bucky's babygirl

Kid, so he could look away.

Kid, so you'd stay safe.

You've been watching him for six years now. Learning the way he takes his coffee, the tells when he's had a bad night, how he'll rub at his left shoulder where metal meets flesh, like the junction still aches. You've seen all of it, studied all of it.  Sometimes you think about making a list, just to prove to yourself how pathetic you've become. Line item number one: he takes his coffee black but adds sugar when he thinks no one's looking. Line item number seventy-three: the nightmares are worse in winter. You could write a dissertation on Bucky Barnes and never run out of material.

You've watched him go from your dad's traumatized war buddy to something resembling human again. Watched him learn to laugh at your dad's shitty jokes and argue about sports teams and pretend the nightmares didn't still wake him up sometimes.

Watched him, lately, watch you back.

It's different the way he watches you. You don't think there's a name for it, or if there is, it is too scandalous to say out loud. His gaze will catch on your mouth when you're talking, or track the movement of your hands, or linger on the strip of skin between your shirt and jeans when you reach for something on a high shelf. Then he'll look away fast enough to give himself whiplash, and call you kid again like the word's a shield against whatever he's been thinking. It's one of those 'say it enough times, you'll start believing it' situation.

The first time you caught him staring at your mouth, you'd forgotten what you were saying mid-sentence. Just stood there like an idiot while he blinked and looked away. Your dad asked if you were feeling okay. You weren't. You haven't been okay since you were nineteen and saw him for the first time.

What's killing you now is that you don't know what happens next. You've played out a dozen scenarios in your head — him kissing you against the kitchen counter, you finally calling him on his bullshit, the world ending before either of you has to acknowledge this thing happening between you two. But you can't predict Bucky Barnes. He's controlled but also has triggers you don't know from stories he won't tell, and trying to guess his next move is like trying to catch smoke.

When you let yourself into your apartment on a Tuesday and hear him at your sink, you're not even surprised anymore. This has become routine. Your dad forgets his stuff more often than not, Bucky shows up to collect them, the excuse wearing thin each passing day. Both of you pretending this is normal.

"Kitchen," he calls before you've closed the door.

You don't question why he's here before you're even here. To be honest, it makes you happy, to see someone else — no, to see him. The henley he's wearing enhances his biceps, you almost want to chew through it. You've seen him in this shirt before. You know you have. But every time feels like the first time, like your brain can't quite process the reality of him. There's grease smudged on his jaw that he's completely missed while washing, all you want to do is let your fingers touch him under the guise of removing it. His hair's getting long, and you have approximately thirty seconds before you do something stupid like offer to trim it for him.

"Where's dad?"

Bucky glances at you, a fractional hesitation before he shuts off the water. "Got held up at work." He reaches for the dish towel — the one you've told him a hundred times not to use for his greasy hands — and starts drying off. "Said he'll grab the bike next week."

"Right. Next week." You drop your bag on the counter, not surprised once again. Your dad's been saying next week for three weeks now. At this point, the bike is practically furniture. Why does he leave his things over here if he never cares enough to get them back himself? 

"Well, he's busy." 

"So, he sent you?"

"He didn't send me, I offered," he says. The way he's looking at you now makes your aware of your heartbeat, the steady thunk it used to be is now replaced by this erratic energy that has nowhere else to go.

The kitchen suddenly feels too warm. Or maybe you're too warm. Maybe you've been too warm since the moment you walked in and saw him standing at your sink. You shrug out of your jacket, feel Bucky's eyes track the movement, watching the fabric slide down your arms, every inch of your skin waking up under his gaze. When you look back at him though, his eyes are fixed on the ragged towel at his hand, like they weren't on your skin this whole time. 

The grease on his face is starting to bother you. Though, bother would be a big word. You just want to rub it off. Why? You don't know. Maybe to get your hands on him. "You've got something on your face," you tell him.

His hand rises automatically, searching for the stain in the wrong place. "Where?"

"Other side. No — here, just —" You step closer, and immediately realise this is a mistake. You know it's a mistake even as you're doing it, but your hand's already there, thumb swiping at the smudge on his jaw.

Bucky goes still, that's the only way to put it. A whole-body freeze, every muscle locked down. You're close enough now to see his pupils dilate, to count his eyelashes if you wanted to, which you absolutely do not want to. That's what you keep telling yourself. Liar, something in you whispers. You've wanted to count them since forever. You've wanted to note every detail of him and keep them somewhere safe.

There's a faint knowing of the world running in the background, but nothing else seems to matter when he's still not moving. And neither are you. "Got it," you say, but you don't step back.

"Thanks." 

Your thumb's still on his jaw, his stubble rasping against your skin. You can feel the texture of it, slightly coarse. Suddenly, you're struck by the intimacy of knowing how his face feels under your hand. This is the kind of knowledge that belongs to girlfriends and wives, not to the daughter of his best friend who's been harbouring increasingly inappropriate thoughts for years. You can feel his pulse jumping in his throat, like he's been running. Neither of you is moving. Neither of you is even breathing if you're entirely honest. There's a slow dance of his eyes, from your own to your mouth, then back to your own. Yours do the same, mirroring him in the most minute way possible. There's about three inches of space between your mouth and his.

"This is a terrible idea," Bucky says as he leans in, which in turn makes you lean in. The distance closes in itself by excruciating degrees. 

"The worst." The two words from your mouth are swallowed by his own, the space between you both narrowed to a negative as his lips touch yours. The first graze of it is gentle, testing. Like he's afraid you'll shatter or bolt or realize what a stupid thing this is. But you've been waiting for this. There's months — no, years — of watching, wanting and pretending you weren't doing either, years of lying to yourself that you could be satisfied with just existing in his orbit, and gentle just isn't going to cut it. You fist your hand in his shirt and pull him closer, breaking whatever thread of control he's been clinging to.

Bucky makes a low sound in his throat and kisses you harder, hand coming up to cup the back of your head, metal arm sliding around your waist. The metal is cool even through your shirt, a shock of temperature that makes you gasp into his mouth. He tastes like coffee and mint gum, the taste so unique because it's him. When his tongue sweeps into your mouth, you forget how to think in complete sentences. Language becomes optional, unnecessary. Who needs words when you have this, have him finally, finally touching you the way you've dreamed about. Your free hand finds his shoulder, gripping hard enough to feel the shift of muscle under skin, as he backs you up until your hips hit the counter.

The kiss turns messier and desperate. His beard scrapes your chin, fingers tangling in your hair, pulling small sounds from you. You'd be totally embarrassed if you had any capacity to think. But, you're drowning in it, in him, in six years of wanting finally combusting into this.

The limbo of the kiss, the existence narrowed down to the dance of your lips is mercilessly interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket.

Bucky tears his mouth away from yours with a curse that would make your father blush, his forehead finding residence at your temple, both of you panting. You can feel his breath on your skin, uneven, matching your own. His hand shakes slightly as he fumbles for his phone.

"It's your dad."

The words are a bucket of ice water, waking up fear and shame, squashing any leftover desire. Guilt crashes over you in waves. This is your dad's best friend. Your dad's traumatized war buddy who he trusts completely, who he invited into his life, into your life. And here you are with swollen lips and shaking hands, having just had his tongue in your mouth. 

Bucky steps back, puts physical distance between you before he answers the phone. The loss of his warmth feels physical, like something's been ripped away. "Yeah?" His eyes are still on you, pupils still blown, gaze oscillating between your parted lips and your pleading eyes. "No, just wrapped up. Heading out now." A pause where he could take a deep breath, but doesn't. "Yeah, she's good. I'll tell her."

When he hangs up, the silence that follows is excruciating.

Expectant eyes search his face, his mouth, guilt threading through your own features as you take in his. Whatever you'd expected him to say, it wasn't this, "I should go," Bucky says

"That's it?" The words tear through you, frustrated and angered by his choice, his decision. "That's all you're gonna say?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. Maybe any sentence that doesn't make me feel like I imagined the last five minutes."

His jaw clenches and unclenches. You can see him thinking, the gears turning behind his eyes, weighing what he should say versus what he wants to say. He looks like he's choosing his next sentence carefully. But when it does come out, it doesn't seem all that careful. "You didn't imagine it."

"No? Great. Very comforting." You cross your arms, looking like the very kid he claims that you are. "So what, you kiss me like that and then just leave?"

Bucky doesn't quite meet your gaze as he grabs his jacket and starts his way away from you, stillnot looking at you. 

"Why?" You prod. 

"You know why." Finally, he looks at you, whatever you see on his face makes you want to hit him or kiss him again. Pain, maybe. Regret. Want that he's trying desperately to bury and failing. Not trusting your body to keep its distance, you put some between you, stepping back. Bucky sighs, and runs his metal fingers through his hair. "Your dad's my best friend. I'm too old for you. This is — we can't —"

"I'm twenty-five, Bucky."

"I know how old you are. You think I don't know exactly how old you are? You think I — Fuck!" The frustration in his voice borders on anguish, like the knowing is what's killing him.

"Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is that your dad would kill me. The problem is that I've got no business touching you. The problem is that I can't —" He runs his hand through his hair again, and you think he might pull it off if he's not careful. "I need to go."

Bucky walks out, leaving you standing in your kitchen with kiss-swollen lips, racing heart, and anger. You're furious. At him for kissing you and leaving. At your dad for existing. At the whole goddamn universe for making this so complicated. At yourself most of all, for still wanting him even as he walks away.

A week. Seven days of you jumping every time someone knocks on your door, checking your phone obsessively like he's going to text you, half-expecting Bucky to show up with another tissue-thin excuse about tools or motorcycles or whatever.

He doesn't.

Day two, you convinced yourself you hallucinated the whole thing. Day three, you stared at your kitchen counter trying to remember the exact spot where he'd backed you up against it, like if you stand there long enough you'll be able to conjure the feeling of his hands on your waist.

Your dad picks up the bike himself. Mentions Bucky's been busy with some job for Sam, says it casually, disinterested. That means he has no idea anything's changed. You smile, nod and try not to think about the way Bucky's mouth felt on yours.

It doesn't work.

You replay the kiss in your mind so many times it starts to feel like fiction. But, you can still feel the ghost of his metal arm around your waist, still taste coffee and mint when you close your eyes.

On day seven, you've nearly convinced yourself to show up at his apartment and demand answers.

But he shows up at yours.

It's Tuesday night, exactly one week later. You're in old sweats and a tank top, halfway through a pint of ice cream you're eating straight from the container. 

The knock is an inconvenience at this time, perfectly ruining your plans of rewatching Brooklyn 99, turn your mind off and eat the damn ice cream. You almost don't open, 9 PM is hardly any time for visitors, hoping that person takes the hint and fucks off.

The second knock comes up more insistent, a hurry in the air, forcing you to pad towards the door, ice cream in hand. 

And there's Bucky. 

Bucky, who looks terrible, dark circles under his eyes, wearing an expression like he hasn't slept in days. He looks how you feel, which is both gratifying and heartbreaking. His hair is damp. It takes you a moment to understand it's drizzling. Drizzle would be a stretch, for the raindrops are the size of a pomegranate pearl, dropping down with vigour. 

"Hey," he says.

"No." You start to close the door, even though all you want to do is haul him inside, towel off his hair, dry those strands that are matted together. 

His boot hits the doorframe, an obstacle in your plans, a test on your self-preservation. "Wait —"

"I don't want to hear it, Bucky. I really don't." You try to push the door close anyway, mustering up the courage. But he's stronger than you physically, stronger than your thinning anger, which is dissipating by the second. "Move your foot," you try somehow. 

"Not until you let me talk."

"Why should I?"

"I don't know. Maybe you're a nicer person than I deserve."

A smile starts to break into your features, but you quickly tone it down. He's not playing fair, showing up here looking lost and using that voice. "Flattery's not gonna work."

"I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm trying to apologize."

You stop pushing on the door, the bare minimum you could do without showing all your cards. "Then apologize."

"Can I come in?"

Now, that would be a tremendously bad idea. If he comes in, you're not sure where else he'll be coming in. 

"You can apologize from right there." 

Bucky's quiet for a moment, studying your face. You try not to show your true feelings,keep your expression neutral, unaffected, like your heart isn't actively trying to beat its way out of your chest. "I'm sorry. For leaving like that. For not calling. For —" He looks like he's frustrated with himself, abruptly stopping the sentence. He takes a deep breath before continuing, "for all of it."

"Okay." You still don't open the door wider. "Apology received. Have a good night."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Shut me out. I know I fucked up, but —" He runs his hand through his hair, the water droplets cascading down his skin. You hate that you find it endearing, that even now, even angry and hurt, you're memorising the way the water runs down his temple, the exact shade of misery in his eyes. "Can we talk? Please?"

The 'please' is what does you in. You've never heard Bucky Barnes say please about anything, the sheer novelty of it makes you hesitate just long enough for him to see the weakness in your armor. "Five minutes," you tell him, stepping back.

You close the door behind him as he enters. When you turn around, he's closer than you expected, your back hitting the door with the need to put distance between you both. "You said you wanted to talk," you remind him, voice breathier than you'd like.

"I can't stop thinking about it." His gaze drops from your eyes to your lips. "About kissing you. About how you tasted. About the sound you made when —"

Feigning indifference seems like the only way out of this. "Okay." You try to sound unaffected, like your pulse isn't racing, like you haven't been thinking about it too. Obsessively, unhealthily, to the point where you can't focus on anything else. "So you've been thinking about it."

"That's not okay."

"No?" You raise an eyebrow, daring him. "Sounds like a you problem."

Bucky takes a step closer, trapping you between him and the door, the distance feeling anything but threatening, not having felt this alive in seven days. "I've been trying to do the right thing. I know that sounds like garbage from where you're standing."

"It does have that smell."

His lips curve into a smile. You wish you were immune to that, to his smile, to him. His hand comes up, hovering near your waist but not quite touching. "Your dad trusts me. He's trusted me for years. And here I am, showing up at his daughter's apartment, thinking things I've got no business thinking."

"What kind of things?" 

"Don't ask me that."

"Why not?" You're goading him, and you both know it. "Afraid you'll tell me the truth?"

His hand finally makes contact, just a light touch on your hip, just over the fabric of your top. "I've thought about you in every room of this apartment. I've thought about you when I shouldn't, in ways I definitely shouldn't. I've tried to stop, and I can't, and it's driving me out of my mind."

"You should suffer a little. You left me standing in my kitchen like what happened meant nothing."

"It meant everything." His other hand finds your waist, both of them spanning your hips, and you wish you weren't wearing anything, just so you could feel his hands on your skin. "That's the problem. If it meant nothing, I could've walked away and stayed away. But it meant everything. I still tried to stay away — tried to do the right thing, but here I am."

His breath comes out hard, he's so close you can clearly see the flecks of gray in his blue iries, which are turning black by the moment. You can smell the rain on him, soaked strands falling in front of his face, begging to be brushed away from his eyes.

"Stop calling me kid," you tell him.

Bucky's hands tighten on your hips. "I didn't call you that tonight."

"Not tonight. In general."

Bucky doesn't respond, but his hands move a fraction, the metal in his arm grazing your skin, cool even through your thin tank top.

"Say my name."

He hesitates like the word might burn him. You watch him struggle with it, something like pain or hurt flickering across his face before he utters, "sweetheart."

"That's not my name."

"Please." His voice is rough, pleading. 

"Say it, Bucky."

"Please don't make me."

The vulnerability in it catches you off-guard. "Why not?"

"Once I say it, that's it. I can't take it back. Can't pretend this is something I can walk away from."

"So you do want to walk away still?"

So soft, so fragile, your name leaves his mouth. It sounds different in his voice, shaped by his accent, rough with want. You've heard your name a thousand times but never like this.

"Was that so hard?" Your own voice is softer now, your hands somehow having found their way to his chest, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket.

"Yes." All that want he's been trying to bury, is written across his face in sharp relief. His eyes are almost black, pupils blown wide, grip on your hips tight enough to bruise. "You have no idea how hard it is."

"Saying my name is hard?"

"Saying your name while I've been watching you, wanting you, knowing I shouldn't touch you. That's hard."

"You want me?" The question comes out barely above a whisper.

"Don't ask me that." It sounds like it's being dragged out of him. "Please."

"Why not?"

"You know why."

"No, I don't."

Bucky makes a sound that just might be the frustration in him seeping through, but his eyes are full of want. "Yes. Fuck, yes, I want you. I want you so much it feels like it's killing me. Happy now?"

"Not yet," you tell him befote smashing your lips into his. Anything but gentle, absolutely no testing the waters thing he did the first time. This is want distilled into action, six years of waiting and pretending all combusting at once, every fantasy you've ever had, every late-night thought you've tried to suppress, finally made real. Your hands fist in his damp hair, tightening his grip on your hips, bruising. When you bite his lower lip, he groans into your mouth like you've wounded him.

"We shouldn't," he speaks against your lips, but he's doesn't pull away, not even close. "Your dad —"

"Is not here." You pull back just enough to look at him. "Do you want to stop?"

Bucky looks at you like you're asking him to cut off his other arm. "No."

"Then stop talking about my dad while you're kissing me."

That startles a brief laugh out of him. Without wasting another second, he's kissing you again, walking you backward through your apartment. You're vaguely aware of furniture and doorways, of his jacket hitting the floor somewhere, of your ice cream forgotten on the counter. None of it matters as much as the slide of his tongue against yours, the taste of him, the way his hands are mapping your waist like he's memorizing you.

When the backs of your knees hit the couch, you try to pull him down with you, but Bucky resists. His hands find your hips, steering you around until you're standing and he's sitting, thighs spread wide to make room for you between them. The position puts you above him, taller for once. On his face, theres a crack in the armor where you can see straight through to the want underneath.

He looks up at you, and you've never seen him like this. Vulnerable doesn't seem like the right word for Bucky Barnes, but it's close. It's in the way his hands rest on your hips, loose enough that you could step away if you wanted. In the tilt of his head, exposing his throat, how he's letting you see him want you without the usual defenses. It makes you feel invincible and terrified both.

"Still time," he says.

"For what?"

"For you to tell me to leave."

You reach down, fingers sliding into his hair. The strands are cool and wet against your palm. When you drag your nails lightly against his scalp, his eyes flutter close. "I don't want you to leave."

Bucky leans forward, resting his forehead against your stomach. The intimacy of it steals whatever breath you have left. His hands tighten on your hips, thumbs stroking small circles through your tank top, the warmth of his breath you can feel through the thin fabric.

"Should've done this right," he mutters into your stomach. "Should've taken you to dinner. Somewhere nice. Not just shown up at your door like some —" he stops, breathing into you, the warm breath wet against your skin even through the flimsy cloth. 

"Like some what?" You prod. 

"I don't know. Obsessed asshole with no self-control."

That makes you laugh, earning a smile from him that you feel against your stomach. "I don't want dinner," you say. 

"You should want dinner. You should want the whole thing — flowers, romance, somebody who isn't —" He sighs, not able to finish what he was going to say. If he says it, it will be real. 

"Who isn't what?"

"Too old for you. Too —"

"Bucky." You tug his hair until he looks up at you, mouth parted, so gorgeous. "I don't care about any of that."

"You should."

His hair is soft under your touch, your fingers playing with them as you speak. "Well, I don't. And for the record, I hate fancy restaurants. They never give you enough food, and everyone whispers."

His mouth quirks into the fondest of smiles. "That's your objection? Portion sizes and volume?"

"I'm serious. I went to this place once where they served a single scallop on a plate the size of my head. One scallop. I'm supposed to eat one scallop and pretend I'm satisfied?"

"Sounds terrible."

"It was. I stopped at McDonald's on the way home." It had been a date, actually. Some guy from your office who'd taken you where the menu didn't have prices and the portions were insulting. You'd been hungry, bored and wishing the entire time that you were with Bucky instead.

Bucky's hands slide under the hem of your tank top, fingers finding bare skin. "No famcy restaurants where they serve a single scallop. Noted."

His touch almost derails your thoughts, you have to work to keep your voice steady. The rough calluses on his fingers drag against your skin, leaving trails of fire. "Anyway, you're here now. That's worth more than some overpriced shit."

"Is it?" There's doubt clouding his eyes, you can see clearly. 

"Yeah. It is." You just hope he understands how much you mean this. 

His hands move higher, taking your shirt with them, bunching the fabric above your waist. The metal hand is cool against your overheated skin, cold enough to make you gasp. Bucky stops his touch on its tracks. "Is it cold?"

"A little."

He starts to pull back, his touch leaving you becoming a physical thing you feel the loss of. Catching his wrist, you hold the metal hand flat against your stomach. "Don't."

"You sure?"

"I like it." The contrast, the warm flesh on one side, cool metal on the other, makes your skin feel alive. You've thought about his arm before, late at night when you shouldn't. Wondered what the metal would feel like against your skin, wondered if he'd let you touch it, trace the plates. "Feels good."

His grip tightens, both hands spanning your waist now, the slight tremor in his fingers you feel more and more each passing second. Like he's overwhelmed by being allowed to touch you like this. Like he can't quite believe you're real. The next thing you know, Bucky is leaning in, pressing an open-mouthed kiss just above your navel.

The wet heat of his mouth against your skin makes your knees weak, almost wobbling. He does it again, lower this time, tongue tracing a path across your stomach that has you gripping his shoulders for balance. His stubble scrapes your skin, adding another layer of sensation you've never felt. When he bites down gently on your hipbone, a soft gasp leaves you, like there's not enough oxygen in this room for the both of you, especially not with the way he's pressing these kisses. 

The silence while he's kissing your stomach is too much. You need to fill it with something before you combust entirely. "Been thinking about this?" Your voice comes out breathy.

"Yes." Bucky doesn't even attempt to lift his head, continuing his way across your stomach, hands holding you steady.

"How long?"

Bucky's mouth stills against your skin. For a second you think maybe he won't answer, maybe he'll pull back, and this is it. But almost soft as a whisper, his words come. "Long enough to feel ashamed about it."

"How long is that?"

"Remember that barbecue last summer?" His lips brush your navel as he talks. "You were wearing that black top, and you bent over to grab a beer from the cooler? Yeah, I spent the next twenty minutes trying not to stare at your ass."

"That was July."

"I know when it was." His hands slide higher, taking your shirt with them. He pushes the fabric up and over your head, dropping it somewhere behind you, leaving you in just your bra from the waist up. The air feels cold against your exposed skin, but Bucky's gaze is hot enough to burn. "Been drivin' me crazy for months."

You remember that day. Remember catching him staring and thinking you'd imagined it. Apparently, you hadn't. Bucky looks at your bra, but decides against it, pushing it up too, just shoving it out of the way, pulling you down into his lap. The position puts you straddling his thigh, friction of his jeans against your sweats making you acutely aware of how wet you already are. Embarrassingly wet. He's barely touched you and you're already soaked through, probably leaving a damp spot on his jeans. 

Bucky's mouth finds your breast, and whatever coherent thought you had left scatters like startled birds. He sucks your nipple into his mouth, tongue working the sensitive peak. Your hips roll forward involuntarily, the pressure against your clit perfect but not nearly enough, chasing more friction, grinding down on his thigh.

"That's it," he murmurs against your breast, switching to the other side. "Take what you need."

His metal hand cups your neglected breast, thumb brushing over your nipple, the cool touch making you gasp. He seems to like that reaction, doing it again with more pressure. Having him like this, puts all your fantasies to shame, your fingers threading through his hair to hold him close.

You didn't know it could feel like this. This consuming. Every nerve ending in your body is focused on the wet heat of his mouth, the cool press of metal, the friction building between your legs. You're making these small desperate sounds you can't control, hips moving faster now. Bucky groans against your breast like watching you get off on his thigh is the best thing he's ever seen.

"Bucky —" You're close already, wound too tight, and it's almost embarrassing how fast he's gotten you here.

"I know." He bites down gently on your nipple, soothing it with his tongue. "Can feel how wet you are through your sweats. Gonna cum just from this, aren't you?"

The words almost send you over, but before you can, he lifts you off his lap, laying you down on the couch. You barely have time to process the change before he's hooking his fingers into your waistband, dragging both your sweats and underwear down your legs in one smooth motion. Your bra which was previously pushed atop your breasts, is discarded too, and you're naked. Completely naked while he's still fully dressed, and somehow that makes this hotter. There's this moment where neither of you moves, stuck in a limbo, where he just looks at you, sprawled across your couch. You watch him take in every inch of exposed skin. You watch him watch you. 

"Jesus," he breathes.

"Are you just gonna stare, or —"

Bucky kisses you, cutting off whatever sarcastic remark you were about to make, mouth insistent, tongue tasting yours. When he pulls back, you try to follow, chasing him, but he's moving down your body.

He kisses your jaw, your throat, the hollow at the base of your neck where your pulse is racing. You wonder if he can feel how fast your heart is beating, if he knows what he does to you. He takes his time with your breasts again, like he can't quite believe he gets to touch them. His mouth blazes a trail down your sternum, mapping the soft plane of your stomach with lips, teeth and tongue.

When he reaches your navel, his tongue dips inside, circling, your back bows of the couch in response. "Bucky, please —"

"Patience. Wanna look at you first." His hands are on your thighs, pushing them apart. The first brush of cool air against your wet core makes you shudder. You should be self-conscious about this, spread open for him, the position in itself making you vulnerable, but the way he's looking at you makes you feel like a goddamn masterpiece, killing any embarrassment before it takes root. 

His finger traces your slit, so light it's almost not there, and you try to cant your hips up for more pressure. Bucky's metal hand presses down on your lower stomach, holding you still.

"Stay," he says, like you're a misbehaving dog and not someone who's writhing for breath beneath him. It's not quite a command but close enough to make you clench around nothing. 

Bucky explores you with devastating thoroughness, tracing the shape of you with one finger, learning what makes you gasp and what makes you whimper. He spreads you open with two fingers, just looking. "She's so pretty," he murmurs, almost to himself. "So fucking pretty."

He leans down to lick a stripe up your center, tongue flat and broad, and you forget how to breathe. Even the first touch of his mouth is too much, when you're already so worked up, so close from grinding on his thigh. The wet heat of his tongue against your clit makes you cry out, not even embarrassed about how loud you are. Let the neighbors hear. Let the whole building know. He seems encouraged by the sound, doing it again with more pressure. He eats you out like it's the only thing he wants to be doing. Like he could spend hours between your legs and die happy. His tongue works your clit in slow circles, alternating between broad strokes and focused attention that has you squirming. When he closes his lips around the sensitive bud and sucks, you nearly come off the couch entirely. "Oh god — Bucky —"

He slides one finger inside you while his mouth stays focused on your clit. Your fingers on his hair tug them harder with each pass of his tongue, almost scaring you with how tight you're pulling and whether you're hurting him. You might actually rip his hair out, but you can't bring yourself to care because it feels too good. None of that even seems to cross his mind as his finger curls, finding that spot inside you that makes your whole body tense. He works it mercilessly while his tongue keeps that same steady rhythm.

You're pretty sure you're babbling now, saying his name and god and please in an endless stream, nails of your one hand — the one not currently buried in his hair — grasping his flesh shoulder, hard enough that it has to hurt. Again, Bucky doesn't seem to care. If anything, he doubles down, adding a second finger and increasing the pressure of his tongue. He's going to ruin you for anyone else. Not that there's ever been anyone else to compare with, but after this, you're done for.

You can feel the release gathering in the clench of your thighs, in the way every muscle in your body goes tight. Bucky seems to sense how close you are, his free hand gripping your hip to hold you steady as he keeps that relentless pace. "C'mon," he says against your clit, the vibration of his voice sending shockwaves through you. "Let me taste it."

The orgasm crashes over you, your whole body seizing as pleasure tears through you. With your hands, it's never been like this. Never this intense, never this all-consuming. This feels like you're coming apart and Bucky's the only thing holding you together. You're dimly aware of crying out his name, your thighs trying to close around his head, the way your inner walls clenched rhythmically around his fingers. Bucky works you through it, tongue gentling but never stopping, drawing out every last aftershock until you're pushing at his head from oversensitivity.

When he finally pulls back, his chin is glistening. He looks obscene, debauched, like something out of your dirtiest fantasy. The satisfied look on his face would be smug on anyone else. On him it's just honest satisfaction, like getting you off was the highlight of his month. "You good?" His voice is rough.

Words seem far away right now, you can barely remember your own name. You just nod, boneless, wondering if it's possible to die from pleasure.

Bucky crawls up your body, settling his weight on top of you carefully. Even wrecked with want, he's careful not to crush you. When he kisses you slowly, you can taste yourself on his tongue. It feels filthy and intimate at the same time, sending a fresh wave of arousal through you despite having just come. "That was —" You still can't form complete sentences. "You're really good at that."

He grins against your mouth. "Yeah?"

"Don't let it go to your head."

"Too late." Bucky is smiling, you realize this might be the most relaxed you've ever seen him. Happy. He looks happy. When was the last time you saw him look happy? "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

"Since July, apparently."

His thumb traces your lower lip, smearing spit. "July's when I stopped being able to pretend."

"What changed?"

"You looked at me." He says it simply, like it explains everything. "Just me. After that, I couldn't pretend anymore that I didn't want you looking at me like that all the time."

You've been looking at him since the day you knew him. You don't tell him that, those demons can stay where they lay. You pull him down into another kiss, slower this time, trading breath and heat. When you finally break apart, you can feel how hard he is against your hip, still fully clothed and probably painfully uncomfortable.

"Your turn," you tell him, reaching for his belt. Bucky catches your wrist, slowing you down, thumb stroking across your radial pulse, eyes pleading, saying everything his mouth can't. The gentle touch is at odds with the hunger in his gaze. You feel your pulse jumping under his fingers, giving away how badly you want this.

"I want to," your voice is barely a whisper. You need him to know, to understand that this isn't one-sided, that you've been wanting this just as long. That seems to be all the permission he needs. He releases your wrist and lets you work his belt open, the metal buckle clinking as you pull it free. Your fingers are shaking slightly, adrenaline and want making them clumsy. His jeans follow, while he watches with those hooded eyes, like this is some kind of religious experience.

When you get his shirt off, you take a moment to just look. God, he's a masterpiece. You've seen him shirtless before, but never like this. Never laid out for you, never yours to touch. There are scars you knew about, the ones you've seen at pool parties and barbecues, the ones your dad mentioned in passing when he thought you weren't listening. But there are others you didn't know, smaller ones scattered across his ribs and chest, a puckered bullet wound near his collarbone. Each one tells a story he's never shared, pain he's survived, and you want to learn every single one. The place where metal meets flesh is a work of terrible artistry, plates and skin fused in ways that probably hurt more than he'll ever admit.

You lean in and press your lips to his shoulder, right where metal becomes man. Bucky goes very still. Like he's holding his breath, waiting for you to recoil, to change your mind. "You don't have to do that."

