I’m kidding, promise. C’mon, come down. You still have to choose a movie.”

“Yeah, and it has to be a good one ‘cause this is our first movie as a throuple,” you added.

“Great, thanks. No pressure.”

“No, full pressure,” Eddie corrected. “But don’t worry, man. We forgive your taste in movies. The leather is doing it for me.”

“Plus, you have a cute butt,” you said.

“That too." Eddie nodded solemnly. “The cutest.”

“It’s perky.”

“Firm.”

“A prize-winning rump.”

“Can it, dorks,” Steve said. “Movie’s starting.”

Frankie Valli’s voice suddenly filled the room. You and Eddie burst into uncontrollable giggles that only worsened when Steve jumped up and began to sing along.

“Grease is the word, is the word that you heard!” he sang, a little pitchy on the high notes but otherwise very decent. “It’s got groove, it’s got meaning!”

“Was never too good with cars myself. Harold did all the fixin’ when he was still around. You got somewhere to be?”

“Job interview,” you mumble, the leather digging into your brow; you’re trying not to focus on the sweat soaking through your best shirt, or your growing anxiety over your fast-approaching interview time. Donna shifts the basket to her other hip.

“Could try callin’ on Bucky. He works at Rogers’ garage down on Miner Street. It’s Sunday, so he should be home.”

Your forehead peels away from the sticky wheel. “Who’s Bucky?”

Donna nods toward the other side of the park. “Bucky Barnes. White trailer with the boots lined up all neat outside the door.”

“Have I met him?”

“Doubt it,” she replies. “He works mean hours, leaves before sun up, comes back when it’s dark. But he’s always ready to help a neighbor out when he’s here. Real sweet guy.”

You blow a stray hair out of your eyes. “You think he can fix whatever’s wrong with my car?” you ask, your doubt as strong as your hope.

Donna smiles like she knows something you don’t. “Bucky can fix anythin’ he gets his hands on.”

You turn in your seat, spotting the white trailer with the boots out front. It looks devoid of life, like it was plopped onto that spot of land by a strong gust of wind rather than by human design. The curtains are drawn, vines creep up the paneling, the gate on the far side of the yard swings in the breeze, but there’s a rusting brown pickup parked in front of it. Promising enough.

“Okay,” you say. “Bucky Barnes. Mechanic. Got it.”

“Good luck,” Donna says with a grin, tapping your arm before walking away.

You step out into the scorching heat of the late July afternoon and make your way across the park, stepping over discarded children’s toys and overgrown flower beds. As you near the trailer, you see the pairs of boots your neighbor spoke about lined up with military precision, all well worn but still taken care of, not a speck of dust or dirt on them, which is rare in a place like this.

You knock three times on the plain brown door before taking a step back, holding your breath. Grasshoppers hum, the wind whips; you don’t hear anything inside the home for an agonizing amount of time, enough time to double the sweat pooling on your lower back. You’re about to try knocking again when the door finally creaks open.

Out steps a mountain of a man.

Big arms and bigger shoulders, broad chest and long, thick legs. He wears boots identical to the ones outside, blue jeans that are in desperate need of a wash, and a black henley that offers an intimidating glimpse into what those arms are capable of. His dark hair is a mess on top of his head, sticking up in all different directions, and underneath it is a face so unexpectedly handsome, you’re not sure how it ended up in a rundown park like this instead of somewhere on a billboard advertising cologne. Sun-kissed, weathered, and deadly serious, but striking in a way you could never forget, triggering a blush on your already flushed cheeks. And then you meet his eyes: electric blue and narrowed at you under furrowed brows, raising the hairs on the back of your sweaty neck.

“Can I help you?” he grunts, voice low and gravely. It scrapes against your spine.

“Hey,” you say quickly with a 1000-watt smile, showing off your nerves. “Hi. Uh, Bucky, right? I’m your neighbor. I live—“ You hook your thumb over your shoulder. “—back that way. The one with the pink door. Um…I was hopin’ you could help me out. My car, it’s — well, it won’t start. Makes a clickin’ noise every time I try turnin’ it over. Donna said you’re a mechanic and might be able to help.”

His expression doesn’t change. He stares unblinkingly at you.

“I, um—,” you can feel yourself faltering, your heart rate rising as the seconds tick by, “I don’t mean to barge in on your Sunday, but I’m pretty desperate. I have an interview in, like, twenty minutes, and I really need this job. Do you think you could take a quick look?”

He eyes you up and down, assessing. You try not to smile wider in case it leans too close to deranged. “You live here?” he demands. You nod.

“Moved in about a month ago. Sorry we’re only meetin’ now, I should’ve introduced myself sooner.”

You offer your name and stick out a hand. Bucky ignores this, staring past you in the direction of your trailer. You watch as his eyes narrow, like he’s weighing the honesty of your words.

“Look, I can pay you, if that hel—“

“Is it the little silver thing?” he cuts you off.

Your lips part. “Uh, yes. Yeah.”

Bucky grunts and turns back inside, shutting the door behind him. The shock of it leaves you frozen in place, reeling, until he reemerges as fast as he left, carrying a toolbox half the size of you; he holds it easily in one hand like it weighs nothing, but you can hear the stock of heavy tools clanking around inside.

“Let’s go,” he mutters, stepping past you. You struggle to keep up with him as he stalks toward your car, like a man on a mission that he’s already running late for. You sneak glances at him while trying not to trip on the cracked walking path, noting the faded scars on the back of his hands, the ticking jaw underneath his beard, and the very tip of a dark tattoo peaking out from beneath his collar. A feeling churns in your gut.

Everything about him screams rough. Rude. Even potentially dangerous — from his imposing figure, to his curt words, he seems like the furthest thing from what you would call ‘sweet.’

But regardless of Donna overselling his altruism, beggars can’t be choosers, and you’ll call him sweet all day long if it gets you to your interview on time.

Bucky lets out a heavy breath when he sets the toolbox down next to your car. He nods at you.

“Try it again,” an order, not a request.

Your limbs twitch into action like a bee flew under your skirt. Sliding into the hot leather seat, you turn the key in the ignition and are met with the same low ticking noise from before. The lights flicker on your dashboard in protest.

“Terminal clamp.”

You jump, finding Bucky almost cheek-to-cheek with you while he leans through the open door. He’s close enough for you to smell dirt, sweat and something heavier on him.

“Shit,” you hiss in surprise, but he’s already pulling away and moving toward the front of the car.

“Pop it,” he calls out.

You exhale slowly and do as you’re told. Sweet, your ass. Bucky lifts the hood and locks it in place before bending over the hot engine, pushing up the sleeves of his shirt.

You step out of the car, hovering near the door but craning your neck to watch. “Terminal clamp?” you repeat.

Bucky takes a moment to respond, long fingers moving deftly through the cables and wires and plugs and bolts. He unscrews something, and steam leaks out.

“On your battery,” he grunts. “The part that connects it to the wires. It’s rusted down. Look.”

He beckons with two oily fingers crooked in your direction. It’s borderline crass, and you find yourself hurrying over without argument. Bucky’s mouth is set into a hard line as he watches you gaze down at the engine, looking without really seeing.

“There,” he points impatiently to a black box near the front. Your eyes catch on the rust growing over the top of it.

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he imitates you, high-pitched and sharp; your eyes snap back to him. He’s clearly not amused by your answer. “When was the last time you had your battery checked?”

“Haven’t had the time lately,” you answer, crossing your arms indignantly over your chest.

“Your daddy don’t check it for ya?” he prods, wiping his hands on the back of his jeans before opening his tool box. Irritation rears up inside fo you. Something about his tone, bitter and mocking, makes you think about hitting him over the head with one of his wrenches.

“My daddy hasn’t been sober enough to tell a battery from a brick since 2009,” you snap.

Bucky pauses while rifling through his tools, but only for a moment. “Batteries need replacin’ every four years. How old’s this one?”

You chew your lip, still thinking about the wrench. Bucky pulls out a small metal plate and a brand new cord, along with a screwdriver that looks like it’s seen better days. When he turns to you, his eyebrows lift expectantly.

“It’s…old,” you relent. Bucky snorts and leans over the car again.

“Define ‘old’ to me, princess.”

A zip of electricity runs down your spine at the pet name, angry and hot. “I don’t know,” you grumble. “It came with the car and I bought it five years ago. And don’t call me princess.”

A ghost of a smirk crosses his face. “Whatever you say, kid.”

You glare at him while he unscrews the rusted plate from the battery. Despite your growing frustration, and the nearing interview time, and the heat pressing down on you from all sides, you quickly become entranced with the way his hands move expertly with the replacement parts. It’s obvious he’s well-versed with the inside of a car.

“This will hold for a few days,” Bucky says, attaching the new cord to the engine. “But you need a new battery. Forget it, and you’ll be needin’ a new car. Am I makin’ myself clear?”

Something about the sternness in his voice creates a pressure on your chest that feels foreign and strange. “Yeah, new battery, got it,” you mumble.

He glances at you but says nothing, screwing in the clean plate. As he finishes up his work, you look back at your trailer, the paint on the front door peeling, the screens torn in most of the windows. You clear your throat. “Donna says you fix a lot of stuff for the folks around here,” you begin. Bucky makes a noise of acknowledgement. “You ever, uh…fix any showers?”

He pauses to look back at you, blue eyes sharp. “That a line?”

“What? No!” you sputter, cheeks on fire. “No, it’s — my shower pressure. It’s shit, it’s…not a pick up line. I’m askin’ if you can fix that, too.”

He grunts, satisfied with his finished product, and closes the hood with a snap. You step back, watching as he tosses the screw driver back into the box and wipes his hands on his jeans again. When he turns to you, his face is closed off, stoic.

“I’m busy,” he says, blunt and to the point. The rejection stings like a child daring to touch the point of a needle for the first time — sharp and surprising and oddly shameful. The embarrassment pulls your eyes away.

“But if I find some time, I’ll let you know.”

His gaze is steady and unreadable when you meet it again. You nod quickly.

“That’d be amazing,” you gush, hands clasped together, “thank you—“

“I haven’t even fixed it yet, save your thanks,” he cuts you off.

“Still,” you reply, taking a step toward him, “I’d owe ya big time. Oh, you’d be doin’ me a huge favor ‘cause I need all the help I can get on this place—“

“What’d I just say, kid?” He glares are you, hands on his hips. “Now go on before you start wastin’ any more of my time,” he snaps, jerking his chin toward the car. You hesitate with your hand on the door, the smile on your face flickering doubtfully.

“Is it…safe?” you ask slowly.

Bucky scowls, mean and dark. “Don’t insult me.”

That gets you scampering into the seat. You twist the key, and after a breathless moment, the engine roars to life, the vents blasting you with hot air, but air nonetheless. You let out a whoop and pat the steering wheel proudly, the hope creeping back in. When you look out the windshield, you see Bucky’s already packed up his tool box and is making his way back to his trailer.

“Hey!” You scramble out of the car. “Hey, wait!”

He doesn’t turn around, just lifts his free hand over his head.

“Thank you!” you call out. He doesn’t respond. You watch him as he rounds his truck and disappears into his home. Then your phone buzzes.

“Shit—“

You’re peeling out of the park in seconds, leaving behind a cloud of dust and two blue eyes that watch you go from the safety of his trailer.

You take the keys out of the ignition and lean back in your seat, the smile on your face still as big as it was when the owner announced you got the job. In that moment, it was like the sun had broken through the clouds after years of rain.

It isn’t anything special, just a serving job at one of the many roadside diners in this small town, but what it stands for is more than you’ve had most of your life. Independence, stability, roots — everything you’ve been chasing after for the last few years now finally within your reach. No longer are you relying on the kindness of so-called friends that kick you out when it becomes inconvenient for them, or the generosity of low-life boyfriends that expect indentured servitude for a bed to sleep in; no longer are you couch surfing your way down highway 70, wondering what your next meal is going to cost you, or if your mother will pick up the phone when you’re too low on cash for gas. Just by getting the job, by finding your own little place to call home, you’ve broken free of the chains that have held your pitiful family lineage captive for years.

That’s worth celebrating.

You grab the six pack off the passenger seat before climbing out of the car. Thankfully, the evening air is much cooler now, and settles gently on your skin. Crickets chirp their congratulations, the breeze pats your back, and the light left on inside your trailer welcomes you home.

You sigh as you take it in, a soft smile on your face. Just this morning, you found the peeling front door, weedy garden and crooked paneling daunting; now it looks like a project you want to dive headfirst into, an opportunity to create something beautiful out of nothing, much like your own life.

You’ve got one foot on the steps when the wind grabs your attention. The large oak tree in the middle of the trailer park groans as it shifts, and you glance back to watch the leaves sway in the dusk, shadowed and haunting in a strangely beautiful way, until your gaze catches on a patch of light just beyond it. The white trailer with the boots out front has its curtains open now, and you watch as a shadow passes across a window.

Bucky.

The pressure returns to your chest tenfold, the same as before. Because of him, you get to cheers to a new life with a cold beer on your ratty little couch, and he walked away without so much as a thank you…

You adjust your grip on the six pack when you make your decision, sudden but resolute, and you’re crossing the park before you can think twice about it. A reward is reaped better with others.

As you approach, the shadows in the windows become clearer; wide shoulders, strong arms, big hands that set a mug on a shelf. Your breath goes a little shallow remembering how he towered over you. Stepping up the path, you watch as he pauses in front of the window, as still as a deer in headlights. Your knuckles just meet the door when the light inside flicks off.

You blink, eyes darting back to the window. The trailer is now dark. You can’t see inside, can’t spot movement — it’s pitch black where his figure was, where he stopped in front of the window right as you walked up…

You knock anyway. The beer bottles are cold against the skin of your leg as you wait, condensation dripping down your ankle. But the light doesn’t turn back on and you don’t hear weight shifting over cheap flooring. The crickets that sounded so nice before start to mock you the longer you stand there. You count to ten before trying again, a light rap on the wood.

Nothing.

Your heart sinks before you can stop it, the feeling painful and confusing. You bite down on your lip hard enough to draw blood, cheeks blazing in the soft light of the moon, then set the six pack in front of his door.

Bucky’s lights do not turn on when you make it back to your trailer, and they’re still not on when you spare one last glance out the window. The beers sit untouched on his front step.

Embarrassment courses through you like a summer fever, hot and alive and consuming. It eats away at all of the previous joy from your new job, and that bothers you more than you care to admit.

With a shake of your head, as if to clear the feeling out, you toss the keys on the counter and move to your tiny bathroom to turn on the shower. The nozzle sputters twice before the bare minimum drizzles out. You’re reminded of how you asked Bucky to fix it, the cryptic response he gave you, and how you nearly melted in response — the heat floods back to your face.

You really wish you kept those beers.

When the dried sweat has been scrubbed from your skin, and you’ve pulled on the softest sleep clothes you own, your mind has officially moved from denial to bargaining.

Donna said Bucky works brutal hours — maybe he has a strict sleep schedule. Like he can’t function unless he gets a full eight hours. Maybe it’s a ‘no visitors, lights off by nine on weeknights’ kind of thing. That makes sense for a fully grown man to have…right?

The reasonings filter through your head long after you’ve crawled into bed, some more believable than others. Eventually you decide that you just caught him at a bad time, and that it had nothing to do with him possibly seeing you through the window.

You’ll run into Bucky and explain the beers left on his door step; he’ll explain that he was tired, or he was busy, or something else completely normal and valid, and whatever lingering feelings you have over the whole thing will dissolve into nothing. Maybe you’ll crack a joke, maybe he’ll actually smile. Maybe the ice breaks and you’ll have another neighbor to call a friend in this new home.

You tell yourself this over and over until your restless mind finally fades to black.

You rise with the sun the next morning for your first shift. Your head is pleasantly empty of last night’s internal discourse, and you take it as a good sign.

Breakfast is pitiful — coffee and toast — but you’re too nervous to fill your uneasy stomach with more. When you pull on your uniform and spin every which way in the cracked bathroom mirror, though, the nervousness begins to fade. The dress is threadbare and half a size too big, but the color compliments your skin and emphasizes how bright and giddy your eyes are, bringing a light to your face that you haven’t seen in years. That tattered hand-me-down is a beautiful gateway opening up to a better future, a real future. You already love it.

When it’s time to go, you step out into a quiet, windless morning that promises to be a scorcher later. As you toss your purse into the passenger seat, you hear the rumbling of an old engine approaching, growing louder by the second. A familiar brown truck with the windows rolled down pulls up to the exit, just a few yards from where you stand.

Bucky sits in the driver’s seat, sporting an off-white t-shirt and dark sunglasses. He adjusts the radio, touches the rearview mirror, and pushes his shades up his nose before glancing up. Even behind the tinted lenses, you know that he sees you, and your heart nearly jumps out of your chest. But you still manage a smile, lifting your hand in a small wave.

He stares at you, an immovable statue except for his fingers white-knuckling over the wheel. A moment passes that feels like both a millisecond and a lifetime. You wonder if you should say something. But before you can, he looks away, the truck roaring once more as he eases out of the lot and into the street like he never saw you.

You watch his taillights drop beyond the horizon, your stomach dropping with them. The blatant dismissal sinks in, heavy and cutting, and it brings back all of the embarrassment from the night before. You fight desperately against a few angry tears stinging your eyes, but the hum of your fully-functioning engine does nothing to drown out the ringing in your ears.

You’re not sure which is worse: him ignoring you, or your reaction to him ignoring you.