You don't respond him with words, just another kiss to the seam, the metal cool under your lips, then lower, across his chest, the skin warm, the contrast intoxicating.You work your way down his body, following the trail of dark hair that disappears beneath his boxers, wanting to map every inch of him with your mouth, memorize the way he tastes. Bucky's hand leaps to tangle in your hair, gentle but insistent nonetheless, pulling you back up. 

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. But if you put your mouth on me right now, this is gonna be over embarrassingly fast," he answers. The admission goes to your heart and cunt at the same time, the idea that you affect him that much doing things to you. 

That makes you pause, a laugh threatening to bubble out of you, but you keep it contained. "How fast we talking?"

"Thirty seconds, maybe." He doesn't look embarrassed about the admission, though there's a slight red tinge to the tip of his ears. That blush, that tiny hint of vulnerability, makes you want him even more. "I've been half-hard since I kissed you in the doorway, and I've been thinking about this for months. So unless you want me coming down your throat before we even get to the good part, you're gonna have to wait."

The bluntness of it sends heat racing through you, right between your legs, warmth spreading over the apples of your cheeks. Glancing down to not meet his eyes, you're met with the unevenness of this situation, suddenly very aware that you're naked while he's still got his boxer briefs on. "That's not fair."

Bucky manoeuvres you, hands on your hips, guiding you back down to the couch with a gentleness that contradicts his size. "Life ain't fair, sweetheart." 

Bucky's body looms above you as he settles between your thighs. The breadth of his shoulders blocks out the light from the lamp, casting shadows across his face that make him look almost dangerous, but he's soft to you. You watch him shove his boxers down, cock springing free, curved slightly towards his stomach, thick and flushed, bead of precum spilling over the tip. It's bigger than you expected, thicker, and for a moment anxiety spikes through your arousal. His flesh hand wraps around himself, working his cock, while the metal one is braced against the couch, framing your head. And you realise this is quite possibly the hottest thing you've ever seen.

"Like what you see?" You'd assume it was asked out of cockiness if you didn't know him better. You know him better, and there's genuine curiosity in his question, mixed with almost boyish shyness. 

"You already know the answer to that."

"Maybe I wanna hear you say it."

"You're fishing for compliments now?"

"Is it working?"

"Yes," you admit, earning a bright eyed and genuine smile from him,transforming his whole face, making him look younger, happier, and you want to be the reason he smiles like that forever. "You're gorgeous, okay? You're so hot it's actually annoying."

"Annoying?"

"Yeah. You walk around being all broody and hot, and I'm supposed to just — what? Pretend I don't notice?"

"You can notice me all you want, sweet girl."

Sweet girl. You like the sound of it, somehow much more intimate that anything he's ever called you. It's not really an accomplishment because all he's called you before is 'kid'. 

Bucky laughs, a sound you want to bottle up and listen when your days get dark. His fingers are between your legs again, two of them sliding inside easily, thanks to your orgasm from earlier, still wet, still open. But the stretch makes you gasp anyway, an open-mouthed silent cry, that he swallows for himself with a kiss. He works them slowly, watching your face, conflict playing across his features. Want versus restraint. Need versus caution.

"You're so tight," he mutters, almost to himself, fingers pumping in and out. Each slick sound makes your face burn, embarrassingly loud evidence of how much you want this. "Gonna have to take my time with you."

"I can take it," you tell him, voice fracturing with need, the ache to be filled by him. His cock stands proud against his abdomen, jerking with every motion of his fingers, taunting you. You want to feel the weight of him inside you, splitting you open, claiming you completely.

"I know you can." He curls his fingers, finding that spot inside you that makes your back arch, and does it again just to watch you squirm. "But I'm not gonna hurt you. Not if I can help it."

He leans down to kiss you, slower this time, thorough, his tongue plunging into your mouth, remnants of your own juices lingering, while his fingers keep that steady rhythm. You're climbing toward another orgasm already, your body wound tight and responsive. Bucky breaks the kiss, only to pepper a few more on your jaw, the corner of your mouth, breath coming in hot. 

"Have you taken cock before?"

The question catches you off-guard, the blatant crudeness of it. Stilling beneath him, you will your breath to come, his fingers slowing on your cunt not being of much help. 

"Baby." His free hand comes up to cup your face. The tenderness in the gesture makes your eyes sting. "I need to know. Need to know how careful I gotta be."

The truth sits in your throat, heavy as a stone. You could lie, tell him you've done this a dozen times, that you're experienced and worldly and this is no big deal. But lying to Bucky feels wrong, feels like starting this thing between you on a foundation of sand.The way he's looking at you, open and honest, worry lines framing his face, also makes it impossible. "No," you finally whisper.

His fingers stop moving, just frozen inside you while he stares at you with an expression you can't quite read. Shock. Concern. Fear? "What?"

"No. I haven't."

Bucky starts to pull his fingers out, a pained expression on his face, like the knowledge of it physically hurts him. "Jesus Christ. You should've — I wouldn't have—"

No, no. He can't do that. You catch his wrist, holding his hand in place. "Don't."

"We can't —"

"Yes, we can." You roll your hips, taking his fingers deeper, and watch his eyes go dark, control slipping. "I want this. I want you."

"Your first time shouldn't be — It should be special. Someone who —"

"Someone who what? Takes me to a fancy restaurant and serves me one scallop?" You're babbling now, words tumbling out, desperate to keep him in. "I don't want that. I want you. This is special."

"I'm too old for you. Too fucked up. Your dad's gonna —"

"I don't care about my dad right now." You tighten your grip on his wrist, needing him to see that this isn't some impulsive decision. "I care about you. And I'm not some delicate flower you're gonna break. I can take you."

Bucky looks at you like you've wounded him, like the trust you're placing in him is almost too much to bear. You can see the war happening behind his eyes, and you hope he loses, you hope the walls he'd erected within the past twenty seconds crumble and he comes back to you. "You're all I want, Buck," you press. 

A long sigh leaves him, but finally he says, "you tell me if it's too much." The words sound torn from him, reluctant but resolute. "The second it's too much, you tell me and we stop. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"If it's too much, I'll tell you." You pull him down into a kiss, teeth claiming his lips. You bite down, tasting copper, needing him to feel something, anything. "Now stop treating me like I'm made of glass and fuck me already."

That startles a laugh out of him. You wrap your fingers around his length, almost pulling him by his dick, he doesn't seem to care though. The skin is hot and silky under your palm, cock twitching in your grip, precum leaking from the tip. Bucky pulls his fingers free, positioning himself at your entrance. The blunt head of his cock presses against you, even that initial pressure making you tense. "Breathe," he instructs. "Just breathe for me, sweetheart."

You force your muscles to relax, and he pushes in. Just the tip at first, just enough to make you gasp at the stretch of it. It's immediately more than his fingers, wider and so overwhelming you forget how to think in complete sentences.

Bucky freezes, his hard length stuffing you halfway. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Just — a lot."

"I know, sweet girl." His metal hand comes up to cup your face with a gentleness, it in itself bringing you to tears, cool metal against your overheated cheek grounding, keeping you anchored. "We go slow. As slow as you need."

He works himself in gradually, stopping every time you tense, giving you time to ease yourself. It's torturous, this slow invasion, your body struggling to accommodate his size. But his words keep you company, praise, reassurance, sometimes filthy little things he'd want to do once you get used to this. Things about how he'll fuck you in every room of this apartment, how he'll bend you over the kitchen counter, how he'll wake you up with his cock inside you. About how good you're doing, how tight you are, how perfect you feel. When he's about halfway in, tears fully start leaking from the corners of your eyes. You don't think it's from the pain, just from the overwhelming fullness of it, the sensation of being split open, claimed and filled so completely there's no room for anything else. 

Bucky immediately senses the tears and stops, jaw clenching with the restraint of holding himself still above you, trembling with the effort of not moving. "Too much?"

"No." Back of your hand rushes to wipe your eyes impatiently, frustrated that your body's betraying you like this, showing weakness when you want to be strong for him. "Don't stop. Please don't stop."

"You're crying."

"I know I'm crying. It doesn't mean —" You roll your hips, to show him that you can take him deeper, that these are good tears, from pleasure alone and nothing else. At another roll of your hips, Bucky groans. "See? I can take it."

Bucky stays still, his hand finding your lower stomach, pressing down gently. The added pressure makes everything more intense, even fuller. "Can feel myself inside you," he mutters, almost wonderstruck. "Right here. Can you feel it?"

"What?" You're barely coherent, too overwhelmed to process what he's saying. You think he's trying to distract you, the palm on your abdomen pulls you enough from whatever discomfort you might feel from your first time. You welcome it. 

Bucky takes your hand and presses it against your lower stomach, right where his hand was. You can feel it, feel the solid presence of him inside you, the way your body's stretched around him. "Oh my god." The realization is visceral and overwhelming. "That's — you're —"

"Yeah. That's me, fillin' you up, sweetheart." Sounding wrecked, Bucky pushes the rest of the way in. The slide of it, the final inch that seats him fully inside you, makes you both freeze. You just lie there connected, trying to adjust to the reality of this. Through hooded eyes, you look at him. He's focused, jaw tightening as his gaze is fixed on the way your cunt swallows him whole. 

"You okay?" His eyes tear from your place of union reluctantly to look into yours. 

"Ask me that one more time and I'm gonna hit you."

That makes him laugh, the movement jostling where you're joined, making you clench around him involuntarily.

"Can you —" You shift your hips experimentally. "Can you move? Please?"

"Yeah." He pulls out slowly, so slowly that you can feel every ridge and vein, before he pushes back in just as carefully. The slide is easier now, your body adjusting, learning to take him. "This okay?"

"More." You're chasing the friction, hips canting up to meet him. "I need more."

Bucky is so careful, watching your face for any sign of discomfort. But when you urge him on with hands, hips and broken pleas, his control starts to slip gradually. The thrusts get deeper, the couch creaking beneath you, until you're making sounds you didn't know you were capable of.

It's never this good when you're alone. Bucky seems to have woken up your body from a slumber you didn't know it was in. Every sensation is not only new but also heightened. 

"So fucking tight," he groans, his hand pressed to your belly again. "Can feel my cock moving inside you. You're takin' me so well, sweetheart. Look at you."

You can't look at anything except him, his jaw is clenched with effort, pupils blown so wide there's no blue remaining, just black, the flush spreading across his chest. The still slightly damp hair falling in front of his face, but he makes no effort in moving it off, the salt and pepper stubble that scratches your cheek everytime he pushes forward, everytime his pelvis meets yours. He's gorgeous like this, desperate and wanting. 

"Bucky —" You're climbing again already, wound too tight to last much longer. "I'm gonna —"

"I know, baby." His thumb finds your clit, circling with devastating precision. "Can feel you getting tighter. Squeezin' me — fuck —"

The added stimulation is almost too much. You're right on the edge, balanced on that knife-point between pleasure and too much. Already at the verge of losing, made worse by Bucky leaning down to suck a mark into your neck while his hips keep that relentless rhythm. "Wanna fill you up," he mutters against your throat. "Wanna fuck you full of my cum. Wanna fuck a baby into you."

"Yes — Please —" You are completely disconnected from your mouth, it being a separate thing only remembering words that are his name, yes and please. 

"Gonna make sure it takes." His thrusts get erratic, control fraying. "Gonna keep you full of me until your belly swells. Until everyone can see what we've been doing."

The image he's painting is filthy and visceral. Your hands fly to his hair, gripping tight, verge of telling him yes to everything when he keeps going. This is not just distraction anymore, the farthest part of your brain whispers.

"Think about it," he groans, hand spanning your stomach again. "You round and full with my kid. These perfect tits getting bigger." His thumb presses harder on your clit, while he bends to take one nipple into his lips, neck straining. "So full of milk you'd need me to help you, need my mouth on you. They'd be so heavy, baby."

That's what sends you over. The orgasm tears through you, whole body seizing as pleasure obliterates thought, ears ringing, not even hearing the way you scream his name. Your inner walls clamp down on him so hard, he curses, loses his rhythm, your nails digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks.

Bucky fucks you through it, chasing his own release. "That's it. Milk my cock. Show me how much you want it. Want me to breed you properly —"

He comes with your name on his lips, hips grinding against yours as he spills inside you. The warmth of it, the sheer volume is startling, pulling soft noises from your wrung out body. You can feel it coating your walls, filling you up exactly like he promised, marking you from the inside out. 

Boneless like you, Bucky balances himself on top of you, forearms braced against the couch, not pulling out. You feel his cock twitching inside you, spurting the remnants of his release, and feel the wet slide of cum down your inner thighs. Through the haze of your orgasm, something clicks into place. The way he'd been fixated on your stomach from the beginning, how his hands always found their way there, pressing, holding and claiming. The breeding talk that seemed to come so naturally to him. He'd been obsessed with it, with your stomach, with the idea of filling you up, you'd just been too overwhelmed to notice.

"You're obsessed with my stomach," you say, still trying to catch your breath.

Bucky lifts his head to look at you, and there's no embarrassment in his expression. If anything, there's pride there, satisfaction. "Yeah. Have been since you wore crop tops all summer."

"All summer?"

"I'm not proud of it." But he's smiling slightly, thumb stroking across your stomach where he's softening inside you. "Couldn't stop thinking about marking you here. Putting my hands on you. Making you mine in every way that matters."

The possessiveness in his tone, the raw need, stirs something primal in you, that wants to be his. The fact that this is your first time ever doesn't concern you, just makes you feel wanted and claimed in the best possible way.

He finally pulls out, and you both wince at the sensitivity. The slide of him leaving you feels like a loss, an ache of emptiness. "Did I hurt you?"

"No." You cup his face, forcing him to look at you. Those worry lines are back, you want to smooth them away. "That was perfect. You were perfect." You kiss him softly. "I'm fine. Better than fine."

He still looks unconvinced, but before he can spiral into guilt, you pull him down on top of you. His weight is comforting rather than crushing, and you wrap your arms around him, holding him close. His arms band around you, face buried in your neck. 

For a while, he stays where you put him, his body heavy over yours, warm and shaking in small, leftover ways he would probably deny if you mentioned them. His face remains tucked in your neck like he can hide there from every terrible, responsible thought trying to crawl back into his head. You can feel the guilt gathering anyway. It keeps making itself known in the careful way he holds his weight off you, the tiny pauses before his mouth touches your skin, the way his arms tighten whenever you shift. The guilt doesn't get to settle in though, because you thread your fingers through his hair and tug gently, pulling him back to look at you. "Stop thinking so loud."

"I'm not —"

"You are." Your thumb traces the crease between his brows. "I can hear it from here."

Bucky huffs a laugh, pressing a kiss to your collarbone before starting a slow path downward. His lips drag across your sternum, then lower, mapping ribs and soft flesh. Each kiss is soft and slow, like he's got all the time in the world to learn what makes you sigh. When he reaches your navel, his tongue dips in the same way it did earlier, circling, and your hips twitch involuntarily.

"Stay still," he murmurs against your skin, quiet want in his tone. His mouth continues lower, across the plane of your stomach, and this is where he lingers. Open-mouthed kisses pressed to skin that's still flushed and overheated, his stubble scraping in ways that make you squirm. Both hands splay across your belly, spanning the width of it, metal and flesh holding you like something precious. He's almost worshipful about it, pressing his lips just below your navel and staying there, breathing you in.

"What are you doing?" Your voice comes out soft.

"Thinkin' about how good you'd look." His thumb strokes back and forth across your stomach. "Round and full. Wouldn't be able to keep my hands off you."

Bucky's orgasm doesn't seem slow him down, he's only edging you towards the start of another one, the words sending signals straight to your core. "You already can't keep your hands off me."

Bucky laughs as he presses another kiss lower, then another, working his way down until he's kneeling between your spread thighs. 

You're about to pull him up, tell him you're still not recovered, but Bucky's not looking at your face anymore. His gaze is fixed between your legs, watching as his cum starts to leak out of you, painting your inner thighs white. "Fuck," he breathes, his fingers gathering the mess and pushing it back inside you. "Can't waste it," he mutters, almost to himself, two fingers pressing deep, pushing his release back where it belongs. "Gotta make sure it takes. Gotta keep you full."

You're boneless, can't do anything but lie there and let him have this strange, filthy little ritual, watching through dazed eyes. The room smells like rain and sex. Your couch is absolutely never recovering, and maybe neither are you. He keeps his fingers inside you with that focused, almost frightening devotion, pushing the mess back where he thinks it belongs, one open-mouthed kiss landing on your lower stomach as he does it.

You reach down and catch his wrist, stilling his hand. "Bucky. I'm not going anywhere. It's not going to leak out in the next five seconds."

He looks up at you, a bashfulness in his face you've never seen on him before, caught doing exactly what he wants with zero shame left to hide behind. "I know. I just —" He trails off, fingers still buried inside you.

"You just what?"

"Like seeing it," he admits. "Like knowing I put it there."

The honesty of it makes you want the next round desperately, and before that thought could take root, you tug on his wrist, pulling him towards you. He withdraws his fingers reluctantly, wiping them on his discarded shirt before crawling up your body. When he settles next to you on the couch, you turn into him, tucking yourself against his chest. His arm comes around you, metal hand cool against your overheated skin.

"So that happened."

"Yeah. That happened." His lips and hands keep mapping your body in small increments, like he's making up for lost time, like he doesn't want to let you go. 

The silence stretches. You count his heartbeats — twelve, fifteen, twenty — before he eventually says, "your dad's gonna kill me."

"Probably." You trace patterns on his chest with one finger, following old scars, the raised tissue telling stories he won't. "But at least you'll die happy."

"Small comfort."

"I could tell him it was my idea," you supply. 

"That'll make it worse. Then he'll kill me for not having more self-control." He catches your hand, stilling your wandering fingers mid-trace. "He trusts me. Trusted me with you. And I just —"

"Fell in love with me?"

The words shatter between you. You've never said them out loud before, never put a name to this thing that's been building since you were nineteen. Bucky goes very still at that, body stopping everything, even breathing. "What?"

"That's what this is, right?" You prop yourself up on one elbow to look at him. "Because if this is just some — I don't know, some itch you needed to scratch, you should probably tell me now before I —"

"It's not." He cuts you off urgently. "It's not that. It's —" The struggle plays out on his face, words getting stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat.

"It's what?"

"It's me being stupid in love with you for the past six months and trying real hard not to be," he finally says. The confession comes out rough, like it's been dragged from deep inside him. "It's me seeing you and forgetting how to be a person. It's me lying awake at 3 AM thinking about your laugh. It's — fuck, I don't know. I'm not good at this."

"Doin' fine so far," you tell him softly.

"I'm old. You just graduated college a few years ago. Your dad's my best friend. I got no business —"

"Bucky." You cup his face, forcing him to look at you, meet your eyes, the intensity in them hopefully squashing any lingering doubts. His eyes do that thing where they won't hold yours for more than two seconds, darting away like he's afraid of what you'll see if he stays. "I'm twenty five. I have a job, an apartment, a 401k that I don't understand but I have one. I'm not some kid you're taking advantage of."

"I know that. I do. But —"

"But what?"

"But I've been to war. I've killed people. I got nightmares that wake me up screaming and a metal arm because I got fucked up and — You should want someone normal. Someone who doesn't have to check the exits in every room and who doesn't flinch at loud noises."

You think about all the times you've watched him scan a room, cataloging threats that aren't there. How he never sits with his back to a door. How he jumped that time your neighbor dropped a toolbox in the hallway. "Should I? Is that what I should want?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't." You lean in and kiss him before he can argue, or state reasons why this shouldn't happen. You continueto speak against his mouth, "I want you. Nightmares, metal arm, all of it. I want you at 3 AM when you can't sleep. I want you checking exits. I want all the parts you think are too broken to love."

A frustrated sound leaves him, sounds like a laugh but could easily be anything else. "You're gonna regret this."

"Let me worry about that."

"When your dad finds out —"

"When my dad finds out, we'll deal with it. Together." You settle back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, its jumping out of his ribs. "Besides, he likes you better than me anyway. I'm pretty sure if it came down to it, he'd keep you and disown me."

That actually makes him laugh. "That's not true."

"It absolutely is. You fixed his transmission. I can't even check my own oil."

"I'll teach you."

"See? This is why he likes you better." You press a kiss to his sternum. "Useful."

"That's me. Useful." You can hear the smile in his voice now, the tension finally bleeding out of him.

"Among other things." Your hand drifts lower, fingers trailing down his stomach.

He catches your wrist, halting its path. "Again? Already?"

"What? You get to be obsessed with my stomach but I can't appreciate yours?"

"I don't —" He stops when you look up at him. Your expression must give away exactly what you're thinking, Bucky's jaw tightens, Adam's apple bobbing on a hard swallow. "Okay, yeah. I'm obsessed with your stomach. Happy?"

"Very." You kiss his jaw. It's hard to keep your hands to yourself when he's laid out beside you like a Greek statue taunting you. "For the record, I'm obsessed with your arms. Both of them. And your shoulders. And this thing you do where you bite your lip when you're concentrating."

"I don't do that."

"You absolutely do. You did it like three times while you were trying to get my bra off."

"I was nervous," he admits. There's a pink tinge creeping up his neck, faint but visible. "Kept thinking you'd realize this was a mistake and change your mind."

"Not a mistake." You tilt your head up to look at him properly. "Best decision I ever made, actually. Well, second best. First best was wearing that black crop top to the barbecue."

He groans. "Don't remind me. I had to hide in the garage for twenty minutes."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" He shifts, and you feel the evidence of why pressing against your hip. "You bent over to grab a beer and I thought I was gonna die right there."

"Poor baby. Must've been so hard for you." You're not even a little bit sorry. 

"Not funny."

"It's hilarious." You kiss him again, deeper this time. His tongue slides against yours lazily, like you have all the time in the world. When you pull back, his eyes are dark again. "Also, we should probably move to the bedroom. This couch isn't big enough for both of us."

"Can you walk?"

Good question. Your legs feel like overcooked pasta, your body wrung out and remade into someone new. "I — Maybe?"

Bucky sits up, taking you with him, and before you can protest he's scooping you up. "I got you."

"I can walk," you insist, even as you're wrapping your arms around his neck. The automatic way your body curls into him feels like muscle memory you haven't earned yet.

"Sure you can." He's heading down the hallway. "But let me do this."

"Such a hardship, carrying me around naked."

"The worst." He's grinning, and when he lays you down on your bed, carefully, like you're precious cargo. He stands there for a second, just looking at you sprawled across your sheets. You should feel exposed — you are exposed, completely bare under his gaze — but the way he's looking at you kills the urge to cover up.

"What?" you ask.

"Nothing. Just —" He shakes his head. "Can't believe this is real."

"Want me to pinch you?"

"Smart ass." He crawls onto the bed, settling beside you and pulling the blanket over both of you. You curl into him automatically, throwing one leg over his hip, and he makes this satisfied sound in his throat. Out of content, maybe. Or possession. Hard to tell the difference.

"Gonna stay?" you ask, even though you already know the answer.

"Yeah." His arm tightens around you. "If that's okay."

"More than okay." You press your face into his neck, breathing him in. He smells like yours. "Bucky?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you too. Just so you know."

For three full seconds, he doesn't move. Doesn't even breathe if you're being honest, his ribs don't move. You're about to take it back, pretend you were joking, anything to break the awful stillness — "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Have for a while now. Since before the barbecue, even. Maybe since I was nineteen and saw you sitting at my dad's table looking all broody and tragic."

"I wasn't broody."

"You were absolutely broody. You still are. It's annoyingly attractive."

He huffs a laugh against your hair, the warmth spreading to your neck, raising goosebumps. "Attractive, huh?"

You bite his shoulder lightly, teeth scraping enough skin to make him hiss slightly. "Everything about you is attractive."

"Everything else like what?"

"You don't cut your hair unless it bothers you, until it falls over your face and blocks your vision, like now. You like it when I ask you things, when I need help… I think it makes you feel wanted, you don't know that I always want you." Your mind goes to your windowsill. "You always fill the bird feeder, even if I forget." 

"You noticed all that?"

"I've been studying you for six years, Barnes. I could talk about you in my sleep."

"That's — That's a little creepy, actually."

"Says the man who just spent ten minutes trying to plug me up with his cum."

A soft laugh vibrates from him as his fingers trace idle patterns on your hip. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."

There are a hundred things you could say. Practical things about what happens now, how this changes everything, whether he'll still come over for coffee on Saturday mornings with your dad or if this makes it weird. But your eyes are heavy, body sated and wrung out, not enough energy to keep the conversation going, even if you so badly want to.

"Buck?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't leave before I wake up."

"Not going anywhere. Not anymore, sweet girl." A soft lingering kiss to your forehead is all you remember, the ghost of its touch following you to dreamland. 

MY MASTERLIST!

But then the air shifted.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

The low timbre wrapped in affection sounded stronger than the bass of the music.

You didn’t turn your head when Bucky Barnes took a seat, his thigh pressed against yours. You felt his eyes on you anyway, watchful and warmer than how he looked at everyone else. Some days you forgot that he was a dangerous man with power, reach, and a reputation.

My fiancé.

“Hey, yourself,” you replied, hoping your voice didn’t betray the emotions swirling inside you.

“It’s time to come home,” he said.

Home.

“But I’m having such a good time,” you teased, finishing your drink in one gulp.

He snatched the glass from your hand and forced you to meet his gaze. Your breath caught. He was always handsome, but the trimmed beard was really doing it for you. And he was staring at you like he was a heartbeat away from spreading you out on the table and taking you right there.

He had waited long enough.

“It’s midnight,” he said, his breath brushing your lips. “Time’s up.”

You swallowed. One year. You asked for one year of freedom before you had to marry him, and he shockingly obliged. 

But you should’ve realized he’d know right where to find you tonight.

He never stopped watching you.

His expression softened. “Angel, come home with me.”

Your stomach flipped. “So it’s ‘angel’ now?”

“Well, I know you behaved during your year without me, so that’s pretty angelic,” he answered with a hint of possession. “But we can talk more about that at home.”

Talk. Plan the wedding. Become Mrs. Barnes.

Your fate was sealed.

This could be fun to expand on. Love and thanks for reading. ❤️

His entire presence commanded obedience. Authority. 

Steve's star-spangled broad shoulders, squared when he stood with his hands on his belt ever the proper man, drew every eye in the room to him like a magnet. 

His voice never wavered when barking orders left and right, always a man with a plan. If strategy A failed, he was already halfway through strategy B, and had already thought of a third alternative. 

The entire weight of the world had always been on his shoulders, for the better part of 108 years. 

Steve is, however, much like a working dog. He's restless. He needs a job to do, and do well, even when his actual job stresses him the fuck out.

So when he's walking up the stairs of your condo in the Village, his throat tired from yelling over gunfire, his feet exhausted from running miles in combat boots, and his shoulders tense from holding back frustration during the debrief, the sound of your voice while you talk on the phone is a soothing balm for his soul. 

He unlocked the door and walked in, the dimly lit apartment making him feel like he could finally let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. 

You were curled up on one end of the couch, throw blanket lazily over your legs as a candle burned on the kitchen isle and some trashy reality TV on, while you talked with your best friend on the phone about the events unveiling in front of your eyes.

Your weekly debrief, you called it. Steve thought it was cute. 

"Okay, but here's the thing," you were saying into your phone, eyes glued to the television. "I don't actually think she's mad about the text messages."

Steve really didn't understand half the appeal of those shows. Every week he'd come over and find some new catastrophe unfolding. Someone was cheating on somebody, someone was throwing a drink, someone was crying in a confessional interview, someone was apparently there "for the wrong reasons."

And somehow you knew every single person's name, history, motivations, and interpersonal grievances.

Steve let the door latch with a soft "click" and he dropped his duffel by the counter and shrugged his shoes off.

You turned your head at the sound immediately, your face softening the instant your eyes locked with his. 

There was something about being looked at like that after a day spent getting shot at, yelled at, and blamed for things outside of his control.

Something about knowing there was one place in Manhattan where nobody expected Captain America.

He was just expected to be Steve, or Babe, or Honey, or Stevie, or—

"Hold on," you told your friend, reaching out to him with one hand, which he knew was code for "come here and kiss me".

He smiled with the side of his mouth and complied, walking over until he was behind you, making you tilt your head back to kiss him, a little murmured "I missed you." against his lips before you went back to your conversation. 

He finished walking around the couch, laying down on top of you as you made space of his waist and torso between your legs, his arms instinctively wrapping around your waist as he nuzzled his face into your sternum.

Steve Rogers melted.

That was the only word possible for the exhale he let out as soon as your fingers tangled in his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as he let his entire weight just rest on you. 

"You okay, baby?" Your voice was low, not even a hair above a whisper, and he just hummed in agreement against the soft fabric of your tank top.

"Do you need to go? Baaabyyyy." You rolled your eyes at the phone. 

"Don't start."

"Oh, I'm absolutely starting. Did Captain America just come home and immediately turn into a golden retriever?"

Steve huffed a quiet laugh against your shirt. Your hand immediately moved to the back of his neck, nails grazing softly until you pushed your hand past the collar of his cotton shirt, scratching lightly at his back. 

If he was a cat, he'd be purring right at that moment.

"No, because listen," you told your friend, eyes narrowing at the screen. "The issue isn't that she lied." Steve watched you. "The issue is that she lied badly." Completely, utterly, disgustingly in love. "Those are different crimes."

Blue bird sky eyes that look up at you like you invented spring. Like your voice alone makes flowers bloom and birds sing. 

His chin rests comfortably on your stomach, one arm draped across your waist while your fingers absentmindedly travel back up to continue scratching at his scalp.

The way you laugh when someone says something stupid on the show makes him understand poetry. Because regular sentences in language aren't enough to explain what it feels like when somebody becomes your favorite thing in the entire world.

Steve had always been… tactile when he was tired. Like a working dog, he'd find something to occupy his mind until he was so tired, the inside of his skull was nothing but tv static.

Not clingy, exactly just drawn toward you in the same way a sunflower turns toward sunlight.

His fingers slipped beneath the edge of your thank top, resting against the warm skin of your side, fabric riding up and exposing your stomach to him as he pressed absentminded kisses against the skin there. 

Your eyes flickered to him, another kiss on the lower left side of your stomach, big calloused hands pushing your shirt a smidge up again. 

When he grazed the skin with his teeth and soothed it with his tongue, you realized what he was getting at. Some flavor of "I gotta go, love you, bye" and the call was disconnected. 

"Steve." No answer. His hands slowly came back down the length of your waist, "Steve." He was in his own little world, fingers hooking them hem of your sleep shorts and pulling them down.

You let him, because what woman in her right mind would prevent Steve from seeking comfort, specially if that comfort was eating your pussy until you saw double?