You’ve dealt with disregard your entire life. Your childhood is a treasure trove of disappointment and neglect, carelessness and chaos, all of it later contributing to your steel-thick skin and low expectations of others. So you’re not sure why a stranger is affecting you like this — and a surly, intimidating stranger at that.

But something about him actively choosing to pretend you don’t exist presses on a bruise you’ve had covered for years. It rattles you more than anything.

Hands shaking, you put the car into drive.

The journey to the diner passes in a blur as you kick yourself mentally for the weakness. Your biggest mistake is that you went to him when you were too vulnerable — you were practically cracked wide open with need, and all it took was a helping hand for him to slip past your usual defenses. Were the sharp edges and sharper tongue not obvious red flags? What is it about Bucky that made you assume so quickly that he would be your friend? You taught yourself much better than that.

Despite the evidence, at the root of you, you refuse to accept it. Bucky’s lack of reaction was completely out of sorts; you know he’s far from friendly, but to completely ignore you is crazy work. So crazy that it just doesn’t make sense. There has to be some explanation for it, other than the obvious.

But unlike last night, your brain draws a blank on reasons for his behavior.

By the time you make it to the diner, you’re determined to figure this out. You need to see him again, to create an opportunity for an olive branch, and to learn if he’ll take it.

You get your first chance less than a week later, when you’re headed toward the mailboxes before the sun’s fully risen. You see a hulking figure already in front of them that you recognize right away. Bucky’s distracted while rifling through his mail, looking disheveled but still undeniably handsome in the pink light; he even looks relaxed, for once, instead of his usual guarded attitude.

“Good morning,” you say, smiling as you open your mailbox.

He tenses as he turns your way, shoulders taut and face creased. His jaw works as he stares you down, like he’s considering words and biting back the harsher ones. But instead of saying what’s on his mind, he grunts, short and crude, before turning on his heel and walking away. Your eyes follow him as he returns to his trailer and slams the door shut. It scares a flock of birds out of a nearby tree.

You stand there with a hand on the mailbox, jaw agape. The message couldn’t be any clearer. But for some reason, you shut your mouth with a snap and stand straighter, determined. His petulant, teenage antics are not enough to get you to throw in the towel yet.

So you try harder. You learn that you both leave the park around the same time, and when his truck rumbles past you, you wave, even if he isn’t looking at you (in a very obvious way.) You don’t care. You still try. He never waves back or throws you any acknowledgment, although you would bet your life on him seeing you each time, and eventually he starts leaving earlier, truck already missing from its spot when you’re headed to your car.

On the few days you’re both not working, you often see him mowing his lawn, mending his fence or washing his truck, domestic things that may trick passerby into thinking he’s a normal, pleasant guy. You fall victim to it as well, even knowing what you know, and head over with the intention of trapping him in a conversation. But as soon as you get remotely close to Bucky’s property, he mysteriously disappears, leaving you to feel like you just saw a ghost rather than your very alive neighbor.

You still don’t give in, but he continues to make it harder. When your car pulls up next to his at a red light, he’s theoretically interested in the SUV in front of him. When you’re passing out day-old pies from the diner to the neighbors, he doesn’t answer the door even though you can hear the TV on inside. When you’re taking a stroll around the park and he’s headed your way, he turns around and walks in the opposite direction.

Frustrating is the politest way you can describe him, but your mind can’t seem to take the hint.

Until the delusion crumbles when you least expect it. You’re bone-tired after your shift, and even your purse full of tips can’t ease the pain from your back. Pulled up to your trailer, you notice a group of three people slowly making their way across the park. One quick look tells you it’s the Markhams, stooped and gray-haired, shuffling down the pathway, and in between them is none other than Bucky, carrying a dozen grocery bags on each arm that you know aren’t his.

You watch as he leans down toward Mrs. Markham, listening to something she says, and your eyes go wide when he throws his head back in a laugh, pure joy lighting up his face. The sound creeps into your car, oozing warmth and light that is at odds with the Bucky you know. Mr. Markham adds a comment that gets him laughing harder, lines crinkling around his eyes, nose scrunching up in delight. You greedily take in this new side of him while your stomach roils with something bitter and nauseating.

So the sweet side of Bucky does exist. You’re watching it in real time as he helps his elderly neighbors with their groceries, chuckling in amusement as they banter back and forth. He holds the door open for them, too, even with his arms full, making sure they cross the threshold safely before letting the door fall shut behind him.

This must be the Bucky that Donna spoke about. The Bucky that everyone but you, apparently, gets to see.

The realization settles inside of you like an anvil dropping from the sky. So it’s just you that he doesn’t like. It’s just you that he can’t bear to be a neighbor to.

Occam’s Razor strikes again.

You move mechanically out of your car and into your home, your body carrying you through the motions while your brain twists itself up into a painful knot. You comb through everything you did and said that Sunday afternoon when he fixed your car; did you offend him? Did you push an unknown boundary? Did you ask for too much? Did you say too little? Were you too loud or too quiet? Too slow to thank him for his help?

Yes, you snapped a few times, but you only ever matched his energy, and everything about him implied that he can take as good as he gives. So what happened? What did you do? Why is your neighbor so unconcerned with whether you live or die?

Whatever the reason, it’s done its damage. Bucky wants nothing to do with you, and that seems to be the way it is.

Later that night, when sleep evades you, and you’ve tossed and turned for hours on end, a terrible loneliness creeps in for the first time since you arrived at the trailer park. It’s familiar in the worst way, reminding you of all the horrible people you met and all the shitty pit stops you made on your journey here. You thought you left that feeling behind — you thought wrong.

It follows you around for the next few days, leaving you hollow and numb. You’re on autopilot most of the time: you smile at customers and make conversation with the neighbors, you gossip with your coworkers and play with the children next door. But it’s constantly there in the back of your mind, like a memory you can’t erase, and when you’re alone in your little home, you feel it wrap around you like a straight jacket.

You’re lonely. And Bucky’s indifference toward you brought it front and center. For you, companionship had always been fleeting and one-sided, transactional at best. You’d had enough of it to the point that companionship was something you began to avoid, even when it promised a warm bed and a free meal. You thought a place to call your own and a means to support yourself were enough to keep the grass greener on your side. Now a stranger who sees nothing to gain by being your friend has reminded you that you’ve never had anyone in your life that wanted to be there just because.

The grass slowly withers away to a dry, lifeless brown.

You think you’re hiding it well, but Donna asks about it when July has rolled into a rainy August.

“How’ve you been, hun?” she says around her cigarette, pushing back one of the many hairs falling out of her clip. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been pickin’ up more shifts,” you reply automatically, pulling roughly on the broken piece of siding. Donna watches as you struggle with it, leaning against the far side of the trailer.

“You’re gonna work yourself into an early grave if you keep that up. You leave at dawn and don’t come back ‘til dusk seven days a week. Young thing like you needs time to herself.”

“I’m tryin’ to save up,” you grunt, snapping the siding in half. The part connected to your trailer swings down dejectedly. You look her way. “In case you haven’t noticed, this place is fallin’ apart, and it takes money to put it back together.”

She hums, tapping the ashes from her cigarette. “Why don’t you just ask Bucky for help?”

You pause from picking up the broken pieces of siding in the grass. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t wanna bother him,” you grumble, avoiding her eyes.

“Oh, please — Bucky would be happy to help.”

“Are you sure about that?” A sudden hint of irritation in your tone. Donna stands up straighter.

“Whaddya mean?” she asks, eyebrows raised. “Something happen?”

You shake your head quickly. “No, there’s not — no. He just seems really busy, that’s all. No use askin’ for his time when he doesn’t have any.”

There’s a brief silence as Donna considers your words. “Something happened,” she repeats. You toss your head, eyes narrowing in her direction, but she keeps going. “Did he say no to fixin’ your car? Or was he mean? Like he’d rather be talkin’ to anybody but you?”

You let out an exhale, long and ragged, and debate answering truthfully.

“Well, yeah,” you admit, “but that ain’t nothin’ I’m not used to. He was actually—“ Your jaw clenches. “He was helpful. Ruder than hell — and bossy, but he got it fixed and told me to get a new battery and stuff. But ever since then…” You trail off, Donna waits. “It’s like he regrets doin’ it. I’ll see him walk by and his eyes pass over me like I’m not even there. I try startin’ a conversation and suddenly he’s got somewhere to be. He’s avoidin’ me, and I don’t know why. I’d be fine with it if I knew what it was, but I got no clue.” Knees in the grass, you watch as a caterpillar crawls over a leaf and onto a piece of siding; you pick it up carefully, watching as the insect runs circles over the plastic, nowhere to go, just as confused as you. “Why’s he like that?”

“Oh, hun,” Donna soothes quietly, stepping closer to your crouched position. “Is that what’s been botherin’ ya? Bucky not bein’ welcomin’?”

“Yes — I mean, no. That’s not what’s botherin’ me, it’s just — it’s hard to explain.” You set the caterpillar down and stand, brushing the dirt and grass from your knees. “And it’s a lot more than just not bein’ welcomin’. I could get hit by a semi right here on Pueblo Street and I don’t think he’d even blink.”

“Now I know that’s not true. What’s goin’ on in that head of yours, sugar?” Donna asks patiently, putting her cigarette out on the broken siding.

You watch the ashes drop to the ground, fragile, crumbling, and still smoking. Your eyes scan the park, naturally pausing over the white trailer with the curtains drawn and boots out front; there’s no truck outside, so he must be working. Yet the empty house still stings a little to look at.

“I thought that the job and movin’ here meant I figured everything out,” you mutter. “Instead an old man decidin’ he doesn’t like me for no reason reminded me that I’m still on my own. I’ve dealt with it my whole life, so I get along just fine by myself, but I’m only human. I still want someone to — to care about me.” You fight through the sudden lump in your throat.

“And Bucky doin’ you a favor brought that up,” Donna confirms. You nod reluctantly.

“Guess so. It was just nice to have someone care, even if he was grumpy as hell about it. Now he pretends I don’t exist and I keep rememberin’ all the times I thought I found someone who cared, only for them to just—“ You flick your hand like you’re waving off a bug, inconsequential yet inconvenient.

“Honey, we care.” Donna wraps an arm around your shoulders, warm and tight, holding you to her. “You got all of us now, and we watch out for each other.”

You open your mouth to point out that one of them does not, but she beats you to it.

“Bucky is a special case,” she sighs. You watch as she gazes at the white trailer, too. “It took him a while to come around to us. He was quiet, kept to himself, coming and going at odd hours…but eventually we wore him down. Kept inviting him in even when we knew he wouldn’t come. Kept offering our help even when we knew he wouldn’t take it. But then he did. I think Bucky was gone for a few days when a big storm came through — a tree fell and knocked out the left side of his trailer, crushed the roof. We got together and started patching it up just as he pulled in. Told us he could handle it but we wouldn’t take no for answer and did it with him anyway. He was real grateful, awfully sweet and apologetic, extra kind to everyone that helped out, but we told him it’s what we do for each other. After that, it was like living next door to a whole new person. I think he just needed to see that we cared for him no matter what, and that we’d be there for him even when things were tough.”

You huff, kicking the dirt at your feet. “Doesn’t explain why he’s got a problem with me. What’s his deal?”

Donna’s hesitant to answer, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it thoughtfully. When there’s a cloud of smoke in the air between you, she says slowly, “He did some time at the state pen.”

Your eyes snap to her, but she shakes her head a little.

“He hasn’t said much, but from what I gathered, Bucky lost more than just his freedom when they handed him his sentence. Family don’t bother with him anymore, told him as much when he was paroled, and he had no choice but to make do alone somewhere else. That can mess a person up, make them suspicious of others, make them think bein’ alone’s the only way to go about this life.” She looks at you then, a soft smile on her lips. “Sounds like someone else I know.” Her words feel like a sucker punch to your gut, but she waves a hand at you. “That’s all I’ve got, though, so if you’re curious about it, you’ll need to ask him.”

You chew the inside of your cheek, replaying the story, picturing Bucky in an orange jumpsuit behind bars. For some reason, the image seems wrong, but your curiosity begins to burn.

“I doubt I’ll get the chance,” you mumble.

“Give it some time,” Donna chirps. “He’ll come around. But you—“ She wraps a thin hand around your wrist, squeezing with intention. “—next time you’re feelin’ a little too sorry for yourself, you come find me. By the time I’m done with you, you’re gonna be beggin’ for some alone time.”

A smile reluctantly breaks across your face, the first genuine one in weeks. “Sure, Donna. Thanks.”

You’d think your talk with Donna would help ease Bucky Barnes from your head, but it seems to have the opposite affect.

While your cocktail of emotions towards him has been watered down by Donna’s story, the urge to understand him is stronger than ever.

You still see him occasionally, driving past in his truck, stalking toward the mailbox, trudging around his yard; you pick up where you left off with your routine, waving and smiling and wishing him a good morning even when he’s already halfway across the park. Nothing changes in his attitude toward you, but it only makes you more curious.

Between grueling ten-hour shifts at the diner, you capitalize on a specific tidbit you learned from Donna, how the neighbors’ generosity got Bucky to crack. You know you have better things to do than trying to win over someone who doesn’t want to be won over, but your stubbornness has always gotten the best of you in your weaker moments.

You choose to act when he isn’t home, aiming to lessen the pressure instead of amping it up. You spend an entire day baking ten dozen cookies for the neighbors and make sure to leave a few at his door with a note to come by if he wants more (he doesn’t). You suffer through sunburn and dehydration while sweeping the entire walking path around the park, paying special attention to Bucky’s portion so that the dust doesn’t settle over his boots. You sprint through a downpour to pull his clothes off the line, covering your trailer in his shirts and jeans and — gulp — underwear to air dry before folding them up carefully and delivering them to his front step in your laundry basket once the sky’s cleared up.

It’s waiting for you outside your door the next morning as you’re leaving for work. No note, no sign of a thanks. You blink when you see it, wondering how he knew it was your laundry basket in the first place.

Still, nothing changes. You try really hard not to obsess over it. And life moves on as usual.

One Friday afternoon, you find yourself sitting in a cheap folding chair next to a handful of your neighbors; they caught you after a slow shift when your social battery hadn’t dropped below empty yet, calling you over with wide smiles like they’ve been waiting hours for you to show. The group is converged in a circle next to the oak tree, passing around beer and flasks of whiskey and shooting the shit. You’ve made quick friends with the girl two trailers down, Wanda, who isn’t much older than you but has a lightness to her that feels like a breath of fresh air. Her husband, who she calls Viz, sits with his arm draped around her shoulders and a look on his face like there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. They ask you how you’re liking the park, how the repairs to your trailer are coming along, how your job is going. You feel a deep sense of gratitude forming the more you speak with them.

Neighbors filter in and out of the group like clockwork as the afternoon sun fades into the evening sunset. If they can’t stop for a drink, they still join in on the conversation, gossiping and commenting on the goings-on in town, or stirring up good-natured trouble before resuming their chores — Donna comes by to threaten you all with the hose if you don’t pick up after yourselves. You’re convinced you’ve met everyone in the park by this point, and you’ll need to make a list to get their names straight, but they all have one thing in common: they’re all pleased that you’re here.

The beer eventually begins to dwindle, but spirits are still high in the circle. Wanda’s in the middle of telling a story about a squirrel that got into the Markhams’ trailer when you hear the deep rumbling of an engine in the distance. Wanda doesn’t seem to notice it, but you know that sound anywhere. Sure enough, Bucky’s brown truck comes up the hill and pulls into the park as Wanda’s imitating Mrs. Markham’s screams from her standoff with the intruder. While the rest of the group roars with laughter, you watch as Bucky parks the truck in front of his trailer and steps out. That’s when Wanda spots him, too.

“Hey, Buck!” she calls out, hands cupped around her mouth.

Bucky turns toward the group, his eyes sweeping across the faces. You swear they pause on you for a half a heartbeat.

“Come join us! We’ve got beer!” Wanda shouts, waving a hand over her head. A few others in the circle add their agreement, ushering him over and shaking their flasks. Bucky stares for another moment, as still as the trees behind him, before turning around without a word and heading for his trailer. The door shuts with a slam. A few grumbles go up around you, but Wanda just shrugs, smiling lopsidedly. “Eh, if I got off work early, I’d probably want some peace and quiet, too.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, a sense of unease tainting the picturesque scene around you. “Does he…do that often?” you ask as casually as you can.

“Get off work early? Never. He works more than anyone I know—“

“No, I mean…” your finger points vaguely in the direction of the white trailer, “does he usually just ignore you when you ask him to hang out?”

She tilts her head, lips curving. “No, he’s usually at these things when he isn’t workin’. But if he’s home already, it probably means he threw out his back or somethin’. I know Steve threatens to fire him if he doesn’t go home and rest when that happens. Leave it to Bucky to take an order that seriously.” She laughs. “I swear those two were soldiers in a past life.”

You nod, your mind already dissecting the new information. He didn’t look like he was hurt…but you remember his eyes resting on you for a beat too long. The beer and whiskey combo in your stomach churns.

You fidget with your drink for the next half hour, barely hearing the conversations around you. An uncomfortable feeling has settled in your chest, tight and anxious, and your racing thoughts do nothing to help it. Finally, you can’t take it anymore, feeling restless and in pursuit of answers. You excuse yourself and head for your trailer, but when you’re far enough from the group, you take the long way around the park to Bucky’s, your heartbeat growing louder with each step.

You knock on the door before you can convince yourself otherwise, listening to the laughter of the circle as you wait. There’s a shuffling on the other side, then a soft grunt, and the door swings open.

Your lips part.

Bucky stands before you in nothing but his blue jeans. Your eyes jump to the wide expanse of his chest, the hard muscles of his abs. A smattering of dark chest hair tapers off down his stomach and disappears into his pants, right below his belt buckle. You forget how to breathe.

He stares down at you while bringing a beer bottle to his mouth and taking a hard swig. A drop of condensation lands on the dip between his collarbones, and your tongue subconsciously darts out to wet your lips. He shifts his weight to lean against the door frame, expression neutral. “What do you want?”

You realize you look like a fish out of water and shut your mouth with a snap, swallowing thickly as you feel an unwarranted heat bloom in your gut.

“Um,” you start, silently cursing the way your voice shakes. “Not sure if you heard Wanda, but we — uh, we were wonderin’ if you wanted to join us. Patrick’s doin’ a run to the liquor store so there’ll be plenty of beer soon. Or we still have some whiskey. Unless you’ve got plans…” you trail off, eyes flicking to his shirtless chest.

Bucky’s face doesn’t change. “Don’t have plans.”

“Then you should drink with us.”

“Not interested.” You blink.

“…why not?”

He shrugs.

“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company.” He takes another quick sip from his bottle. Your eyes catch on the label and recognize it immediately from your own preferences; when you look back at Bucky, you find him watching you closely, blue eyes hard and unapologetic. You suck in a breath through your teeth, a strange feeling buzzing beneath your skin. Maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s the undeniable thrill of seeing him shirtless, but you feel close to exploding.

“Don’t feel like drinkin’ with company, or don’t feel like drinkin’ with me?” you say quietly, eyes ghosting over his frame.

A look crosses his face, something close to bewildered, before he hides it behind his usual expressionless mask. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

You flash him a tight-lipped smile though far from amused. “Sure, like you don’t know.”

“Kid, I don’t have a clue,” he grumbles, though the hand holding the beer bottle twitches.

“Oh, don’t play dumb,” you snap before you can stop yourself, a dangerous flush running through your body, “you know exactly what you’re doin’. What you’ve been doin’ for the last month. Avoidin’ me like I’m the tax man and you’ve got a debt to pay. You don’t like me? Fine. No problem. I don’t need you to be my friend. But I won’t put up with you actin’ like I don’t exist in front of everyone else anymore, and if you keep doin’ it, I’ll make your sad, lonely, little life hell. So just stay away from me and I’ll stay away from you. Got it?”

Your words hang between you for a sour moment, and not even the cheerful sounds of the group can cut through the tension. Your chest heaves as you scowl at Bucky; he scowls right back, though you notice that the tips of his ears have gone a rosy shade of red and his grip on the beer bottle looks close to destructive. Your eyes scan his hardened face one last time before you turn on your heel and kick up a cloud of dust behind you as you march back to your trailer. This time, you slam the door.

Inside the trailer, the urge to throw something, anything, is too strong to ignore. Your vision zeroes in on the laundry basket Bucky returned a few days ago, and you lunge. Taking the cheap plastic in your hands, you hurl it against the floor with all of your strength, gritting your teeth while biting back a scream, watching as it breaks into a hundred different pieces with concerning ease on your linoleum floors. What follows is a silence so bitter, you can taste it in your mouth.

Your temper slowly fizzles out as you absorb the mess you made. You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have let him get to you again. Now you’ve got a room full of shame and no laundry basket.

Exhaling heavily, you run a hand through your hair while peeking out the window to see if the circle of neighbors heard your crash out. Nobody’s looking your way, thankfully — instead, they’re cheering on Patrick as he emerges from his car with two new cases of beer. A pang of longing hits your chest, but you know you can’t go back out there now, not after this. So you resign yourself to picking up the remains of your laundry basket, piece by piece on your hands and knees until they ache from the pressure and you’ve cut your fingers on the jagged edges.

Later, when you’re nursing a small hangover with a cup of tea and an ice pack on your head, you wait for the regret to sink in over the heated words you threw at Bucky. But, strangely, it doesn’t. Now that the buzz from the alcohol and the leftover anger have vacated your body, you’re left with an odd sense of calm about it.

Sure, you got something off your chest that’s been weighing you down for weeks, but you had truly convinced yourself that you were optimistic over the Bucky situation. You had been foolishly hopeful that you could get through to him. Your outburst said differently. You should feel embarrassed, defeated, tired, but instead you feel…good. You handled it, just like you’ve handled every other hurdle in your life. Maybe not gracefully, but grace has never been your forte, and you don’t really mind.

You only wish that Bucky had shown some sort of reaction to being called out, a protest, a sigh, anything — but the man is as expressive as a bucket of cement. Knowing him, you wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t listen to half the things you said. He probably thought the whole thing was a waste of time, something to forget about as soon as he shut the door…

Doesn’t matter. You’re not going to lose sleep over your emotionally repressed neighbor anymore. You’re not going to spend another second thinking about him.

This turns out to be easier said than done.

You get to enjoy a peaceful week without seeing or thinking about Bucky, until Sunday rolls around. You’re doing laundry, which proves to be harder than usual without a laundry basket, leaving you to juggle armfuls of clothes while trekking back and forth between the park’s shared washing machines and your trailer. While the last of your wardrobe dries on the line outside, you’re moving around your little home in a faded pink tank top and an old pair of some ex’s boxers. The radio plays rock classics while you prep dinner, and you hum along as you man the stove and chop vegetables.

Then a knock interrupts.

You set down the knife and glance out the window, but whoever’s outside is hovering next to the door out of sight. You think it’s Donna, coming by with eggs after she borrowed some from you the other day, but when you open the door, you’re downright shocked to find who’s on the other side.

Bucky stands with one hand against your door frame, the other holding his toolbox, dressed in dirty jeans and a plain black t-shirt that hugs his body in an ungodly attractive way. You take a step back in surprise when his eyes find yours. They’re bright, but guarded. He nods at you.

“You said your shower’s broken,” he says in greeting, voice low like he doesn’t want to be overheard.

Your mouth falls open. “Huh?”

His lips press together in an impatient line. “Your shower. You asked me to take a look at it the other day.”

Your mind feels like an old computer you had to reboot to get working again. You blink at him as it comes back to you.

“Yeah,” you answer slowly, “but that was before.”

He huffs, looking over his shoulder at the park behind him. “You want your shower fixed or not? I got things to do today.”

“Then go do ‘em.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying your best to look down your nose at him while being completely submerged in his shadow.

“Don’t be stupid,” is his retort, “I’m offerin’ you help.”

“Don’t need it. And don’t call me stupid,” you snap.

“You gonna fix the shower yourself?” Bucky challenges, tilting his head at you. You feel heat rush to your cheeks as his eyes sweep up and down your figure, taking in your thin tank top and rolled up boxers.

“Maybe,” you throw at him, though it lacks the previous bite. The corner of Bucky’s mouth curls up.

“Then at least let me watch.”

Your spine locks as a jolt of something new and strange spreads through your body. Your brain decides now is a good time to remember just how attractive he is beneath the oil and dirt and rough demeanor — especially when shirtless.

“That’s — I don’t — you—“ stammers out of your mouth. Bucky responds by pushing past you into your trailer. You stumble into your couch, still struggling for words as he fills your little kitchen with his wide shoulders and long legs, his hair nearly brushing the ceiling. He sets the toolbox down on your table, briefly glancing at your half-made dinner.

“Smells good.”

His gruff tone is a sharp contrast to his casual words. You shake your head, though you feel like you could use a solid smack to the face. “Do you normally go around bargin’ into your neighbors homes?” you ask, slightly breathless. He looks at you, amused.

“When the neighbors are bein’ dumb, yeah. This the bathroom?” He points to the pocket door on his left.

“I told you not to call me—“

“Stupid, I know. I didn’t call you stupid, though.”

Your jaw clenches hard enough to hurt, watching as Bucky pulls open the bathroom door and squeezes into the tiny room like it’s his house. The sound of the shower turning on comes a second later.

“I thought I told you to stay away from me,” you grit through your teeth. “You got a hearing problem, old man?”

From the bathroom, Bucky chuckles, soft and deep. “Old man,” he mutters to himself before shutting the water off and reappearing, eyes pinning you in place. “I can hear just fine. Heard all of your cute little temper tantrum the other day.“

Your entire body flushes against its will. ”Then why are you here?” you demand. Bucky begins rifling through his toolbox.

“You asked me to fix your shower.”

“Yeah, a month ago,” you scoff. “And before I knew how big of an ass you are.” Bucky’s mouth does that half-smile again as he picks up a wrench. It might be the same one you imagined hitting him over the head with.

“That ain’t very nice,” he murmurs, eyes flicking to you. “You hardly know me.”

Your lip curls. “And you don’t know me, but you already decided I wasn’t worth your time.”

He exhales heavily, swapping the wrench for another one and weighing it in his hands. “This again?” But before you can let out the blood-curdling scream that’s been building up inside of you, he sets down the tool and turns your way, shoulders set and face stony. “Look, if I hurt your feelins by not takin’ your invite, then that’s on you. It ain’t personal, neighborhood bondin’s not really my thing as you could probably tell—“

“Unbelievable,” you mutter bitterly, shaking your head. “First of all, I know you’re lyin’ — Wanda said you’re always around when somethin’ is goin’ on. Second, you’re completely missin’ my point.”

“I was gettin’ to it,” he says louder, pointing a sharp finger at you. “But it seems you have a habit of jumpin’ to conclusions before hearin’ a person out.”

“Hearin’ a person out!” you cry, throwing your hands up; the sarcasm drips thick into your tone. “When would I ever be able to hear you out when you walk the other way when you see me comin’?”

He levels you with a hard look, blue eyes burning into yours. Butterflies erupt in your stomach, unwelcome and distracting, but you hold your ground.

“I don’t do friends,” he grunts, “I’m not good at bein’ one and I’m too busy for ‘em anyway. Fixin’ your car that day, I could tell that’s what you were lookin’ for, and I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea in your head.”

You laugh, dry and harsh. “Well, you certainly got your point across, Bucky.” His hand twitches, a quick clench and unclench of fingers; you observe it coolly, eyebrow cocked. “You know, for a guy who “doesn’t do friends,” there are a lot of people in this park who think you do.”

“That’s different,” he’s quick to say, brushing it off, “I’ve known ‘em for years. Thin line between familiar and friends, not my fault if they pick one and I pick the other.”

You scoff.

“Sure, okay. So what happens in, say, five years — when I’m still livin’ across the park from ya?” you ask, taking a bold step forward. “Will I get grandfathered in to your half-assed friendship, or will we still be goin’ at it like this? ‘cause I’m startin’ to think it’s less about you bein’ anti-friends, and more about you not likin’ me.”

“You won’t be here in five years,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “This place ain’t anythin’ more than a pit stop on your way to somethin’ else. You’re young — real young — still got most of your life ahead of you, some great, big future out there somewhere, but it ain’t here. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends.”

With an inaudible crack, something shifts inside your chest, something heavy and painful as memories of your past flood your thoughts, ruthless and relentless in their intention to hurt. You pull your arms in close to your body, feeling goosebumps on your skin.

“You don’t know anythin’ about me and my future,” you tell him quietly. He shrugs.

“Maybe not, but I know restless when I see it. And I know grit. You’ll want something better eventually, and you’ll go after it.”

The silence that follows is deafening. You look everywhere but him, unwilling to show him just how much his words got to you, but he keeps his eyes steadily on you, unblinking, unwavering, like he’s finally noticed you for the first time and needs to learn everything he can about you in this very moment. Finally, he sighs, running a hand through his thick hair and frowning at the floor.

“But…I think maybe I was…doin’ too much. I didn’t see it that way before, but I do now,” he says, still gruff, but softer now. “Lemme fix your shower. To say sorry for bein’…for bein’ an ass. I know what it’s like to be ignored…and I should’ve realized how things might’ve come across to ya.”

You exhale shakily. So, no. I don’t think we’ll ever be friends. You look away, struggling to separate the sting of his words from the peace offering in front of you.

“Alright,” you relent, packing up the pain and setting it aside. He nods before picking through his toolbox again. You shift your weight, feeling awkward and out of place in your own home. Clearing your throat, you bravely add, “Does this mean I can expect a wave in the mornings?”

Bucky makes a noise in the back of his throat that could pass for a laugh. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself now. Just because I’m sayin’ sorry doesn’t mean I take back what I said about bein’ friends.”

“Yeah. You’re a grumpy old man who likes to be alone. Got it.”

He tosses you a look over his shoulder, equal parts irritated and amused, while you bite your lip to stop yourself from acting on the hurt simmering inside of you. As the fight in you deflates, you take a few careful steps into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as Bucky sorts through a handful of knuts and screws. “So…” you start, searching for a stop to the thoughts inside your head, “what’d you end up doin’ that night?”

“What night?” Bucky grunts.

“The night we were drinkin’.”

He hums, pocketing the screws and picking up a screwdriver. “Finished up a couple projects,” he says slowly. “Got some chores done.”

“Really,” you state, brows furrowed. “Didn’t look like you were up to anythin’.”

He looks at you then and his eyes are unreadable. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you answered the door without a shirt. And you were drinkin’ a beer. The beer I left at your door when you were too scared to answer it, by the way.”

Bucky snorts. “You askin’ for a thanks? I had my head under car hoods all day. I think I deserved a cold drink.”

He turns for the bathroom again; this time, you follow, hovering in the doorway as he starts loosening the shower head from the pipe. “Do you always answer your door halfway to nude, or did I just get lucky that day?”

Bucky laughs, really, truly laughs. Whatever burdened expression you were wearing is wiped clean off your face as you bask in the sound of it.

“It’s called laundry, sweetheart. I smelled like a wet dog on an oil rig after workin’ twelve hours in the heat, and I didn’t care to sit in it any longer.”

“Still,” you mutter, watching as he catches the unattached shower head before it drops to the ground, “you could’ve put on a shirt before greetin’ me like that.”

“Like you’re much better,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at you; again, his eyes rake up and down shamelessly, but this time it feels more concentrated, observant. The blue looks a shade darker than before. You gape at him.

“It’s — well, I’m just—“

“Doin’ laundry?” Bucky supplies quietly. You snap out of it when he turns back to the shower, pulling out his screwdriver.

“Whatever,” you grumble, feeling hot, “just let me know when you’re done.”

You leave him in the bathroom to pick up where you left off chopping vegetables. You should probably have a clearer head when handling a knife, but you’re too riled up to sit still and wait for him to finish. What was that look about? He says he doesn’t want to be your friend, then he stares at you like you’ve got something he wants. Is he waiting for you to snap at him again, or is it something else?

You’re silent while you work, just the radio and the sounds of Bucky working on your shower filling the trailer. Every now and then you’ll hear the water run, or a hushed curse under his breath. You’re just turning off the heat on the stove when he steps out of your bathroom and puts his tools away.

“Pressure’s fine now,” he tells you, snapping the toolbox shut. You turn to him, hands on your hips.

“Mind if I check?” Another half-smile from him as he gestures for you to go ahead. You shuffle past him, brushing his shoulder as you go. You’re shocked to feel how warm he runs, almost hot to the touch; your cool skin begs you to step closer. In the bathroom, you turn the handle and are pleasantly surprised to see water shoot out at a mostly normal rate.

“Nice work,” you call out before turning it off. Bucky’s waiting for you in the kitchen, leaning against the table with his arms crossed and a curious look on his face. “What?” you can’t help but ask, stopping in your tracks.

For the first time since meeting him, Bucky looks slightly put off, like a thought’s crossed his mind that he’s wondering if he should voice aloud. “Are you—“ He clears his throat. “Where were you before this?”

You blink. You haven’t heard that question in a while. “La Junta. But I grew up in Dodge City.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Got family there?”

“Maybe,” you shrug. “Couldn’t tell you where my daddy is. Mom’s got a new boyfriend, don’t know if they moved.”

“What about you? You got a boyfriend?” he murmurs, examining his dirty hands.

“I wouldn’t be askin’ you for help if I did,” you answer, blinking, and you turn back to your food to hide the heat crawling up your face. Bucky hums. Then, to your immense surprise, you hear him ease himself into the tiny chair at your table.

“So you’re on your own,” he comments, as if what he did wasn’t completely at odds with your earlier conversation.

Your shoulders tense instinctively. Well, isn’t this just ironic? The man who made you feel lonely wants to know how lonely you are.

“Could say that,” you respond slowly, “but Donna and the others have been real welcoming. They say the door’s always open.”

You hope he catches the barb in your words, the subtle call out, but Bucky just sighs. “Yeah, they’re like that. Would give you the clothes off their back in the middle of a snowstorm if you needed it. Good people — too good, sometimes.”

“Nobody can be too good,” you say, eyeing him over your shoulder. “I think the world could use a few more people like them.” He meets your gaze before dragging it down your figure again, but it’s softer this time, less analytical and not necessarily uncomfortable. You quickly turn back to the stove. “Didn’t take you as the type to chit chat,” you quip.

“Oh, am I bein’ too friendly now?”

“I thought you got things to do today.”

“I do,” he grunts. “I’ll get to them.”

It hits you suddenly that you’re not sure if you want Bucky to leave yet. When you chance another glance at him, you’re struck with how comfortable he looks sitting there. His broad frame takes up a whole side of the table, and he’s slouched down just enough in the chair with his legs spread wide, like he owns the place, like he knows the inside of your trailer well, like he’s familiar with the way you move around the kitchen.