He threw the shorts somewhere in the room, nothing but a grunt here or a groan there coming out of his mouth in the meantime. 

You put your right foot on his chest softly, as to catch his attention, sparkling eyes looking up at you with a little "hmm?" to match. 

"Are you okay?"

He sighed happily. He knew you knew you didn't have to worry about him, he's a super solder, a hero, a goddamn Avenger, what could a mere civilian like you do?

But he still loved your worry. Loved… your love. 

Steve chuckled softly and kissed the inside of your ankle, something along the lines of "always okay when I'm with you" being printed against the skin of your leg as his kisses went higher and higher and higher.

He stopped quickly when he got to your core, place a wet kiss over your panties and pulling them down your legs in one swift motion. The plane of his chest resting against the couch as he settled your legs over his shoulders. 

His arms wrapped around you legs, hands resting on top of your thighs to keep you open for him. He nuzzled his face against you first, eyes closed as he licked a flat, wide strip up your cunt.

The soft gasp coming from your lips only spurred him on, your left hand reaching down to tangle in his blond locks again while your right hand rested on his forearm.

Steve looked like he was in a trance. Hypnotized by the taste of you. He hummed against you, satisfied you were giving him what he wanted. Letting him take what he wanted. 

His tongue was soft, warm, wet as it lapped against your folds. He'd tense the muscle closer to your clit and circle it with his tongue before sucking it between his plush lips, only to slow down and do it again. 

The day had scraped him raw in a hundred tiny ways, and now he was tucked into the safest place he knew.

You.

"Mmmm, that feels good…" You settled further into the couch, letting your legs fall open around his head as he lazily made out with your pussy. His right hand reached up to shove your shirt further up, massaging your breasts once they were exposed, rolling and tugging on the nipple.

His tongue zig-zagged between your folds, bottom to top, and he sucked your clit briefly, setting it free with a soft "pop" once he felt your thigh twitch. 

"Needed this," he kissed your inner thigh. "needed you." Steve leaned further down, tensing his tongue to tease your entrance, and then burying his face in your heat. 

"Oh! Oh, G— Steve, f—mmm…" you were already babbling. The feel of his hot tongue inside of you made your hips jerk, his nose nudging your clit in the process. 

The wet noises were loud enough he could hear them even though your thighs were squeezing around his head. And God, this is what he needed, plush skin and muscle tensing under him, suffocating him in all that was you. 

"Gonna co—hah!—come all over your pretty face." Steve moaned, he moaned into you, hips grinding onto the couch cushions as yours did so against his face, pushing himself to be impossibly close to you. 

He sucked your clit into his mouth again, his tongue flicking it while it was trapped between his lips. 

Your moans grew louder, sharper, until you soaked Steve's lips and chin in wet pleasure. He let you ride the wave of your first orgasm, aftershocks flowing through your body like electricity through water. 

He dragged his right hand down from your breast to rest above your pussy, keeping you where he wanted you, and used his thumb and index finger to spread you further.

"Baby, please…" It was a mix of oversensitive and hungry pleas, which Steve took as a green light to keep going. He flattened his tongue again, licking long paths bottom to top, dipping his tongue in your entrance, and then keeping the path up.

You supported yourself up mostly by your right elbow and your grip on Steve's hair, staring at the scene in front of you with your mouth hanging open, panting. 

His left hand travelled down and he covered his index and middle fingers in your slick, pulling away ever so slightly to pool spit in his mouth and let the hot saliva flow softly from his mouth onto your clit. 

His fingers drove into you slowly with a wet squelch echoing into the room, curling them towards him when he got your folds to touch his palm. "Was only gone a day, sweetheart." He pumped his fingers. "How come you're so tight still, mmm?"

He chuckled when you had no response but a needy whine, the scene was a sight, really. Captain America absolutely lost in the pleasure of seeing his girlfriend completely pliant, missing any bottoms, with her tank top bunched up above her breasts, while he had a soaked face and a raging hard on. 

Humming as he licked and teased your clit once again, this time pumping his fingers in and out, and again, again, again, until he slurped every single drop of your second orgasm, feeling you squeeze your cunt around his fingers while your thighs squeezed every thought that didn't revolve around you right out of his skull.

You pulled him up forcefully by the collar, crashing your lips together, moaning as you tasted yourself on him. Your tongue licked into his mouth like you alone could make him forget everything that happened during the mission, even without knowing details. 

Your hands grazed down his chest over his shirt, quickly finding the hem of his sweats, palming him through them. "Did you touch yourself while I was gone?" His voice was breathy against your lips, almost strained. 

You shook your head, biting your lip. "Not as good when it's not you."

Steve whined, like audibly whined at your praise as you pushed his pants down enough to free his cock. "Good girl."

It slapped against your stomach heavy, hard, and leaking, and Steve immediately reached down to rub the head up and down your slick.

"Put it in, baby, please." You sucked on his bottom lip. "Missed you so much."

Steve chuckled as he lined himself up with your entrance. "Me or him?" He didn't wait for an answer, in days like these he never did. He just pushed his entire cock in to the hilt, knocking the air out of your lungs. "Me. Or. Him?" He asked again. 

Your eyes squeezed shut, "You, baby, fuck—" you panted against his mouth, tiny puffs of air matching his every thrust. "Missed your voice, your scent, your laugh—" another harsher thrust knocked the thought out of your head. "Missed your cock too, ah!"

You felt every drag of him inside of you, the vein on the side that split into two, the bulbous head of him that notched so perfectly around the spongy spot inside of you, you'd think they made him in a lab. 

Well, they did. But you're pretty sure the SSR had no involvement in how perfect Steve Rogers' dick was. 

That was all him. 

He reached down to snake his arms under your knees, bringing your legs further up and out, until his pelvis was flush with your entire bottom. 

"That's a good girl." He sighed, pulling all the way out only to slam all the way back in again. "Always so good."

The more Steve fucked you, the less oxygen you felt you had in your lungs. Every muscle in your core was tightening by the second, everything becoming too loud, too hot, too heavy, too good.

"Gonna fill you up, sweetheart. You want that?" His lips dropped to your neck, sucking and licking on the skin there. You nodded. "But I need you to come on my cock, Princess. Can you do that for me?" 

You nodded even more enthusiastically. 

Steve licked his thumb and down to your clit it went, making your eyes cross and roll and the wave of pleasure crashed onto you again. He felt you clamp down on him, shudders licking up his spine as rope after rope of cum leaked out of him.

Steve thrusted both of you through the aftershocks, until he finally let his entire weight rest onto you as your nails once again grazed his back and neck. 

He lifted his head from where he was resting his forehead against your collarbone and gave you a peck on the lips, then another, then another, until it turned into a slow, deep kiss. 

He motioned to pull out and start to clean up, but you squeezed your legs around his waist. "Just stay with me a little longer here, Stevie." He looked at you like he always did when you asked that, when he knew you asked for it more for him than for you, but still gave in, staying with you until your breaths evened out while the TV played in the background. 

bro honestly idk what took over my body in this ovulation... I already humped my husband every single day this week. THE SHACKLES.

as graduation approaches in only a few more weeks, you find yourself scrambling. you’re one of the few in your friend group who doesn’t yet have a job lined up for after graduation, still working through tedious job applications day after day in the hopes that something will work out. 

you still haven’t talked to Bucky about the plan you’ve begun to develop in your head, a plan where you envision staying in LA beyond graduating. where Bucky comes to join you in this city that’s grown to be your favorite place in the world. 

there hasn’t been any discussion about it beyond the little talks you had while he was in town, but you’re sure he’s going to love the idea. he wants to support you, and he seemed to be quite open to it when he was here. there’s a lot of factors to consider, you know that. it’s not easy to make that kind of decision. for instance, sure, he’s busy with business back home. that’s a sign of a good businessman, though, right? there’s no way he won’t be able to make it work here. 

luckily, despite your fears about what will happen after graduation in terms of successfully finding a full-time job, your lease still has a few more months before it runs out. that’s plenty of time to find a job and hopefully finagle a way for Bucky to join you in LA.

because why wouldn’t he? you’ve left such a mess at home, alienating both Bucky and yourself from your family with the reveal of the relationship you never wanted to have to confess to. for months now, you’ve been able to avoid it, pretending it doesn’t exist in awkward phone conversations where there’s no need for the elephant in the room to be brought up. 

Bucky moving here is the best case scenario for the both of you to start over, to live the life you’ve always dreamed. that’s what it would be for you to be able to live happily ever after with Bucky: a literal dream. a dream you’ve harbored since your early teens, dreaming and praying to call him yours and have that stupid fairytale wedding you’d imagined as a kid. 

starting over here would be perfect, to get away from the critical eye of your parents and away from the guilt and shame that arose within you alongside the very start of your relationship. 

besides, you’ve built a life for yourself here. you didn’t really expect to grow to love Los Angeles as much as you do; choosing to come here was a decision made out of desperation to get away from Bucky, to get away from your childish crush. 

yet somehow, it’s become your new home. you hope that Bucky will be open to letting it be his new home, too, because as long as you’re together, it’ll be enough. 

being with him is all you’ve ever wanted. 

it has to be enough.

~~~

the last voicemail you have from him in your inbox was from last week. typically, he tries to call you every other day, even though most of the time you can’t pick up. your voicemail box is filled with a million different messages from him by this point; ones of him telling you how much he misses you, others of him speaking deeply and making debauched noises as he tells you how bad he wishes you were there with him while he jerks off. even though you hate missing his calls, you love having his little voice notes in your phone to listen to whenever you please. 

he’s sent a scarce few texts since then, but you truly haven’t heard from him in days now. 

you’ve texted and called him a few times over the last day or so, with nothing in return. it’s only instinct for you to grow concerned. 

except you don’t have the time to be worried about him or the state of your relationship. you’ve finally secured an interview for tomorrow afternoon, a job local to your apartment here in LA. at this point, you can’t afford to screw up any interviews, no matter the position or the company. you’re about to be completely jobless post-grad otherwise, so your anxieties are going to have to leave you alone for the next 24 hours. you have so much more on the line than your stupid little fears about what’s going on with Bucky. 

it doesn't help that this interview isn’t just any interview. the job is actually very well aligned to your interests, and the pay can’t possibly be beat. 

if you’d heard from Bucky recently, or if you were fessing up to the fact that you were only interviewing for LA-based jobs, you would be gushing to him about how excited you are for the opportunity and how badly you want the job. he’s always been your number one supporter, no matter what, so he would tell you that you’re going to do amazing. he would tell you you’re perfect and if the interviewer can’t see it, then they’re the ones missing out. 

you do wish you could have an Uncle Bucky pep talk right now, but you can’t tell him, not yet. you’ll find the right time sooner or later. 

when you get home that evening, you think you’ve calmed yourself down enough from your worries and nearly gotten yourself into the right headspace for the interview. except apparently, you’re not doing as good of a job as you think you are, because your roommate comments on your depressed attitude. 

“are you alright?” she asks as you put your bowl in the microwave, the inquiry taking you by surprise. 

“yeah, why?” you reply, feigning ignorance as you shut the microwave door. “do I not seem alright?” 

“definitely not, dude,” she tells you bluntly. “I see you like this all the time, all pouting and sad but pretending to be fine. but I know you have a big day tomorrow, so, out with it. what’s going on?”

the suddenness of her statement shocks you. you know your anxiety is a persistent issue, and that being away from Bucky doesn’t particularly help. but are you really that obvious about it? 

“it’s just nerves,” you assure her. “I’ll be fine.”

as you deliberately avoid telling her the truth about your real concerns, you feel a pang in your stomach. the realization that you’ve never even mentioned his name to your friends here for fear of your crush being found out, and now the possibility of your relationship being discovered. 

people that love and care about you, and you’re still too paranoid to tell them the truth. you truly can’t blame yourself for being hesitant, though; the circumstances are sketchy, you realize that. and you can’t fathom pushing everyone away in the same manner you’ve done with your family all because of who you love. 

“you can tell me,” she tries, and the microwave beeps then. you take a deep breath and try to shake her off by focusing on your bowl, ready to eat so that you can avoid the topic. except your food is cold, and now you have to wait thirty more seconds to get out of this.

“I’m fine. promise,” you tell her. another pang in your stomach. you’re going to have to tell her, and the rest of your friends, the truth if you expect Bucky to become a part of your life here in LA.

you don’t know if you could handle the negative reaction you’ll get from admitting the truth. 

she speaks your name, and you know this isn’t going away. the microwave continues to whir. 

“come on. talking about things helps, and there’s no way you’ll be able to do well on your interview if you’re all worked up–”

“I’m not worked up!” you nearly yell back at her. “can you just leave it alone? for fuck’s sake! I told you, I’m fine!” 

she doesn’t respond immediately, pausing for a minute after your outburst. the silence between you is deafening, and you immediately know you fucked up. 

“fine. I’ll leave you alone,” she says before walking away, leaving you alone with the microwave now beeping at you once more.

you wish you could say that you weren’t quite sure why you reacted like that, why you felt the need to get so defensive over it, but you know exactly why you did: because you couldn’t handle it. you couldn’t handle the realization that you haven’t told her, and you can’t tell her, because how are you supposed to be able to say yeah, I’ve been fucking my dad’s best friend for the better part of a year now. oh, and we’re dating, because that will go over well. 

you feel terrible. you just snapped at her while she was trying to help you feel better, all because of your fear and territorialism over this relationship that you’re still far more concerned about protecting than you should be.

it’s just because it’s been so long, you think, and that you’re freaking out because you haven’t spoken to him recently that you’re wired so tightly.

it’s because you’re petrified of what other people will think of you if you tell them the truth, a truth that they simply can’t handle, why? sure, maybe your relationship is wrong from most standpoints, but…

you love each other. you love Bucky, and he loves you. that’s all you need. 

everything will fall into place. you’ll find a way to man up and tell your roommate and all your friends about your relationship before Bucky comes to LA, and it will surely go over far better than it did with your parents.

everything is going to be just fine. 

more than fine.

~~~

when you wake up the next morning, you feel exhausted even after a full night’s sleep. you pray that it isn’t an indication of how the rest of your day is going to go. 

when you look around for your roommate, you find that she’s already gone for the day. of course she is; why would she want to be around you and your sour mood after you went off on her last night?

it is what it is, you determine. there’s nothing you can do about it until you see her this evening and have the opportunity to apologize to her. 

the very next thing you do is pick up your phone, searching for a text, a voicemail, anything from Bucky.

nothing. 

it’s okay, you assure yourself as you take a deep breath and stand from your bed. you can worry about both of them later after your interview. 

until then, you have to try not to let your thoughts consume you alive. thoughts of pushing away your roommate in favor of protecting, nay, hiding your relationship. thoughts of pushing Bucky too much until he just doesn’t respond to you anymore. 

you know that isn’t the case. that’s not the case with him, it never would be. he’s not the type to just ghost you out of nowhere; he’s busy. that’s all. you don’t need to be that clingy, annoying girlfriend that constantly texts and seeks validation every five seconds that he’s still interested in you. 

as you walk around campus, though, you’re still thinking about calling him. you think about telling him about your plan the next time you get a chance to talk to him, but will that push him even further away?

you’re going to have to tell him eventually, though, about your plan to stay here and your hope that he’ll follow you across the country. to get away from the critical eyes of your family. 

you just hope your community here doesn’t look at you the same way.

you ponder simply sending him a text that might grab his attention, like, “hey! I have an interview today!” something that’s just enough to catch him in a few brief seconds when he isn’t busy, just to get a “good luck!” in return. anything. 

worry about it later, you remind yourself. focus. 

the more you consider your practiced interview responses in your head, the more you’re able to distract yourself from your concerns. it’s easier to fret about everything going on in your personal life than your professional one, but now is not the time. 

you become an expert in how to explain what interests you about the company and the position, why you want the job and what benefits you would bring to them if you were to be hired. you pore over last minute research to ensure you’ve stored every possible piece of information in the small space in your head devoted to crushing this interview. 

when the time comes, you’re ready, you think. your laptop is charged, your water bottle is full, and your hair is tidied. 

except as you sit in the waiting room of the Zoom meeting, you can’t stop worrying. as quick as you can, you pull out your phone and hurriedly open your text messages. first, a message to your roommate—I’m sorry about last night, let’s talk later?—and a second, one you begin to type out that’s intended to go to Bucky. 

I haven’t heard from you, are you alright? Can I call you in an hour?

just as you’re about to hit the little blue button to send the text, your laptop screen flashes at you, and the interview is on. you hurriedly drop your phone into your lap, forgetting about the text and readjusting in your seat to steady yourself.

here goes nothing. 

the woman, Monica, is friendly and charming right off the bat, you acknowledge. a good back and forth between the two of you as you begin to exchange pleasantries, learning that she’s an alum from your university and that she used to hold the position you’re now interviewing for. all good signs, so far. 

as you begin to give your elevator pitch, your phone begins vibrating in your lap. you try to focus, cursing yourself for not turning it off before the meeting started. reluctantly, you glance down at it for a mere second: it’s your mom calling you. your gaze flits back to the laptop screen before darting down to the phone once more when it has stopped ringing. Call me, her text reads. 

you stutter over your words, but you refuse to let the small instance distract you, not right now; you can’t screw this up. 

ven though you want to worry about it, you can’t. even though there’s something in your gut telling you, something is wrong, it’s not the time. 

you take a deep breath to center yourself once the interviewer speaks again. you can do this.

and despite the minor setback, the rest of the meeting goes astonishingly well. 

“keep your phone nearby,” Monica tells you once she’s done going through her list of questions for you. “you should be hearing from me very soon.”

“wow, thank you,” you reply with a bright smile. “thank you so much!”

as the meeting ends, you can’t contain your glee. there’s no way that actually went as well as you think it did, right? you have to be deluding yourself into thinking that this might finally work out for you, that everything might actually be going your way for once. 

you pack up your things into your bag while your smile never once falters. the last time you felt this giddy and excited about something was when Bucky came to visit for Valentine’s.

it’s nice to have something to well and truly hope for, you think. to actually know what it means to be excited for the future. 

as you pull your purse over your shoulder and walk out of the conference room, making to leave the building and head home, you begin to scroll through your texts. your roommate responded telling you that all is forgiven; that’s one relief, at least. 

you check the text from your mother, the ominous Call me staring you back in the face. except you’re still over the moon with joy as you walk down the street and begin to head back to your apartment, ecstatic about the good news that you can’t wait to share with her. you click on the contact in your phone and dial her back as you walk. 

“hi, honey,” she says into the phone, and yet you don’t catch her solemn tone as you practically speak over her.  

“you’re not gonna believe this,” you ramble in your excitement. “remember I told you about the interview I had today? well, I just got out of the meeting, and it went amazing. she even told me—Monica, her name was—that I’m going to hear back very soon. she specifically said very soon, and it sounded like a good sign to me. I think they’re going to give me the job, Mom! can you believe it?”

“that’s amazing,” she replies, trying to remain excited for you, but her tone finally breaks through your enthusiasm and you manage to hear it this time. “I’m so glad it went well. I’m sure they’re going to offer it to you.”

“yeah,” you say, your smile fading. “what’s up, though? what did you need to tell me?”

she pauses for a moment, and your heart sinks into your stomach as her lack of response resonates in your mind. 

“what is it, Mom?” you ask more firmly. your walking pace begins to slow, your heart beating quicker in your chest. something is wrong, and deep down, you know it. 

after another beat, she continues. “I’m sorry I have to tell you like this, after your interview went so well. but I know you’re going to want to know this.”

“what’s wrong?” you reiterate more harshly, your voice beginning to strain. 

“your Un-” she begins, but curtly interrupts herself. 

except you catch it. you know exactly what she was about to say.

your uncle.

a million thoughts begin to race through your head. 

the slip-up was a mistake, one made out of habit. of course she’s not going to refer to him like that anymore. you haven’t even brought him up in months, skirting around the topic instead, none of you willing to talk about it until the time becomes absolutely necessary. 

is this it? has the time become absolutely necessary? 

 “Bucky,” she corrects herself, “has been in an accident.”

and it’s like the world stops. 

your feet stop moving, and you freeze in place in the middle of the sidewalk. all the joy and excitement you felt just a few minutes before is gone, replaced by a soul-crushing agony from deep inside yourself. 

“what?” you whisper, voice coming out small and fractured. 

“he’s okay,” she assures you with a tone that’s somewhat more confident, “but he’s in the hospital.” 

you blink a few times as your eyes grow watery, tears spilling over before you’re evening consciously aware of it. after the initial shock wears off, your brain goes into overdrive and you begin to panic. your feet suddenly begin moving again as you walk as fast as you can back to your apartment before you lose your composure in public. 

“what happened? when did it happen?” you question as you begin piecing things together in your head. it’s been days since you’ve heard from him, why has no one felt the need to tell you about this sooner?

“there was an accident at work. it happened on Monday. he… he fell off a ladder. he has a serious concussion, and he broke his right arm. he’s beyond lucky he wasn’t hurt any worse than he is.” 

you thank whatever higher power there is for saving him, you think, because you’re going to kill him yourself. 

“Monday,” you utter, your anger growing along with your volume, “it’s Thursday! it’s been three whole days, and no one thought to tell me until now?”

“we didn’t want to upset you before your interview today,” she excuses of the decision, and you scoff before cutting off her next words. 

“you don’t think something like this matters enough to tell me? are you serious? I don’t care what you think about me, or him, or our relationship. I had a right to know when this first happened. you should have told me, you don’t get to keep things from me, lie to me like this–”

“–don’t you start,” she bites, interrupting you in return. you’re still walking at full speed down the road, tears pouring from your eyes, and you want nothing more than to burst into full-blown sobs and start screaming. 

it’s for the best that you’re still in public because having a meltdown would only make this far worse. 

“don’t argue with me about keeping secrets and lying. not about this, not about him, not about anything. your father and I decided it was best to wait to tell you because your interview is more important, young lady, do you understand?”

you grit your teeth and force yourself not to yell back at her. more important than something this serious, more important than Bucky? 

“and what about Bucky? why didn’t he tell me?” you ask. 

she sighs somberly on the other end of the phone. 

“the doctors have kept him in a medically-induced coma for the last few days until the pressure in his head came down. they woke him up this morning, and he agreed with us that it was best to wait until after the fact to tell you.” 

“I want to talk to him,” you announce, “put me on the phone. now. please, Mom. please.”

“he’s asleep right now, okay? but I’ll make sure to give you whatever updates the doctor gives us?” she offers, and you shake your head even though you know she can’t see the motion.

“no. no, I’m coming home. I have to see him, I need to make sure he’s okay–”

“–no, you need to focus on classes and finishing your semester. he is fine–”

“Mom,” you cry out, and your soft tears finally turn into ugly sobs, unable to stave it off any longer. through your cries, you continue, “please. I know you don’t approve, I know what you think of him now. but, please, Mommy. I love him. I need to come home, I– I have to see him. please.”

it’s been a very difficult few months with the rift in your relationship with your parents over the last few months, but now, you can’t dance around the situation. right now, you need her to understand how pained you feel, for her to forget about how much she disapproves and understand how badly you need this. 

“okay. alright,” she gives in, her own voice a near whisper. “try and get on the next flight out tonight and we’ll get you back by Monday.”

“thank you,” you say, relieved. “thank you. okay. I’ll see you soon.” 

you pull the phone away from your ear, ready to press the button to end the call, when you hear the words softly through the phone. 

“I love you, sweetie,” she says, and the words punch you right in the gut. you can’t help but shed a few more tears at the sound of it. 

you bring the phone back to your ear. “I love you too, Mom. I’ll be home soon.”

when you finally get back a few minutes later, the race is on to pack your bag and get to the airport as quickly as possible. it’s as though you’ve gained a second wind as you begin to break down all over again, cries erupting from your throat against your will as the stress of the situation hits you now that you’re away from prying eyes. 

“oh my god, are you okay?” your roommate asks you the second she sees you. “what’s wrong? was the interview that bad? it’s okay, there will be other–”

“I have a boyfriend at home,” you admit to her through your whines as you start pulling random clothes from your drawer. “and– and he’s been in an accident. my mom just called me, and she told me, and I have to go home. I have to see him.”

“boyfriend?” she questions. “you never told me about… never mind. we can talk about it when you get back. is he okay?”

you wipe at your nose with the back of your hand, all the while you’re going crazy running around your bedroom grabbing everything you need to get on the plane. your mind is a jumble of mostly unintelligible thoughts as you try to remember everything you need and explain what little you can to her at the same time.

“yeah, I think so. but I can’t be here while he’s there, hurt, and alone. my family is probably there, but–” you pause, gulping and trying to figure out what to tell her. you’ll tell her the truth when you get back, when you’re in the right headspace, but now isn’t that time. “they don’t really approve of us.” 

“right, of course,” she replies, and it’s clear she doesn’t know what else to say. you don’t blame her; you probably wouldn’t know what to say in this situation, either. “just be safe and text me along the way, okay?”

“I will,” you agree, throwing the last few things you need into your bag before turning to face her. “I should be back Sunday night.” 

“it’s going to be okay,” she whispers before wrapping her arms around you in a hug. 

it takes all your effort not to break down for a third time in her arms, but you finally manage to hold yourself together as you get ready to walk out the door.

“yeah, I hope so,” you whisper. “I really hope so.” 

~~~

the lights are blinding, stark white shining into your eyes as you walk down the corridor towards his room. the scent of alcoholic sanitizer in the air doesn’t ease your nausea in the slightest as you anticipate the worst. 

they say that the side effects of the concussion are minimal given the impact of the fall he took, that he’s lucky to not be suffering any symptoms worse than the ones he’s experiencing. they say that he’s okay. 

you’ll make that determination for yourself when you see him.

when you approach the doorway leading to his room, your nerves spike. flashbacks filter through your mind of the last time you found yourself here, waking up in a similar room after your very own fall and resulting concussion. 

maybe yours was your bad karma for corrupting him, and perhaps now he is facing his own karma for choosing to hold onto you after allowing himself to delve into sin with you.

you inch closer towards the open door and peek inside to see him laying in the bed, his eyes gently shut. the television plays quietly in the background, announcing the local news to anyone listening as though it could possibly distract a soul from the horrors that brought them here.

your feet move of their own accord as you finally enter, turning to shut the door behind you and latching it as quietly as possible. except despite your best efforts, it emits a sound louder than you’d hoped, and your eyes cinch tightly shut in mild frustration with the door, hoping you haven’t woken him.

“hey, kid,” you hear a hoarse voice speak from a few feet behind you. 

you hurriedly whip around to face him, finding him awake and alert, smiling at you so beautifully. you race to the side of the bed he lays in as your heart rate spikes. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” you utter, eyes scanning him up and down. he waves you off, unconcerned. 

your fingers begin threading themselves through his hair ever so cautiously as you take in the sight of him. dark bags sit just beneath his eyes, redness circling his irises as your gaze finds his. his right arm sits across his chest in a cast, held up by a sling. 

“you’re a fucking idiot,” you whisper, your free hand joining your hand in his hair as you lean in to press a kiss to his lips. “how the hell did this happen?”

he just chuckles softly. “it was an accident,” he says, and you roll your eyes.

“I don’t care if it was an accident or not, you need to be more careful,” you tell him, looking back and forth between his eyes. “getting the phone call that you were in the fucking hospital was not a fun one, do you hear me?”

“yeah, yeah. I remember something like that last year. hated every second of it,” he mumbles. “but it’s better me in this bed than you.”

your eyes nearly roll back in your head when he says that. “neither of us should have to be here. and I’m not the one who fell off a ladder, you dipshit.” 

he laughs again. 

“I’m fine, kid,” he whispers, bringing his metal fingers to your arm, drawing your hand away from his hair and bringing it towards him to place a kiss on your knuckles. “I’m tough. I’m going to be fine.” 

you shake your head, beyond exasperated with him, but relieved that you’re finally here to see his state for yourself. hearing from others that he’s okay means nothing to you, because how are you supposed to be able to judge what exactly that means? 

“you didn’t need to come all this way,” he tells you, and you scoff.

“of course I was going to come. I haven’t heard from you in days, and the first news I get is that you’re hurt? no way in hell I wasn’t getting on the first flight. you’d do the same for me.”

“yeah, well. you have more important things to focus on,” he says.

you know he’s trying to reassure you about his situation, but hearing him say that he believes he isn’t the most important thing in your life hurts. you love him more than life itself; you always have. he’s always come first for you. 

“enough,” you whisper, wiping your eyes before your tears begin to fall. “I’m here, and that’s all that matters.”

he slides over in the tiny bed, his large frame already taking up the majority of the space, but he doesn’t seem to care very much as he adjusts to make enough room for you to lay down with him. you’re hesitant to do so because of his injuries, but at the same time, you’re selfish. you want to be here for him in every way possible. you want to give him this comfort, the safety and security of knowing you’re here for him. you want more than anything to just feel him. 

you lay on your side beside him and his free arm wraps itself underneath you and around your waist, tugging you in tightly against him. you rest your head carefully on his shoulder and look down to see where his arm sits in a cast. 

“you can’t afford to be breaking your arm in ladder falls, old man,” you tease of him, “you already lost one to a stupid accident. imagine having two stupid stories to tell.” 

“nah, I’ll just tell people the shark liked the first bite so much that he came back for seconds,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh. you lightly smack his chest as you break into a fit of giggles.

“you’re never letting me live that one down,” you say through your laughter, and his chest rumbles with his own laughter.

“of course I’m not,” he assures you as his face tilts downwards, leaning in just enough to place another kiss to the top of your head. 

the two of you lay there for a few minutes in silence as your fingers trace patterns over the fabric of the gown covering his skin. you’re finally able to relax thanks to the close contact, thanks to being able to see him with your own two eyes.

“was it your parents that told you?” Bucky whispers, reluctant to break the peaceful moment, but his curiosity grows too great to avoid asking the question. 

you swallow. “yeah, my mom did,” you admit, and he hums in response. “why? have you seen them?”

“they were here when I woke up yesterday. filled me in on what happened, and all,” he says. “they told me you had an interview yesterday? how did that go?”

your heart nearly stops beating in your chest. you’re not ready to have this conversation with him, not right now. except you have no choice but to address it, so you try your best to be casual about it in your response. 

“uh, yeah,” you mumble under your breath. “went well. dunno if I’ll get the job, but maybe.”

you hope that the casual, non-chalant tone you use will throw him off the scent, that he’ll get the hint you’re not interested in talking about it.

because how can you? how can you tell him right here, right now, that you have a plan you’ve been keeping from him? 

he’s going to agree to it, though. he will agree to it, because he loves you. there’s an opportunity here for the both of you, and he’s going to see it. 

or maybe you know that you’re lying to yourself, hiding your deepest fears in a locked box in your mind so that you don’t have to face the pain that you know may follow from having this conversation. 

except you know now, after not just the last year but the last four long years, that you’ve found where you’re meant to be. albeit by a happy accident, you know that LA is where you’re meant to be, the same way you know that you’re meant to be in Bucky’s arms for the rest of your life.

so why can’t you make both of those things happen?

“I’m sure it went great,” he continues. “they’ll be more than lucky to have you. I know I am.”

the sentiment makes your lips turn up into a soft smile, and a flush of warmth passes across your cheeks.

“yeah, it was actually great,” you admit. “the woman I spoke to seemed pretty eager to have me join the team.”

“that’s amazing, kid. where’s it at? somewhere close by, I hope?”

fuck. 

you begin to sit up from your position on the bed, looking down at him as you do. 

“actually, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” you admit. the look on his face is almost indeterminable, except you know him well enough by now. you know he’s confused, wondering what bad news it is you’re about to share with him. 

“it’s there. in LA,” you start, and continue to ramble on before he can say anything else. “it’s an amazing opportunity, and I know you seemed to like being there when you came to visit in February, didn’t you? when we talked about it, you said–”

“I said that the city isn’t my scene,” he interrupts you with a biting tone, and you’re taken aback by his brazenness. you continue, your eyes narrowing in mild anger with his inflection.

“you said that you’d be interested. that it would be nice to have a place out in the valley, somewhere close enough to the city–”

“kid, stop,” he interrupts you. “that was all… that was all just talk. I had a great time coming to visit you, sure. but you seem to have gotten this idea in your head, that, what? I’d be interested in moving there?” he says it almost condescendingly, as though it sounds like a joke. finishing his sentence with an unamused laugh underlining his words. 

your jaw stutters as you try to think of what to say next. 

“just hear me out for a minute,” you try. “this is a great job opportunity for me. excellent, even. if you just listen to me for a second, then maybe you’ll realize this is exactly what we both need. a fresh start away from everything, where we can just be ourselves and not worry about people looking over our shoulders, judging us at every turn. how are we supposed to be together like that? it’s not like people don’t know us, don’t know–”

“who cares what they think?” he says, raising his voice. “who cares? I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that, because I love you, kid. and your parents– we can figure that out, you hear? we don’t need to keep running and hiding! I know I’m getting real fucking sick of it, aren’t you?”

“of course, I am, but that’s why we should do this! we need to get away, somewhere–”

“what are you really trying to run from here, kid?” 

the question takes you by complete surprise, and you do a double take. you have no clue how to answer that as he stares you down, waiting for your response. 

“I’m not running,” you whisper. except your words come out low and broken, as though you don’t even believe them yourself. 

“except you are,” he argues. “you’re running, like it’s the only option you have. but we can figure this out, if you come home, and we figure it out together.”

“are you implying that we can’t work things out if I stay there? that if I choose to move, then, what? that’s it? you’ll give up and won’t even try to work this out with me?” 

he sighs, realizing how harsh he sounds. “no, no. that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t want to give up, I just… don’t see how it can work out if you’re there, and I’m here.”

“so, come with me,” you urge, and his eyes fall shut, his head shaking.

“I can’t move to California, kid. I have a business, and a whole life built here. you have to know that moving isn’t in the cards for me.”

he goes quiet, and you remain silent, too. you don’t know what to say now, what it is you’re supposed to do.

you sit there for a few moments, every sound from outside the door sounding infinitely louder in your ears as you suffer in silence, unsure what comes next. just when your lips part to say something, anything, he speaks up. 

“listen, kid, my head is starting to hurt. let’s talk about this later,” he suggests, and you tilt your head back down to avoid his gaze..

“of course,” you mumble, quickly standing from the bed and stepping away. “yeah, sure. I’ll let you get some sleep. we can, um… talk later.”

“hey, no, you don’t have to leave–”

“I’m sorry, Bucky. I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say, refusing to look back up at him as you step away, opening the door and ignoring whatever he says as you walk out. 

how can you face him right now, when you feel so stupid? why did you think that this could work out as well as you had hoped and dreamed it would? 

because you’re just a stupid kid, you remind yourself. you’re a dumb kid who doesn’t know anything about the real world or real life, the same reason you’ve managed to find yourself in this position with your parents and now with Bucky. 

what the hell do you know?