A teasing smile makes its way onto your face. “If I didn’t know better, it sounds like you’re lookin’ for a friend to pass time with—“

“Don’t be difficult,” he mutters, head tilted as he crosses his arms; his biceps bulge, the golden skin stretching like an invitation for you to touch, taste, bite—

“You sure like givin’ orders, huh?” you remark, matching his stance. Those blue eyes find yours and don’t let go.

“Only when it’s needed,” he says, voice lowering to a pitch that could rumble the floors beneath your bare feet. To your chagrin, it goes straight to your gut, settling there with a deep heat that awakens something inside of you. You scramble to push it down, afraid of the truth showing plainly on your face.

“Bossy,” you mutter under your breath, looking away. Bucky chuckles, somehow making it worse.

“Somethin’ tells me you don’t do well listenin’ to others.”

Your hand tightens over the plate you’re pulling from the cupboard. “Yeah, well. Most people tell you to do things ‘cause it’s better for them, not for you.”

He hums. “You listened pretty well to me.”

Your cheeks flush. “Judgment error,” you mumble.

“Did you get the new battery like I told you to?”

“Uh…” You have the grace to look sheepish because, truthfully, you forgot. You close your mouth before telling him that if he hadn’t completely derailed all of your rational thinking with his avoidant behavior, you’d have remembered.

“I stand corrected,” he mutters, pushing out his chair. Bucky only needs to take two steps until he’s looming over you, pulling out a card from his back pocket. He takes your hand in his and places the card there before his fingers slide to your wrist, gripping tight. “Rogers’ garage on Miner Street. I want you in there this week for a battery change. Unless you’re tryin’ to blow that hunk of junk up.”

You gulp, looking down at where he’s holding you. “I have work,” you whisper.

“After work, then. I’ll be there.” He searches your face, waiting for your confirmation. You nod, but he doesn’t let go. A moment passes where it’s just the two of you breathing along to the soft melody of the radio.

“You’re helping me again,” you blurt. His fingers dig a little deeper into your flesh.

“And?”

You take a steadying breath, your brain picking through your words carefully. “Awfully friend-like, if you ask me—“

Bucky groans, pulling away and leaving sparks along your skin. He picks up his toolbox, giving you a quick glance. He looks like he’s about to say something, and you find yourself desperately wanting to know what it is. But he seems to think better of it and makes for the door, opening it up to the heat of the August evening. His eyes meet yours one last time. “Enjoy your dinner.”

He’s a step out of your trailer when you call his name. He stops immediately, looking over his shoulder. “Thank you,” you say in a rush. “For fixin’ the shower.”

A pause, then, “No problem, kid.” The door swings shut. Through the window you see him traipse across the park and to his truck where he tosses the toolbox into the back, then he disappears into his home. Whatever things he had to do seem to be forgotten. Or nonexistent. A smile curls across your face before you can stop it.

The following weeks feel like a fever dream compared to the last month. You find yourself face-to-face with Bucky a number of times, some by coincidence, some by design.

A quick nod as he drives past you in the morning turns into a quick conversation at the mailbox the next day. It’s mostly you talking, but he stands there nonetheless, listening quietly to your unprovoked story of a difficult customer from the other week. Following that, you bump into him on a walk around the park with Wanda, where he manages to crack a smile when you recount how the little kid next door ran you over with his bike earlier that morning. He makes you promise to treat the patch of road rash on your thigh with rubbing alcohol, warning against infection and causing you to blush like a school girl being told off.

A storm rips through the town later that week, ripping off shingles and felling trees, making the lights flicker uncertainly from time to time as the wind batters the side of your trailer. After the worst of it’s passed, you step outside to assess the damage; you think it’s superficial, nothing that threatens the structural integrity of the outbuilding, but you don’t know the first thing about evaluating storm damage.

Luckily, Bucky materializes out of nowhere like he could read your mind from across the park, offering to check for leaks and punctures that could lead to greater troubles down the road. He claims he does it for all of the neighbors, waving off your word vomit of gratitude with a huff and a scowl, but once again, he either forgets about the others, or those intentions never existed, because when he’s finished fortifying your trailer, he sends you a small salute before crossing the park and disappearing back into his home.

A few days later, you find yourself at the mailboxes with Bucky after he came up behind you with a muttered, “mornin’”, and now he’s listening to you talk about your boss’ erratic revamp of the menu. You manage to pull from him that he’s partial to the danish pastries your diner sells, so you knock on his door later that night with a bag full of them and a smile on your face, watching as the tips of his ears glow bright red when you hand them over. He thanks you in that gruff way of his that doesn’t sound grateful at all, but it’s enough for you.

But to your shock, he repays the favor the next evening.

You’re curled up on the couch with a book, listening to the weak clicks of the AC unit in your window, when you feel your trailer give a sudden lurch. Your glass of water topples off the side table, your basil plant spills into the sink. You’re questioning the probability of earthquakes when it happens again — this time more powerful than the last.

When you open your door, the last thing you’re expecting is Bucky — shirtless again — using a hammer to extract the rotting pieces from the walls of your trailer. You call him crazy — it’s ten o’clock at night and he’s just finished a fourteen-hour shift, after all — but he just grunts and tells you that they were an eyesore, that he was getting too impatient not to do something about them. You’d be offended if your body wasn’t humming with a pleased rush of adrenaline from his attention, however workaround it may be.

You spend the remainder of the evening watching from your open door as he fixes up your little home. Despite the cooler night air, he still gleams with sweat from the effort, and you learn to appreciate this quickly; he looks like trouble and heaven wrapped up in the likeness of God’s surliest angel. By no means are you religious, but all other explanations for how a man that looks like that winds up in your yard seem to defy natural laws. Watching the muscles in his arms ripple as he tears the siding off its hinges, you’re convinced a higher power had to have intervened for this moment to happen.

You’re all too eager to offer him a beer when he finally finishes. He takes it before sitting down wordlessly next to you on your stoop. Then it’s silent except for the crickets and the bullfrogs, but you find it peaceful rather than charged like it usually is between you.

Up close, the tattoo that once teased you that fateful day that you met is on full display. It’s an intricate piece that extends across his back from shoulder to shoulder; black ink curls around three names written in elegant calligraphy: James, Winnifred, and Rebecca. The longer you stare at it, the more your fingers itch with the need to touch it, to trace the whorls from point to point.

You take a large sip of beer for courage.

“What’s this?” you murmur, the tip of your pinky barely grazing the ‘a’ at the end of Rebecca. You feel Bucky tense up beneath your touch, and you know right away that you’ve crossed a line, possibly tearing down what little you’ve built since he fixed your shower. You wait for the blow to come, for the other shoe to drop, for him to stand and leave you all alone in the dark.

But he doesn’t. Instead, Bucky slowly relaxes, muscle by muscle. “My family. I don’t…see them much anymore.”

You let that sink in for a moment. “So you’re on your own,” you comment, using his words.

Bucky hears this and turns, unleashing the full force of those big blue eyes on you. Something flashes across them, and it could be anything: pain, recognition, anger, validation. All real emotions for a situation you’re only too familiar with.

“Yeah,” he finally mutters, looking down. Your gut twists.

Just from that one little word, you could glean all of the history behind him, the past that’s riddled with regret and hurt, and you push against the sudden urge to wrap him in a hug. Too much too soon for begrudging acquaintances. You settle instead for soft words in the form of a distraction.

“Well, except for Donna. She doesn’t know how to leave anyone alone.”

Bucky gives a half shrug, sipping on his beer. “You’re not wrong.”

“Y’know, everyone here kind of adores you.”

“I doubt that.”

“You should hear Donna talk about ya.”

The corner of his mouth ticks up as he glances at you. “That bad, huh?”

“She says you’re the sweetest guy,” you share with him conspiratorially. “That you help out a lot, actually. And that you’re quiet, but you’re really kind when you wanna be—“

“Alright, I get it,” he mutters, eyes scanning the park. “Easy to believe the lie when she says it like that.”

There isn’t any venom to his words, just a simple statement around a beer bottle. You tear your eyes away from watching his neck extend on a swallow, dazedly finding the oak tree. “I know it’s not a lie,” you say, picking at the peeling label of your drink. “I saw you the other day, helpin’ out the Markhams. All of you were laughin’, too. It was…sweet.”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment. He leans back until his forearms rest against the step behind him, stretching out his long torso like he’s asking you to count all six abdominals. “Don’t get used to it,” he mutters darkly, and it sounds like a threat more than anything, but the little pout on his face negates whatever abrasiveness he was hoping for. It makes you giggle.

“Uh-huh, sure. I know a big softie when I see one.”

He rolls his eyes before taking a sip of his drink. “Believe what you want, kid, but I’m not the type to give flowers or sweet nothins.”

Your attention sharpens at his words, a spike of curiosity jetting through your bloodstream. “How else do you woo your woman then?” you tease, just enough to hide the neediness in your voice, the urge to know the answer.

Bucky turns to you, brows furrowed. Then — so quick, you almost miss it — his eyes dart to your mouth and back. The wind shifts, your fingers tingle, Bucky pushes up so that he’s brushing shoulders with you again; you feel like they’re fused together by some invisible, magical weld. He stares straight ahead, elbows on his knees, thumb running circles around the rim of the beer bottle. “Don’t have one,” he mutters.

You blink.

“Really?” His face twists into a scowl. “Huh. Guess it’s hard to believe a good lookin’ guy like you doesn’t have a few crawlin’ all over him. Unless it’s by choice.”

Bucky frowns impossibly deeper, it’s almost laughable. “Why would it be by choice?”

“Because apparently you can barely handle havin’ a friend, or so you say,” you point out.

“Doesn’t mean I’m a fuckin’ loner,” he grumbles. “I just don’t…get out that much.”

“I bet you’d do pretty well for yourself if you did, sittin’ all alone on a barstool with the sad guy look you got goin’ on.”

“I got what?”

“Y’know,” you start with a grin, “the sad guy look. When you’re all mysterious and unavailable. Add in broody, quiet and stares a lot, women will think it’s hot.”

Bucky goes so still, even his thumb pauses.

“Oh, yeah?” he asks quietly, looking very thoughtfully at the oak tree. “Is it doin’ somethin’ for you, kid?”

The smile flickers off your face. Oh. Oh no.

“Uh…”

He eyes you sideways, and you know you’re as red as a stop sign. You gave yourself away before you could even go on the defense. You take a big sip to buy you time, but he’s there and leaning into the spot where you skin touches, and all the sudden your thoughts explode in a hundred different directions, because why is he still staring at you, and why is he actively getting closer, and why, for the love of all that’s good and holy, does he still not have a shirt on?

You think he’s never paid closer attention to you before now, and he’s destined to see through your lie when your face is there to direct him to the truth. So you gamble on a half truth.

“I think it’s a pretty universal thing to be attracted to,” you say with a shrug, giving a mediocre performance on playing it cool. He hums.

“But do you like it?” Bucky presses softly, and your stomach drops into a flip. The wind shifts again, and this time, you can feel something mysteriously close to electricity buzzing back and forth between your skin and his. Why does he care? you ask yourself, as if you know the answer.

“I…” your voice wobbles traitorously, but you know there’s no way out of it now, so you’ll go down swinging. You turn to him, and your eyes connect like a head on car crash: dangerous, devastating, impossible to look away from. “Yes,” you whisper.

He smiles faintly. “Thought so.”

“Please don’t,” you groan.

He chuckles but doesn’t look away, and you’ve already developed Stockholm Syndrome from being held hostage by his gaze. His reaches out to brush a hair from your face, natural, instinctive, and you’re holding your breath without even realizing, feeling the zip of chemistry from the tips of his fingers as they touch your cheek. You’re so close, you could lean in and brush noses with him if you had the nerve to. Or more, which you’re starting to think about—

“You might be the prettiest thing this town’s ever seen,” he murmurs, low and rough, and oh, does your heart try to leap out of your chest and drop into his hands.

You feel your cheeks flush, your sense of reality growing hazy, because is this really Bucky Barnes sitting in front of you saying that?

But he pulls back before you can even think of a response, chancing one last glance at your mouth before silently falling back into position next to you.

For a while, he doesn’t say anything. You don’t push him to. And when your finger brushes the ‘a’ again, he leans your way. Your mind is oddly free of thought as you trace the names gently — you’ve probably gone into shock over him letting you touch him like this. You’re not sure what compelled you to do it, nor what convinced Bucky to allow it, but for a few quiet moments, you feel yourself breaking through one of the walls he had up between you. You wonder if he feels it too.

Later, after he calls it a night and you’re lying in bed, watching as the patch of moonlight crawls across your ceiling, you feel like maybe he was right — maybe you weren’t going to be friends. Because maybe you were always meant to be something more.

Saturday arrives with a bang as thunderstorms roll through the county and soak everything in its reach, but by the time your shift ends, the sky has opened up to an endless portrait of oranges and pinks and purples. You take the scenic route home, windows down to let in the smell of earth and rain, and a smile on your face that hurts your cheeks and feels dangerously close to permanent. A stack of pastries sits in your passenger seat, boxed carefully and tied with a string to keep them from sliding.

When you pull up to your little trailer, Donna’s waiting for you outside your door. She descends on you immediately, taking the pastries from your hands and whisking them away to the middle of the park where the neighbors are setting up for a barbecue.

“Thanks, hun!” she calls out. “Now get outta that rag and put on somethin’ cute — we’re dancin’ later!”

By the time you emerge from your trailer, uniform swapped for something lighter that sways in the wind, the park party is in full swing. Donna’s taken up the mantle as the Chief of Staff of the buffet line, Viz is unloading cases of sodas and waters from the back of his truck, little Mrs. Markham tenderly sets up a s’mores station for the children, and Wanda’s tossing strings of lights through the limbs of the oak tree.

You rush forward when she gets tangled up in a line, stopping the threat of a hard tumble by unwinding it from her ankles. Wanda grimaces. “Thanks. Guess I can forget that career in the rodeo.”

Viz perks up from filling a cooler with drinks. “I wouldn’t say that, honey. You’re a hell of a cowgirl to me.”

Wanda blushes as red as her hair while you fight back a laugh. “Viz,” she mumbles, but her husband just sends her a wink before turning back to the cooler. “Sorry,” she says to you, the color slowly fading from her cheeks. “He can be…pretty affectionate when he’s home.”

You shake your head, smiling. “No, don’t be sorry. I think it’s sweet.” Your fingers work with hers to straighten out a knot in the lights. “Is he gone pretty often?”

She nods. “Three weeks of the month, usually. Long-haul truckin’ definitely wasn’t our first choice. It’s dangerous, and the time apart can feel painful. But the pay’s decent and…well…” She looks around cautiously before leaning in. “We’re tryin’ to start a family.”

“Wanda,” you breathe, eyes wide. She hushes you gently, but she’s smiling now.

“I know. But you can’t tell anyone — especially Donna. She’ll make it a whole thing.” She scrunches her nose adorably.

“My lips are sealed,” you vow, miming a zipper closing across your mouth.

“Thank you,” she says, squeezing your hand. “Now let’s get the rest of these figured out.“

After several more attempts at lassoing lights onto branches, the two of you end up abandoning that plan and decide to treat the trunk like a maypole; each of you take hold of a string and run circles around the tree until not an inch of bark is visible. Your side splits from laughter as you try not to trip over the exposed roots, chasing after your newfound friend. You collapse onto the grass after, knocking shoulders and gulping down air as the rest of the neighbors start to mingle around you. The smell of grilled meat and oil lanterns fills the air. Conversation is a constant hum that provides a comforting white noise. Children race across the grass, dragging bubble wands behind them and leaving a whimsical trail for the lightning bugs to follow. You take a look around the park, at your friends and neighbors sending you easy smiles and carefree waves. They don’t know the quiet impact it has on you, what it means to be on the receiving end of their kindness. It’s like they’re standing at the open door, waving you in and welcoming you home.

Viz comes over and hands you both a water. You take it with a muttered thanks, grateful to have something to distract you from the swell of emotions rearing up inside of you.

That’s when you hear it: the sound of an old engine revving up the hill. Your breath hitches as you watch the brown truck pull into the lot, Bucky’s figure shadowed by the setting sun behind him. Your lips part when you notice he isn’t alone.

The truck comes to a stop next to Viz’s. “Ah,” he says, pushing himself up from the ground. “Finally. Bucky’s here with the good stuff.”

Bucky jumps out of the truck with the ease of a seasoned cowboy dismounting from his horse. Dark shades cover his eyes, but he flips them up as Viz approaches; they shake hands, Bucky clapping Viz on the back. “Good to have you back,” you hear him say, a crooked grin on his face. In the back of your mind you know you’re blatantly staring, but this is new material that your curious brain is desperate to consume. His passenger comes around the other side of the truck, a tall, broad man with sandy blonde hair and oily jeans that give Bucky’s a run for their money. His face is weathered and chiseled like the driver’s, but there’s a softness to it that begs you to trust him, like all of your problems could be solved with just a look.

“Steve,” Viz greets, extending a hand. The newcomer shakes it, grinning.

“Good to see you again, Viz.”

You’re drawn back to Bucky as the other two catch up. His blue eyes sweep across the park, intentional and analyzing. When they fall on you and Wanda, he goes still for a moment. A part of you shrinks in fear, your heart racing in your chest when you remember the last time he picked you out of the crowd.