~~~

when you walk in the door at home, you don’t know how to feel.

over the last twenty-four hours, you’ve gone through quite the whirlwind of emotions. from your nervousness, to blissful excitement, then to pure fear and panic, you’ve been through the ringer and don’t quite know what you’re supposed to feel now. 

you’re mad at yourself for bringing up this discussion with Bucky while he’s in the hospital before having the opportunity to do it on better terms, before you could find a way to be more graceful about the discussion. you’re frustrated for letting yourself get this idea stuck in your head that Bucky would move with you, that you could both have your cake and eat it, too. 

you’re sad that you left him there, alone, now that you’ve made it back to your parents’ house. you flew all this way just to see him, and for what? you’ve run away from him, again, and you’ve now let yourself end up butt-hurt just because you ended up in an argument that didn’t go your way?

there’s too much going on in your life right now for this to be at the forefront of your concerns, and yet, it is. because that’s what Bucky means to you. he’s your everything. 

as you walk towards your bedroom, you’re exhausted, and a deep part of you has a terrible thought. a thought that you almost hope you don’t get the job, because then, you would no longer be obligated to stay in LA and you could move in with Bucky as you’d told him many months ago that you would. 

you hate yourself for thinking it, recalling how ecstatic you were just the night prior upon the success of your interview. you love LA, but you love Bucky more. you think. 

at what point do you have to start putting yourself first? 

all these years, you’ve pined over Bucky. you’ve longed to have him, to be with him, to call him yours the way you finally do now. for the majority of your time on this earth you’ve placed him at the center of your universe. 

moving to California was the only thing you’d ever done for yourself, even if running away from him was the primary reason for doing so. even if he was still at the root of that decision, you’d done it because you knew you needed to grow up once and for all. 

you never did get over Bucky like you’d intended to when you told yourself that college was the opportunity for you to do that “growing up.” 

and yet, regardless of that fact, you’ve grown in so many other ways. Bucky aside, this move was one of the best choices you ever could have made for yourself. 

would you be throwing it all away if you came back to New York just to continue choosing him over yourself?

as your thoughts continue to circle, you hear a soft knock on the door jamb, and you turn your head to see your father standing there. 

“hey,” he begins cautiously, “how was Bucky today?”

you take a deep breath, unsure of how to approach this discussion with him. you’re soon reminded of the time you found yourself standing right here, in your bedroom, the vision of your father punching Bucky out after walking in uninvited. 

except the look on his face now is forlorn. he’s hesitant, likely even more confused than you feel about how he feels about the situation. 

at the end of the day, you remind yourself, Bucky and your father have been best friends for over three decades now. the kind of familial relationship that develops after knowing someone for so many years doesn’t just go away overnight; he is likely genuinely concerned just as you are. 

“he seems to be doing alright,” you say, plopping yourself down on the edge of your bed. “you wouldn’t be able to tell that he just came out of a coma yesterday, that’s for sure.” 

a gentle smile passes his face as he steps inside the room, slowly sauntering inside before taking a seat next to you on the bed. 

you take a deep breath. he’s going to bring up your relationship with Bucky, you know it. and if the past few conversations you’ve had about the exact same topic are any indication, then this isn’t going to go well.

“when we were in high school,” your father begins, “Bucky was… kind of an asshole.”

you laugh at that. “you could say the same about him today,” you joke, and he laughs along with you in response. 

“yeah, well. more so back then than he is now,” he continues. “he was the kind of guy who went around chasing skirts, you know. didn’t really care about the women he went out with, and… it took him a while to grow out of that. 

“when your mom and I started going together, though, he knew better than to cause any trouble. he knew that I was serious about her. and, well, some of her girlfriends at the time had been on the… receiving end of Bucky’s stupid shenanigans, to say the least. it took a really long time for him to finally win her over, before they finally became friends, too.” 

“I didn’t know that,” you mumble, and he nods. 

“it wasn’t until we were in our mid-twenties, when Bucky finally grew out of his womanizing phase, before he and your mom finally began to get along. I was so glad when they finally became friends, because I didn’t know how I was supposed to choose between them if they hadn’t. your best friend, or the woman you love? that’s not a decision to be made lightly, and I never wanted it to come to that.” 

he pauses for a few minutes, staring down at his hands crossed in his lap before continuing. 

“when you were born, Bucky adored you. he vowed to take care of you, to be there for everything, every milestone. all of it. he watched you grow up.”

“dad, please, I promise you that nothing untoward ever happened when I was a kid, he never–”

“I know, I know,” he nods. “I know he would never do anything of the sort, but I also never expected that he would–”

he cuts off mid-sentence, and a pit settles in your stomach. here comes the argument, the part where he tells you he forbids this, that Bucky will always be the same idiot he was as a teenager. 

“when I saw… what I saw that day, I was livid. beyond anything I’d ever felt in my life, because how could he? how could he take advantage of my daughter like that?”

“dad, please–”

“let me finish,” he says calmly. “I didn’t understand how anything like that could ever happen under our noses, under my own roof. I didn’t understand how he could betray our family’s trust like that.”

you’re still waiting, waiting for the outburst, waiting for the ultimatum. waiting for whatever awful thing is happening next. 

“I still don’t understand it, and I don’t know that I ever will. but the point I’m trying to make is this: I don’t want you to think that your mother and I aren’t still here for you. I don’t want you to think… that you have to choose, between us and him.”

you blink once. twice. 

what? 

“I can’t say that I’m okay with any of this, but what I have come to realize is that you’re an adult who can make her own decisions, now, and I am not willing to lose my only daughter over this.”

you’re honestly shocked beyond belief as the sentiment he’s expressing to you settles in your mind. 

choosing to sleep with Bucky, choosing to be with him, you were never going to get to have the fairytale romance you dreamt of as a little girl simply because of who you were to each other. there was never going to be an open-armed welcome from your family upon telling them you were in love; there was always going to be a fight, a terribly disagreeable reaction on their end from learning such news, albeit a very warranted reaction. 

it was never going to be smooth sailing, and no, you never expected your parents to approve in the slightest.

but this, what your father is telling you right now? 

this might be the best possible outcome you ever could have hoped for.

“your mom is still working on getting over her anger, as am I, but we’re in agreement that you are too important to us to let you go over this. so… we aren’t going to interfere, or argue with you over it anymore, alright?”

you’re rendered entirely speechless, instantly reaching your arms out and wrapping yourself around him in relief. 

“thank you, Dad,” you mumble into his shoulder as you hug him. “thank you.”

you sit there for a few minutes as the tension you’ve felt between the two of you for months finally begins to melt away, as you finally begin to feel like you might be able to find a way back to normal. that what felt like the end of your world wasn’t truly the end. 

“we’re here for you,” he says, “and if he ever pulls anything funny, he’ll regret it until the end of his days.”

you laugh, although somewhat somberly, as you finally pull away from the embrace. “yeah, well. we’ll see if it even works out. my interview yesterday went amazing, as I’m sure Mom told you. and… I really want the job, Dad,” you confide in him, “but it’s in LA. and I’m going to miss him. and both of you, too, of course.” 

“look at me,” he encourages, and your soft eyes find his. “you’re strong, and you’re smart. and while the decision is yours whether or not you take the job, if you get the offer, I want you to think about what’s going to be best for you, not anybody else. the rest of us will still be here. but you owe it to yourself to seriously consider the offer, even if it means…”

“losing Bucky,” you mumble. 

“yes. and I don’t just say that because of everything that’s happened, but I say that because it’s true. you’ve worked so hard for your degree, and you deserve the job, if that’s what you want.”

“I do really want the job,” you whisper. “I really hope I get the offer.”

“then you should take it. you’ll have our full support. we’ll just have to come visit you more often,” he tells you with a smile, and you return it with a laugh.

“that would be great, Dad. thank you.”

~~~

you walk down the same corridor to the same bright, ugly hospital room as the day before. the same sterile smell permeates your senses as you walk more confidently to his room now, although you’re still nervous after your conversation the previous day. 

no matter what happens, you’re not leaving his side. you’re going to spend every minute you can with him today until you have to get on a flight back to LA tomorrow, argument or not. 

when you see him this time, he’s already awake, eyes fixated on the television as he eats jello from a plastic cup that rests on the table in front of him.

“that’s not a very healthy breakfast,” you say as you walk into the room, and he looks over at you for a few seconds before breaking into a smile after processing your words. 

“yeah, well, when you’re a sick man like myself, they let you have whatever you want for breakfast.”

you walk up to the side of the bed and look over at the screen on the wall. “you also should not be watching TV with a concussion, Bucky!” you exclaim, reaching for the remote where it sits in his lap, immediately clicking the off button. 

“I was watching that,” he says, but there’s no fervor behind his words. instead, he slowly shifts over in the bed as he did the day prior, once again allowing you to sit with him. 

the both of you go quiet, the elephant in the room making itself known after your argument the night prior. 

“let me help you,” you whisper, reaching for the spoon in his hand. with only one free hand available to eat from his cup, it falls over on the table as he reaches for it, and you immediately reach out to help him. 

as you extend the spoon of jello out in front of him a few moments later, he mumbles, “I’m not a baby,” but doesn’t hesitate to wrap his lips around the plastic. 

“thank you,” he says shyly afterwards. you softly hum in response, slowly feeding him the rest of the jello in the cup while you both remain in silence. 

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” he finally says once he’s done eating. “I shouldn’t have blown up on you like that. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“it’s alright,” you assure him with a smile as you lay down next to him. “I don’t know… where I got that stupid idea in my head from. it’s fine.” 

“it’s not stupid,” he assures you, metal fingers tracing up and down your back. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I thought it was.” 

you hum in acknowledgement. “thank you,” you whisper. “but, can we talk about this later? I have to leave tomorrow, and I’d rather just be here with you than try to make any monumental decisions right now.”

“of course,” he says, planting a kiss on your head. you sigh in relief and settle in closer to him. 

“how are you feeling?” you ask him as you settle in next to him. “are you in any pain?”

“not now that you’re here,” he says, and he hears you scoff. “what? don’t believe me? it’s the truth, your presence instantly cures all my ails.”

“if only it worked like that,” you jest, and he continues. 

“seriously, though. I’m feeling better than I should given the circumstances.”

“or maybe you’re just loaded up on pain meds,” you giggle. 

“yeah, maybe I am, but at least that means they’re working.” 

after your conversation dies out, you both go quiet for a while, your eyes shutting as you lay with him. even though the circumstances under which you’re here are far less than ideal, you’re still elated to see him, to be able to spend time with him. 

you hope it’s not one of the last times you get to have this. you still hope that you get to have this forever, until the end of your days you wish you could be wrapped up with him. 

who knows if that’s in the cards for you, though. 

when his eyes have fallen shut and you hear the soft sound of his breathing telling you he’s asleep, you carefully stand from the bed, trying not to jostle him as you make your way to shut the door and turn off the lights. 

he just barely stirs when you get back into the bed beside him, rousing just enough to wrap his prosthetic arm around you once more and pull you in tight before dozing off again. 

you look at him carefully as he sleeps, as though memorizing the sight of his beautiful face, the way his eyelashes rest on his cheeks. the bags under his eyes have improved slightly since the day before, and you’re still cautious to reach out and touch his broken arm. 

you wish more than anything that you could stay and take care of him until he’s all better, to watch him carefully and make sure he doesn’t do anything that might make his injuries worse. even if you’d been here on Monday when the accident happened, you know there would have been nothing you could have done about it; you couldn’t have stopped him, couldn’t have protected him from it, no matter how much you wish you could’ve.

there’s no bigger wish in your heart for him to have nothing but the best. 

yet here you are, telling him you want him to uproot his entire life just to make you happy. in hindsight, it was a far bigger ask than you made it out to be, yet for some reason you couldn’t see that. perhaps you’d been blinded by the fact that now that you’re together, and now that you’ve survived the absolute worst situation that could have possibly happened when you were discovered by your parents, there was nothing else bigger than that in your head that you believed could tear you apart. that if you could survive being found out, you could survive anything. 

you just wanted to have everything, for it all to be perfect. 

yet you know the world isn’t perfect, and it’s never fair. it’s not fair that the love of your life is a man you never should have gotten with, and it’s not fair that you both can’t just be normal. 

you’re going to have to leave him tonight, and it’s going to hurt, knowing that you won’t have clarity on where you stand and what the future holds. it’s going to be painful knowing that you won’t know the next time you’ll get to see him, the next time you’ll get to touch him, if you accept the job and don’t come back to New York in the near future. 

it’s going to absolutely destroy you if this doesn’t work out, you think to yourself. 

but even deeper down, you know that you’ll survive. you know that you’ve suffered heartbreak because of Bucky before, and if it happens again, you know you’re going to survive it again. 

you just have to hope that it doesn’t come to that. 

✦ masterlist ~ series finale coming soon. ✦

gif creds @/linusbenjamin

uncle bucky tag list: (send an ask or dm to be removed)

@lokisgirlie @multiversefanfics @avengemepercy @sleepysongbirdsings @wint3rbarnes @mandoloriancookie @supersoftspidey @dancinginyourlevis13

@overwintering-soldier @starfly-nicole @starstruck-cowgirl @flow33didontsmoke @dancinginyourlevis13 @s-sh-ne @doilooklikeagiveafrack @thursdaylen @belovedmoony @hextech-bros @nocturnal-thoughts-mp3 @tellybearryyyy

@itserikassandra-blog @buckybarnesmysaviour @sinistersnakey @sassandscribbles @cece2608 @nikkitabarnes @theoraekenslover @emxxiy @mouseratface @stell404 @yourmomoclockit @mrsmurdock @sugarlemon9196 @classicnarcissist

@nonyabusinesswhatmynameis @beforemdnight @bucky4life48 @fuzzyphantomsoul @alyssinwunderland-blog-blog @bartonsparrow25

gen tag list: (send an ask or dm to removed)

the heat reaches your face and a fluttery feeling sits low in your stomach. he always knew how to throw the words back at you. but alas, the show must go on. you stroke his hair back once more, cupping his face with both hands to kiss his sweet face. jason melts into it immediately, but he shrugs like he were shy from this attention. when you pull away, a piece of him was disappointed.

“you hungry?” you ask him. “i was gonna make something to eat.”

he shakes his head, “don’t worry about it. i came home to take care of you. i’ll cook.”

you raise a brow as you reach for your water bottle, ready to play in his face. “take care of me? i’m a grown adult babe.”

he watches as you lift the bottle to your lips, his eyes trained hard on how they part and press against it. taking in how your throat swallows down the water and he gulps in anticipation as though he was drinking it too. his lips part as he leans in to kiss you again. though this time, you bring the bottle between you and put it to his lips.

“you look dehydrated,” you say like it’s the easiest thing in the world. tilting your head slightly and watching the gears turn in his head. “have you been using the bottle i bought you?”

he sighs and nods, “yeah, but i like using yours better.”

sitting up enough to take the bottle and take a long sip. probably draining your ice cold water from how thirsty he was and didn’t even realize. he makes a sound of approval and hands it back to you when you do the unspeakable.

you take the bottle from him, lift your opposing hand and wipe it with your sleeve. jason is absolutely dumbstruck. his lips part in confusion as his brows furrow. he looks to you, then the bottle and then back to you again. he scoffs softly and then points at the bottle.

“the fuck was that?”

he’s blinking hard at you and waiting for a response. you just take a long sip and furrow your brows back.

“what do you mean jay? i’m drinking water?” feigning confusion.

“you just wiped me off of it i’m some freeloader, with germs and shit.”

you can’t control your laughter and shake your head at him. “i’m just wiping your spit off of it jason. it’s not a big deal.”

he knows you have never cared about germs with him before. besides, you live in gotham, and it’s hardly the cleanliest place to be living.

then he’s stammering, pointing between you and the bottle again. “but babe you just kissed me! how is that any different! wait, does my breath smell?” before he leans back and puts his hand in front of his mouth and breathes out to sniff his breath. “i didn’t smoke or anything and i brushed my teeth i swear.”

this only makes you laugh harder, pushing this chest and grasping tightly at he bottle in your hands. jason only seems to get even more confused. he sits up completely and watches you giggle to yourself, finding this entire thing amusing. jason however, does not.

with a loud scoff, he takes the water bottle from your hands and tongues at the mouth piece. he fully lets his tongue fall out of his mouth, licks it all around before pulling back and handing it to you. you grimace a little at the wet sheen on it.

“ew jay, what the hell.” holding the bottle like something toxic.

“take a sip.” he says with the most stern expression you’d ever seen on him.

oh, he was pissed.

you decide to play along longer and shake your head in defiance at him.

he blinks at you, “i’d let you spit in my mouth and you’re sitting here telling me you won’t drink from the same bottle as me?”

“no, not until i wash your slobber off of it.”

that’s when he huffs out like a kid throwing a tantrum and grabs the bottle from your hand, mumbling under his breath. you watch him with genuine confusion while he is the one to take another sip before grabbing your chin and pulling you closer.

he squeezes your cheeks until your lips part and spits the water directly into your mouth. you make a sound of surprise the sudden intrusion makes your eyes widen but you were definitely not opposed. you swallow it down immediately. he keeps his hold on your cheeks as he squints and a small smile begins to take form on his face.

“you’re liking this,” he states rather than asks.

the contagious smile takes home on your face as you stare back at him and nod. “it’s a prank.”

“ha,” he says flatly, “now can you lay back down please?”

sighing as you lay down for him, he immediately follows after you. weight resting directly over you like a weighted blanket that wouldn’t budge if you tried. when you squirm a little, he wraps his arms over yours so you’re bracketed between him and the mattress. then he really does give you some sloppy, wet kisses that leave a trail in its wake.

he’s mumbling lowly as he starts to tug on your shirt, pulling the fabric up and huffing like he’s still annoyed. kisses getting a little rougher as he starts to bite the flesh beneath it and knead it with his teeth. you can’t help but tilt back for him.

“slobber, huh? i’ll show you slobber.” murmuring against your skin enough to tickle. he pulls his head up to look at you while you’re still giggling, “okay jokes over. was gonna do all the work but—”

jason lifts you from beneath him and places you firm onto his lap. hand tight in your hip as you straddle him and he settles his back on the headboard. he clears his throat and something behind his light eyes darken enough to tell you you were really in for it now. the thick bulge beneath you was unmistakable now. you open your mouth in a gasp and say his name.

“there’s no way that turned you on.” making the horrible mistake of letting a giggle out again.

he breathes out of his nose and pinches your side to make you jolt. groaning like he’s not the cause of you moving around and tightening his hold on you so you’d stop moving.

“i spat in your mouth. of course i’m hard.” he sighs as his fingers slide across the waistband of your underwear and tug them just to let them snap. you jolt again but he doesn’t stop you from moving or say anything about the desperate sound you make at the friction.

instead, jason smiles a little harder, “go ahead then.”

guiding your hips back and forth until your breath caught in your throat and you grips his shoulders for dear life. you breathe out his name again but it’s barely a whisper.

he tsks and bucks up into you, dragging his hard length against your clothed core. your hips with a mind of its own as you chase your own release, dragging your hands down his chest and pushing him further into the mattress. you’re already a mess, panting heavily and saying his name.

dangerously close already and he’s just grinning like he’s won.

one of his hands come up to the nape of your neck and pulls you down towards him, whispering lowly in your ear.

“there you go ma, take what’s yours.”

movements getting sloppy and uneven while he’s keeping you folded against him. one strong palm kept your faces close and the other moved you in accordance what he knew got you there. he knew you were a goner before you even let go, gasping and stilling just for him to continue moving against you. even when you make a whimpering sound he continues and holds you hard against him.

you’re trying to catch your breath when he finally stops and kisses the side of your face sloppily again. his hands rubbing up and down your back like he’s soothing you. it feels like your purring against him as you come back to yourself. but this time, he’s the one laughing while he whispers in your ear like a coo.

“gave the camera a good show, didn’t we?”

The portal is vast and overwhelming. Like a river left to its own devices. Clark tries desperately to fly back against the current, but a surging tide overpowers him. He doesn’t want to risk the chance of using his super breath or laser eyesight and disrupt the fabric of the world. Mr Terrific had made clear the dangers of that more than enough times.

So Clark lets the next wave of otherworldly matter take him, and trusts that he’ll find a way back home. If not by using his own powers, he has every faith in his friends, his family, his team.

No longer struggling, the swell is all-encompassing and almost relaxing as it cradles his body and takes him away. Clark feels his eyes grow heavy under the weight of interdimensional travel, and just before he succumbs to sleep, he briefly wonders if his journey to Earth was just as kind to him. Despite his circumstances, he knows that he was fortunate to have been sent to Earth, luckier still that he had crashed in Kansas. Clark only hopes that wherever it is that he ends up, he’s given the grace of a soft landing. No metal bars, or concrete towers, or ores of Kryptonite pressed cruelly against his skin.

The re-entry is so gentle, it almost deceives him. 

When Clark comes to, he’s in bed. Pillow plush beneath his head, and blanket tucked up to his chin. This must be another one of Lex Luthor’s tricks.

Clark blinks rapidly, trying to gain a sense of where he is and why he’d been sent here, but he only feels dazed. As if waking up from a long and undisturbed sleep. There’s a weight on his chest, an arm holding him close. Heat envelops him, but it isn’t like a presence that he’s felt before. Clark hasn’t been with anyone since a brief six-date stint with Lois Lane sent him reeling, nearing half a year ago.

This tugging sensation feels like the ache from his failed endeavours with Lois hitting him all at once. He jolts upright like electricity is running through his veins, sparking at his core and searing all the way through each vessel.

Your eyes fly open, snapping to find Clark near immediately. He looks a mess - cheeks all flushed, sweat sticking his hair together, and fingers twitching to pull at the neck of his t-shirt.

The tenacity of your caring gaze only unsettles Clark more. He needs to get out of here, figure out where he is, figure out what Luthor has done, and—

Your fingers boldly bridge the stretch between the two of you, planting onto his shoulder. They’re warm and steady, if a little panicked. Your thumb traces a comforting line in the ridge of his collarbone. Clark feels his form ease ever so slightly, before alarm slams into him again and forces his spine to straighten. Danger, he forces the thought into his mind’s supply, body useless against your ministrations.

Clark’s brain is fixated on you—how he’s lying by your side, how you’re looking at him, how you’re aware that the spot between his clavicle and neck is exactly where he rubs at whenever he’s feeling all too much, how you know him. He leans away sharply, hand moving back behind him in a half crawl to reinstate the gap between you. Worry encircles him, making his blood beat a roaring rhythm in his ear and he misjudges the space. His hand slips on the edge of the mattress, and he tumbles onto the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Clark? Are you ok, what happened?” You move automatically, following him out of bed to kneel at his side and hold his cheeks. It’s a grounding technique you’ve long since learnt - the product of kind-hearted compassion and time well spent together.

He scrambles back, forcing distance between you once more as he pushes your hands away. His chest is heaving, eyes wide, and mouth dry. Still, he doesn’t miss the way your breath catches, an ugly mix of confusion and hurt encompassing your features.

“Clark?” you call out again, voice softer now. Muted.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, lungs taking in heavy gulps of air, and let his gaze trail over your face. His eyes follow the arch of your brow, the slope of your nose, the cushion of your lip. He swallows hard and nods stiffly, “I’m ok.”

You falter. But you don’t push. 

“And my second question?” you ask after a minute of silence, putting in a clear effort to keep your voice even.

Clark tilts his head to one side.

“What happened?” you murmur.

Clark swallows again. He half wonders if he’ll swallow his tongue with all the trouble.

All of Clark’s awkward reassurances die in his throat. He doesn’t know what makes it so difficult to lie to you, to brush off your careful questions. “I’m ok,” he eventually settles on the echo, avoiding your ask and gaze all at once.

You scratch at the pad of your thumb tentatively, trying to decide what to do next. “Do you want some tea?”

Clark lets out a deep exhale. He nods.

The kettle rumbles through the flat, breaking the calm silence of the night. You’ve turned on a soft yellow lamp so that you can meander your way around the well-loved territory. The skies are still dark, the birds aren’t yet awake.

You’re facing the kitchen counter, watching the water boil as Clark settles at the table. He’s not sitting in the right spot. 

Instead, he gazes slowly across the room, taking in every new addition. The soft cotton runner lining the wooden table, the pretty flowers decorating the window sill, the vanilla candle opposite him that’s just light enough not to disturb his astute sense of smell. Then his eyes fall on you - hair mussed from sleep, eyes still bleary, wearing an old t-shirt that he remembers his father buying him. His expression shutters.

He manages to look away a split second before you turn around, a cup in each hand. You walk slowly over to the table, half nervous about your trembling hands making the drinks spill and scald your skin and half anxious about whatever it is that Clark has to tell you this time.

You place the cups down with no big flourish, rolling your lips when Clark reaches out to take the wrong one. You say nothing, and push his one closer. His sweet tooth takes two and a half teaspoons of sugar and the cup is one that you bought him when you first moved in together. He’d picked out yours, too.

Clark takes a sip as you sit down. For a moment, he’s pleasantly surprised by the taste, then his stomach churns with the realisation that you had made it for him, known exactly how to. Your head is ducked, angled towards the steam rising from your cup, but you still watch him from through your lashes. You don’t miss the way his hands wrap tighter around the drink.

“Was it a nightmare?” You finally build up the courage to ask.

“I…I don’t know,” he answers truthfully, though unhelpfully.

“Something to do with Bloodsport? Or Lex Luthor, maybe?” You try to help jog his memory, offering potential avenues of thought.

Clark’s eyes snap from the cup to your face. “What?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to assume,” you stumble, unsure why this conversation is so stilted, so difficult, “I just thought that maybe…”

“You know about Lex Luthor?”

You shrug, brows creasing and lips beginning to twist into a subconscious scowl, “I mean, only what you told me. That he hired Bloodsport, that he’s been looking for the Fortress, that he’s been sourcing Kryptonite. It’s how he kept you trapped last time, too.”

Clark feels his heart pound in his chest, equal parts terrified and relieved. Because you know. You know Clark, and you know Superman, and you know all the trials and tribulations that come with the two.

“I don’t think that I’m meant to be here,” he spits out the words before he can stop them.

“What do you mean?”

“I think Luthor sent me here - to this world, I mean. Maybe on purpose, maybe by mistake, I don’t know. But this isn’t…this isn’t what it’s usually like.”

You stiffen, “But you’re still Clark?”

He nods, expression stern, “I’m still Clark.”

You let out a long exhale, apprehensive though glad. You’d like to think you know Clark enough to believe him across universes, like to think that he trusts you in return. So you accept his weird, confusing truth the best that you can. Just like you’ve accepted every other story he’s told you, every single part of him. “I need you to explain to me what’s happened, as much as you can.”

By the time Clark has finished recounting, the Sun has risen and your tea has gone cold, hardly drunken. The light filters through the curtains, exposing how shaky you’ve become. Your hands have fallen from your cup to your lap, wringing together beneath the table.

“So what now?” you murmur, voice low, “how do we fix this?”

“I need to figure out what Luthor was talking about, and try to find out how to contact Mr Terrific. I think he’ll understand this all better, and he might be able to figure out how I can get back home.”

You try to ignore the clenching in your centre as he shuts you out. This isn’t your Clark, you have to remember that. “Ok, well, let me know if you need any help.”

Clark sends you a tight-lipped smile and your chest binds further.

The both of you spend the next fortnight like two ghosts, haunting the same area in passing. You float around your flat, anguishing at the uncomfortableness of being in your own home. Clark’s taken to sleeping on the sofa, covering your coffee table in papers and books and scribbled notes as he spends every last minute catching up on research.

You stay out of the living room as much as possible, wanting to give Clark his own space. It must be awfully difficult having to navigate a whole new world alone, you think. So similar to what you’re used to, and yet entirely out of reach. So you do what you can. You call into work for him first thing in the morning with a convincing string of excuses, slip him a cup of tea when you feel your own need for a pick me up after a long day of work, and eat dinner together as a disjointed pair.

It’s always a little awkward - quieter than you’re used to. But this Clark is a guest, and you don’t want him to be completely alone. 

One night, when you’ve hardly seen him—gone first thing in the morning and late for your usual meal, you locate him at the public library. He’s by himself, head hanging under the soft lamplight. A beacon for someone else to find. You ache at the sight of the alien, taken away from his home for the second time.

Clark looks up at the sound of footfall. He’s distantly aware that he hasn’t heard a stir in a good few hours, he’s closer in recognition that those are your steps.

He looks so much like your Clark that the words of dinner die on your lips. Instead you redirect your feet and sit down next to him, taking a book from the pile stacked on the table. “So, tell me, what are we looking for?”

You begin to take on more and more of his investigative work since then. Clark had always known you were someone to trust - from the way you keep his biggest secret to how kindly you say his name - but the change had been stark, and the adjustment had been rough. He’d only needed time, and you’d more than given him it.

As his assurance in you strengthens, your mealtimes shift from stilted small talk, to conversations about scientific theories, to something more.

“I don’t think the librarian likes me,” he blurts out one day over a nourishing soup and crusty bread.

You raise a brow, “Really? Why?”

“I think she thinks that I’m…suspicious,” his brow furrows and his lips twitch. Your breath hitches.

“Suspicious?”

“Up to no good, maybe. I go in everyday from open to close, reading specifically about wormholes and intergalactic travel and things I don’t even understand.”

Your lips twitch into an amused smile, “I’m sure there’s weirder things to be seen in Metropolis.”

“Like what?” 

Your lips peel back to reveal your teeth, exposing your charming penchant to amuse yourself. “Like billionaire CEOs of mega-corporations creating rifts between dimensions to trap beloved superheroes.”

It becomes easier for you and Clark to live together after that moment. His slow blink and sudden bout of ridiculous laughter breaking a barrier between you. He realises you’ve been calling into work for him, and immediately takes over - going in a handful of times before convincing Lois to help him. It turns out she’d been looking into Luthor Corp behind the scenes anyway, it’s a huge step closer.

Clark also starts to pick up on your habits, your likes, and your wants - the same way you already know all of his. He’s the man that you know and love, and yet not at all. And when you mention the same movie for the third time since he crash-landed into your dimension, he finally asks you to watch it.

It’s a funny thing, being invited into a room in your own home, but you breathe a sigh of relief when you settle on the sofa. It feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders as you tuck your feet beneath your legs, and lean back into the cushions.

“Alright, you ready for your mind to be blown?” you smirk, waggling your fingers, and Clark finds his expression mirrors yours.

You both watch along to the film with unhidden awe, enraptured by the characters in all their lovely complexities. The shot ends with silence and a car driving off into the distance before the credits begin to roll, and Clark’s jaw drops a little.

“Right!” you laugh at his stunned expression, exactly as you’d hoped it would be. It’s the same reaction your Clark had when you’d first shown him, and you’re pleased to find that this one isn’t so different.

Clark only shakes his head and scrubs a hand over his face in an attempt to regain his senses. “That was good, really good,” he admits, still a little amazed, “it just might have to be a new favourite.”

You grin triumphantly, and it makes Clark want to share his personal joys with you, too. He asks before he can stop to think, “Hey, do you know The Mighty Crabjoys?”

As the night draws on and your conversation never once fades, Clark notices how the weariness in your eyes has begun to lessen in his presence, replaced with genuine joy as you watch him bop his head to his favourite song and later laugh along to his stories. 

You’re nearly in tears as he tells you about his exhausting experience of looking after his cousin’s troublesome dog, Krypto. “I’m being honest!” he presses, voice pitching up in indignation through your amusement. “He beats me up all the time. Kara loves it.”

Your merriment builds. The persistent coil around his own heart loosens.

He feels lighter going into the next day, too. Even if it is a whirlwind. An agitated alien appears in the city, screeching loudly from the moment it arrives, and Clark takes it upon himself to protect everyone, regardless of whether or not this is his home. It’s an easy problem to deal with, at the very least. The creature’s already isolated itself in a park, and it doesn’t seem to be at any risk of growing in the next couple of minutes.

A few carefully positioned hits and the alien’s unconscious, lying on its back almost peacefully. Clark nods to himself as he dusts his hands off and scans the horizon line, everyone that’s watching remains a safe distance away.

Only a second after do the Justice Gang appear, a brief moment too late. Tardy as they were, they’ll be granted the pleasure of safely capturing and transporting the creature to the government’s barracks.

Superman doesn’t shy away from the ragtag group. He ignores both the media calling out to him and the judgemental look that the Green Lantern sends him as his gaze flits like a hummingbird, spinning to find Mr Terrific. He spots the stoic superhero slowly descending from the skies, and jumps at the chance. 

“Hey, Mr Terrific! What can you tell me about pocket dimensions? And how easily cosmic expansion can be replicated to form them? And how red shift doesn’t immediately cause a rift in the fabric of the universe?” he spits out questions about the creation of the world and critical density that he now understands, mouth moving a mile a minute.

Superman’s sudden knowledge of cosmological theories sends the first alarm bell ringing—Mr Terrific sighs and gestures for the Kryptonian to follow him somewhere more private.

“What’s going on?” the hero demands as soon as the door shuts behind them. “Why do you want to know about parallel universes and the consequences of their existence?”

The explanation comes easier this time, after a tense talk with you and a better debrief with Lois. “And I’ve been trying to find a way back to my dimension,” Superman finishes, not as frantic as he had been before.

Mr Terrific’s face remains as stoic as ever, but it’s obvious his intrigue has been piqued. “So we need to find a way to access Luthor’s technology, and open up a portal for you.”

Superman nods.

“I’ll look into it. You keep on going with your research, it’ll be a benefit to understand your experience better. I assume your…new roommate has been assisting you, too.” The speculation comes out less a question and more a statement. He hadn’t realised that the Justice Gang knew you, too.

“Yeah,” Superman clears his throat, “yeah, she’s been a huge help. Looking into cosmological models and multiverse theories, and–and just making sure I’m ok.”

Mr Terrific lets out a low hum as the Kryptonian confirms his expectations. “That’s a start. She’s a good one, you’re lucky to have her.”

Clark’s not sure why his cheeks warm at the praise. He only knows that his chest feels like its thrumming, as if the compliment had gone straight to his heart instead of yours. “Yeah, I really am.”

When Clark returns home, he’s got a wealth of new information to tell you, cheeks half aching at how hard he’s smiling. Instead, he’s met with a steaming cup of tea on the table. Two and a half teaspoons of sugar.

He finds you on the roof, head tilted back to look at the emerging stars and hands wrapped around your own drink. You don’t turn at the sound of his footsteps, rather just lifting a blanket-covered arm. Clark sidles in close to you.

“Good day?” you whisper, stare fixed sternly on a single point in the sky. A distant light. A beacon, maybe.

Clark lets out a soft noise in confirmation. “Yeah, I had a good day. Did you?”

You only take another sip of your tea.

You wait until Clark follows your gaze - his attention no longer so concentrated on you - before you ask, “tell me about your home?”

Clark perks up, and you can feel his entire frame shift beside you. He’s standing taller.

“I love it there,” he muses, “Sometimes I watch the Earth just spin from outer space. With Kara and Krypto, or just by myself. It’s beautiful - the blues of the seas and the shine of city lights. But it’s not just the big picture, it’s the little things, too. Like the smell at my parent’s farm, and the sweetness of the corn they grow from nothing, and the dirt paths that cut through the fields because Pa lets too many people walk across there. And it’s in the city as well. The other day, this little girl gave me a drawing because I’d helped her grandfather get away from an attack. He has a bad leg but he could still pick her up and swing her around - I wish I could play you the sound of her laughter.”

Clark’s turned molten in his reminiscing, honeyed with fondness that never normally shows so obviously in this strange world. The very picture of love.

You wish you could mirror his feelings.

Instead, you sigh as if expelling all the air from your lungs, body slumping with the force. It’s then that you finally turn to face Clark, eyes soft and brows pinching at the starts, “do you think Clark is ok? My Clark, I mean?”

Clark feels guilt slam into him full force, a weapon of its own. It’s somehow already been a full month in this dimension and yet during that time, he’d never once asked about your alternative version of him, hadn’t even considered how he’d been faring over in his absence. Too busy trying to understand what Lex Luthor had done, and further preoccupied with adjusting to the changes of this new life, he hadn’t thought about the other Clark. Hadn’t thought about how you were missing someone, too.

It must be disconcerting, or distressing more like. Having someone so central in your life suddenly vanish. No, not disappear, but swap. Having a carbon copy take his place and not know who you are. Having the person you love be gone, just like that.

“I’m sure he is. He’s probably also trying to figure out how to get back home,” Clark tries his best to apologise through comfort, and you relax further into his side. The ‘to you’ goes unsaid, but it’s felt all the same. 

“You really think so?” You ask, unashamedly seeking out more reassurances.

Clark nods, happy to give them to you. “I’m certain of it. I know Mr Terrific and Lois would be helping him work it out as well - the same way you’re helping me.”

You look back up at the sky, still seeking something far away.

Clark calls your name, so familiar and yet softer than you’ve heard it in the time that he’s been here. “Tell me about your Clark?” he asks.

“What do you want to know?” your voice quietens.

He mulls the question over. Now that he’s thought about it, there’s a million different questions he could ask, a million strings to pull. He decides to let himself be selfish—for both your sakes. “What about how you first met? How did it start?”

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, mouth curving into a fond smile. “It was three years ago. He stormed into the place that I was working at the time, a complete rush, meaning business but still mild-mannered and polite. He had been chasing a local story, but got caught in the reeds as he focused on the little details. The who’s who and the why’s why - you know the business. He demanded to speak to me, because apparently someone else had suggested that I might be a lead. They were right, you know, but I could hardly get my words out. I just thought he was so handsome.”

Your face softens with affection, and Clark watches you glow.

You and Clark stop shielding the remaining truth from each other after that night, laying it all out in the open for one another to see. When he tells you about his conversation with Mr Terrific, you celebrate with equal enthusiasm. You beam at him, hands gripping at his shoulders as you shriek and cheer. And when he feels lost in his growing yearning to be home, you share that, too, trading stories of love and longing until you fall asleep, pressing closer into one another’s warmth.

You’ve woken up on the sofa for the last three days this way, blanket draped over your curled-up frame and the smell of sweetness in the air. When Clark re-enters, he’s brandishing two plates of breakfast with a proud grin and you can’t help but smile back in return. You wonder when he discovered where the flour was, and miss how he’s put an extra serving of fruit on your pancakes.

It becomes funny to you, thinking back about how you’d danced around Clark for so long. Oddly scared to risk trying and push him away over the short expanse of your clumsy dinners.

It makes Clark huff out a laugh, too, when you mention it one evening. His fingers fumble around a half-peeled potato as his eyes curve into amused crescents, and he shoots you a look in faux warning when he has to tighten his grip.

You only grin and bump his side with your hip. “What? I’m only telling the truth: you holed away and I worked myself up into a fit knocking on the door the first time I made dinner.”

He dumps the vegetable into a pot unceremoniously, still chuckling, and rinses his hands free of starch before he offers them to you.

You quirk a brow, acting as if you won’t take it for a split second.

Clark doesn’t believe your performance at all, but his smile is boyish and eager nonetheless. “C’mon, let me make it up to you.”

Your hand is soft - small and supple in his own. But he doesn’t let himself linger on the thought for too long, instead leading you back to the living room. His old hide-away.

The routine is remarkably domestic: Clark flicks on the radio, turns the old dial until something gentle and slow crackles through the speakers. Music playing lowly, your head finds his chest and his hand meets your waist. You sway from side to side in the quiet solace of your flat, feeling something click into place with each shuffle of your feet. Clark doesn’t stop to consider what that means, only hoping that the way his heart beats against your ear isn’t the same as his alternate. He chooses instead to focus on the here and the now, on him and on you. 

Clark can still feel you, phantom fingertips on his skin while he’s back to spending his day in the library, breathing in the stale air and continuing his seemingly endless research.

It’s the fourth time he’s read the same paragraph - something about dark matter, or dark energy. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t care. The realisation slams into him full force and he freezes, eyes staring down at a diagram of a far off galaxy.

Because Clark wants to go home. Really, he does. 

He misses the people, the view, the habits. His cornerstone and the love it brings. Everything he had mentioned to you before.

But Clark doesn’t want to have to miss you, too.

It’s an unfair want - he knows it is. Selfish and greedy and painfully true. You’ve become important to Clark, from your tender heart to your telling smile. 

He aches at the thought of leaving you, nothing more than a memory when he returns home. The idea of you slipping away pains him even more, a placeholder until your Clark is back in place. The one you love, truly.

Clark swallows thickly, and slams his book shut. A nearby librarygoer looks up at the noise, shooting him a nasty glare. He stammers out a whispered apology - never one to shy away from the meaningful word - and picks up the stack of thick writings with ease. He needs a break. That’s all. The countless hours he’s spent cooped up in the dusty archives is messing with his head, giving him confusing ideas. The wrong ones.

He places the books back on the wooden trolley by the door, careful not to make another disruption as he heads to the exit. It’s only when they’re all lined up on the to-be-returned shelf that Clark notices a red spine and curly white text.

You’ve been meaning to read this book for a while. Before he arrived.

He shakes his head, trying to banish the thought out of his mind. The sooner he gets out of the library, the better - some fresh air and sunlight will do him good, it’s what his parents had always told him out on the farm.

But the image of your smile flashes behind his eyelids - only a split picture, a firework grin - and Clark finds himself checking out the book.

His premonition is unmistakably right. “Researching didn’t go so well today, but I did find this,” he chuckles and you light up at the thoughtful action, eyes bright and lips stretched wide.

You forego the book to bring Clark into a hug, enthusiastic touch returning. “I can’t believe you remembered!” you chirp into his ear.

“Like I would forget.” Clark rolls his eyes without thinking, and he’s glad you can’t see his expression.

You know what it is anyway - tongue darting out to wet his lips as his cheeks turn rosy. As you loosen your arms and settle back down off the balls of your feet, you let yourself study his face. It’s just as you expected.

Despite the movement, neither you nor Clark let go of one another fully. It’s a shared reluctance to separate, a shared want to stay.

Your glow doesn’t dim, but your voice does lower. “Is this weird? Wrong?”

And if that isn’t a billion dollar question. The one that’s been racking through Clark’s brain all day, and keeping him up at night. It haunts his every waking moment, near etched into the ceiling of your living room with how hard he’s thought about it.

“Weird, maybe. Wrong, I don’t think so.” He admits, voice low. “I’m still Clark, and I think I’d fall for you in every timeline, world, dimension.”

Your lashes flutter as he strokes his ring finger down from your temple to your jaw. He takes it as a sign to continue, “Mr Terrific thinks Lex Luthor’s technology malfunctioned - sent me somewhere soft and similar instead of savage. For what it's worth, I’m really glad I ended up here.”

“For what it’s worth, I am too.”

Your whispered reciprocation is all that Clark needs to move.

He presses his lips to yours, so delicate and tender. A swarm of butterflies erupt in your stomach as shy giddiness floods your senses, so strikingly familiar to your first kiss with Clark.

When you pull back, you’re beaming, unable to hide it. Clark is, too.

Clark’s always been one to wear his heart on his sleeve. It’s what makes his smile linger throughout the night and into the next day, even as yet another strange creature seeks to wreak havoc in Metropolis.

It’s a harder fight than he’s used to since being in this dimension. The creature is deft and agile, leaping across rooftops and canopies. Between chasing the alien, Superman sweeps up countless endangered citizens, redepositing them somewhere safe with a pleasant smile. The rescued people hardly have time to splutter out their shocked thanks to the hero before he’s flying away again, red cape fluttering in the wind.

Superman pursues the alien for a few more blocks, before he’s able to tackle it between buildings. The force sends them barrelling toward the ground, whistling through the air. The creature squirms in an attempt to escape, limber hands wailing and tearing at the hero’s tight hold. As the Earth draws closer, Superman lands a timely punch, hitting the alien before they can both form a deep crater.

The force sends the beast careening into the ground, but just before it can make contact, the creature slows. It hovers a mere few metres from the soil. Then, it begins to glow. It’s abnormal and concerning and awfully recognisable. As Superman is pulled into the bright light, he feels his very soul sink.