But Bucky’s hand comes up in a simple two-fingered wave. Wanda waves back. “Hey, Buck!”

“Wanda,” he says in that low tone of his, but his eyes never leave you. “Hey, kid.”

“Hi,” you answer, the faintest trace of a squeak in your voice. Bucky nods, an indefinable look on his face, before turning back to the truck and opening the back. Viz gives a whoop of delight when he sees the kegs waiting to be tapped.

“Right on time, Barnes. You did good.” Bucky shakes his head.

“This was all Steve. That red-headed bartender at Bruce’s is sweet on him.” Bucky’s companion chuckles, bashfully ducking his head.

“Nat’s just a friend.”

“Yeah, pal. Be sure to thank her extra nice for us when you’re at her place tonight.”

The party really takes off once the three men drop the kegs near the coolers. The rest of the group crowds around it like bees on honey. Wanda recruits you to set up a table of solo cups and sharpie markers, but you’re not much help for the urgency she needs. You’re finding Bucky lifting 160 pounds of beer like it’s a sack of feathers to be very distracting while trying to un-stack cups.

Viz christens the first keg with a spray of foam that everyone groans at, but his effacing smile tells you there’s very little that could dampen his spirits, including a botched keg. He quickly fills two cups (of mostly foam) for you and Wanda, and you laugh when she cheers you to “the rodeo life.”

You toss it back like medicine, hoping the alcohol clears your mind of the mysterious haze of self-awareness and poor attention span that Bucky brought with his arrival. The beer dribbles down your chin, and as you move to wipe it off, you glance up.

As predicted, your eyes find Bucky standing a few feet away; by all accounts, he’s locked into a conversation with Steve and Patrick that requires all of their heads to be pulled close together. But while Steve and Patrick exchange enthusiastic words, Bucky’s tight-lipped while staring at you.

You blush, an embarrassed smile flashing across your face while you use the back of your hand like a napkin. You expect him to look away, like a normal person does when they accidentally catch eyes with someone, but he doesn’t. He coolly takes a sip of his own drink, a muscle ticking in his jaw while he watches you. A ripple of heat runs down your spine that has nothing to do with the weather; it’s reminiscent of the feeling you had when his hand held tight to your wrist in your trailer, but it’s like it’s been cranked up to level 1000. When he swallows, you can see the tip of his tattoo curling at the base of his neck, and your fingers give an involuntary twitch as they remember the feel of it beneath them. Bucky shifts a half-step in your direction, and for one delusional second, you think he’s going to come over. But Donna wanders into your line of sight before the heat of his gaze can fully brand itself into your skin.

“Can I get your help with the salad? Mary went to get more plates.”

You’re dragged away before you can say a word.

Throughout the rest of the night, Bucky always seems to be on your periphery. Wherever you turn, he’s there, just a few feet away. Not close enough to warrant a conversation, but not far enough to be coincidence. You know the park isn’t big, but the proximity seems constructed, considered, careful, especially when you can feel his eyes on you at all times. When you refill your drink, he’s finishing his. When the line for the food forms, he’s three people behind you. When you pass by with a tray of desserts, he steps out of the way wordlessly, pulling Steve with him before you can excuse yourself. And he watches you go.

As the sunset melts into twilight, and Wanda’s lights begin to steal the show, you find a chair next to the speaker softly playing Fleetwood Mac. Across from you, Viz is coaxing Wanda into being the first ones to dance; she shakes her head, adamantly against it, but allows him to pull her from the chair anyway. Donna has a content look on her face as she oversees cleanup, which she shooed you away from almost immediately. Bucky’s coworker is doubled-over with laughter listening to Mr. Gonzalez’s tale of a fishing trip gone wrong. But Bucky is missing.

Your eyes scan the park instinctively, even delving into the dark corners between trailers or the full parking lot on the other side. You’re halfway out of your chair — to do what, you’re not sure — when you hear something drag across the dirt.

Bucky pulls up a chair and takes a seat beside you before you can blink. He has a fresh beer in one hand and a pack of cigarettes in the other, which he tucks into the front pocket of his red flannel.

“Enjoyin’ yourself?” he murmurs in greeting, observing the party in front of him. You can smell traces of smoke on him, layered beneath the scent of oil and something that reminds you of the woods behind his trailer.

Your gaze drops to the drink in your hand. “Yeah, this is great. Never been to something like this before.” Bucky settles into the chair, his knees spreading wide until one just barely grazes yours. “Did you guys close up the shop for this?” you ask, nodding toward Steve.

“Have to. Otherwise Donna would have our asses.”

You laugh softly. “Yeah, I got the impression this is pretty important to her when she made me RSVP.”

A ghost of a smirk flits across his face. “Her and Harold used to host this every year. After he died, she dug her heels into keepin’ it a tradition since it meant so much to him. Hard to say no to her when she’s got her mind set on somethin’.”

“I didn’t know that,” you admit. “I just thought she really likes barbecues.” Bucky laughs into his drink, and you nearly preen at the sound. “That’s really sweet, though. I wish I could’ve met him.”

“He was a good man,” Bucky agrees. “Had a lot of strong opinions about things I had no idea about. Most of it sounded crazy to me, but I ended up learnin’ my fair share from him.” He looks sideways at you. “Taught me how to use a lawnmower.”

“Really?” you laugh in disbelief. “When was this?”

“Maybe four years ago,” he says.

“Oh, shut up, you’re just lyin’ now. You build cars from scrap metal for a livin’ — there’s no way you didn’t know how to run a lawnmower.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t have a reason to until I moved here,” he says simply, like that explains the issue.

“Whaddya mean?”

He shifts in his seat before taking a sip of beer, looking past the party at the woods beyond. “There’s no grass where I come from.“

Your head tilts, eyes assessing his profile. The lined planes of his face remain as impassive as ever, but his shoulders don’t meet his ears like you expect. He seems relaxed — or at the very least, prepared — for your inevitable follow up question about his past.

“Where you from, Bucky?” you ask. He opens his mouth, but you quickly point a finger at him with a sudden burst of inspiration. “No, wait. Lemme guess…El Paso.”

The corner of his mouth curls up. “No.”

“Hmm,” you take a sip of your drink, pretending to take your time considering his accent like you don’t already have it memorized and catalogued neatly into a quiet corner of your brain. “Amarillo?”

“Nope — not Texas.”

You pout. “Gimme a hint.”

“East coast.”

You stare.

“Give up already?” he teases, but you wave him off.

“East coast, no grass, bad manners—“ Bucky snorts. “You from Jersey or somethin’?”

“Worse. Brooklyn.”

Your jaw drops. You weren’t expecting that answer. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not from Brooklyn.”

“Born and raised,” he mutters with a grin, amused by your response.

“But how do — where did you — you don’t sound like — what?”

“A story for another time.”

He’s still smiling, but there’s a shuttered look in his eye that doesn’t come from sitting next to you; it comes from revisiting ghosts in your mind while the world moves forward without you. You sit back, occupying yourself with another sip of beer while he comes back to the present.

“For what it’s worth, you can push a lawnmower like a sonofabitch now,” you venture.

He laughs, and your heart swells as you listen to it. It’s surprisingly high-pitched and breathless for a man as big as he is, but it contains something childlike that sounds tragically beautiful to someone who never laughed much as a kid. You count the lines around his eyes, you commit the scrunch of his nose to memory, you hold your breath as his knee knocks into yours and stays there.

“You watchin’ me mow my lawn, kid?” he hums into his drink, eyes flashing.

You balk. “I never said that—“

“You’re implyin’ it.” His husky voice encourages the color in your cheeks to saturate.

“It’s just somethin’ I noticed in passin’,” you plead. He takes mercy on you, for once.

Shaking his head, he mutters, “How’s the diner? It’s Tony’s place, right?”

“Yeah — do you know him?”

He purses his lips in thought, watching as the Markhams begin a slow sway on the makeshift dance floor while Wanda and Viz twirl around them. Several other pairings have joined in on the fun, spinning and dipping and waltzing along to Dire Straits.

“I know him…not very well, though. Friend of a friend, more like,” he adds, nodding at Steve. Then he clears his throat, offering you his drink when he sees that yours is now empty. “He a — he a good boss? He’s not doin’ anything he shouldn’t, right?”

“He’s fine,” you share, accepting his cup with a blink. You’re hyper aware of your lips hugging the rim exactly where his did as you take a sip. “Likes hearin’ the sound of his own voice, but that’s the worst of it.”

Bucky nods. “Good…good.”

Donna marches past then with a firm hand on the shoulder of a young teenage boy. The face beneath the crew cut is fifty shades of red, and his hands are covered in — what you hope is — melted marshmallows. Bucky snickers as Donna hauls the boy up to a group of middle-aged women chatting by the tree; one of them, who you can only assume is his mother, erupts into angry chastising as soon as she spots the teenager.

“Uh oh,” you mumble, watching the scene unfold. You can see how the boy takes after his mother as her face transitions to cherry red the longer she berates him. Bucky‘s still chuckling.

“Nate’s always been a trouble-maker, but he don’t mean much harm by it,” he murmurs in your ear. Donna watches with a sharp eye as the mother points a shaky hand in the direction of their trailer, and Nate slinks away, head bowed. “Oh, he’s gettin’ off easy,” Bucky says. “That’s a lot better than facin’ Donna’s justice.”

You grin. “No kiddin’. She runs this thing like the Navy Seals. I almost dropped the potatoes earlier, thought she was gonna spank me,” you giggle.

Bucky’s head whips around faster than humanly possible, the movement so quick it stops the laughter right in your throat.

“Can’t say stuff like that to me, kid,” he says, voice like silk over gravel.

You stare at him. In the low light of the lanterns, you can just see that the blue irises have changed shades into something darker, heavier; they’re locked on you with an intensity that doesn’t match the lightheartedness of the party. You gulp, he notices.

“Why not?” you whisper. And then his eyes drop to your lips, indisputable and poignant. Your breath hitches as the shape of him changes in front of you, as the delicate foundation of a relationship based on tolerance gets crushed to pieces by just one quick look.

“A man could get ideas,” he rumbles softly.

Your heart begins to pound in your chest, echoing faintly inside of your head. The noise of the barbecue fades. “What kind of ideas?” you push recklessly, and your eyes sink to his own mouth. His tongue darts out to wet his lips as if in answer.

“Ideas he shouldn’t be havin’ about his neighbor…who thinks he’s an ass.”

“I don’t think you’re an ass,” you breathe. He smiles faintly.

“No? All it took was a few weeks of bein’ your friend to change your mind?”

“Thought you didn’t wanna be friends,” you reply quietly. Something makes him pause, taking the time for a slow inhale and exhale to ground him. But underneath it is pure and unadulterated restraint — you can see it clear as day in the lines of his face, a sailor fighting valiantly against the storm.

“No, I don’t wanna be your friend,” he murmurs. But the words are not a rejection, they’re an invitation.

“Then what do you wanna be, Bucky?”

You bite your lip, and his eyes zero in on the tug of your teeth against the flesh. He leans in ever so slightly, like a magnet’s suddenly activated between your mouth and his, and your body hums with a desperate need to know what he tastes like—

“There you are!” Donna’s voice cuts in. She steps in front of you with her hands on her hips, and you jump in your seat like you touched an open wire. “Well, what are you doin’ sittin’? I told ya we’d be dancin’ later, and that dress looks too good on ya not to swing it around.” She looks at Bucky. “And whaddya know, you’ve got a partner right here!”

Your heart stutters in your chest as she points at him, anticipation already squeezing your lungs at the thought of Bucky’s hands holding you close while you sway gently to the music—

“Come on, Donna, you know I can’t dance. I’m not gonna make the poor girl suffer through me steppin’ on her feet,” Bucky answers gruffly.

The dismissal snuffs out the growing heat in your veins like a bucket of ice water on a candle. Your face drops, your eyes finding the dirt beneath your feet.

“That excuse is gettin’ real old, Bucky,” Donna counters, looking suspicious.

“Because it’s true,” he grumbles. “Not my fault you insist on there bein’ dancin’ every time you put somethin’ together.”

Exhaling shakily, you plaster an apologetic smile on your face as you meet Donna’s eye. “Yeah, actually Donna, I think I might turn in. I picked up a shift tomorrow mornin’ and I should at least try to show up sober.”

You see Bucky turn to you out of the corner of your eye. Donna frowns. “The party’s just gettin’ started, sugar, this ain’t the time for sleepin’.”

Chuckling dryly, you push yourself to your feet, the beer catching up to you momentarily as you take an extra step to steady yourself. You feel Bucky’s hand hover near your waist before you see it. You do your best to ignore it.

“I know, and I’m sorry. I should’ve told you sooner. But you know how it is. I got bills to pay and supplies to buy.” You roll your eyes like it’s not physically hurting you to be pulling away from her and the rest of the group, but you can’t be near Bucky right now. Not until you’ve reconciled all of the feelings you’ve felt tonight with the reality of your situation with him. You’ve learned the hard way how logic wins out over emotions, and you’re just sober enough to recognize you need a moment to align yourself with this self-inflicted mentality. You place a quick peck to Donna’s cheek, squeezing her arm. “The party’s beautiful, Donna. Truly, I’m honored to be a part of it. Thank you for hosting.”

She gives you a sad look, one meant to keep you in place, but your feet are carrying you away before you can let it pull you back in. You throw a wave over your shoulder at Wanda, but she’s too busy wrapped up in Viz’s arms to notice. You think some distance between you and Bucky will help to elevate your heart rate, but footsteps behind you put an end to your theory before it can be tested.

“Can I help you?” you ask, struggling to keep your voice light. Bucky’s stride matches yours easily, and he takes a glance at you.

“Thought I’d walk you back.”

You make a face. “It’s thirty feet away, Bucky.”

“Yeah, well, it’s dark out.”

“You can see my door from here.”

“Don’t be difficult,” he rasps like the back and forth is exhausting him. He takes half a step closer to you.

Your jaw clenches, but you say nothing as he walks you to your trailer, just out of reach of the lanterns and music and chatter. You step up to the door but turn sharply toward him when you feel his foot on the little stoop. “Alright, I’m home.”

“What happened back there?” he asks, eyes scrutinizing your face, probably reading right through you. “You were fine and then you weren’t.”

You gulp before bravely sticking your chin in the air. “Nothin’ happened. Just remembered I got work, that’s all.”

“You don’t work Sundays,” he says, shaking his head. Your back meets the door when he leans in. “Why’d you lie to Donna?”

“I didn’t lie, I picked up a shift to help a friend out. And how do you know I don’t work Sundays?” you ask, voice sharper than you intended for it to come out. At least it’s better than cracking on the tsunami of emotions you’re barely holding back.

Bucky blinks at you, going still. You’re not a mind reader, but you can hear the gears turning as his expression evens out into something you can only describe as inescapable resolution. Slowly, so slow you’re wondering if he even knows what he’s doing, he places his hand on the door next to your head; with his arm so close, you can smell how the sun’s baked into his skin, how metal seems to be an undertone all over him. And now his nose is an inch from yours.

“‘cause I watch you,” he murmurs, as soft as the evening breeze. His eyes fall to your mouth, and you can physically feel it, the pressure there, the charge of the unknown next step. Your hands flatten on the door behind you in an effort to hold yourself back.

Your mind plays over the different paths laid before you. Should you lean in? Change the course of this poor excuse of a friendship forever? Should you wait for him to make the move? Let him deal with the consequences of potential bad decisions in the morning? Should you pull away? Give yourself the time to cool off and clean up this mess of emotions following you like a shadow all night?

“You’re thinkin’ too much,” Bucky says. Your eyes refocus on his — his pupils are so wide, you’re afraid you’ll fall into them.

“I’m just tryin’ to figure you out,” you whisper, your breath mingling with his.

“Probably better if you don’t,” he answers, a hint of sadness in his tone. You search his face, but it reveals nothing; only his eyes offer any indication that he’s in control of what’s happening.

“You think that’s enough to stop me?”

Bucky’s mouth curves, but it quickly fades away. “You’re somethin’ else, kid.”

Then, as quick as it was cast, the spell is broken. Bucky leans back, his fingers lingering on the door. “Have a good shift tomorrow,” he says, voice solemn as he steps down from your stoop. And then he’s walking away.

It takes you a minute to gather yourself. The night presses in around you, cool air replacing the heat of Bucky’s closeness from moments before. With a shuddering breath, you slip into your trailer, closing the door on the party, on your friends, on Bucky behind you.

Endless rain floods the countryside the following week. Roads close, streams overflow, leaks and cracks in the trailers are exposed. You unwillingly enter into a war with a certain corner of your roof, and an empty ice cream bucket takes up permanent residence underneath it as your counterattack.

But every time you have the urge to knock on Bucky’s door to ask for help, something stops you. Flashes of the night of the barbecue, of the suggestive pitch of his voice, of his face a breath away from yours, consume your thoughts until you’re frozen in place with indecision paralysis. The ‘almost’ of it all has you twisted up in ways far more complex than when he tormented you with his indifference.

You go over every interaction in your head like a DVD menu on repeat at three in the morning. You think your signals to Bucky couldn’t have been clearer, yet he pulled away, even after giving you every indication that he wanted it, too. Confusion is too simple of a word to sum up how you feel, and you’re still too riled up from Saturday night to dissect it all head on.