The portal is vast and overwhelming. Like a river left to its own devices. Clark tries desperately to fly back against the current, but a surging tide overpowers him. He doesn’t want to risk the chance of using his super breath or laser eyesight and disrupt the fabric of the world. Mr Terrific had made clear the dangers of that more than enough times.

Anguish fills his body as he attempts to prevent his heart from splitting into two, pouring out from his core to every fibre of his being. He can’t go home like this, not without saying goodbye.

But the swell is all-encompassing and almost relaxing as it cradles his body and takes him away. Clark feels his eyes grow heavy under the weight of interdimensional travel, and just before he succumbs to sleep, he knows that he was fortunate to have been sent to this dimension, luckier still that he had found you. Because all the way across time and space, Clark thinks of you.

The re-entry is so gentle, it almost deceives him. 

When Clark comes to, he’s in bed. Pillow plush beneath his head, and blanket tucked up to his chin. This must be another one of Lex Luthor’s tricks.

Except, as his gaze darts frantically around the room, he recognises the tidy desk with the stack of well-kept notebooks, the dog-eared paperback on the bedside table, the cozy slippers resting on the floor. All things he had carefully placed to make the flat his own home. All things he had bought and collected himself. Alone.

Panic swells in Clark’s chest as he writhes in his bed, cold and empty. His sheets tangle around his frame as he twists and turns, encasing his limbs and holding him tight. It only makes Clark’s fright double. As he struggles against the fabrics, worry encircles him, making his blood beat a roaring rhythm in his ear and he misjudges the space. His hand slips on the edge of the mattress, and he tumbles onto the floor in a crumpled heap.

This time, as Clark catches his breath and aches on the ground, there’s no one there to kneel close and offer a loving hand. There’s no comfort at all.

Hot tears burn at Clark’s eyes and nose. He doesn’t bother to brush them away.

Without you to alleviate it, the ache remains like a vice around Clark’s very core. It’s confusing, confounding how he’d never known about your existence until a little more than two months ago, and now everything feels so off-kilter in your absence.

Clark throws his all into being Superman. The inevitable blows are a good release, and pure gold floods through his veins with the satisfaction of helping others. (The latter is what the media says at least, publications from all over noting how he’s been showing up here, there, everywhere - around the world and back home again in a matter of minutes. Superman nods along with a smile, trying to ignore how it’s nowhere near far enough. Because last time he had found the right creature, sparked the right powers, he’d been transported across universes.)

He’s back in Metropolis, supervising as the Green Lantern captures a particularly indignant creature with his powers when Mr Terrific sidles up next to him.

“I assume it worked, then,” the fellow hero says.

Superman stutters, “what?”

“I take it your our Superman again, you’re not hounding me about cosmology anymore,” Mr Terrific elaborates.

“Yeah,” Superman chokes out, “yeah, it’s me. It worked.”

Mr Terrific gives a pleased tilt of his head. “Must be nice to be home again. I imagine it’s the same for the other you, too.”

Superman’s first nod is curt and stiff. The second is softer, shoulders slumped in acceptance and long-waiting compliance. Because the alternate version of him is right where he should be—with you.

The thought of your happiness makes the transition back into his own regular life easier. All Clark has to do is imagine your smile as your own Clark had found you, no doubt the first thing he had done upon returning home. He’s sure you’d embrace him with those caring hands and that honeyed look. And the tears you’d shed during his absence would be nothing more than a bad dream. He’d be nothing more than a distant afterthought.

So Clark falls back into routine, waking up in the morning with the Sun and watching over the world until he has to get ready to head to the Daily Planet. The journey to the newsroom is unremarkable, allowing him to fall into a stupor as his body takes him to the door. Notably the daze brings Clark to arrive perfectly on time, a feat of its own. It makes the lift uncomfortably packed and disgustingly humid with shallow breaths, but Clark distracts himself with creating a mental to-do list. He’ll have to check over what work the other Clark had completed over the last few months - if any. He feels a smidgen of remorse for the lack of effort on his part.

He’s made a cup of coffee, thanked the stars above that he’d missed the sudden downpour of rain by mere minutes, and has started organising the new files on his computer when the lift dings again. Jimmy quirks a brow, usually this is the time that Clark arrives, hair dishevelled and apologies spilling out one after another, but he’s clearly sitting over at his desk.

Everyone watches as the doors peel open to reveal you, sodden and distressed and beautiful. Just how Clark remembers you.

Clark is on his feet in an instant. He rushes over to you without a second thought, ushering you into the warmth and the dry. He places his coat over your shoulders with a reverent touch, granting you the privilege of sitting at his desk.

You look over him as he draws back to lean on the edge of the table - inky black curls, striking blue eyes, a soft and sweet smile. “Clark,” you gasp out before you can think twice.

Clark feels that same old tug, finally loosening his chest once more. 

You begin to flush and stammer at his tender expression, blurting out an apology as embarrassment fills you from the inside-out. 

Because you don’t know Clark. This is only your first time meeting him and you’d blurted out his name without introduction like a creep, or maybe just a fool. And yet, something - something - tells you that you do. That you really know him.

The same something tells you that he knows you, too.

Clark shakes his head, dismissing your worries with ease. “Are you ok, what happened?” he asks instead, voice velvety and comforting in its low timbre.

“I’m ok,” you respond.

“And my second question?”

The strange sense of closeness - deja vu, perhaps - grows tenfold, but you only scrub a hand over your face to dispel the distracting thought, releasing a few heavy droplets as you do. 

Instead of answering immediately, you pull out a newspaper from beneath your jacket. It’s wrinkled, with a few splodges of ink running where the rain had gotten past your makeshift defence, but legible all the same. You point at the picture of Superman on the front cover, printed just above the byline of his name. “I’m ok,” you repeat as you regain your courage, “I just have a story to tell you about Superman—he found me, he helped me.”

Clark nods, hoping that his excitement isn’t too obvious so as not to scare you off. He tries to dampen down his enthusiasm - shifting his weight from one leg to the other before forcing himself to stand still. He transfers the energy into biting the inside of his cheek. He should’ve known better than to think alternate dimensions, wicked megalomaniacs by the name of Lex Luthor, and unfamiliar aliens would keep you apart.

Finally, he lets out a deep exhale as he silently thanks his alternate version again, and settles on a starting question: “before we begin, do you want some tea?”

Letters through time by @buckysleftbicep

Wildflowers by @superbassbuck

Grade A pain in my ass by superbassbuck

Lessons in love by @mandoalorian

The Education of James Buchanan Barnes by @danysdaughter

HR can't save you by danysdaughter

Attrition by @crybabycabin

Babydoll by @metal-armed-muse

A fever he can't sweat out by @epiphanyrogers

O come ye all faithful by epiphanyrogers

You up? by @iwritefanfictionsnottragedies

Touch tank by @rosesaints

Oral History by @cursedheartsclub

No strings attached unless by @kryptoclark

To whom it may concern by cursedheartsclub

Nerdy Bucky series Bucky this, Bucky that by @imnotjustreadingg-volume-two (my fav of hers <3)

Invisible by @danitcx

I think I've seen this film before by @bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky

No roster, just you by @salem-s

The right questions by @juniebjonesin

Douced in sequins by @miraclediviner this is the first one I ever saw of talent manager bucky x pop star reader and i'm so hooked

Guilty as sin by @redemptive-truth

Don't you ever end up anything but mine by @flowersforbucky

My neighbor is a prnstar by @brunchable

Show & tell by @nonotwithoutu

Null & void by @smorgaswhored

Property of j.b.barnes by @witchywithwhiskey

AITA by nonotwithoutu

His and his only for 24 hours by salem-s

Yes, ma'am by @night-scare

Lessons in chemistry by @d1stalker

Best laid plans by nonotwithoutu

For your consideration by @daydreamgoddess14

Only you by danitcx

Illicit affairs by @carmenberzattosgf

Happy meal by @sins-write-tragedies

Cuffing season by @phoenix-in-writing

Jealous-capades by @boysoconfusing

You're no good for me by @sinner-as-saint i love all of her writtings istg. This one is my most fav as it lives rent free in my head. Wish I could have a Bucky sugardaddy too

I'll follow you until you love me by sinner-as-saint

The burden of love by danitcx

Silversprings by @thatfoxygrl

Clark Kent talking you through it by @laceyfaeryy

Lovegame by @maiamore

I'm gonna kill Jimmy by @kissmyglxck

Girl next door by maiamore

Like the real thing by maiamore

(you think) he doesn't like you back by @staseras

If you leave, i forget how to breathe by danitcx

Lessons in lovemaking by @artficlly

Honey girl by @violentdelightsandviolentends

Vanilla cookies by staseras

He is touched starved by staseras

Growing pains by @lunexiax

Only ever you by @blowingbarnes my all time fav! Reread this more than five times already because this is of of those that lives rent free in my head. Still waiting for part two

Stormbound by @tw1sters

Superdick by @mcumorningstar

Lay me down by @godmadeaterribleerror

FÍJATE FÍJATE EN TU SECRETARIA by @herejustforbuckybarnes one of my fav congressman! Bucky fics

Hop little bunny by @thyme-in-a-bubble

Not like others by @groubee

People need people by @noblebynura

When days blend to one by @byhuenii

For the past two hours since leaving your office and slipping back into the ballroom like you hadn't just comprehensively undermined eight months of careful separation, you'd had the party. The party, with its noise and its obligations and its endless, mercifully absorbing requirement that you be on. All of it demanding just enough of your attention to make thinking about anything else logistically impossible. It had been, if nothing else, somewhere to put your face. 

But now the guests are gone, the house has exhaled down to its bones, and the silence left behind is the kind that doesn't stay empty for long. You can already feel the thoughts beginning to squirm back in at the edges, insistently, like they've been waiting all evening with a numbered ticket and now it's finally their turn.

The whole room is still dressed and gleaming for an evening that was, by every external measure, a resounding success. But you are currently conducting a very focused internal audit of every decision you have made since approximately nine o'clock this evening.

The audit is not going well.

Returning to the party with your husband—ex-husband—Bucky, on your arm like you hadn't just left a significant proportion of your dignity scattered on your desk had been one thing. The way the evening had gone after was quite another. 

Bucky had been insufferable, obviously. Warm in the particular way that reads as devoted husband from twelve feet away but as I have won something and we both know it in closer proximity. His arm became a fixed and immovable constant around your waist, metal hand pressing at the small of your back with the patient, territorial certainty of a man who has decided something and seen no reason to discuss it.

Matt had gone. You'd felt his absence around ten minutes in. The particular negative space of someone who has quietly removed themselves without making it anyone's problem. The only remnant of his presence was his champagne flute left half-finished on a windowsill you'd passed on the way to the speeches. You'd stared at it for a moment longer than you should have.

Bucky had noticed your mind drifting, of course. His thumb smoothed over your back - just a small, deliberate pressure that meant I see exactly where you're looking, and I'm still here. Stay. And you had, because the alternative was making a scene at your own event. And also because—well.

Because somewhere between the dinner and the second round of speeches, something had started happening that you hadn't authorised and couldn't entirely stop. You'd caught Bucky's eye over a comment from the Belgian ambassador and he gave you that faint, private smile in return - the shared language you developed years ago. 

At one point he’d dipped his head to your ear to murmur something dry about one of the ministers, and you’d had to bite your cheek to keep from laughing. Bucky had looked down at you with those soft eyes he does when he's not thinking carefully enough about his own expression, and you'd looked away first. You were even finishing each other's sentences again without realising.

And by the time the last round of handshakes came, you'd stopped noticing the weight of his hand on your back and started noticing the absence of it when it left. If you clutched at straws, maybe you could convince yourself that this was just eight months of having nobody to lean into. That, and the fact your body had always been significantly stupider than your brain where Bucky Barnes was concerned. But truth of it was quieter and more inconvenient than any rationalisation you could construct: it had felt, humiliatingly, like home.

The audit is really not going well. 

“Madam Ambassador.”

Thomas, your chief of staff, materialises at the foot of the stairs. Silent, eternal, and entirely too perceptive. A man who has worked in diplomatic residences long enough to have seen everything and professionally forgotten most of it.

“The last of the staff will be finished within the hour,” he offers. “Will there be anything else tonight?”

You open your mouth.

“That'll be all, Thomas, thank you.”

Bucky's voice comes from somewhere behind your left shoulder, easy and warm in the way of a man who has slipped right back into the domestic machinery of your shared life.

Thomas nods, unperturbed. “Very good, Congressman Barnes. Wonderful to have you back, sir. I've had your things brought up.”

Of course he has.

Because why wouldn't he? Congressman Barnes is visiting his wife, and that is a thing that happens, and the residence's household operates on the reasonable assumptions, none of which were consulted past you.

“Great, thanks Thomas.” You reply, and your voice comes out perfectly steady, which feels like a small miracle. “Goodnight.”

Thomas retreats. And then it is just the two of you, on the landing, in this enormous, beautiful house, at the end of the most profoundly strange evening of what has already been a profoundly strange year. Neither of you speaks for just a beat too long.

“Right,” Bucky says finally.

“Right,” you agree.

You head upstairs, and he follows, and the house closes around you both like it was always going to.

── ⟢  ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹ 

The master bedroom is on the first floor, east wing, overlooking the gardens.

It's your favourite room in the house; twelve foot ceilings, original cornicing, sash windows that rattle faintly when the wind comes off the park. It even has an original, working fireplace and enough space that the four poster doesn't overwhelm it, which is saying something.

You have not, in the past eight months, shared it with anyone

The door closes behind you both with a soft, decisive click.

You set your clutch down on the dressing table. He's already shrugging off his jacket, moving through the room with the ease of a man whose muscle memory never got the memo that he left.

Like a man who has lived here. Like the months of absence were a minor administrative detail rather than anything worth adjusting for. Like a man who has decided - and this is the thing about Bucky, this has always been the thing - that simply resuming works better than discussing. That if he just continues, the awkward conversation about feelings never has to be raised.

He reaches up to loosen his tie, that automatic gesture you have watched a thousand times, and then just… stops.

The pause is small. Almost nothing. His hands still at his collar and there's the briefest flicker of something in his expression that looks almost like recalibration. Like a man who has been operating on instinct for the last several hours and has only just now checked in with his frontal lobe to ask if instinct is advisable right now.

You watch him start to process the situation in real time. The room. The two sides of the turned down bed. His coat already laid on his chair. His suitcase placed next to his left side of the bed, because your chief of staff doesn't forget anything, ever, including what side of the bed the Congressman sleeps on.

Bucky’s tongue drags briefly over his teeth. Then he looks up and meets your eyes in the mirror, and the silence that follows has the particular quality of two people clearly thinking about the same three or four things and not willing to be the first to name any of them.

“I can take the couch,” he offers carefully. Gesturing vaguely at the small sofa by the fireplace that is, objectively, six inches shorter than he is.

“Don't be ridiculous, you'll be folded in half,” you object. “I'll take it.”

“You won't fit either,” he points out.

“At least I'm smaller than you.”

“Well,” Bucky sighs flatly, “I'm not letting my wife sleep on a fucking loveseat.”

There it is again. Wife. The word he keeps wielding like a claim, like it still means what it used to. And it still lands the same. You hate that it does.

You hate the warm, stupid, entirely unwelcome thing it does somewhere behind your sternum. Because he's being impossible - he's been impossible all evening - and yet here he is, immovable on the subject of your comfort even while being the singular architect of your discomfort. 

“Separated wife,” you correct, sharper than you intend, but one of you has to keep score here and it's clearly not going to be him.

He tilts his head, slow and deliberate, his eyes doing that thing where they get very still and very blue and very focused on your face.

“Didn't seem very separated a few hours ago when you were coming on my—”

“Don't.” You hold up a hand. “Do not finish that sentence in my bedroom.”

“Our bedroom,” he replies, and the audacity of it nearly makes you laugh.

“You haven't lived here in eight months,” you scoff.

“Yeah, well.” He looks around the room with something that might be fondness or might be smugness or might be both. “Doesn't seem to have changed much.”

And that's the problem, isn't it? Because he's right. You haven't changed anything. His nightstand is bare but still his; you've never put anything on it, never colonized that space. Even the closet still has the section you'd never quite gotten around to re-purposing, like some part of you had been keeping it warm. Keeping it ready.

The thought makes you feel pathetic and furious in equal measure.

“Well it's my bedroom now, and I'm telling you not to—” You stop yourself, jaw tight, because getting into this right now, at nearly one in the morning with him half-undressed, is absolutely not happening. “You know what? Fine. We're both adults. We can share a bed again without making it a thing.”

“I wasn't making it a thing.”

“You were absolutely making it a thing.”

“I was making an observation—”

“You were being an ass.”

His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Yeah, well. You married an ass.”

“Separated from an ass,” you correct sharply, moving toward your dresser with more force than necessary.

The muscle in his jaw strains. Pops, like he's physically holding something back, biting down on whatever else he was about to say.

“Fine.” He reaches up, resuming the work on his tie, fingers pulling the silk loose with deliberate, practised movements. “We'll be adults about it.”

“Fine,” you echo.

You yank open your pyjama drawer with more violence than it deserves, pulling out the silk set you'd bought months ago in a fit of reclamation. Expensive, modest, and nothing like the worn t-shirts you used to steal from him.

“Great.” The tie slides free. He starts on the top button of his shirt, then the next, movements slow and methodical. You catch yourself watching his fingers work the buttons with that same deft precision they had a few hours ago when they were working you open instead. Christ.

“Fine.” And the second it leaves your mouth you know you've made a tactical error, because—

“You already said fine.”

There it is.

“Well I'm saying it again.” You turn toward the bathroom. “Because we're being adults about this. Mature, reasonable adults who can share a sleeping space without any complications,” you finish firmly.

“Right. No complications.” His voice is dry, but not quite enough to hide the edge underneath. Something that sounds dangerously close to hurt. “We're real good at uncomplicated, you and me.”

You don't bother with a response. Just gather your things and head for the bathroom with all the dignity of a woman who is, essentially, fleeing. There's no other word for it. You're running away from your own husband in your own bedroom, and you both know it.

“I'm taking the bathroom first before I smother you with a pillow,” you announce.

“See, that doesn't sound very adu—”

You slam the bathroom door before he can finish that sentence, and the lock clicks with a satisfaction that's entirely petty and entirely warranted. Behind the door, you hear him huff a laugh. Something that might be fondness disguised as frustration and that particular stubborn amusement he gets when you're both being impossible. 

He always claims not to get off on your verbal sparring. You know he's always lying.

Leaning back against the door, you finally let yourself breathe. Your reflection stares back from the mirror, still perfect from three hours of performance.

Except it's not really, is it? Because underneath the dress, you're still wearing the evidence of what you let him do. What you begged him to do.

You reach behind yourself for the zipper, fingers searching low on your back for the tab. The dress is one of those gorgeous, backless nightmares designed by someone who clearly never considered that women might need to undress themselves. Your fingers catch the zip and you pull, but it only moves an inch before jamming.

“Come on,” you mutter, twisting your arm lower. Your shoulder protests. The zip grudges down another half-inch before catching completely on some invisible fold of silk.

You try the other arm. Same failure, different angle.

“Fuck.”

You stare at your reflection. At the reality of your options, which is that you have exactly one and it's terrible. 

“Bucky?” You call, quieter than intended, opening the door just enough to suggest he's being granted entry, however reluctantly.

A pause, and for a moment you're not sure he heard you. “Yeah?”

“I need help with my zip. It's stuck.”

You hear him cross the bedroom before the door opens the rest of the way, but he doesn’t step in immediately. There’s a pause, like he’s giving you the chance to change your mind, and then he crosses the threshold.

“Turn around.” It’s not quite an order, but your body responds to it anyway before your brain has the chance to argue. You pivot, presenting your back to him, fingers braced lightly against the edge of the counter.

You feel him step in behind you, close enough that the heat of him registers before anything else does. Your breath stutters, traitorous, and you fix your eyes on your reflection. His hands come into view in the mirror a second later. One settles lightly at your waist, just enough to still the fabric, the other finding the zipper with careful fingers.

His breath grazes the back of your neck as the zip finally gives and slides down, and every nerve ending along your spine lights up. His hands still for just a moment, a beat that lasts slightly longer than it should, and the bathroom is very quiet. For a second, it feels dangerously like the easiest thing in the world to lean back that last inch. To close the distance without naming it. To let instinct run the show again, just for a moment.

But then his fingers flex, and he lets go. He steps back, and the air between you is breathable again.

“Got it.” He clears his throat.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course.” he replies, slightly unsteady, and then he's gone.

You stare at the closed bathroom door for a moment longer before finally forcing yourself to move.

The shower is too cold once you turn it on and step beneath it. But you linger under the spray anyway, letting it work down your shoulders, washing the evidence of the evening - of him - away until the water runs clear. At least your IUD means this is the extent of the cleanup. But sooner than you'd like the heat fades, the old pipes protesting. Damn old house.

You towel off. Perform your entire nighttime routine with robotic habit, because anything else means thinking, and thinking is dangerous right now. Toner. Serum. Moisturiser. You find a loose thread on your sleeve and fiddle with it. You reorganise nothing on the counter and call it tidying.

Eventually, you run out of tasks.

The bedroom is waiting on the other side of the door.

Bucky's sitting on his side of the bed - when did you start thinking of it as his side again? - in nothing but his boxer briefs, scrolling through his phone with the blank expression of a man who is absolutely not reading anything.

He's kept himself in shape. Of course he has. Super soldier serum aside, Bucky's always been disciplined about training.But there’s more weight on him than last time you saw him - broader through the shoulders, softer in some areas. It suits him unfairly well. Fills him out in a way that makes him look less like a weapon and more like a man who’s taking care of himself. 

The thought makes something warm bloom in your chest, and your gaze lingers long enough to catch on the scars at his left shoulder, where metal meets flesh. The scars there are unchanged, a familiar map you’d once known by touch rather than sight.

He looks up when you emerge, and his gaze tracks over you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.

“Bathroom's yours,” you manage.

He slips into the bathroom without another word. You climb into bed, trying to stay as far to your side as physically possible. You shift. Adjust the pillow. Shift again. Can't find the position you normally sleep in, and you’re still awake when Bucky reemerges.

The mattress dips under his weight. You do your best impression of a woman who is already asleep, which would be more convincing if he hadn’t spent the better part of three years sleeping next to you. If he didn't know exactly how your breathing changes when sleep actually takes you. He doesn't call you on it. Just settles back against the pillows with a soft exhale that says he knows exactly what you're doing.

The residence settles around you both. The old Georgian silence, where the radiators tick, the pipes groan, and the old timber relaxes. 

You can hear him breathing. Feel the heat radiating off his body across the sheets, your whole right side hyper-aware of it. The bed that felt cavernously large when you slept alone suddenly feels impossibly small. Every nerve insisting on registering his presence with an enthusiasm you find deeply unhelpful.

“We should probably talk,” he states, though there’s not real conviction behind it.

“I'm tired, Bucky.”

A pause. You can practically hear him deciding whether to push.

“Yeah,” he concedes, something resigned in his voice. “Me too.”

He reaches over and turns off his bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The bed shifts as he settles onto his side, facing away from you. And then it's just the sound of his breathing, evening out into an easy slumber.

Which is something. Because for a long time, sleep was a thing Bucky Barnes did badly. You’d learnt that slowly, through observation, the way you did most things about him in the early months. Through the careful cataloguing of details he wouldn't offer freely. The nightmares. The insomnia. The tense stillness that only came from someone forcing themselves to lie motionless, hoping you wouldn’t notice. Which you always did, and pretended you hadn’t. 

Because pressing would've sent him retreating behind walls you were only just beginning to see past. So you'd just held him tighter and let him figure out you weren't going anywhere.

Over time his body learnt yours. Your warmth. Your weight beside him. The rhythm of your heartbeat. Something in him that had been braced for decades finally started to let go. He'd started reaching for you in his sleep without waking. Started sleeping past five a.m., then six. Once, memorably, past nine, and he'd surfaced so bewildered by his own rested state that he’d just stared at you like you’d performed some kind of miracle. 

It's particularly memorable, your heart unhelpfully supplies, because it’s the exact moment you knew you were in love with him.

He used to say you were the only place he didn't have to be on guard.

Used to.

You'd worried about that, those first few months after you separated. Whether he was sleeping at all in that sterile DC apartment. Whether the nightmares had crept back in without you there. Whether he lay awake at three a.m, every muscle held just a little too tight, waiting for something that never quite came. You'd tried not to feel guilty about it. Failed, mostly.

Beside you, Bucky makes a small sound and shifts.

It's drowsy, unconscious, seeking you out in a way his waking self wouldn’t authorize. His body curves toward yours, closing the distance between you with the same inevitability as a plant tipping toward sunlight. It’s like his nervous system runs through a quick inventory - familiar warmth, familiar scent, familiar body - and just defaults back to you like coming home. 

Which is deeply inconvenient knowledge to possess while you're actively trying to remember all the very good reasons you separated in the first place.

His face has even softened in that devastating way where it sheds the mask and just looks like Bucky. The real one. The version that doesn’t belong to the Congressman, or the ex-assassin. The one that you’ve probably spent more time with than anyone else alive.

You are absolutely not thinking about how much you've missed that face. You are not.

Instead, you think about Matt.

The thing is, you don't know exactly what you owe Matt, which is in itself a fairly damning summary of where you'd arrived. Two months. Easy, fun, uncomplicated in the way that things are when neither person is asking too much or offering too much and the arrangement suits them both. You'd liked him. You do like him. He's brilliant and funny and present, in the straightforward way that had felt so startling after months of press releases and assistant-mediated contact.

But he hadn't committed. Neither had you. That had been the point, or at least the operating premise.

So, the question of guilt.

Do you owe Matt anything that would make tonight a transgression? You'd not made promises. The terms, such as they were, had been deliberately unspecified, which had felt like freedom at the time and feels significantly more complicated now.

And, of course, there’s no way he hadn’t heard everything.

That is the part you keep arriving at and then shying away from like a horse refusing a jump, because there is no version of that in which you come off well. Matt Murdock, who can hear a heartbeat from across a room, absolutely heard every single thing that happened in your office tonight. Every word. Every sound. Every moment of two people who were supposed to be separated doing a fairly comprehensive impression of the opposite.

He'd left without saying anything. You don't know whether that makes it better or worse. You suspect worse.

You're going to have to talk to him. You're going to have to talk to him, and you're going to have to figure out what tonight was, and what the past eight months of separation actually mean in practice versus on paper. 

You're going to have to stand in front of Matt and have some version of a conversation you cannot currently outline because every time you try to construct the opening sentence your brain just goes quiet and offers you nothing except a replay of Bucky's mouth hot against your throat, and the rough edge of his voice when he called you his pretty wife.

Next to you, Bucky’s forehead comes to rest against your shoulder - tucked against you like something that simply found its way back to where it was always going to end up. Your chest does something you'd really rather it didn't.

You look at the ceiling for a long time, listening to your husband breathe, and try not to think about how natural this feels.

How terrifying that is. How much you've missed it. How angry you are that you've missed it. 

Eventually, because the ceiling has offered no solutions and your body has been quietly conspiring with Bucky's for the past twenty minutes, you drift off next to him.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

You reach for him before you're properly awake.

Your hand finds cold sheets, and the humiliation of that is enough to finish the job of waking you up completely.

For a moment you just lie there, staring at the indent in his pillow, at the covers thrown back on his side. Processing the faint sense of abandonment that has absolutely no right to exist given that you spent half the night wishing he'd spontaneously relocate to a different continent.

The shower in the en-suite isn't running. The dressing room is quiet. He's not here. You lie there for a moment, taking stock of the specific variety of idiot you are. Then you get up.

Twenty minutes later you're dressed and heading downstairs with the grim determination of a woman about to reclaim her life and her sanity. The sound of voices reach you before you make it to the breakfast room. Two of them - your aide's quick, efficient register, and underneath it, lower, Bucky's. 

You stop in the doorway.

Bucky's sitting at the table looking unfairly well-rested, already dressed in one of his perfectly tailored suits. Your aide - Caroline - sits across from him, laptop open, notepad beside it, wearing the expression of someone who has been efficiently charmed into full co-operation and hasn't quite noticed yet. Papers are open between them. His handwriting is on some of them.

When you walk into the room, they both look up. Caroline smiles, bright and professional. Bucky's smile is slower, warmer, with an edge of something that makes your spine stiffen on instinct.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he greets, and you immediately don’t trust his tone. “Sleep well?”

You manage a smile that doesn't reach your eyes. “Fine, thank you.”

“Morning,” your aide adds brightly, already turning the laptop toward you. “Perfect timing actuall—”

“What is all this?” you interject, a little sharper than you intend, crossing to the coffee pot because you need something to do with your hands.

“Just some press co-ordination,” Bucky shrugs, like it’s obvious. Like obviously your time belongs to him whenever he's in town. “We thought it made sense, while I'm here. The Times have been wanting a piece for a while, and with the summit coverage still running there's a window to get some good visibility.”

Your aide nods with the enthusiasm of someone utterly oblivious to the tension crystallizing in the air. “It's perfect actually, I've already reached out to a few contacts. We've got the charity reception Friday, a lunch Thursday that Lord Johnson’s been requesting for months, then the Atlantic Council meeting on Wednesday - that'll be good for photos if you both attend together - then tomorrow—.”

“Wait.” You set your cup down carefully. “Wednesdays I meet with our legal counsel.”

There's a small pause. Your aide's fingers hover over the keyboard. 

“Mr. Murdock?” Caroline glances at her notes. “That’s been pushed back,” she says, slightly carefully. 

You look at her. “To when?”

“These press things have tight windows,” Bucky interjects smoothly, with an expression of such reasonable, considered sympathy that you could scream. “Visibility with the right people, good for both our offices. You know how it is.” The faintest tilt of his head. “I'm sure Murdock will understand that these things take priority.”

There is a very specific register that Bucky uses when he has already made a decision and is presenting it as a collaborative discussion, and this is unmistakably it.

“Especially,” he continues, and you have to bite your cheek so you don’t say something you’ll regret, “given the transatlantic tensions recently. It's important we present a unified front. As husband and wife.”

The words land exactly how he means them to. A reminder. A claim. You know exactly what he’s doing because he’s not even trying to be subtle. 

He's monopolised your entire week, filled every available slot with joint appearances. Between your existing obligations and everything he's just loaded into your schedule, there isn't a single free hour left for the meeting with Matt that you both know isn't really about legal counsel.

“And tomorrow,” Caroline ploughs on, bless her completely oblivious soul, “you'd originally blocked out for paperwork, but the round-table is invitation-only and they specifically requested both of you, so—”

“So you've just... rewritten my entire week.” You hear yourself say. Your smile is so tight it might shatter.

“Optimized.” Bucky corrects gently. 

His eyes meet yours across the table, and the look in them is pure, undiluted victory. And the worst part? He's not even wrong. These are important events. You should attend them together. From any objective standpoint, his logic is flawless. Any attempt at protesting would make you look like you're prioritizing the wrong things.

Which is exactly what makes it so infuriating.

“Will there be anything else?” you ask, voice perfectly professional. “I have a meeting I’m already running late for.”

“I think that covers it,” Caroline says brightly. “Oh, the German Ambassador's office called about scheduling a—”

“Send me the details,” you interrupt. “I'll review them later.”

You pick up a croissant from the breakfast spread. Turn to leave.

“Sweetheart?”

You stop. Take deep breath. Don't turn around. “Yes?”

“I was thinking we could have lunch later. Just the two of us. Prep ourselves for the busy week ahead.”

The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking audacity.

You turn back, smile still in place. “Sounds perfect, why don’t you come by my office later?”

“Absolutely.” His smile widens. “It's a date.”

You leave the residence before you turn your private separation into a very public spectacle involving thrown pastries, taking your fury with you to the embassy where it promptly gets buried under the weight of your actual job.

The morning is a blur of meetings that run long and emails that multiply faster than you can answer them. Trade briefings that should take thirty minutes stretch to fifty. Security updates that require your signature on six different documents. A conference call with State that goes in circles for forty minutes before anyone agrees on anything. Your assistant has brought you coffee twice, and both cups have gone cold on your desk untouched.

You're mid-sentence in a response to the German Ambassador's office when there's a knock at your door.

“Come in,” you call, not looking up, assuming it's another briefing packet or someone from the communications team.

The door opens. You register the footsteps, the soft tap of a cane, before the voice.

“Busy morning?”

Your head snaps up so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash.

Matt's standing in the doorway, one hand on his cane, the other tucked into his pocket. His expression is pleasant and unreadable in that way he does when he's being very deliberate about not showing what he's actually thinking.

Fuck.

This would've been significantly easier with some advance notice. A text, or an email, or a calendar invite titled “Discuss Why You Disappeared Into Your Office With Your Supposed Ex-Husband”. Anything that would've given you more than zero seconds to figure out what the hell you're supposed to say right now. 

You've walked into treaty negotiations with less anxiety. Those at least came with agendas. Preparation time. The basic courtesy of knowing they were happening before you were actively in them.

“Matt.” Your brain scrambles for words, or literally anything useful. “Hi. I didn't—I wasn't expecting—”

“Noticed your calendar got significantly fuller since yesterday,” he observes mildly, tilting his head. There's no accusation in his tone, but you hear the question underneath it anyway. “Lot of joint appearances suddenly.”

Heat crawls up your neck. You're aware, abruptly, of how you must look - harried, distracted, still half-focused on the email you were writing. “Yes,” you manage. “I'm sorry. I wanted to—I meant to call, I just haven't had a second to—”

“It's fine.” He steps into the office properly, and your heart kicks harder in your chest, whether it’s dread or want, you’re not entirely sure. “It's your lunch break now though, isn't it? We could grab something. Talk about last night.”

Oh god. Suddenly the conference call that went in circles for forty minutes seems appealing by comparison.

“Matt,” you start, but you don't even know where that sentence is going. Because what can you even say? My husband is systematically cutting you out of my life and I'm clearly too much of a coward to stop him?

“I'm not—” He stops, and there's a light sigh before his lips press together in that particular way he does when he's choosing his words carefully. “I'm not trying to make this difficult. I just think we should probably talk about where things stand. Clear the air.”

You scramble find words that don't make this exponentially worse. “It's complicated.”

“Is it?” There's an edge to his voice now, however faint. “Or is it actually pretty straightforward and we're both just avoiding saying it out loud?”

You're trying to formulate something that resembles an answer when you hear the distinct cadence of footsteps you’d recognise anywhere, coming down the hall towards your office.

“There you are, sweetheart.”

Your stomach drops straight through the floor and keeps going.

Bucky appears in the doorway, looking between you and Matt with an expression of polite surprise that would be convincing if you didn't know him well enough to see the calculation behind it.

“Oh, Murdock,” he greets, as though he's only just noticed Matt standing there. “Didn't realise you were stopping by.”

“Congressman Barnes,” Matt turns slightly, angling toward Bucky's voice. “Just thought I'd see if the Ambassador was free for lunch, because it seems like her schedule's quite full.”

“Yeah, it's a busy week,” Bucky agrees easily, stepping into the office properly now. Not quite crowding, but definitely occupying space between you both. “We've got lunch plans actually. Lots to catch up on - isn't that right, doll?”

You're still sitting at your desk, frozen, watching this happen like you're observing it from outside your own body. The air in the office has gone thick and uncomfortable, the silence stretching just a beat too long.

Matt's expression hasn't changed, but you can see the slight tension in his jaw. The way his hand tightens fractionally on his cane; he knows exactly what's happening here

“Right,” you manage finally. “Yes. We're—it’s a working lunch. Coordinating the rest of the week.”

“A working lunch,” Matt repeats, and you can't tell if there's an edge to it or if your guilt is adding subtext that isn’t there.

“You know how it is,” Bucky adds. “Just making sure we're aligned before all the joint appearances. Tedious stuff, really.”

Bucky’s still smiling. Matt's still standing there. You're still trying to remember how to breathe normally.

“Of course,” Matt says after a moment. “I should let you both get to it then.”

“We could reschedule,” you start, but the words feel hollow even as you're saying them. “Later this week, maybe—”

“Your calendar looked pretty full,” Matt interrupts. “But sure. Have your people call my people.”

The formality of it stings more than it should. Like he's already pulling back, already creating space between you that wasn't there before.

“Matt—”

“It's fine.” he assures, though it doesn’t sound fine. It sounds like a door closing. Or maybe you're imagining that too - there's nothing in his voice you can parse clearly. “Really, enjoy your lunch.”

You want to say something else. Want to explain, or apologise, or do literally anything to make this less excruciating. But the words stick in your throat, and Matt's already shifting toward the door into the hallway, and Bucky's just standing there, absolutely not trying to hide his satisfaction.

“Ready to go?” Bucky asks.

“I just need to freshen up,” you reply. “Give me two minutes. I'll meet you downstairs.”

It's a transparent excuse and you both know it. But you need air. You need thirty seconds where you're not feeling like you’re being pulled apart at the seams. You grab your bag and slip out after Matt, turning the opposite direction toward the bathrooms, leaving Bucky alone in your office. Which is possibly the worst decision you could have made, you realise, but you can't exactly turn around now.

Behind you, Bucky watches you disappear around the corner. Waits patiently until your heels clicking fades down the corridor. Then he moves. 

Matt's halfway down the corridor when Bucky catches up.

“Murdock.”

Matt stops mid-stride. There's a fractional hesitation where his shoulders stiffen before he turns. His expression has shed whatever careful pleasantness he'd been wearing in your office. What's left is cooler. Bucky stops a respectful distance away, hands loose at his sides. Everything about his posture says this is just two professionals having a friendly discussion.

“I think we should talk,” he begins. “Briefly.”

Matt's expression doesn't change. “About?”

“About boundaries.” Bucky asserts, though his tone is reasonable - almost apologetic, even. Like this is an awkward position he’s been forced into rather than something he’s orchestrating. “Look, I'm going to be direct here. My wife and I are working through things. Trying to figure out what we want going forward. And I think—Well, I think it would be easier if we had some space to do that without other complications.”

Matt tilts his head slightly, and there's something almost amused in the gesture. “And by complications you mean me.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick about this, I'm just asking you to back off for a while. Let us have the space we need as we get back to where we were.” It comes out steady, but Bucky’s heart rate betrays him. That telltale spike that means he’s not being entirely truthful. Matt catalogues the lie for what it is. “It's been a difficult few months, but we're in a good place now.”

“And she's aware of this? The working things out?”

Bucky's jaw tightens. “We're on the same page about what matters.”

“Wow,” Matt scoffs softly, a disbelieving smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That’s what you’re telling yourself?”

Bucky goes still, but Matt hears the minute hitch in his breathing anyway. The slight shift in his heartbeat as he re-calibrates, trying to decide whether Matt actually knows something or if he’s bluffing.

When Bucky speaks again, there’s bite to his tone, the pleasantness veneer starting to crack around the edges.

“My relationship with my wife isn't really your concern.” 

“It is when I’ve been sleeping with her the past two months.”

Bucky’s mouth pulls into something mean immediately, his expression hardening as the last scraps of diplomacy finally burn off. Any pretence of this being a civil conversation is entirely gone.

“And yet those two months didn’t seem to mean much last night, did they? I hadn’t even been back three hours, that must sting a little.”

The barb lands. Matt's jaw tightens, but he doesn't take the bait.

“You know, if push her into something she doesn't actually want—”

“I know my wife.”

“Do you?” Matt asks, and there's just enough lift in it to make it a real question but not quite enough warmth to make it a polite one. “Because despite what you think, two months ago she didn't seem like someone who was waiting around for you to come back.”

Bucky's hands flex. “Meaning?”

“Meaning she built a life here without you in it,” Matt states, matter of fact. “And sleeping with her and monopolising her calendar doesn’t undo that, no matter how much you want it to.”

That lands differently. Bucky's mouth presses into a thin line as he tries to find his footing again. Tries to figure out how to wrestle the conversation back under his control. But Matt's already turning away, done with whatever this was.

“Next time you want to have a conversation about boundaries, Congressman,” he tosses back over his shoulder, “maybe try having it with her first.”

Then he's gone, footsteps receding down the hallway, leaving Bucky standing alone with the distinct feeling that he didn't win that exchange nearly as cleanly as he'd intended. 

He stands there for a moment, trying to sort through what just happened. Matt's parting shot sits uncomfortably in his chest, because that’s what he’s trying to fix, isn’t it? Except maybe Murdock has a point about the method.

He straightens his jacket. Rolls his shoulders back. Whatever. He has lunch with his wife, and Matt Murdock can go back to whatever law firm he crawled out of. 

Bucky makes it down to the entrance hall,checking his phone more out of habit than any real interest in the messages accumulating there. When he hears your footsteps on the stairs, he looks up, and something in his chest loosens slightly. At least he has this. This week. That has to count for something.

He straightens as you approach, and there's something careful in the way his eyes track over your face, like he's bracing for whatever mood you're bringing down those stairs with you.

“Ready?” He asks, aiming for casual but it doesn't quite land.

“Do I have a choice?” The question comes with a raised brow. You don’t slow down as you reach him, just brush past toward the door.

“You always have a choice.” He falls into step beside you, hands sliding into his pockets.

“Funny,” you return, pushing through the door without waiting for him to open it. “Doesn't feel like it this week.”

Wisely, he chooses not to argue. Instead, he follows you out into the grey London afternoon, the kind of day where the sky can't decide if it wants to commit to rain or just make everyone miserable with the threat of it. 

The walk is silent - not the comfortable kind. Bucky keeps his hands in his pockets because if he doesn't, they'll instinctively search for your waist or the small of your back or some other familiar place they've been gravitating toward for years. And that Velcro instinct to maintain contact feels entirely unhelpful given the current temperature between you.

The restaurant Bucky chose is one of those discreet places where ministers go to have conversations they'd rather not have overheard. The kind with enough distance from other diners that you could have an argument without making it everyone's business. Not that you're planning to argue. You're planning to get through this lunch, get through this week, and then figure out what the hell your life is supposed to look like when your ex-husband stops playing whatever game this is.

You both settle into your seats. Pick up menus you don't really look at. You order a salad you won't finish, and he gets something with chicken. The waiter retreats, and you're left with the silence again, which is starting to feel like a third presence in your relationship. Bucky's doing that thing where he looks like he's about to say something, then doesn't, his jaw working slightly like he's testing out sentences in his head before committing to them out loud.

“Just say it,” you offer eventually, unfolding your napkin with more attention than the action requires.

His eyes snap up, sheepish. “Say what?”

“Whatever it is you've been composing since we sat down.”

He huffs a breath that might be amusement. Looks down at his water glass, turning it slightly on the table, before looking back up at you through his lashes with that rare, almost boyish uncertainty. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than you're expecting.

“I know you're pissed about the calendar.”

“Observant.” The word comes out flat, edged with sarcasm. “What gave it away? The part where I barely spoke to you on the walk over, or the part where I'm sitting here looking like I'd rather be anywhere else?”

His mouth twitches, but he doesn't smile. “I should've asked first.”

“Yes. You should’ve.”

“I didn't think you'd say yes if I asked.”

The honesty of it catches you off guard. You look up, and he's watching you with an expression you can't quite parse. Like he's trying to gauge how much damage control he needs to do, but it's coming off more hesitant than calculated.

“Would you have?” he presses.

“We'll never know now, will we?”

The waiter arrives with water. You both fall silent until he leaves. Bucky exhales through his nose. His fingers drum once against the table before going still, like he's physically stopping himself from fidgeting.

“Look, I know I've been—” He stops. Starts again. “The past year has been shit. And I know that's on me.”

You weren't expecting that. You were expecting deflection, or charm, or strategic redirection. Not this. 

“I let the distance grow,” he continues, not quite meeting your eyes. “Got buried in DC and the constant fucking politics of it all. And somewhere in there I stopped picking up the phone. Stopped making time. Started letting my assistant filter everything because it was easier than dealing with how far apart we'd gotten.”

“You suggested the separation,” you point out, voice flat. “You're the one who said no strings, no hard feelings.”

“I know.”

“You made it impossible for me to reach you and then acted like the distance was mutual.”

“I know,” he repeats, and there's something tighter in his voice now. “And I'm not saying that was fair. It wasn't. It was cowardly. But I'm here now.”

“For a week.” You lean back in your chair, arms crossing. “And you got here by hijacking my calendar instead of just asking me to talk.”

“We're talking now.”

You sigh, or maybe it's closer to an exhale of pure exasperation. Your gaze lifts to the ceiling for a brief moment like you're asking for divine patience.

“Bucky—”

“Okay,” he concedes, hands lifting briefly in surrender before he shifts forward, elbows coming to rest on the table. “I know monopolizing your schedule was a shit way to go about it, but I miss you.” He looks down at his hands, then back up at you. “I miss us. I miss you being the first person I want to tell things to. And I want to prove that we can still do this. That I can be here, when it matters.”

The words settle in the space between you, complicated and messy and not nearly enough to fix everything that's broken. It's nowhere near enough.

You want to stay angry. Want to hold onto the fury that's been building since this morning, or since last night, or over the past year, really. But there's something in his voice that sounds like actual regret, and you're so tired of being angry all the time. It's more than he's said in months, and that matters more than it should.

“So this is what, exactly?” you ask, trying to stay firm. “An audition? A demonstration?”

“It's me trying.” It’s a simple confession, like he’s run out of polished answers, and this is all he has left.

The food arrives. You both go quiet while the waiter sets down plates and refills water and does all the small choreographed movements of service. Once he's gone, you pick up your fork without any real intention of eating.

“You hijacked my week, Bucky. You coordinated with my staff behind my back and filled my schedule so I couldn't—” You stop yourself before you finish that sentence, but he finishes it anyway.

“So you couldn't see Murdock.”

“So I couldn't make my own choices,” you correct sharply.

He has the grace to look slightly abashed. Slightly. “Fair enough.”

“Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like the same pattern. You can't just show up and expect—”

“It’s not—“ He stops, looking for the right words. “Okay. Maybe. But just let me show you I can be present. That we still work as a team.” His voice is steady now, certain. “The rest of it, we can figure that out. Just give me this week, please.”

You should say no. You should tell him that orchestrating your life without your consent isn't how you rebuild trust. That half-apologies that don’t actually contain an apology don't undo eight months of distance. That you can't just paper over everything with joint appearances and pretty words.

But he's looking at you so earnestly that it makes you hesitate. And the treacherous truth is that you're tired. Tired of being angry, tired of navigating this alone, tired of lying in that too-big bed and pretending you don't notice the empty space beside you.

And it would be so much easier to just... let this be easy.

“One week,” you hear yourself say.

Something in his face softens. His posture shifts, only slightly, but you catch it. Relief, maybe. Or victory. Hard to tell which. “Yeah?”

“One week of actually showing up. And then we talk. Really talk. About all of it.” You hold his gaze. “And I mean everything, Bucky. The separation, the distance, why we're even doing this. No more avoiding the hard conversations.”

“Deal.”

The silence that follows is different. Still weighted, but less hostile. More like you're both feeling your way toward something that used to be natural and isn't anymore.

“So,” Bucky says, moving food around his plate. “How bad is Lord Johnson actually going to be on Thursday?”

Despite yourself, you almost laugh. “Unbearable. He's going to lecture you about trade policy superiority while asking for concessions.”

“So exactly like last time.”

“Mhm,” you agree, finally taking a bite of your salad. “Except now he's also upset about the tariffs, so add that to his list of grievances. Plus he's developed this tendency to touch people when he talks. Very hands-on.”

Bucky's eyebrow raises, fork pausing halfway to his mouth. “Should I be worried?”

“About Lord Johnson making a move?” You can't quite keep the smirk off your face. “I think your virtue's safe.”

“I meant about him pawing at you for two hours.”

There's an edge of possession in his tone that should irritate you. Instead it does something warm and stupid in your chest. You take another bite, buying yourself a moment. “I can handle Lord Johnson.”

“I know you can.” He pauses. “Doesn't mean you should have to.”

You shrug. “If he tries it with me, I'm elbowing him in the ribs.”

“I'll back you up. You sneezed, he was unfortunately in the blast radius, these things happen.”

You take a sip of water to cover the fact that you're almost smiling. This is the problem. This is exactly the problem. Two minutes of actual honesty and you're already slipping back into familiar patterns, already falling back into the easy rhythm of banter and knowing looks.

“Morrison might be at the Atlantic Council thing tomorrow,” you mention, trying to redirect to safer ground.

Bucky groans. “He's going to corner me about the infrastructure bill again.”

“Probably. He's been insufferable about it since the committee hearing.”

“Well, I've gotten very good at the diplomatic non-answer.” His mouth curves slightly. “Take it under advisement, appreciate the input, look forward to continued dialogue—”

“You learnt that from me.” You point your fork at him accusingly, though there's no real heat in it.

“I learnt most of the useful stuff from you.” He says it like it's simple fact, but something in his expression has gone softer.

The admission sits there between you, heavier than it should be. You look down at your plate, suddenly very focused on rearranging lettuce.

“You really think this will work?” you ask quietly, not looking up. “This week?”

“I think when we're together, we're still good at this. The partnership part. That has to count for something.”

It's not an answer to the bigger question. But maybe it's the only answer either of you has right now.

You eat in silence for a moment, but it's different now. Less hostile. Almost comfortable. Your phone buzzes. You glance down, it’s another email from Caroline about tomorrow's schedule. When you look back up, Bucky's watching you with an expression you can't quite read.

You eye him suspiciously. “What?” 

“Nothing. Just...” He shakes his head slightly, but he's almost smiling. “I missed this.”

“Yeah,” you admit, quieter than you mean to. “Me too.”

And you have, you realise. Not just him - though that's there too, complicated and inconvenient as it is - but this. The ease of being with someone who knows you well enough that you don't have to explain every reference or thought. Who can read your expressions without words. Who makes you laugh even when you're furious with them.

It doesn't fix anything. Doesn't undo the eight months or the separation or the fact that you still haven't actually addressed any of the reasons you split in the first place. But for right now, sitting across from your husband in a quiet corner of a restaurant where nobody's watching, it feels like maybe, just maybe, you can remember why you married him in the first place.

Even if that's exactly the problem.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The week unfolds with a momentum you can't quite control, each day bleeding into the next in a blur of meetings that run too smoothly, dinners where the conversations flow too easily, and nights where he sleeps in your bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

By Wednesday you're laughing at his jokes again without the bitter edge. By Thursday his hand at your waist feels less like a claim and more like an anchor. The Times runs their profile on your relationship - ‘A Political Partnership That Works’ - pulling photos from the week's events. You're flipping through them absently when the pattern registers. Different events, different rooms, different contexts. But in every frame, Bucky’s eyes are always fixed on you.

Oh.

You save the photos to your phone, which is its own kind of problem.

Matt's name sits in your contacts with no new messages. Of course, you're not keeping score of his silence against Bucky's constant presence. That would imply there’s a competition between them. Which there definitely isn’t.

To be fair, Caroline did mention his office called about rescheduling. You said you'd handle it. You didn’t.

Matt hadn’t chased the issue after that. Which is, objectively, the respectful thing to do. Matt never demands more than you freely offer him, which had once felt refreshingly uncomplicated. Lately, though, you’re starting to wonder if there’s a difference between being understanding and simply never fighting for a place in someone’s life.

Maybe Matt only knows how to want you in situations where wanting you remains easy.

By Friday morning you're walking back from the Canadian delegation breakfast, Bucky's telling some story that has you laughing hard enough that your sides hurt, and for a dangerous moment you forget about the separation. About the ocean's width of distance - literal and otherwise - that usually sits between you. That Sunday he leaves and you have to figure out what any of this actually meant.

But that's fine. You're exceptional at compartmentalizing. You've had years of practice at keeping different parts of your life in separate boxes that never touch. The fact that the boxes are getting harder to keep closed is something you'll worry about later.

Or at least, it should be, because right now you have a meeting that got squeezed into your calendar this morning that you need to prep for. But you can't seem to focus on the sparse notes that Caroline left you because your brain keeps drifting back to the way Bucky’s hand found yours under the table this morning and you let it stay there.

A knock at the door pulls you from the spiral.

“Come in,” you call, straightening slightly in your chair, trying to look like you've been doing something productive instead of staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.

The door opens, and the distinctive tap of a cane against tile makes your stomach twist before you even look up.

Matt's standing in your doorway. Again. Appearing when you’re utterly unprepared to see him. Again. And you’re going to have to push him away. Again.

If the universe is trying to teach you something by replaying this week until you stop making catastrophically bad decisions, the lesson is lost on you.

“Matt.” You're already half-standing, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “I'm so sorry, I have a meeting in—” you glance at your screen, at the calendar slot that's starting right now, “—I can't, I have to—”

“I know,” he interrupts, and there's something almost amused in his expression as he steps into the office properly. “I'm your meeting.”

Your eyebrow raises slowly. “You faked a meeting to see me?”

“Well, since your husband's been so thorough about cutting me out of your calendar all week,” he returns smoothly, closing the door behind him with a quiet click, “it seemed like the only way in.”

There's a joke there, light and easy, but underneath it there's definitely an edge. A deserved one, maybe. The guilt that's been sitting low in your stomach all week flares hot and immediate. “Matt, I should have called. I meant to, I just—the week got away from me, and I didn’t mean to disappear—”

“You didn't disappear,” Matt corrects mildly. “You've been very visible, actually. Hard to miss when you're in three different political newsletters looking very much like the devoted political wife.”

The observation lands with enough weight that you have to look away. Matt moves closer, leaning against the edge of your desk with his arms crossed loosely, head tilted in that particular way that means he's cataloguing everything you’re not saying. Your elevated heart rate. The shallow breathing you can't quite control. The tension wound so tight in your shoulders you might snap.

“I know I should've—”

“Should've what?” He interrupts again, but his voices stays gentle. “Called the man you've been sleeping with while your husband's in town making sure everyone knows you're still married?” His mouth quirks slightly. “Can't imagine why that would feel awkward.”

The last part comes with just enough wry humour to take some of the sting out of it. An acknowledgement that yes, this situation is absurd, and yes, you're both aware of it.

“You didn't call either,” you point out, and it comes out more wounded than you intend.

“No, I didn't,” he admits easily. “Didn't want to crowd you when Bucky's been taking up so much real estate in your schedule. Thought maybe you needed space to figure things out.” His mouth curves, voice going warmer. “Besides, seemed only fair to give him a shot, sweetheart. I had you to myself for two months.”

It should feel mature, the way he keeps placing the choice back in your hands. But standing here now, watching him deliberately leave the distance between you intact, you can’t quite ignore the small, ugly part of yourself that wants someone to fight a little harder for you than that.

So you close the distance yourself, drawn by the same gravitational pull that's been there since the first time he walked into your office three months ago. Once again doing the reaching. The pattern recognition occurring here is frankly humiliating.

Your hands find his chest, feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under his shirt.

“I haven't figured anything out,” you admit quietly, because you suppose he deserves the honesty. “About what this week means, or what I want, or any of it.”

“No?” There's something almost teasing in the question. “The Times seemed pretty convinced you and Barnes are a political power couple for the ages.”

“The Times doesn't know we're separated.”

“Clearly.” His hand comes up, fingers finding your jaw with unerring accuracy, thumb brushing along your cheekbone in a touch that's devastatingly familiar. “Though after this week, I'm starting to wonder if you remember that either.”

The words should sting. Maybe they do. But mostly what you're aware of is his proximity, the heat of his palm against your face, the way your body has started leaning into him without conscious permission.

“Matt—”

“Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.” His thumb traces lower, following the line of your jaw. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is this?”

“This,” he murmurs, leaning in until his forehead nearly touches yours, “is me reminding you that you have options.”

“I've missed you,” you whisper against his lips.

His free hand comes up to your waist, thumb brushing the curve of your hip through your dress. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You should stop this. Should step back and have the actual conversation about this week and where you stand and all the things you've been avoiding. Should deal with the compartments that are failing to stay separate instead of making everything more complicated.

But his mouth is right there.

You kiss him before you can think better of it, before the guilt can claw its way up your throat and ruin the moment. He makes a soft sound against your mouth, surprise giving way to hunger as he kisses you back.

It's different than kissing Bucky. Where Bucky takes, Matt asks - the tilt of his head a question, the press of his tongue a request. You grant it. Grant all of it. Pour five days of frustration and confusion into the kiss until you're both breathing hard.

“Missed this too,” you gasp between kisses, and he laughs against your mouth.

“Just this?”

“Missed you being a smartass,” you correct, tugging him closer by his tie. “Missed your hands on me—god, I just missed—”

He lifts you then, strong hands gripping your thighs as he spins you both and sets you on the edge of your desk. Papers scatter. You don't care. Your legs open, allowing him to step into the space between your thighs.

“Missed having a conversation that didn't involve diplomatic immunity,” you continue, breathless, as his mouth trails down your neck. “Missed not being scheduled within an inch of my life.”

His teeth graze your pulse point. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It is.” Your head tips back, fingers threading through his hair. “It's—fuck, Matt—”

His hands slide up your thighs, pushing the hem of your skirt higher. The drag of his palms against your stockings makes you shiver.

Your hands find his lapels, pulling him desperately closer. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding against yours, and for a moment you forget about Bucky and the separation and every complicated thing you've been avoiding.

“You should've booked a longer meeting,” you manage, and it comes out almost playful despite the heat pooling low in your belly.

Matt's smile is absolutely wicked. “Please,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I don't need long to make you come, sweetheart. Just need your legs open and the door locked.”

Heat floods through you at the promise in his voice, your thighs clenching involuntarily. Before you can even respond, his hands are sliding under your ass, lifting you in one smooth motion. Your legs wrap around his waist automatically, gasping into his mouth as he turns and walks you backward.

You don't break the kiss. Can't. Your fingers are in his hair, tugging probably too hard, and he makes this gorgeous rough sound against your mouth that vibrates straight through you. His mouth is hot and demanding against yours, tongue sliding past your lips to taste you properly, and you make a sound into his mouth that's embarrassingly needy.

Your back hits the door hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs, the solid wood catching you with enough force that you gasp into his mouth. Matt pins you there immediately, hips rolling forward, and you can feel how hard he is already, the thick length of him pressing right where you're aching. Your hand scrabbles blindly behind you for the lock, fingers clumsy with want, and when it finally clicks he groans like the sound itself did something to him.

“Fuck yes,” he breathes against your mouth, and his hand slides up your thigh, pushing your skirt higher. When his fingers brush the inside of your thigh you shudder, hips canting forward, seeking more contact. “Been thinking about this all week. Thinking about getting you alone, getting my hands on you—”

His fingers find the edge of your underwear, slipping just beneath the lace to trace along the seam where it meets your thigh. The touch is light, almost lazy, like he has all the time in the world and knows it's driving you insane. You gasp, hips grinding forward, trying to direct his hand where you actually need it, and your head drops back against the door. He laughs softly against your throat.

“God, you're impatient,” he teases, teeth grazing your pulse point. “Already trying to fuck yourself on my hand.”

“Shut up,” you whine, but there's no heat in it, just desperate need.

“Why?” His mouth trails to your jaw, leave wet kisses behind. “I like knowing you want me. Like hearing your pulse race when I touch you here—” His finger traces up the centre of your underwear, dragging slowly through the damp fabric from your entrance all the way up to your clit. The pressure is perfect and not nearly enough, and you can feel how wet you are, how the lace clings to you. “—and feeling you stop breathing when I—”

His fingers finally slip beneath the lace, and the second he actually touches you, feels how wet and slick you are, he makes this broken sound against your mouth that's half-groan, half-curse. Then he's kissing you again, mouth crashing back to yours. Tongue pushing past your lips deeper, harder, needier. Losing that earlier control. His fingers slide through the mess you've made and your hips jerk forward into his hand.

“Fuck,” he breathes against your lips, fingers parting your folds and sliding through the wetness, spreading it deliberately before finding your clit. He circles it with your own slick, and you can feel how soaked you are, how easily his fingers move, and the wet sound of it makes your face flush hot. “You're fucking soaked for me.”

He's not wrong. You are soaked, aching, need clawing under your skin with an urgency that borders on painful. Whether it's because of him or because you've spent five days with Bucky's hand at your waist and his body in your bed, that constant simmering tension winding you tighter and tighter with nowhere for it to go, you genuinely don't know.

Don't want to know.

Your hips roll forward, trying to get more pressure, more friction, more anything. “Then stop teasing and do something about it.”

He laughs, the sound rough and a little desperate. “Yes ma'am.”

His fingers slide lower, one pressing inside you with a slow, deliberate stretch that makes your head thunk back against the door. You bite down on your lip hard, trying to keep quiet, hyper-aware that you're in your office in the middle of the day with your staff just outside.

“Matt—” His name escapes your lips anyway, louder than you intend.

“Shh,” he breathes against your lips, but he's smiling, adding another finger and curling them just right. “Sweetheart, you're gonna get us caught.”

“Your fault,” you gasp, barely above a whisper, hips rocking to meet the thrust of his fingers.

“Fair point.” His forehead presses to yours, breathing ragged. “But you still need to be quiet for me. Can you do that?”

Nodding, you try to stop the moan building in your throat as his fingers work deeper, finding that spot that makes your thighs shake. Your nails dig into his shoulders through his shirt, breath coming in shallow, restrained gasps. But then he curls them again, harder, and the sound that escapes you is too loud, too obvious. His mouth is on yours immediately, swallowing the moan before it can carry.

He kisses you deep and filthy, tongue sliding against yours as his fingers work faster, his thumb finding your clit. The dual sensation is overwhelming, pleasure building fast and sharp. You're making these small, desperate noises into his mouth that you can't control, and he seems determined to catch every single one, kissing you harder each time his fingers make you gasp.

“Matt—please—I need—” you whisper between kisses, the words breaking apart.

“I know,” he murmurs back, and there's something soft in it even as his fingers work you closer to the edge. “Need to come. Need to stop thinking for five minutes.” His thumb circles your clit with perfect pressure and you gasp into his mouth. “Need it to be easy for once, yeah? Just this. Just us. Nothing complicated.”

Yes. God, yes. That's exactly what you need. To not think. To just feel something that isn't guilt or confusion or the weight of every choice you've made this week.

“More,” you gasp.

“So greedy sweetheart.” His thumb finds your clit, circling in rhythm with the thrust of his fingers. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Fuck me would be a good start.”

He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “Love when you get bossy.”

His fingers slide out of you and the whimper that escapes you is pathetic, your hips moving forward involuntarily, trying to chase what you just lost.But your hands are already moving, shaking as they reach for his belt. You yank at it, fingers fumbling with the buckle in your desperation to get him undone.

You need him inside you, need it with an urgency that's making your hands clumsy and your breathing erratic.

“Condom?” you gasp out, finally getting his belt undone and working on the button of his slacks.

“Wallet, back pocket.” 

A breath of relief punches out of you. “Fuck—good boy,” you tease, pulling him into a kiss.

Matt makes this wrecked sound into your mouth, somewhere between a moan and a growl, and his hand cracks down on your ass hard enough to make you gasp against his lips.

“Careful,” he warns, but there's no heat in it, just desperate want. “Keep talking like that and this is gonna be over way too fast.”

You reach around, palm sliding over his ass as you fish out his wallet. The leather is warm from his body heat, and your fingers are still trembling as you flip it open and grab the condom. You tear the foil packet open with your teeth, spitting the scrap of wrapper aside, and then your hand is wrapping around his cock. He's thick and hard in your palm, already leaking, and the groan that tears out of him is absolutely obscene.

“Can't have that,” you murmur, rolling the latex down his length slowly despite how badly you're shaking. You stroke him once, twice, feeling every thick inch, and your thumb swipes over the head. He shudders, fingers digging into your thighs hard enough to bruise.

“Sweetheart,” he grits out, and it sounds like a plea. His hips buck forward into your grip. “Please.”

“Please what?” You're being mean now, hand still working him while he's trying to hold himself together.

“Please let me fuck you before I lose my fucking mind.”

You guide the swollen head of his cock to your entrance and you both go still for half a second, just breathing against each other's mouths. Then he's pushing inside you in one long, smooth slide and the stretch steals every thought from your head. It's almost too much, the thick press of him, and you're making these small desperate sounds you can't control.

“Fuck,” Matt breathes, the words vibrating against your throat where his mouth has landed. You can feel him shaking with the effort of holding still as he lets you adjust to the stretch of him. “You feel—god, you're so wet I can feel it dripping down my—”

You cut him off with a kiss, messy and graceless, and start rolling your hips experimentally. His cock drags against that spot inside you that makes your vision blur. The angle is perfect like this, him pinning you to the door, and each roll of your hips takes him deeper. He meets your rhythm, hands gripping your ass to hold you steady as he thrusts up into you, and you have to bite down on his shoulder to muffle the moan that tears out of you.

Your legs tighten around his waist, heels digging into his ass, trying to pull him impossibly closer.

“That's it,” he groans, setting a rhythm that's slow but deep, each thrust deliberate and devastating. “Take what you need, sweetheart.”

You can barely form words, too focused on the stretch of him filling you, the way your needy cunt is already clenching around him, desperate to pull him deeper. The wet, obscene sounds of him fucking you fill your quiet office as you both pant into each other's mouths, drowning in the sensation of each other. The thick drag of his cock inside you, the press of his body against yours, the heat of your skin under his hands. 

Your hand slides between your bodies, seeking more. When your fingers find your clit, it's swollen and sensitive, and just that first brush of contact makes you mewl into his mouth. You're so worked up, so desperate, that even your own touch feels like too much and not enough at the same time. You circle it carefully at first, testing, but the spike of pleasure that shoots through you makes your hips jerk and your walls clench around his cock.

“You sound so pretty like this,” Matt pants against your neck, hips snapping forward. “So fucking pretty when you stop overthinking and just let go.”

Your response is incoherent, something between a moan and his name. The pleasure is building fast, coiling tighter with each thrust, each drag of his cock inside you. Your cunt clenches around him, greedy, desperate, chasing the release that's right there.

“That's it, sweetheart,” he encourages, rhythm getting rougher. “Can feel you getting close. Feel you squeezing my cock. You gonna come for me? Gonna let me feel it?”

You're circling your clit in time with his thrusts and it's almost too much sensation, pleasure coiling tighter in your belly. He shifts slightly and the new angle makes you see stars, a whimper escaping before you can bite it back.

“Yes—fuck—Matt—”

“There?” he asks breathlessly, doing it again, and when you nod frantically he keeps hitting that exact spot. Every thrust drives him deeper and pushes your hand harder against yourself, and you're whimpering with each roll of your hips.

“I can hear it,” Matt groans into your mouth. “Can hear how close you are—your heart's racing, your breathing, you're right there—please, sweetheart, need to feel you—”

It crashes over you sudden and overwhelming, pleasure ripping through you in waves. You come with a broken cry that Matt catches with his mouth, your cunt clamping down on his cock so hard you're practically strangling it. Your whole body locks up, thighs shaking as the pleasure tears through you in brutal waves. Your fingers are still on your clit, working yourself through it, and you're making these high desperate sounds into his mouth that you can't control.

“Fuck—oh fuck—” Matt groans, fucking you through it, prolonging it until you're gasping and oversensitive. “So fucking perfect—”

He buries himself deep with a final hard thrust and comes with a groan of your name, cock pulsing as he spills into the condom. You can feel every throb, every twitch as he empties himself, and it sends another aftershock through you that makes you clench around him all over again.

For a moment you just breathe together, foreheads pressed close, hearts racing in tandem. Your legs are trembling so badly around his waist that you're not sure they'll hold you when he pulls out. When he does, you both make these raw sounds at the loss of contact.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers you to the floor. Your knees wobble slightly as your feet hit the ground, and Matt immediately steadies you.

“Okay?” he asks softly, thumb stroking your hip.

“Yeah,” you manage, because that's about all your brain can produce right now.

He kisses you again, but when he pulls back there's something careful in it. Almost like he’s making sure it stays just the right side of casual. His hand cups your face briefly - thumb brushing rogue strands of hair from your face.

“Told you I didn't need long,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Smug bastard.”

But even as you say it your brain is already pulling away, cataloguing everything that needs to happen in the next ten minutes. Fix your hair. Cover that mark on your neck. Make yourself look like a composed diplomat instead of a woman who just fucked her boyfriend—situationship? god, you refuse to be a grown woman with a situationship—against her office door while her husband is probably working back home.

What the fuck are you doing?

Your heart kicks up, anxiety spiking sharp and sudden. Matt's thumb stills against your cheek, and you realise he can probably hear it. The way your body betrays every thought before you can even process it yourself.

“Hey,” he says, and there's a question in it. “Where'd you go?”

You open your mouth. Then immediately close it. You don't actually have an answer that won't make this worse. 

His head tilts slightly, that listening posture you know so well, and his mouth curves into something small and resigned. Like he's already heard the answer in your pulse, in the shift of your breathing, in all the things your body is telling him that you won't say out loud.

So he steps back, creating space between you, and starts dealing with the condom without another word. He ties it off, wraps it in tissue from your desk, buries it under the papers in your trash bin so it's not the first thing anyone sees. The movements are quick and practised, and somehow that makes it worse.

“I should probably let you get back to it,” he offers, straightening out his clothes. “I'm sure you've got seventeen meetings stacked up this afternoon.”

You stare dumbly, watching him button his shirt, tuck it back in, re-buckle his belt. Everything going back into place like this was just a pleasant interlude in the workday and now it's back to business. He runs a hand through his hair to fix what your fingers messed up, and within two minutes he looks perfectly put together, as though nothing happened.

You catch sight of your reflection in the dark window and you definitely don't look like nothing happened. Your hair is a mess, your lips are swollen, and there's a faint mark on your neck that you're going to have to cover with makeup before your next meeting.

Matt turns away, adjusts his jacket, and something about the ease of it all makes your stomach twist. He's leaving. Of course he's leaving.

He picks up his cane, testing his weight on it, and the gesture is so familiar it hurts. How many times have you watched him do exactly that? Watched him prepare to leave after a late night working at your dining table, after drinks that turned into dinner that turned into more. Always the same smooth transition from intimacy back to separate lives.

He leans in, presses a kiss to your temple that lands somewhere between affectionate and perfunctory. “Don't let Bucky monopolize your entire weekend.”

It's said warmly. Casually, even. Like he's not bothered. Like this is all very uncomplicated and he's very okay with however this plays out.

“Matt—”

“I'll see you later,” he says easily, hand already on the door.

The casualness of it catches you wrong. Hooks into something raw that’s been building this whole week. And that’s what snaps you out of your own head and back into the moment.

“That's it?” The words come out sharper than you intend. “You'll see me later?”

He pauses, hand on the doorknob, shoulders stiffing as he tries to read the edge in your voice. “Are you—is something wrong?”

It’s remarkable, really. The man can hear your pulse spike from three rooms away, can detect the slightest shift in your body chemistry, can read more from your heartbeat than most people get from a full conversation. And yet here he is, still remarkably incapable of reading the room. Superhuman senses, same oblivious male brain.