Work offers a necessary distraction — at first. The weather brings in a rush of people seeking shelter from the downpour, which means less time for you to think about where you left things with Bucky, and the hours leave you exhausted to the point of collapsing onto your bed and tumbling into sleep as soon as you make it home. Then you wake up and do it all over again.

Eventually your coworkers begin to notice the toll it’s taking on you. You’re still a novice while they’re veterans, fully acclimated to the ebbs and flows of roadside diner foot traffic, so they urge you to take the first cut of the day after already battling through four grueling shifts that week. You don’t have the energy to fight them. You’re ushered out the door with orders to take a hot shower and a nap as soon as you get home. The rain soaks your uniform instantly as you rush to your car, but it’s still warm enough outside to keep your lips from turning blue as you start the journey home.

While the diner had been bustling with activity, the roads are eerily devoid of other people and vehicles. Most likely due to the flood warnings, but unlike them, you don’t have much of a choice.

You haven’t seen another car in ten minutes when the lights on your dashboard flicker. Your eyes snap to it immediately, recognizing the warning signs that nearly derailed you almost two months ago. A soft whine escapes from your chest as you feel the car begin to shake.

“Come on,” you breathe, pressing on the accelerator. The engine whines back. The radio cuts out, your lights turn off, and the car slows to a crawl. It’s with tears in your eyes that you step on the brakes and put the car into park. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

Your forehead meets the steering wheel. You get a sick sense of dejavú.

Sniffling, you turn off the car and wait before trying it again. You hear a familiar ticking sound over the patter of rain on your roof.

“Fuck,” you whisper as the first tear falls.

Your mind is too sleep-deprived to come up with solutions. Your cell phone died hours ago because you forgot to charge it overnight. Your body aches everywhere from being on your feet all day, and you think if you tried to walk home, you’d pass out in a ditch after fifty yards. You’re stranded — literally stranded on the side of the road.

So you let yourself cry, great heaving sobs that sound warped and hollow in your little car. While the release feels compulsory, it offers no relief, and that makes you cry even more. Outside, the rain persists its assault on the empty county road.

When your cries have turned into hiccups, you’re left shivering in your wet uniform. A chill has crept through the vents as darker clouds roll in. You hug your arms to your chest, breathing deeply to calm yourself down, but your body continues to vibrate past normal human function. You glance at the back seat, where an old sweatshirt lays crumpled and wedged next to the door. You crawl into the back, extracting the fabric with shaking hands and curling up underneath it. It provides some warmth, but not much.

You don’t know how long you lay there, fighting off exhaustion and self-loathing. You have no sense of time since the clock on your dash powered off with the car. The only things you register are the rhythm of raindrops and your slowed breathing.

And then you hear it.

It’s faint, almost like you’re imagining it. But it grows louder and louder the longer your ears strain to catch it. Your head lifts off the seat, and through the side mirror you spot headlights.

A brown truck with an old, rumbling engine drives past your car before slamming on the brakes. The red tail lights blind you momentarily. It quickly backs up a few meters until it’s parked right in front of yours. The driver’s door opens, and out steps Bucky.

You let out a whimper, your eyes squeezing shut. This isn’t real. It can’t be.

But he’s there pounding on your window, calling your name. You shoot up, shaking again, and lock eyes with him through the glass. Bucky’s dark hair is plastered to his forehead, beads of water dripping down his nose and off his beard. You watch as he takes in your wet uniform, your flimsy blanket, your trembling chin.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, voice muffled through the window. Slowly, you crawl across the seat to open the door. He swoops in before you can say a word; large hands grasp your arms and pull you out of the car. He practically carries you to his, a hand shielding your face from the rain, before setting you down gently on the bench seat of his truck. His touch moves to your shoulders, your throat, then your face, thumbs brushing wet strands of hair from your eyes. “Are you okay?” he demands to know. “Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. “N-no, just c-c-cold. My c-car, it — it d-d-died.”

Bucky’s lips press into a dangerously thin line before he reaches across you to crank up the heat in the truck. “Stay here,” he mutters, then closes the door on you. You whimper again, your eyes following him as he runs to the back of the truck and grabs his toolbox. He reaches inside your car to pop the hood, and then he rolls up the soaked sleeves of his red henley before getting to work.

Burning hot shame floods your body. You don’t need to be a mechanic to know what’s wrong with your car.

Your gaze slides to the empty road past the windshield. The headlights reflect off the puddles of water accumulating on the gravel, creating distorted spots of light in your vision further warped by the sheets of rain. The heat from the vents touches your skin, but does little to permeate the cold that’s seeped into your bones. You slide into the center of the bench, sticking your numb fingers into the slats to warm them up faster. A quick glance in the rearview mirror shows Bucky’s already closed the hood of your car; he stands in the downpour rubbing his face with both hands. You scurry over to the far end of the bench when the door opens a moment later, and he drops into the seat, drenched and silent.

You don’t look at him, he doesn’t look at you. The rain continues to fall.

Bucky inhales. “It won’t start.”

You clench your jaw to keep your teeth from chattering, inching closer to the heat. Your mind is a mess of fragmented responses.

His hand flexes on his thigh, the scars turning white against his skin. He exhales. “I told you to get the damn thing replaced,” he says, voice so low you can barely hear him. He turns to you, burning a hole into the side of your face with his stare. “I told you to come in to the garage.”

Your eyes sting with fresh tears, but whatever resilience is left within you refuses to let them fall. Not in front of him. “I kn-know.”

“But you didn’t.”

The barely suppressed anger in his voice triggers something in you like a fight or flight response. You meet his eyes and see the storm inside of them that rivals the one outside. Passion not so different from the kind you saw Saturday night.

“I didn’t have t-time,” you say, as calmly as you can. Bucky’s hand flexes again.

“Bullshit,” he counters.

“It’s the truth—“

“No, it’s not. I said to come in after your shift. I said I’d be there. And you still didn’t come.”

You shake your head. “I just — I forgot, okay? I was g-grateful for the help, I still am—”

“Kid, you got an odd way of showin’ your appreciation. Do you actually want the help, or did your deadbeat daddy fuck you up so bad that you don’t know how to accept it?”

There’s never been a louder silence than the one that follows his words. He recoils from it before you can, shoulders slumping like the weight of the world’s been dropped on them, a pained look slashing across his face. Your chin wobbles harder than before as the remark echoes in your head.

“Fuck, kid, I didn’t…” Bucky huffs. His hand crosses the distance of the bench, fingers grazing the skin of your thigh. You smack it away on instinct, but it doesn’t go far, dropping to the leather bench inches from you. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I went too far.”

A single tear rolls down your cheek. You brush it away quickly like it’s an open wound you need to cover.

“Please look at me,” he whispers. The fight in you balances on a razor-thin wire, one side begging you to explode on him, the other offering peace. You find your car in the side mirror, a lone figure of used and abused metal, struggling desperately to just stay alive.

Bucky lets out a heavy breath when your eyes meet his.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. You see the relief on his face mixed with the regret; it radiates off of him in waves. Slowly, you nod, your body trembling from the cold and something deeper. Bucky notices and draws back, his gaze tracing your figure.

“Come here,” he says gently, opening his palm to you.

You hesitate, the fire still burning in your eyes, and he waits.

But not for long. You slide into his arms with a soft grunt, too willingly, too easily. He catches you and holds you tight against him, hands rubbing along your arms to bring heat back to them while yours land on his chest. Your head fits perfectly into the crook of his neck, your nose skimming the wet skin. He smells like he always does, of oil and metal and pine. You inhale greedily, and it’s like a tonic to your frayed mind, clearing it of the scattered memories of a broken home.

“I didn’t mean it,” he whispers into your hair. Your eyes close.

“I know,” you whisper back.

This silence is softer, easier. You fall into it gratefully as your body slowly begins to relax against him. Bucky’s pure muscle beneath you, but it’s not uncomfortable; you mold to him like you were made to.

He shares his warmth by leaning into you, his nose dragging along your hair; the rhythm of his breaths is stable, even, and yours falls into sync with it naturally. He shifts closer, a hand curling around your waist. Because your history of push and pull dictates an eventual separation, you take the time to feel the steady rise and fall of his chest, the scratch of his beard on your temple, the wet fabric of his jeans brushing against your legs, and you memorize it all, something to hold you over late at night when the loneliness howls at your window and begs to come in like a stray cat. You sigh as your fingers curl into his shirt with every intention of never letting go. Bucky responds with a deep, measured inhale, stabilizing, grounding, human. You soak in every ticking second of this temporary peace. And then his lips, impossibly warm, find the shell of your ear, and your eyes shoot open.

You wait for him to move, to pull away, to gruffly say he’ll handle your car and take you home. He’s done his job, you’re practically burning up by now, and you know he can feel it, too. But he doesn’t let go of you. If anything, he holds you closer. Your heart begins to race — not from his actions, but from what you’re about to do.

You pull back slowly, just far enough for him to see the silent permission in your eyes, the wordless request for him to close the minimal distance between your lips and his. Bucky’s breath hitches in his chest, that steady rhythm halted.

And then he kisses you.

Softly, tenderly, delicately. Words that have never been tied to Bucky before. This hardened, uncompromising man moves his mouth over yours like it’s a gift from the heavens that could be ripped away from him at any moment. A low sound escapes from deep inside his chest, a strained variation of a sigh of relief.

You echo your relief back to him, a barely there whimper against his lips that reverberates down your spine. His fingers tighten around your waist, dragging you closer, while his tongue swipes across the seam of your lips. You open for him, physically, mentally, emotionally. He tastes faintly of metal, of smoke, of coffee, of days spent eagerly waiting for him to return home, of long nights tangled up in old sheets, of oversized sweatshirts and stolen bites of food and messy toothpaste kisses. Of a gentleness you’ve craved your whole life. You’re instantly addicted to the brief taste of this improbable future.

His tongue caresses yours and he groans, his hands and lips quickly turning rougher, needier; you welcome it eagerly. A fire’s been lit inside of you, and grows with every stroke of his mouth. You pull at his shirt, he tugs at your waist. You follow his hands as they move you across his lap, your legs bending to straddle him in the tight space of the bench seat, your chest pressed to his. Bucky breaks away from your lips to gulp down air, but one look at you hanging breathless over him eradicates his need to breathe. He wraps a large hand around your neck and pulls you back down. Your hips roll on top of his instinctively as he ravages your mouth, earning you a soft grunt when your center meets the stiff bulge beneath his zipper. He greedily presses down on the small of your back, encouraging you to do it again. And again. And again.

The hand around your throat tightens imperceptibly when you drag your heat across his erection, whining as the jeans provide a delicious friction to your core. He thrusts up into it, as if he can feel it through the layers of fabric. He groans like a starving beast that’s just found the only thing that can satiate him.

“Bucky,” you pant against his lips, an implied request for more.

His eyes flutter open. He looks at you. You think he’s about to completely make you his.

And then he gently pushes you off his lap.

Your body goes cold immediately. From the loss of his warmth and from the sudden change in tension. He unhooks your fingers from his shirt and presses himself carefully against the car door, running a hand down his face. “Fuck,” he breathes.

“W-what did I do?” you whisper. He shakes his head, unable to meet your eyes.

“You didn’t—“ He swallows. “You didn’t do anythin’.”

“Then why did you stop?”

He exhales through his nose, lips pressed into a tight white line. He’s mad. Or disappointed. Or something between the two. “Kid, I…I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

You swear you can hear the sound of your heart cracking in two. “But I wanted you to,” you tell him, a tremble in your voice.

“I know. You shouldn’t.”

Your throat tightens. “What do you mean?”

He finally looks at you then, and you see his blue eyes are filled with agony, his face lined with regret.

“I’m no good for you,” he murmurs. Your mouth opens, but he cuts you off before you can say a word. “I’m old, and I’m poor, and I’m goin’ nowhere in this life. I can’t — I can’t be what you need.”

“You don’t know what I need—“ you start, but he shakes his head.

“Yes, I do. You need a man that can give you the kind of future you deserve for pullin’ yourself out of the shit. Gettin’ tangled up with someone like me will only hold you back.”

You have to bite down on the sob threatening to burst from your chest. Through gritted teeth, you say, “That’s not your decision, though. You don’t know the kind of future I want for myself.”

“Kid, I’m an ex-con with one too many skeletons in the closet. I live on the fringes because that’s the only place that’ll take me, and I’ve got no way out of it. There is no future with me.”

“Bucky, you’re not—“ your voice shatters and splits. “I don’t care about any of that, ‘cause that’s not how I see you. You’re more than your past. What you’ve done doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to want more—“

He barks out a humorless laugh.

“Fuck, I know a lot about wantin’ more. It’s all I do these days, and it’ll all your fuckin’ fault.” His eyes flash as they find yours, vicious with pain. “I’ve wanted you ever since you stood at my door yellin’ ‘bout makin’ my sad, lonely, little life hell. Couldn’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout how I wanted you to do it, ‘cause hearin’ you throw a fit at me was the first time I felt excited about somethin’ in years. And when I’m not thinkin’ about it, I’m dreamin’ about it. About comin’ home to your sweet smile waitin’ for me, and I wake up emptier than I ever felt sittin’ in a jail cell because I know it ain’t real. You got your claws in me so deep that I can’t go a minute without thinkin’ ‘bout you. And I can’t do nothin’ about it.”

All the air has left your lungs, and Bucky’s chest heaves like he stole it from you. He looks like he’s on the brink of imploding, or breaking apart, or jumping out of the car and sprinting into the woods. You reach for him, the only thing you can think of to do—

He flinches back, turning to the window. “Don’t,” he mutters. “Don’t make this harder than it already is.”

“But it doesn’t have to be hard, Bucky!” you cry. “I want to be waitin’ for you, I want—“

“You don’t know what you want, but I promise it ain’t me.”

Tears prick your eyes, hot and painful. “Stop,” you whimper. “Stop tellin’ me what I want and don’t want. You’re not bein’ fair — you’re not even givin’ this a chance—“ He shakes his head quickly, meeting your gaze to deliver the death blow.

“You can argue all you want, but I won’t see it any different. I won’t trap you here with me. This can’t…this can’t happen.”

His words sting like a slap to the face; you reel back, pushing distance between you and him. Bucky lowers his eyes, as if he can’t bear to watch the fallout he caused. Another silence settles in the cab of the truck, this one heavier than the others, and thick enough to strangle you. You lean back in your seat, one hand on the door handle, the other pressing down on your chest, keeping you held together.

“I wanna go home now,” you whisper, blindly staring out the windshield.

He obeys instantly. Bucky’s silent as he shifts the car into drive, From the corner of your eye, you see his face is set in stone, a familiar look from the days he wasn’t speaking to you. You know what it means — he’s already shutting down, already pushing you out of his life again.

The drive to the trailer park seems to stretch endlessly; seconds feel like hours, minutes feel like months, ruthlessly challenging your inherent idea of time. When you crest the hill and pull up to your trailer, your body has gone numb from willing time to move faster.

Bucky avoids your eyes once the truck’s in park. “I’ll have your car brought into the shop,” he mutters, voice monotone and clipped. “I’ll drop it off tomorrow.”

Your lips press together to steady the tremble in your chin.

He fidgets in his seat, knuckles going white around the steering wheel. “I’m sorry.”

Your jaw clenches, your heart aches, rejection is a slow-moving poison in your veins. And you’re angry.

“Maybe it’s best if you actually stay away from me this time,” you say, ice embedded in every word. He flinches, but you don’t care. You’re sliding out of the truck and shutting the door on him before he can respond, not daring to look back as you trek through the downpour to your home. When you’re safely inside, you stand very, very still, listening to his car idle listlessly before he slowly drives away, taking your heart with you.

The worst part of it all is that Bucky is right.

Never mind the confusion over how a man that shunned you for your kindness could look at you like you were his last hope. Never mind the embarrassment of making the neediest sounds for someone that refuses to hear them again. Never mind the terrible grief you feel for something that almost existed.

What hurts the most is that he’s right. You’ve felt it in your bones since the day you signed the lease to the trailer — your future wouldn’t stop here. The miles you’ve put behind you don’t exist because you were meant to settle.

Make no mistake, you love the trailer, you love the diner, you love everything they’ve given you and everything they stand for. They bought you freedom from a life condemned to shitty boyfriends and stacked pennies and a lingering taste of resentment at the bottom of every numbing bottle.

But there’s more out there that you ache for; still undefined, still obscure, yet it calls to you in the quiet moments between work and sleep.

And Bucky…

You’ve had enough time to reflect on his words that you can read between the lines of them. His life outside of prison started and ends where he is now, whether he wants it to or not. His future has concrete guardrails that won’t budge for a whim or an opportunity, and most certainly not for a girl lacking direction with a history of going where the wind takes her.

You understand what he saw when you hovered over him in the cab of his truck, that look in your eyes that dared him to follow you into the unknown.

His life is figured out. Your very presence urges him to challenge it.

He’s the rock to your balloon. Better to cut the string now than let you wear yourself thin trying to take him with you.

Your realization makes it easier to avoid Bucky, not that you see much of him anyway. Your car appears in front of your home before your shift the next day. No note, no knock on the door, no indication that it was even Bucky who brought it back. You don’t consider tracking him down to thank him, and you’re not sure how you would: he starts leaving for work before you wake up, returning home only when you’re tucked into bed, like he knows your schedule intimately enough to avoid you completely. Remembering what he once said about watching you, maybe he does.

On Sundays, he’s tucked inside his trailer with the curtains drawn tight, his once-pristine yard slowly becoming overgrown with weeds and disrepair that is so unlike him, it would cause you worry if you didn’t know better. When the probability gods smite you both and you’re walking towards the mailbox at the same time, you stop in your tracks, eyes meeting across the park like magnets drawn together. You turn around and walk the other way before you can do anything stupid — like beg him to reconsider. You’d think it would feel good to turn the tables on him, but it feels like ripping out the stitches on a wound that’s far from healed.

Following the mailbox incident, you both become hermits, which is a hard role to take on in a community as active as this one. Donna’s already forced her way into your home multiple times, demanding your participation in some neighborhood event or another. You think if she asks one more time, it might just kill you to see the look on her face when you tell her no.

You escape to work when you can, picking up enough doubles that Tony pulls you aside and asks in his signature beat-around way if you need a loan. For a moment, you consider taking it and getting the hell out of dodge, setting off in pursuit of whatever it is that you’re chasing. But you wouldn’t know the first place to go — it’s hard to find treasure without a map — and abandoning your boss after taking his money seems like a quick way to put the journey to an end before it even starts.

So you tell him about the repairs to the trailer, and he shrugs to hide his relief before approving your fifth double of the week.

The days roll into nights roll into days. Your brain works through a constant stream of food orders and the future and instant coffee and Bucky. Only in the silence of your room in between wake and sleep do you let yourself remember his charged admission to wanting you, or the fantasized future he dangled in front of your face before snatching it away. Sometimes you can barely breathe for the weight of it all pressing down on you, curling in on yourself like he took a tire iron to your gut instead of telling you it isn’t meant to be.

But you’re a resilient girl. So you carry on, always aware of the option of a next step but never knowing what it is.

You’re coming off a seven day bender of double shifts when the next step becomes clear.

The drive home from the diner is silent — you don’t bother turning on the radio these days, and the views of the mountains and forests that once made you feel alive hardly catch your attention anymore. You’re too tired, too preoccupied, caught between your car and an imagined life where you go home to a trailer that isn’t empty.

But an empty trailer is what you’re expecting when you pull into the trailer park. You tumble out of your car, exhaustion sitting heavy on your eyes.

“Where’ve you been?”

You jump a foot in the air, a tight breath tumbling from your lips as you look around for the source of the voice. Bucky’s sitting on your stoop with his knees bent and a half-empty beer bottle hanging from his hand; illuminated by the moonlight, you can see that his hair is a mess, like he’s been running his fingers through it all night, and his face is severe with apprehension. You breathe deeply to settle your racing heart, but the sight of him has skyrocketed the beat all over again.

“Bucky,” you sigh — you’re surprised you could find your voice so quickly. “What are you doin’ here?”

His gaze rakes over you, from your beat up shoes to your hair falling out of its clip, before he takes a large gulp of his drink. “You’ve been comin’ home late. Later than me.”

You stare back at him, wondering where this is going, and not oblivious to the fact that you’d have to crawl over him to get into your trailer. Casual intention at its finest — he’s making sure you talk to him.

“I’ve been workin’ doubles,” you tell him, glancing at the door.

“What for?”

“Because truck drivers make great conversationalists.”

He rolls his eyes and sets the beer down, unfinished. “Don’t be difficult. Just tell me.”

A rush of anger surges through you at the familiar words. “I think I earned the right to be as difficult as I want.”

Bucky stands, taking a step toward you that feels like more than just him closing the physical distance between you. Your breath gets caught in your chest when you see the storm brewing behind his eyes.

“I know you’re mad at me,” he murmurs. “I get it. You can be as mad as you want. But I’m just tryin’ to make sure you’re okay.”

Your chin lifts. “I’m fine.”

He scans your face, searching for the lie under the surface. “You in some kind of trouble?”

A breathless scoff escapes you. “No, I’m not in trou—”

“You need money?”

“What?” Your expression goes sour. “Bucky, no, what the fuck? I don’t need money, I’m just workin’ more, that’s all—“

“Why?” he presses. You growl at him.

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“It’s none of your business, Barnes.”

“Kid, just tell me why and I’ll leave you be—“

“Because it helps me to not think about you!”

The outburst catches him off guard; he leans back like he’s avoiding the blast radius, a frown creasing his face. He runs a hand through his already-mussed hair, and it sticks up at odd angles that a part of you desperately wants to smooth down.

“I didn’t…” He sighs, hands on his hips. “Okay.” You cross your arms over your chest, suddenly finding interest in the dried coffee stain on your shoes. Bucky shifts his feet in the dirt next to them. Neither of you move, but you can feel his gaze on you again. “You look tired,” he says.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I just meant…maybe a break from the doubles wouldn’t hurt. You look dead on your feet. You gotta take care of yourself.”

“Right, because no one else is gonna,” you shoot at him. “I think I got it handled.”

“Kid…”

“I can take care of myself, Bucky, you don’t need to check on me just ‘cause you feel bad.”

“That’s not why I’m here—“

“Oh, yeah?” you cut him off with a surge of venom in your voice, watching as he fails to meet your eyes. “Why are you here then? ‘cause I thought I made it pretty clear that I want you to stay away this time.”

Bucky stares past you at the oak tree, his jaw clenching and unclenching in time with his breaths. “Yeah,” he mutters quietly, “you did.”

“Obviously not, since you’re here.” You finally have the courage to step around him, taking care not to brush his shoulder as you pass him on your way to the door. “Maybe third time’s the charm—“

Bucky says your name, painful yet reverent, and it cuts through the calm of the evening like a knife.

You turn slowly to face him, the keys forgotten in your hand. You didn’t hear him come up behind you, but suddenly, he’s right there, a foot away and looking like the remaining distance is torturing him.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “You could tell me a million times over and it still won’t work.”

You inhale sharply. “What are you sayin’?”

He shakes his head, testing a cautious step forward, and the little gap between you shrinks. “I’m sayin’ I can’t stay away from you.”

Your heart jumps to your throat. “Bucky…”

“I can’t stay away from you,” he repeats, firmer, more certain now. “I hate myself for it, for not bein’ able to do the one thing you asked of me, but I feel like I’m dyin’ every day I don’t see you. And that makes me hate myself even more ‘cause I know I don’t deserve you — and you deserve more than anythin’ I could give you — but I lose all my fuckin’ willpower when it comes to you.”

His words land like a blow to your chest and a kiss to your cheek. Sharp yet sweet, violent yet comforting. You stare at him, lips parted with a hundred questions and a million emotions.

Bucky’s eyes meet yours as he closes the last few inches between you, calloused hands reaching for your face hesitantly, afraid to overstep, afraid to spook you, afraid to worsen the devastation he’s done. You think about the last time he held you, what it cost you to be haunted with that feeling of forever thinking you’d never get it again, and for a moment, every cell within you screams to push him away. Danger, danger, danger, your instincts tell you, reducing him to nothing better than the boys that have come before him, the ones that let your heart go carelessly only to yank it back when it was beneficial for them.

But this is Bucky. Not the pathetic excuses for men that potholed your journey here. Even when he broke your heart, he did it for you.

His fingers are gentle as you let him cradle your face, a passing look of relief turning his eyes a softer blue.

“I know I told you this can’t happen, and you told me to stay away, but I don’t have it in me to see either of those through,” he whispers, thumbs sweeping across your cheeks. “I’ve had enough of my own restraint holdin’ me back. I spent the last seven years convincin’ myself that I don’t deserve a good life because I threw half of it away for people that don’t give a shit about me anymore.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and his eyes flutter shut at whatever memories haunt him. When he opens them again, his gaze is clearer, steadier, like he quietly made a deal with his demons to leave him be for the night. His eyes drop to your lips, just a brief glance that could easily be missed, but it isn’t, because you can’t take your eyes off him. Not when you can practically hear his heart beat in his chest, can feel the heat of him beneath his top, the rough skin of his hands reminding you that this is very, very real and not some imagined scenario you’re still stuck in on your drive home. His fingers tighten around your jaw and Bucky leans in to press his forehead gently to yours.

“When you said you wanted me,” he begins, voice rough and hushed, “it was like comin’ up for air after bein’ under for too long. You’re a livin’, breathin’ example of going through shit and still comin’ out the other side of it, and for the first time in years I thought maybe that could be me, too. But I panicked — I pushed you away like I already knew you were gonna leave because everyone else did. I’m more sorry than you’ll ever know for hurtin’ you like that. I’m a fuckin’ idiot. I’m a stupid old man.” He holds you closer, his grip on the verge of leaving marks. “But kid, I’ll give you everything I got, all the time I have left on this earth, whatever you want…if you’ll have me.”

The world tilts a little. You might have stumbled if Bucky wasn’t holding you like you’re the last light left before the armageddon. He’s so close that you can taste the beer on his breath, and you inhale deeply, drinking it in like it’s straight from the bottle. But a small voice is there in your head, providing clarity on the point of contention that drove him away in the first place…

“Bucky,” you whisper, pulling back. His eyes frantically dance over your face, brows furrowed. Your heart pounds painfully against your chest. “I think…I think you were right. What you said in your truck.” Your eyes fall shut. “About me wantin’ more than what I have now. There’s something else out there that’s meant for me and I…I realized I can’t leave it be. That I’ll do whatever it takes to have it.”

He inhales sharply, his large frame stilling against yours. You look at him then, and he’s stricken, balancing on a fragile fence between panic and hope. Your heart aches more for him now than it ever did while you kept your distance, for this rough, immovable, larger-than-life man. Despite the tears, despite the wicked words, despite it all, he calls to you. He calls…

You blink. “But it isn’t what you think.”

As you say the words, something aligns inside of you, a shifting of your soul. It settles comfortably, like it was waiting patiently for you to figure it out. What you’ve been chasing after all this time is no longer abstract or vague. It’s clear as day, as bright as a beacon, and it’s right in front of you.

Reaching up to cover his hands with yours, you thread your fingers through Bucky’s, appreciating the warmth and sturdiness of his grasp. He’s still looking at you frantically, like you might pull away at any second and tell him to get lost. You squeeze gently.

“This whole time I thought a better life meant gettin’ out of the cycle of hell back home. Leavin’ it all behind so I wouldn’t have the chance to become another sad statistic in that shit town, and makin’ my own way so I’d never have to rely on others who only saw me for what I could give ‘em.”

You shift closer to him, until your noses brush, until your lips are ghosting each other.

“And then I met you,” you breathe. “And I realized how lonely it is. I don’t know what it’s like to be loved or taken care of or given kindness just because. I wasn’t searchin’ for it when I ran, because I didn’t think it mattered — as long as I could dig myself out of where they tried to bury me. But somewhere along the way with you, it all changed.”

Your hands slide up his arms, slowly, carefully, leaving goosebumps on his skin in their wake. The tension leaks from Bucky as your arms wrap around his neck, a soft sigh escaping from his parted lips.

“The trailer and the job — you’re right, they’re not enough. They aren’t gonna give me the future I want. Because the future I want is a place to call home with someone who can give me what’s been missin’ from my life. And I want it to be you.”

A pause. Heartbeats racing in sync. Your eyes meet.

Bucky’s mouth is on yours before you can register him leaning in, and there’s an urgency to his kiss that you sends a thrill down your spine. One hand tangles in your hair, the other maps your body until it finds your waist and drags you closer as he pushes your lips open with his tongue. He moves differently than before, fueled by an emotion that doesn’t fall under a single name, but his determination is as tangible as ever. He’s taking what he wants now.

You pull away with a gasp, forehead resting against his. “Baby,” he murmurs, soft and husky, “it’s already yours.”

Your fingers find his lips and press lightly into wet skin. “You mean it?” you ask with wide eyes.

“I meant every word,” he promises. His hand tugs lightly at your hair, tilting your chin up just how he wants it. “No more stayin’ away. Couldn’t get me to if you tried.”

He seals it with a kiss, demanding and brutal, yet burning with his adoration. Your body’s pulled flush against his and it feels like coming home. Those hard planes fit against your soft curves like puzzle pieces that pledge a lifetime of coming together like this again and again.

You’re panting by the time you pull apart. Bucky’s eyes are half-lidded and full of dark intentions, but you can feel him holding back, testing his restraint, handing you the controls now.

It’s the easiest decision to make.

You pull at his shirt while slowly backing up the stoop. He follows, scooping up the keys you dropped before placing a gentle kiss to your cheek, your temple, your jaw, and unlocking your door. He pulls you into his arms once you’ve crossed the threshold, mouthing at the juncture where your neck meets your shoulder. Your breath hitches on little gasps and moans as his hands find your ass and massage it with interest.

Bucky walks you deeper into your little trailer like he owns the place, feasting on your skin and stopping only at the bedroom door. He pulls away to meet your gaze, and you see his pupils are blown.

“Kid, I’m not here just for this,” he murmurs, mouth hovering over yours. “I need you to know that.”

“I do,” you whisper while your heart swells from his words. “But I want this. I want you.”

He groans, backing you against the wall as his brow meets your temple, sighing against your ear as his thigh slides between yours. “I’ll be so good to you, baby, I promise. Lemme take care of you…”

Hands guide your hips down onto the rough fabric of his jeans, easing you across his thigh with a drag that sets off fireworks in your stomach. You breathe heavily as each pass of your clit over his muscled leg fuels the building heat within you. Bucky kisses the hinge of your jaw, the shell of your ear, whispering, “Fuck, I can feel you. Soaked already…drivin’ me crazy.”

“B-Buck— more,” you whimper as you roll your hips, searching for more friction. He grabs your jaw, something just short of gentle, and makes you meet his eyes as he presses you further into the wall. The arousal slides hot and sticky out of you, soaking your panties and sure to leave a mark on his jeans, making you glide faster on top of him. He groans when your mouth falls open in a choked gasp.

“You look too good like this, baby, gettin’ yourself off on me,” he breathes. “So goddamn pretty.”

Heat rises to your cheeks. You reach for him as you hit a new angle that makes your body sing, fingers curling in his hair to bring him in for a savage kiss, a lustful mark of new territory in your relationship; his thumbs dig into the crease where your legs meet your hips, and you can just feel the hard outline of his length straining against his jeans as it presses into your stomach, making your head spin. Bucky’s teeth nip at your bottom lip, pulling a whine from you that he swallows whole.

It’s almost too much. Like jumping off the deep end and not knowing how far down it goes. It’s terrifying, it’s disorienting, it’s perilous. But you still want to touch the bottom. You still want to know where this goes. You want more.

“Bucky,” you exhale against his lips. He holds you tighter. “Make me yours.”

His eyes flash with possession, with desire, with an enduring need that is rooted in something deeper than the lust you share for each other. It’s trust in its purest form. An exchange of souls, an agreement of devotion. Bucky gathers you up in his arms until you’re pressed against him.

“All mine,” he swears, rough and low, and carries you into the bedroom.

Bucky tosses you on the bed quickly before kicking the door closed and leaving the moonlight as the only witness to what comes next. When he looks at you, something’s shifted — something that makes the heat in your core rise to dangerous temperatures.

“Off,” he demands, dark eyes falling to your uniform. You push up to a sitting position, fingers trembling in anticipation as you slide the dress down your body until it crumples on the floor in front of him. Bucky kicks it aside, unable to look away from the sight of you in nothing but your thin bra and panties.

“Jesus,” he breathes, voice rough, licking his lips while he gets his uninhibited fill of your body. “Look at you.”

Your self-consciousness is short-lived when he leans over to press a tender kiss to your mouth, cradling your jaw like it’s a priceless treasure.

“So fuckin’ beautiful,” he whispers.

Your skin is set on fire when a large hand skims your bare thigh, pushing your legs apart until you can feel a cool breeze against the mark your arousal left on your panties. The vulnerability makes you gasp, but his touch is there to keep your legs where he wants them.

Bucky pulls back to watch as his knuckle drags across your center, teasing the ache just on the other side of the fabric that grows more insistent by the second. You’re throbbing for him, failing to hide your wanton moans as your pussy clenches around nothing but air. He moves his fingers gently over the fabric, finding your entrance and circling it expertly.

“This mine now?” he asks you, lips hovering over yours. You nod desperately. You’ve never been so turned on it your entire life. “Say it.”

You gulp. “It’s yours, Bucky. All yours.”

“All mine,” he echoes, “been wantin’ her for too long.” He traces your folds until he finds your clit. You cry out, legs spreading wider for him like he pressed the magic button. He swears under his breath before capturing your lips in another bruising kiss.

“Perfect girl,” he rasps into your mouth. You melt beneath him as he plays with your clit through your panties, a pattern of soft circles and hard presses that makes your toes curl.

But just as the pleasure begins to crest, his hand is gone. A sound rips from your chest, half-growl, half-whine, as you’re edged for a second time with no relief. Bucky just smirks and slowly pulls his shirt over his head, muscles rippling as he reveals his broad chest and tight abdominals, like a curtain being dropped for the grand finale. Immediately, your hands reach out to touch him, the sharp edges of his body, your lips pressing to the center of his stomach before you can help it, and you look at him as your mouth moves lower.

But Bucky cuts the trail off by sinking to his knees in front of you. “You can suck my cock like a good girl another time. Let your man eat first.”

His thumb sweeps across your jaw gently, then pulls at your bottom lip until you suck it into your mouth. He groans as you bite down lightly, tongue swirling its promises for another night. Bucky’s other hand finds the clasp of your bra, popping it open with practiced ease that should frustrate you but instead elevates your heart rate. Your bare chest is eye level with him, and he wastes no time admiring the way your body is illuminated by the moonlight.

“Fuck,” he breathes, and his thumb is tugged from your mouth so that he can cradle both breasts in his hands, the pads of his fingers stroking the delicate skin until goosebumps erupt under his touch and you’re arching into his hold. “Been hidin’ these from me,” he grumbles, thumb flicking your nipple. You whine when his teeth graze the other, soft and gentle, the bark before the bite.

“Bucky,” you whine, “touch me.”

“I am touchin’ you,” he says around your nipple, a smile in his voice as he sucks heavily at the skin. Your hips jerk up, seeking out some sort of friction that he’s not giving yet.

“More, Bucky, please.”

He mouths at your breast, confident, intentional, and mind-blowingly skilled, while his other hand squeezes tightly around the unkissed one.

“You beg so sweet, baby, but be patient f’me,” he mutters, switching sides. You’re inching closer to the edge of the bed, to grind against what, you’re not sure, but your core is dripping with arousal that snakes a heady trail down your thigh while your pussy throbs from the lack of attention. As he laves at your chest, you bury your hands in his hair, and he makes a small noise of satisfaction before moving his kisses lower, down your naval. He pushes you back slowly until your spine brushes the bed, a thin squeak leaving your lips as his hands find the juncture of your thighs and pulls them open wider to settle between them.

His teeth catch on the waistband of your panties. He looks up at you, and you’re outrageously close to coming just from the sight of it alone.

You realize he’s waiting for your permission, so you offer a frantic nod.

“Good girl,” he says through his teeth, pulling the fabric down your legs with swift efficiency until you’re completely naked before him. He sits back on his heels to stare.

“Don’t,” you whimper, eyes squeezing shut as his thumbs rub tiny circles that get closer and closer to your leaking center with each swipe.

“What?” he answers. “Just lookin’ at what’s mine.”

You can feel his gaze like a physical caress on your folds. It makes your back arch, your hips jerk, and he hasn’t even fucking touched you yet. A man who wouldn’t even meet your eye two months ago can’t look away from the most intimate part of you, and it’s making you come apart in ways that should require psychic evaluation.

“Hold still, sugar,” he orders, voice stern and hold unforgiving as he pins you in place.

“But—“

“No.”

You bite your lip, daring to lift your head and meet his eyes. They’re still focused on your aching cunt, watching as it drools so easily for him. And then he leans in.

Bucky presses a kiss to your clit, just a whisper of a touch that has you twitching yet again. But before the first noise of frustration can slip out, his mouth moves an inch lower, then another inch lower, a line of gentle pecks until he reaches your entrance and curls his tongue into you.

Your mind blanks out while your body reacts, thighs clenching around his shoulders, fingers twisting into his hair, every muscle in your body locking up. Oh.

He eats like it’s his livelihood, tongue circling your entrance before digging inside with a precision so intense, it’s like he already knows exactly what you need. His mouth dances there before his tongue revisits your clit, small flicks before heavy strokes of his tongue to get you writhing until the cycle repeats itself. The tell-tale coil in your gut tightens, your orgasm on the horizon.

“Taste so sweet,” Bucky rumbles, his eyes shooting up to find you already watching him. A dark look crosses his face, something you’ll remember for the rest of your life, before he buries himself back into your center. You whine, head falling back against the bed.

“How does it feel, baby?” His beard tickles the skin of your thighs. You pant and grip his hair tighter.

“S-so— so good—“

“Yeah? Can my girl take more?”

“…m-more?”

Bucky’s mouth is teasing your clit when you feel the blunt ends of two fingers circle your entrance. Your eyes pop open, and you manage to pull yourself onto your elbows in time to watch as his long fingers sink inside you, making your jaw fall open on a whimper. The feeling of them sliding against your walls immediately unlocks a new level of pleasure that is different from anything you’ve felt before, a level that you know only Bucky could have reached.

He curls his fingers, moving them in and out at a deviously slow pace while his tongue flicks faster and faster against your clit. A cry rips from your throat. The coil in your stomach grows tighter, hotter.

“Bucky,” you warn.

“Yeah, baby,” he mumbles between licks, meeting your eyes again. “Give it to me.”

A soft moan tumbles out of you. Pressure that is as cruel as it is generous snaps like a thread, and you come apart on his mouth like it’s the first time your body’s allowed you to feel alive.

“That’s it,” Bucky mutters into your core, easing you through it, “just like that, sweet girl.”

The pleasure strips you raw until you’re nothing but a live wire, twitching and moaning at every swipe of his tongue, every curl of his fingers. He sighs deeply into your cunt, contentedly, like your release was his release, too.

“Fuckin’ hell, woman,” he rumbles, forehead dropping to your thigh as his fingers slowly pull out of you. “Those sounds...Could make a man addicted.”

He pushes up from the floor while you struggle to catch your breath, watching you like a bird of prey that just found its next meal.

The golden skin of Bucky’s torso draws the gaze of your sluggish, post-orgasm brain. It grows closer and closer as he crawls over you, and your tongue darts out to wet your lips. Or to lick every inch of him. Either could apply here.

He settles between your legs easily, naturally, and your hands find his arms as they brace himself on either side of you.

“Be a doll and get my belt, yeah?” he murmurs against your ear, brushing a kiss to the shell of it. You shiver, your hazy brain finally registering the feel of his jeans on your thighs, and reach down with trembling fingers to unclasp it slowly, the zipper following with a sound that splits through the tension of the hot night air.

He kisses you deeply then, a strong hand around your jaw, your name whispered against your lips.

Your hands drift up to his shoulders, fingers curling into the ends of his hair as he pushes his jeans down, his boxers with them. Your eyes gravitate toward the hardness now tucked against your leg, and all it takes is a quick glance to realize that Bucky is truly a big man in every way. A whimper slips from you as you catch the shiny red tip twitch with need.

“What is it, sweet girl?” he murmurs, tilting your chin up to meet his eyes. There’s a light in them that suggests he already knows the answer to his own question.

You swallow thickly. “What if it doesn’t…”

He chuckles softly, brushing his lips to your cheek. “It will. You wanna be a good girl for you old man, don’t you?”

“Bucky,” you mumble shyly, cheeks tinted pink as something warm spreads through your stomach.

“I said I’d be good to you, and that’s what I plan on doin’.”

His hands move you effortlessly until you’re flush with him, just enough space for Bucky’s hips to rock with slow, shallow movements, his cock sliding through your folds and coating himself in your dripping arousal. You bite down hard on your lip when it rolls over your clit, and his eyes snap to your face, watching intensely as the mounting pleasure begins to show.

You let out a shaky exhale when he notches his cock at your entrance, lashes fluttering.

“Eyes on me, baby.”

And in an inevitable moment of tenderness, Bucky’s hand finds yours, fingers intertwining as he brings it up over your head. Then he pushes in.

You gasp, Bucky curses softly, a tension leaking from both of your bodies as he finds his sweet relief in your warmth. You’re stretched out right away, and he’s only halfway in, but it’s a fullness that that makes you feel complete, rather than feeling intrusive. You tug at his hair, pulling him closer until he eases through your tightness and slides in to the hilt. Your consequential moan harmonizes with his.

With all the restraint left in him, Bucky holds still, feeling the walls of your pussy spasm around his cock. The pattern of pressure could make him blow his load right now if he eased up even an inch on his self-control, so he grits his teeth and focuses instead on the look on your face as you adjust to him. You’re so beautiful, even with tiny tears slipping down your cheeks, that little crease between your brow. And you’re such a good girl for keeping your eyes on him.

His good girl.

“You okay?” he whispers, kissing away the tear streak on your jaw.

“Yes,” you breathe, blinking. “It feels…you feel so good, Bucky. I didn’t…”

A sound rumbles in his chest as he tests out a soft grind. You squirm instantly, hips rolling to meet his for double the pressure. His cock touches something deep within you that makes the room blur, makes you cry out.

Bucky’s free hand pushes down on your hip. “Sweet girl, if you do that one more time, this is gonna be over before it even starts.”

The pout comes automatically. Bucky kisses it off your face with the eagerness of a teenage boy, sucking your lip and folding your tongue with his as he begins a snail’s pace of little thrusts. Your cunt still pulses around him like it did when he first slid in; it makes him shake as he tries pulling out, only to be sucked back in at the first chance. His hand tightens around yours.

“Oh, God,” you whimper when he gives you a harder thrust.

“Jesus Christ, baby,” he sighs, “so fuckin’ tight, tryin’ to kill me.”

“Keep goin’, Bucky. Harder.”

“Fuuuuuck…” He picks up speed, cock dragging heavily against your walls, hips snapping. You can hear it, the wet slick of your bodies meeting, and it makes your eyes roll back as you picture his cock drenched in you.

“Perfect pussy,” he grunts. “Fuckin’ made for me. Can feel it.”

Bucky’s cock throbs while he pounds into your cunt, and the rhythm transitions into something deep and desperate and almost out of control. All the while, you can’t look away from him; even as your body jolts and moves with every thrust, your eyes are glued to the broken expression on his face, the raw vulnerability of him seeking out his pleasure in you while on a mission to give you yours.

“Fuck, Bucky,” you moan, back arching as he hits your sweet spot suddenly. His mouth descends on your throat, beard scratching at your skin.

The weight on your hip disappears when Bucky grabs your other hand, pulling it up beside the first. His thrusts get impossibly faster as he holds you down, determined to find the sweet spot again, and again, and again, until stars burst in front of your eyes and you’re clawing at his back, drool spilling from your lips while you mouth half-formed words that don’t exist.

Bucky pulls back enough to take it in, eyes roving from your face to where your bodies connect and back. “You look so pretty like this, baby,” he pants between thrusts. “All dumbed out on my cock, like you should be. Takin’ me so well.”

You whimper when you feel your stomach tighten, your muscles beginning to lock up in that way only an earth-shattering amount of pleasure can create.

“Gonna cum,” you whisper, the first coherent sentence you can think of. Bucky groans, pulling you in for a bruising kiss as his hips pummel into yours.

“Do it,” he growls into your mouth. “Wanna feel you.”

Your body trembles as it explodes and puts itself back together just to explode again. The corners of your vision go blurry. Your orgasm crashes into you with a ferocity stronger than the last, your pussy fluttering around Bucky’s cock.

His pace slows as you come back down to earth, but you’re barely given enough time to catch your breath before he’s slipping out of you and turning you over onto your stomach. You whine softly when he pulls your hips up, settling behind you on his knees.

“Goddamn, you’re a dream,” he mutters huskily, and you feel his warm breath fan over your lower back. A soft kiss is pressed to the swell of your ass before he palms roughly at it with a strong hand. “Should’ve taken you sooner.”

His hand slides lower until it cups your folds, fingers exploring and rubbing and circling freely, making you bury your face into the sheets when he brushes your sensitive clit. He learns what touch triggers the neediest sounds from you and capitalizes on it until you’re all but wriggling away from him. He catches your waist and pulls you back.

“No no no,” he soothes. “Lemme take care of you.”

Bucky slides a finger into your hole, then a second, just because he can, curling them up as if to hook you in closer. You cry out and he hums in response before his thumb brushes over your other hole, the one that’s tight and quivering from the pressure of his fingers working your cunt.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, pushing on the muscle enough to get you careening back into him. “You’d let me take you here, too, wouldn’t you? You’d be so sweet to me, so fuckin’ tight around me where no one else has been…ain’t that right, sweet girl?”

All you can do is jerk your head in a nod. He plays with both holes like he owns them, and at this point, he does. The pleasure that hadn’t really died down from your last orgasm is already on the rise again, spiking and cresting in ways you’ve never experienced before the more he circles that second hole.

“Bucky,” you gasp as he presses down on it; not going in, but just enough to break through the rim.

“Next time,” he says wistfully, pulling his fingers out of you. His cock is there to replace them in a heartbeat, and then he’s pushing back into your pussy like he never left.

“Shit—“ you exhale.

Bucky’s length feels different in this position. Longer, bigger, heavier. You don’t have to look to know he’s making your stomach bulge. He lets you adjust for a moment before taking on a pace that’s steady yet intentional. He finds his grip on you, one hand on the back of your neck, the other on your hip, pushing you when he pulls back, pulling you when he pushes in. Smack-smack-smack.

“J-J-Jesus, Bucky, it f-f-feels— t-t-too much—“

“You’re doing so good for me,” he murmurs, grabbing your neck tighter. “Such a good girl.”

He grinds into you, reaching a new depth that has you sputtering on a dry sob, pussy clenching down on him. Bucky groans.

“I know, baby, she’s been waitin’ so long for it. Gonna fill her up…make sure you’re mine for good…keep doin’ it ‘til everyone knows whose bed you’re in…”

His hips jerk suddenly, sporadically, a powerful thrust that bullies the deepest part of you and pushes you up the mattress. A breath expels out of him that could almost be categorized as a whine.

“Fuck,” he pants, “I’ll keep goin’ ‘til it takes. ‘Til you’re mine in every way. Never lettin’ go of ya—“

Your heartbeat thuds in your chest, in your veins, in your ears. You barely hear his words, let alone process them, but they still send a jolt of pleasure straight to your gut. You can’t think of anything but the drag of his cock on your walls, the stretch of your entrance at this new angle, the hold of his hand on your neck that suggests he doesn’t plan no letting you go anytime soon. And why would you want him to?

“Fill me, Buck…please. I want it…” you whisper into the pillows.

Bucky comes almost as soon as the words leave your lips, with a couple of quick, stuttered thrusts before burying himself so deep inside you, you feel him in your chest. His groan is long and ragged as the sticky release leaves his body and enters yours, settling with a finality that leaves more than just a mark on your insides. You sigh deeply as you feel him slowly relax behind you, the last of the shockwaves making his cock twitch as he pulls out. His spend leaks from your entrance and down your thigh, but a quick swipe of Bucky’s thumb returns it to where it belongs.

“Ahh—“ you hiss, but Bucky moves with purpose, gently hauling you up by the neck until you’re cradled against his chest, arms wrapped around your middle. His breathing is heavy in your ear.

“You good?” he mumbles. You only have the capacity to nod, sinking into the sweaty warmth of his skin while he places chaste kisses on your neck. “C’mon, then.”

He picks you up off the bed and carries you to the bathroom, letting you be for a moment to clean yourself up, and you know the image of his bare ass walking away is burned into your retinas for good. He returns with a set of panties and the wifebeater he was wearing before, now dressed in his boxers. He helps the shirt over your head, holds the panties for you to step into, and the act is considerate and intensely intimate, something you weren’t expecting even after the endless devotion you just received from him. His blue eyes watch you closely, softly, still dark from the throes of passion, but free from any haziness and uncertainty. He is where he wants to be, doing what he wants to be doing; there’s no room for doubt, not when you see him look at you like that.

A slow kiss is pressed to your shoulder once you’re dressed. He tugs you back into the bedroom, a possessive hand on the small of your back that guides you beneath the sheets. Bucky slips in behind you, enveloping you in his familiar scent of sweat and metal and evergreen, pulling you to him after so many days of pushing you away.

“Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

You bite your lip. “Was it really me yellin’ at you that did it for ya?”

There’s a small pause before you hear a soft chuckle, just a puff of breath on your skin.

“I’d be lyin’ if I said it wasn’t. But…it was also the before, and the after, too. Still bein’ able to have a smile that big and pretty after all the hell life’s put you through. After all the hell I put you through…it’s hard not to fall for that. You’re a…good person to be around.”

Your stomach erupts with butterflies, your skin zings with electricity wherever he touches you. His words are exactly what your soul craves, so much so that it hurts.

“Careful,” you whisper, “this is startin’ to sound like the sweet nothins you say you don’t give.”

You can feel his smile against your spine. He tugs you closer. “Don’t be difficult.”

“Me? Never.”

A few beats of silence pass, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to lie next to him without saying a word.

“I meant what I said,” he eventually murmurs, absentmindedly stroking your collarbone.

“What part?” you whisper, lips brushing his hand.

His voice is gruff in your ear, low and tentative. “‘bout not lettin’ you go.”

A smile cracks across your face. “Oh, yeah?…what about the other parts?”

He makes a quiet noise in his throat. “Y’heard that?”

You crane your neck to look back at him. He’s focused on a spot on your shoulder, smoldering intensity written across his face dulled only by a touch of sheepishness.

“I heard all of it,” you tell him softly. His eyes meet yours, dark blue storms drowning you in their path.

“Couldn’t help myself,” he says, licking his lips before placing a hot, open-mouthed kiss on the back of your neck. You bend toward him like a flower to the sun. “I want you waitin’ for me when I get home. I want you givin’ me hell for being late for dinner. I want you doin’ laundry in my underwear.” His lips brush your skin again, hands wandering beneath his shirt. “I want you keepin’ me up all night, lovin’ on me ‘til I know nothin’ but you. I wanna show you in every way I know how that I can be what you need.”

Your hand curls in his hair, forcing him to look at you. “You already are,” you whisper.

Bucky slots his mouth over yours with a groan, promising tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, with his kiss.

sammy speaks again: if I told you this took me two months to write would you believe me? 30k words too like I could have shortened it sammy let’s be real, but I think my body physically rejects the idea of not providing an encyclopedia of a build up. which this seriously is, holy introspection and emotions like can I write normally for once? anyway idk what happened to me but I’m just grateful I’ve finally broken through the funk!

good news is I feel way more open and inspired to write my other wips after signing the dotted line on this one. let me get through a couple shorties and then I’ll be back with one of those!