“You know what, no, nothing's wrong.” You scoff, yanking your skirt down with more force than necessary, already moving towards your desk, trying to put yourself back together. “You're right, I do have a busy afternoon. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Okay, what's actually going on right now?” He asks slowly, like he's genuinely trying to figure this out. “You’re clearly upset.”

“I'm not upset.”

“Your heart rate says differently.”

God, you hate that he can do that. Hate that your body betrays you before your mouth can even form the lie. And if he's going to use those stupidly accurate senses to call you out, fine. You might as well just say it.

“When am I going to see you again?”

The question hangs in the air. Matt's quiet for a moment, and you can see him processing, trying to read the subtext.

“I don't know.” The answer comes after a beat, careful. “When do you want to see me again?”

It's a reasonable question. A fair question. So why does it make you want to scream?

“That's really how you're going to leave this?” You turn to face him, and you know you're being unfair but you can't seem to stop yourself. “I don't know, you tell me, we'll figure it out later?”

His expression shifts, the muscles tightening around his lips even as his posture stays relaxed. “I was trying to make it easy for you.”

“Easy for me or easy for yourself?”

“Both, probably,” he admits, and the ease of his honesty genuinely makes you pause. “You've got a lot going on. Your husband's here, clearly trying to…” The sentence trails off, unfinished, like he doesn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. “I'm trying not to put more pressure on you when Bucky's already doing that.”

“So you're just backing off? Not even going to—” You stop, because fight for me sounds insane and desperate and you're not sure you even want him to fight for you, but the fact that he won't makes you furious anyway.

“What do you want from me here?” Matt asks, and there's the first edge of frustration creeping into his voice. “You want me to demand your time? Tell you to pick me over him? Make this harder for you?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out, because you don't know. You don't know what you want from him. You don't know what you want from Bucky. You don't know what you want from any of this mess you've created.

“Maybe I just want you to care! ”The words burst out louder than you meant them, and you have to forcibly lower your voice, aware again of where you are, who might hear. “I want you to act like this actually matters instead of just being whatever's convenient when I have a free hour.”

The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut.

“That's not fair,” he says quietly.

“Isn't it? You won't make plans more than a day out. You've never even asked me to stay over.”

“Because I don't know what we are!” His voice spikes, exasperated, and you both freeze for a second, listening for footsteps in the hall. When none come, he continues, quieter but no less intense. “You're still married. He's clearly trying to get you back. You're asking me to push when you've made it pretty clear you don't know what you want, and I'm not going to compete with your husband.”

“There's a difference between not being pushy and not fighting for anything at all!”Your voice cracks slightly on the last word and you hate yourself for it, the vulnerability bleeding through when you're trying to stay angry. You swallow hard, trying to pull it back together. “There's a difference between giving someone space and just letting go without even trying.”

“I'm trying,” he begins, and there's something rawer in his voice now, “to give you space to figure your shit out without making you feel like you owe me something.”

“Maybe I want to owe you something!” You're pacing now, heels clicking sharp against the floor. “Maybe I want you to act like you actually give a damn whether I pick him or not!”

“Of course I give a damn!” It's the closest he's come to raising his voice. “But I'm not going to manipulate you or monopolize your calendar or show up and—” He stops himself. “I'm not him. I'm not going to do what he does.”

“At least he's doing something!”

The words land like a slap. You see it in the way his expression shutters, in the way his hand tightens on his cane.

“Right.” His voice is flat. “Well. At least we know where we stand, then.” He's already turning toward the door. “Clearly I’m not what you need.”

“Matt, I didn’t mean—” You press your palms against your eyes because you can feel the sting of tears starting and you really don’t want to cry right now. “You’re right, I don't know what I need.” Your voice cracks again and you hate it, hate the tears that are threatening, hate how small you sound. “But why does it have to be all or nothing with both of you? He smothers me and you won't even—”

You stop, pressing your hand to your mouth, trying to hold it together. But the tears are coming anyway, hot and frustrated and exhausted, because you've been holding everything in all week and it's too much. It's all too much.

The tap of his cane stops.

For a moment there's just silence, broken only by the humiliating wet sound of you trying not to sob.

“Shit.” Matt's voice softens immediately. “Hey, no—come here.”

“I'm fine.” But your voice does that horrible shaky thing that makes it very clear you are the opposite of fine.

“You're not fine.” He's already moving toward you, and then his hands are on your arms. Warm and solid and gentle in a way that makes your chest hurt worse. “You're crying in your office.”

“Don't—” You try to turn away, humiliation burning hot in your chest because this is mortifying. “I just need a minute. I'm fine, really,” you try again, but it comes out as barely more than a whisper.

“Stop saying that.” His voice has gone impossibly soft, thumb stroking along your forearm. “Come here, please.

You let him pull you in, let yourself press your face against his chest while the tears come properly now. His arms come around you, solid and sure, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He doesn't say anything. Just holds you while you shake apart against him, while you soak the front of his shirt with tears that won't stop coming.

“I'm sorry,” you gasp out between sobs. “I'm sorry, I don't—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I want. This whole week has been so fucked up and I can't think straight and I don't—“ Another sob cuts you off.

“Shh. I know.” His hand moves in slow circles on your back, the pressure steady and grounding. “It's okay, just breathe”

“It's not okay.” The words come out muffled against his chest. “This whole week has been—” Your breath hitches. “He's everywhere and you're—and I can't think straight and I keep making everything worse—”

His hand stills on your back for just a moment. “What do you need?”

You pull back slightly, just enough to breathe, and his hands shift to your arms. Steadying but not restraining. His face is tilted toward you with that particular focus he gets when he's listening to everything - your heartbeat, your breathing, the catch in your voice.

“I don't know.” You pull back slightly, wiping at your face with shaking hands. “Maybe I just need a break. From this. From both of you.”

You try to read his reaction, but he doesn’t give anything away. Just keeps stroking your back in those same soothing motions.

“Bucky's going back to DC on Sunday anyway,” you continue, and your voice sounds raw even to your own ears. “Maybe I just need some time. To figure myself out. Figure out what I actually want instead of just—” You gesture helplessly at the general disaster that is currently your life. “This.”

You expect him to argue. To push back. To do something other than what he does, which is nod slowly.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and his thumb comes up to brush away a tear from your cheek. “Yeah. We can do that. You need time, I'll give you time.”

The agreement should feel like relief but instead it just makes you want to cry harder. Because of course he's not fighting this either. Of course he's just agreeing, just stepping back, just giving you exactly what you asked for in a way that somehow feels like losing anyway.

“But—” He hesitates, and something in his tone shifts. Gets more careful. “You might need to explain this all to Bucky too. Since, you know. He thinks you're working things out.”

Your head snaps up, tears still wet on your cheeks. “What?”

Matt's lips purse slightly, like he’s trying to figure out how to phrase it. “He asked me to back off. Said you two were working through things. That you needed space to figure out your marriage without complications.” His mouth twists slightly on the last word. “Meaning me.”

The humiliation of thirty seconds ago transmutes instantly into something else. The tears stop. Everything stops. For a moment you just stare at Matt, trying to process what he's telling you, and then the rage hits like a freight train. “He told you we were getting back together?”

“Not in those exact words, but yes,” he confirms quietly. “He tried to make it seem like he knew where things stood between you. Made it pretty clear he considered me a temporary blip in your relationship.”

“That fucking—” You can't even finish the sentence, fury choking the words in your throat. Your hands are shaking again, but this time with anger.

“We had one lunch,” you say, and your voice has gone cold. “One. Where he apologised for being absent and I agreed to give him one week to prove he could actually show up. That's it. We never—I never said we were working things out.”

Matt's very quiet.

“He told you we were reconciling.” You're not asking. You're clarifying. Making sure you understand the full scope of what Bucky's done. “He told you to back off because we were fixing our marriage.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he filled my entire calendar. And slept in my bed. And touched me like I belonged to him in front of half of diplomatic London.” The pieces are clicking together with horrible clarity. “He decided. Again. He just fucking decided without me that we're working things out and told my—told you to back off like he gets to make those calls for me.”

You're already moving, grabbing your bag, your phone, not even sure what you're doing but you need to move, need to do something with this rage before it burns you alive from the inside.

“Where are you going?” Matt asks carefully.

“Home.” The word comes out sharp and final. “I'm going home and I'm ending this shit right now.”

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The click of your heels echoes through the residence, each step a punctuation mark to the fury coiling tighter in your chest. You stride through the hallway, past Thomas who takes one look at your face and wisely says nothing, and straight to the study where you know Bucky's working.

He's at the desk - your desk, because apparently he's just moved back into every corner of your life without asking - looking at some papers with a confused scrunch of his nose that would be endearing if you weren't currently fantasizing about throwing something heavy at his head.

The papers hit the mahogany with a slap that makes him jolt upright. For half a second there's just confusion - eyebrows raised, mouth slightly parted on a question that hasn’t formed yet - and then his eyes drop to what you’ve thrown down. ‘Petition for Dissolution of Marriage’ printed across the top in black and white. You watch his face change as he reads the header. Watch the colour drain slightly. Watch his throat work as he swallows.

“What—” He starts to speak, stops to compose himself, and when the words finally come they’re careful, like he already knows the answer and is hoping he's wrong “What’s this?”

“Take a wild fucking guess, Congressman.”

His hand moves slowly toward the papers like they might burn him, fingers hovering before he finally touches them. He flips through, and you know the exact moment he finds the signature page because his whole body goes rigid.

Your finger jabs down at the signature line. “Sign them.”

“What?” He's standing now, the chair scraping back, and there's something raw starting to crack through the careful composure on his face. Something that looks like panic and grief all at once. “Baby—”

“Don't.” You hold up a hand and he actually freezes mid-step. “Don't 'baby' me. Don't use that voice. Don't act like you can smooth this over if you just find the right words.”

“That's not—I'm not—” His hands spread wide in a helpless gesture. “Please, just talk to me. What happened? This morning we were fine, we were—”

“We were what, exactly?” You cut him off, arms crossing over your chest. “Working things out? Getting back together? Reconciling our marriage?”

Bucky's quiet for a moment, and you can practically see him running through possibilities, trying to figure out which particular mine he's stepped on. And then the guilt stats to flicker across his face.

“Oh good,” you say flatly. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

His whole posture changes, that familiar stubborn set coming into his jaw that tells you he's not going to back down easy. “If this is about Matt—”

“If this is about Matt?” You actually laugh, and it sounds wrong even to your own ears. “This is about you, Bucky! The fact that you lied and said we were working things out. That you said to back off because apparently we needed space to fix our marriage.”

He's quiet. Won't meet your eyes.

“When exactly were you planning to mention that to me?” Fury makes your voice shake despite your best efforts to keep it steady. “Before or after you finished orchestrating my entire fucking life?”

“I was trying to—”

“I don't care what you were trying to do!” It comes out too loud, echoing off the study walls. “You know, I've had these papers for two months. Two months of looking at them in my drawer, too much of a coward to sign them, because some pathetic part of me still hoped we could fix this.” 

Your voice cracks and you have to stop, have to breathe through the anger and hurt tangling in your throat.

“But we can't. Because you don't know how to be in a partnership. You only know how to run operations and make strategic decisions and manipulate variables, and I'm so fucking tired of being a variable in your life instead of your fucking wife.”

“That's not what you are to me! I swear, please—” He runs a hand through his hair, and he’s scrambling, trying to find the words that will fix this. His gaze drifts back to the papers like they might rearrange themselves into something different if he looks hard enough. “Wait, you drew these up two months ago?”

You watch him do the maths. Watch the realization settle across his features, his jaw going tight.

“When you started seeing him.” It's not a question. 

“Stop making this about Matt! Stop deflecting. Stop trying to make this about jealousy when this is about you making decisions about my life without me!” 

You're pacing before you realise it, unable to stand still. Three steps to the window and back.

“It seems very much to be about him though, doesn't it?” Bucky's voice has gone rough at the edges. He pushes off the desk, takes a step toward you. “You draw up divorce papers the second you start sleeping with him, this whole week goes perfectly fine until you see him again, and now you're in here ready to end our marriage—”

“This week was a lie!” You shout, beyond caring who might hear. “This week was you orchestrating my entire life, filling my calendar, telling people we were reconciling without ever actually asking me if that's what I wanted! Don't you dare act like things were fine when the whole thing was built on you manipulating—”

“—I wasn’t manipulating—”

“—our marriage, making a decision about my relationships without saying word to me!” Your voice rises to stay above his. “I actually had those papers drawn up two months ago because I’d spent the previous six months unable to have a single fucking conversation with my own husband!”

The words are coming faster now, angrier, everything you've been holding in for 8 months spilling out. “Every time I called I got 'he's in a meeting' or 'he'll call you back' and he never, ever did. Because somewhere along the line I stopped being your wife and became an item on your assistant's to-do list that never made it to the top of the pile!”

His head comes up. His eyes are wet with unshed tears when they find yours, jaw locked so tight you can see the muscle jumping. He's trying desperately to hold it together but you watch him start to lose the fight in the way his face crumples, in the painful swallow working down his throat. His hand lifts toward you before he seems to remember himself and lets it drop uselessly back to his side. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know I fucked up, I know I wasn't there, and I'm trying to fix it now—”

“By doing the same thing! By making decisions without me!” Your nails dig into your palms hard enough to hurt, arms rigid at your sides. “Do you not see that? You’re still doing it, Bucky, you're still shutting me out and deciding what's best for us without ever asking me what I want!”

“So what do you want from me?” His desperation bleeds through every word, but it’s far too little, and far too late. “Tell me what you want and I'll do it.”

For a moment you just stand there, looking at him across the desk that's covered in his work, in this life he built without consulting you. You should feel something. Guilt, maybe. Regret. Some echo of the love that used to live in your chest when you looked at him like this. But you just feel exhausted. 

When you finally speak, the answer comes out quieter than anything else you've said tonight.

“I want you to sign the papers.”

Your words seem to suck the air out of the room, leaving nothing but the thundering of your own heartbeat in your ears.

“No.” He's shaking his head slowly at first, then faster, like he can physically deny what's happening if he just refuses hard enough. “No, I'm not—I can't—”

“You don't get to say no.”

“Just talk to me!” He begs. “Just talk to me instead of throwing divorce papers on my desk and expecting me to—”

“Talk to you?” You can hear the bitter edge bleeding through your voice, feel it scraping against your throat. “Wow, okay. Like you talked to me before telling Matt to back off? Like you talked to me before orchestrating my entire week? Like you talked to me every time I called and got your pretty little assistant instead?”

“I told you I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Oh my fucking god, congratulations!” Your arms fly up in exasperation. “You want a medal for not fucking your assistant? You want me to applaud your restraint? Let’s not act like you were alone, pining away for me this whole time.”

“At least I didn't parade it in front of you!” The accusation explodes out of him like it's been festering, his face flushing with pain and frustration mixing together.

“We were separated! That was the whole fucking point of the agreement!” Even though your throat is becoming raw from shouting, you can’t seem to stop, months of resentment pouring out of you. “Married in public, free to see other people privately - that’s what we agreed to. Except clearly, neither of us can act normally about it!”

Your voice cracks.

“We're just destroying each other. And I can't do it anymore.”

Your words hang in the air between you. You're both breathing hard, and the study feels simultaneously too small and too vast, like the space can't quite contain what's happening. Then something shifts in his expression as he seems to finally hear what he’s been saying, how he sounds. His shoulders sag inward. The voice that comes out next is barely recognisable.

“I'm sorry.” He drags a hand over his face. “You're right. I'm making this worse. I'm making everything worse. But please, don’t do this, just give me a chance too—”

“I've been giving you chances for eight months. I gave you a chance when you became Congressman without talking to me about it. I gave you a chance this week when you showed up and I let you back in even though you were already making decisions for me. And every time you fucked it up!”

Bucky just stands there, breathing hard, staring at you like you’ve gutted him. His eyes are still wet, tears clinging to his lashes but refusing to fall.

“I love you,” he whispers. “And I know you might not have felt it, and i know it’s not enough, but I have loved you through every stupid mistake I've made, including running for Congress.”

He lets out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in his chest for months.

“I thought… I thought if I could be someone important, someone legitimate, maybe I'd finally be worthy of you. You've spent your whole career saving lives, negotiating peace, actually helping people. And I'm just—” His voice cracks. “I'm still just the Winter Soldier trying to prove I'm more than that. So I ran for Congress because I thought it might fix me, might fill the hole where my humanity used to be. But instead I just broke us and I’m still as damaged as before. And now I can't—”

His voice fractures completely.

“I can't lose you.”

The confession lands entirely wrong, because this is what you've wanted to hear for months - years, maybe. This vulnerability, this honesty, this real version of Bucky you’ve only ever glimpsed in stolen moments. And it’s too late. Your throat tightens. You have to look away from him because seeing him like this, broken open and bleeding out in front of you, makes something in you want to take it all back. Want to cross the room and hold him and tell him he's not damaged, that he's never been unworthy, that you've loved him through every version of himself he hasn’t.

But loving him has never been the problem.

“You already did, Bucky.” The words hurt coming out. “You can't put that on me - your sense of self-worth, your identity, fixing yourself. That was never my job. I loved you. I loved you exactly as you were, and you never believed me. And now you're telling me you destroyed our marriage trying to become someone you thought I wanted, when all I ever wanted was you.”

Somehow his face crumples further. You have to look away again. When you speak next, your voice is barely above a whisper. Tired and sad and so heavy you can barely get the words out.

“So yes, you're right. You did break us. But not because you weren't good enough, Bucky. Because you never let me love the person you actually are.”

For a moment he just stands there, and you watch all the fight drain out of him like someone pulled a plug. His eyes go distant, almost glassy, and his breathing deepens, like he's shutting something down inside himself. The desperation from moments ago has been replaced by something far more terrifying: quiet resignation. He's finally stopped trying to hold on.

He picks up the pen. His hand trembles badly enough that you wonder if he'll even be able to write, but he manages to grip it, staring down at the signature line for what feels like an eternity. When the pen finally touches paper, the scratch of it against the silence is deafening.

He signs his name. Dates it. Slides the papers across the desk toward you without meeting your eyes.

“There.” His voice is completely destroyed. “If that's what you need.”

You pick up the papers with numb fingers. Stare at his signature like you can't quite believe it's real.

“I'm sorry.” He hasn't moved. Just stands there with wet cheeks and empty hands. “I'm so sorry. For every way I failed you. For not being what you needed.”

“Thank you.” It comes out barely audible. “For the apology. For signing.”

You fold the papers slowly, creasing each edge with deliberate precision because if you think about the mechanics of folding paper you don't have to think about what you're holding.

“I want you to catch the next flight back to DC. Tonight, if you can. I'll have Thomas help you pack.”

“Okay.” He looks lost standing there, like he doesn't know what to do with his hands, with his body, with any of this. “Okay, yeah.”

“And Bucky—” Your voice is steadier now, or at least you're doing a better job of faking it. “Don't call. Don't text. Don't send flowers or letters or try to fix anything. We're done. Let it be done.”

He nods, even though it looks like it's killing him. “Okay.”

There should be something else to say. Some final words that would make this less awful, less final. But you can't think of anything that won't make it worse. So you just turn and walk toward the door, papers pressed against your chest like you need the reminder of why you’re doing this.

“For what it's worth,” His voice stops you at the threshold, and it comes out quiet and defeated. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me. The best thing I've ever had and the worst thing I've ever lost, and I know that's my fault. I know I did that.” The silence hangs for a moment. “I'm sorry. For all of it.”

You don't turn around, can't let him see your face right now.

“Goodbye, Bucky.”

Then you walk out, leaving your husband standing alone in the study, and you don't look back.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The wind off the Potomac is sharp enough to sting, cutting through your coat. March in Washington hasn't gotten any more pleasant since you left - still grey, still biting, still full of men in expensive suits having conversations that matter to nobody outside this ten-block radius.

You've been back for two days. Meetings, briefings, a reception last night where you smiled until your face hurt and deflected questions about London with the practised ease of someone who's done this too many times to count. It's fine. Exhausting, but fine. You can do this job in your sleep at this point.

What you can't do, apparently, is stop yourself from scanning every room you enter for a familiar face. Your heart has been doing this annoying thing ever since you landed at Dulles where it kicks up at unexpected moments - half anticipation, half dread. Walking past a coffee shop that he used to go to. Hearing someone laugh in a way that's almost but not quite his register. Seeing a tall, dark-haired man in a suit who makes your stupid heart stutter before you realise it's not him.

You're not looking for him. You're absolutely not looking for him. You're just aware. Hyper-aware, maybe. Of the absence. Of the space where he should be and isn't. 

Because Bucky's on Foreign Relations. He should have been at yesterday's hearing. Definitely should have been at the NATO briefing this morning where you spent two hours making small talk with people who absolutely knew you were divorced and were definitely trying not to bring it up.

But he's not here. And the unease that started yesterday has metastasized into something closer to worry, which is absurd because you're divorced and it's none of your business anymore where he is or what he's doing or why he's apparently missing every major political event this week.

Except now it's your last day in DC and you're walking out of your final meeting, and you still haven't seen him. Which is good. That's good. That's what you wanted - to get through this trip without the inevitable awkward encounter, without having to figure out what you're supposed to say to your ex-husband in a professional setting.

He's probably just busy. He's always busy. That's the whole problem, isn't it? Was. Was the whole problem.

You tell yourself it's none of your business. You tell yourself he’s probably had scheduling conflicts, or dozen other reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with you. You tell yourself to get in the car waiting to take you to the hotel and get a good nights sleep before your flight tomorrow morning.

Instead, you hear yourself giving the driver a different address.

You watch DC slide past the window. Familiar streets, familiar monuments, a city you used to know as well as London but feels foreign now. It's been three months since you signed those papers. Six weeks since the divorce was finalised. And he gave you the silence that you asked for, that you needed, that was supposed to make this easier. 

It did make some things easier, in a way. You can think about him now without that sharp twist of anger in your chest. Can acknowledge the good parts of your marriage without immediately cataloguing all the ways it fell apart. You've stopped checking your phone obsessively, stopped writing texts you never sent, stopped having imaginary arguments with him at two in the morning.

You've started sleeping through the night again. Started saying “my ex-husband” without your voice catching. Started believing that maybe you could actually do this - be divorced, be separate, be okay.

But you still can't be in this city without needing to know he's alright. Because Bucky Barnes gets under your skin and doesn’t leave. Not really. Not even after divorce papers and three months of silence and all the ways you've tried to extract him from your chest. He's just there, permanent as a scar, and you've apparently made peace with the fact that he always will be.

His apartment is close enough to the Capitol that he could walk if he wanted to, far enough that it didn't feel like living at the office. You'd picked it out together four years ago, back when you thought his Congressional run was temporary and you'd be back in New York within a term. The doorman doesn't recognise you, but he calls up anyway when you give him your name.

The elevator ride to the eighth floor feels longer than the entire flight from London. Your heart is doing that kicking thing again but worse now, harder, because this is stupid and inappropriate and you have no right to be here. But what if something's wrong? Or maybe nothing's wrong and you're being ridiculous. Both options feel equally terrible.

You walk down the hallway on muscle memory, and before you can overthink it anymore, you’re standing in from of 8F. The door opens before your knuckles even make contact with the wood.

Bucky's standing there in jeans and a Henley that's seen better days, hair slightly too long and falling into his eyes. The permanent tension he used to carry in his shoulders has eased, and there's no tie strangling him, no suit jacket making him look like a politician action figure. He looks comfortable in a way you've never seen him look in DC.

He also looks completely shocked to see you.

His eyes go wide, lips parting on what might be your name but doesn't quite make it out. 

“Hi,” you manage.

For a second he just stares at you like you might be a hallucination, hand still on the doorframe, body frozen mid-breath. “Hi.”

And then silence. Awful, stretching silence where you're both just looking at each other and you're realizing with creeping horror that you came all the way here without any plan for what you were actually going to say. Now you're just standing here like an idiot while he stares at you and oh god you need to say something, anything—

“I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't just show up, I was in town for meetings and I wasn't going to bother you—” And suddenly you're talking too fast, words tumbling over each other in a way that would be mortifying if you could stop long enough to be mortified. “But you weren't at the Foreign Relations hearing yesterday—which isn't my business, obviously, you don't owe me your schedule…” 

Your hand comes up to your neck, fingers pressing against the tension there like that might somehow stop the word vomit. “But then you also weren't at the NATO briefing this morning and I know you're always at those because it's your thing, and I know I have no right to just show up here, and this is probably completely inappropriate—”

Shit, you're babbling. You're fully babbling at your ex-husband who you haven't spoken to in three months while he stands there looking increasingly bewildered. Stop talking. Stop talking right now.

“—but I was getting in the car to go to my hotel and I just kept thinking about how you weren't there and what if something was wrong, and I know I asked for space and this is definitely not space, this is the opposite of space, this is me showing up at your apartment like a complete—”

“I left Congress.”

The words cut through your spiral, stopping you mid-sentence with your mouth still open. Your brain completely flat-lines for a moment and then reboots, and for a second you just stare at him while the information tries to process.

“What?”

“Congress. I left.” He says it simply, like he's commenting on the weather. “About three weeks ago.”

“Oh.”

The word comes out flat and stupid. You blink at him. Process his words. Try to figure out what expression your face is making and whether it's appropriate.

“Oh,” you repeat dumbly, because apparently that's all your brain can produce. “I didn't—I didn't know.”

The silence that follows is excruciating. And you're suddenly extremely aware that you're standing in his hallway, that he's looking at you with an expression you can't parse, and how you've just made a complete fool of yourself by showing up here based on incorrect assumptions about his schedule.

This was a mistake. This was such a mistake.

“Right. Of course.” You take a step back toward the elevator, face hot with embarrassment. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—this was inappropriate, I'll just—”

“Do you want to come in?” The question comes out slightly strangled, like it surprised him as much as it surprises you.

It stops you mid-retreat. You look at him and he's watching you with something that might be hope or might be caution or might be both.

“I don't want to intrude…”

“You're not.” He steps back from the doorway, making space. “I mean, you're already here. And I'd like to talk to you, if that's okay.”

You should say no. Should absolutely say no. Should get back in that car and go to your hotel and let this remain a awkward three-minute interaction you can both pretend never happened.

“Okay,” you hear yourself say instead.

You step inside and it hits you how familiar everything still is. Same layout you could navigate blind, same view of the street you used to watch on sleepless nights, same couch you both used to fall asleep on after long nights reading political documents. 

But the congressional briefings that used to bleed across every flat surface are gone. In their place are books on the side table - actual books that look read, spines creased, pages dog-eared. The kitchen looks like someone's actually been using it instead of just microwaving leftovers at midnight. It's still the same apartment, but it feels different. Like someone actually exists here instead of just sleeping between eighteen-hour days.

You're standing there trying to process it when you realise Bucky's closed the door and now you're both just awkwardly existing in the same space, six feet apart, neither of you sure what to do with your hands.

But damn, he looks good. That's the thing you keep getting stuck on. The permanent furrow between his brows has smoothed out. His shoulders sit easier. Even the way he's standing is looser, less like a man braced for impact. And he's looking at you like he's trying very hard to be normal about this and failing completely. Like you're something he's not allowed to want anymore but can't quite help it.

You clear your throat, grasping for something to say that isn't we got divorced and you look good and I don't know what to do with that.

“So… Not Congressman Barnes anymore.”

He actually cringes, then huffs out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. Thank god.”

“What happened?” You're trying to keep your voice neutral, conversational, but it definitely comes out more loaded than you intended. “I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I don't have a right to—”

“You have a right,” he interrupts quietly, then seems to reconsider. “Or, I don't know if you have a right, but I want to tell you anyway.”

You nod, not trusting your voice.

He runs a hand through his hair, and you watch him gather his thoughts. That little exhale he does when he's trying to figure out how to be honest about something difficult.

“After the divorce—” He stops on the word, like it physically hurts to say. He swallows, tries again. “I did a lot of thinking. About why I ran for Congress in the first place, what I was trying to prove. And I realised I hated it. Hated the politics, the performance, the constant posturing. I was terrible at it, you know I was terrible at it. The only reason I didn't completely implode was because you were there coaching me through it, and once you weren't...” He trails off, shaking his head. “I kept going anyway because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. That quitting would mean I'd failed, or that I was giving up.”

He's looking at his hands now, the flesh one fidgeting against the metal one.

“But you were right. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Trying to be someone I thought deserved you instead of figuring out who I actually am.” He lets out a breath. “Not for you, not to prove anything to anyone. Just for me. I'd never done that before.”

He shifts his weight, suddenly looking uncomfortable with how honest that came out, and you have to swallow past the tightness in your throat because that might be the most vulnerable thing he's ever admitted to you.

“So I quit.” He shrugs like it's no big deal, trying to play it off. “And then I started thinking about what I actually wanted to do if I wasn't trying to prove I was more than what Hydra made me.”

He glances up at you then, and there's something almost hesitant in it, like he's trying to gauge your reaction. Like he can’t help that some part of him still wants you to be proud of him even though he's doing this for himself. “Sam's been building something with the Avengers. A new team—”

And he must catch the concern that flickers across your face because he quickly adds, “I'm not fighting; I'm done with that. But I’m going to help with training programs, support systems, trying to make sure the next generation doesn't get chewed up the way we did. Sam suggested it. And for the first time in years something just... clicked.”

You're staring at him, trying to process all of it. The growth. The self-awareness. The fact that he actually heard you, actually sat with it, actually made changes not to win you back but because he needed to be better for himself.

“That's—” Your voice comes out rough and you have to clear your throat. “That's really good, Bucky. I'm happy for you.”

And you are. You are genuinely happy for him. But there's something bittersweet lodged behind your ribs too, something that tastes like why now and why couldn't you have done this when we were still trying and this is exactly what I wanted from you.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” he adds quietly. “I wasn't sure if it was my place anymore, or if you'd want to know. You asked for silence and I was trying to respect that, trying to give you the peace you deserved after everything I put you through.”

God. He's doing exactly what you asked him to do. Respecting your boundaries, not inserting himself into your life, letting you move on. And apparently getting what you want feels a lot like getting punched in the chest, which seems cosmically unfair.

“You're allowed to tell me things,” you manage. “Just because we're divorced doesn't mean I don't care about what happens to you.”

He nods slowly, but doesn't say anything, and the quiet that settles between you is thick with all the things neither of you knows how to say.

You're both still just standing there and you have no idea what you're supposed to do now. No idea what the protocol is for this situation. No idea how to be around him when he looks this good and this different and this much like what you'd needed him to be.

That's when you hear it. A small, inquiring “mrrp” from somewhere behind the couch. A white cat emerges, one blue eye and one green, tail high and confident as she saunters into the middle of the room and sits down to observe you both with feline judgment.

“You got a cat,” you remark, grateful for a distraction.

“Yeah.” Bucky says, and there's something almost embarrassed in his voice. “Her name's Alpine. I got her about a month after the divorce. The apartment was too quiet and I—” He trails off, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “She was at a shelter and she looked at me like she knew I needed someone around and I guess I did.”

The apartment was too quiet because you weren't in it anymore, is the thing he doesn't say. But it hangs there anyway.

Alpine pads over to you with the confidence of a cat who knows she's in charge, and you crouch down automatically, extending your hand for her to sniff.

“Hi there, sweet girl,” you murmur, and she immediately butts her head against your palm, purring like a small motor. Within seconds she's winding between your legs, tail curling around your calf with clear ownership.

“Well, that's it then,” Bucky teases, small smile tugging at his lips. “She's decided you're hers. Good luck leaving, she's very persistent when she wants something.”

The words hang in the air for a second, and you watch his expression shift as he seems to hear what he just said. Like he's just remembered that you leaving is exactly what's supposed to happen. That you have a life that doesn't include him or his cat.

“So, how are things with....” He clears his throat, and you can practically feel him trying to make his voice sound casual and normal. It doesn't work. “How's the boyfriend?”

Your hand stills on Alpine's fur. You look up to find him studiously examining a spot on the wall like it's the most fascinating piece of architecture he's ever seen.

“Matt moved back to New York a few months ago.” You straighten up slowly, Alpine protesting the loss of attention with a small trill. “We ended things. Wanted different things from the relationship.”

“Oh.” Bucky's eyes finally land on you, and there's something complicated happening in his expression. “I'm sorry.”

“No you're not.”

It comes out before you can stop it, and for a second you think you've made it weird again, but then Bucky laughs. It's surprised out of him, genuine and a little helpless, and god you've missed that sound.

“No,” he admits, smile going crooked. “I'm really not.”

The honesty of it sits between you for a moment. Then something changes in his face, the amusement fading into something more vulnerable.

“But I should be sorry,” he continues quietly. “It shouldn't matter what I think. You deserve to move on, to be happy with someone who—” He cuts himself off, looking down at his hands. “Someone who can actually be what you need. And I'll deal with that eventually. I will. I'm just—” Another pause. “I'm sorry that I played a part in screwing that up for you, with Matt. And I’m sorry if the divorce or the complications or just... me... if any of that made it harder for you to have something good.”

The sincerity in his voice makes your throat tight. Here he is, your ex-husband, apologising for potentially ruining your other relationship while also admitting he's not sorry it ended, and somehow it's the most honest you've been with each other in months.

“It wasn't you,” you hear yourself say. “Not directly, anyway. Matt and I… we wanted different things. He wanted easy and uncomplicated, and I'm apparently incapable of either of those things.”

“That's not true—”

“Bucky.” You raise a brow. “I showed up at my ex-husband's apartment unannounced because I got worried when he didn't show up to committee meetings. I think we can agree that 'easy and uncomplicated' is not really my strong suit.”

His mouth twitches. “Fair point.”

“But,” he adds, “you deserve someone who doesn't want easy. Someone who wants all of it - the complicated, the messy, the hard parts. Someone who wants you exactly as you are. Because you show up. Even when you shouldn't, even when it's inconvenient, even when you have every reason not to. You came here today because you were worried about me, because that's just who you are. You care so completely, so deeply, even when it costs you. And you deserve someone who loves you enough to show up for you the way you've always shown up for everyone else.”

The words land like a physical blow, stealing the air from your lungs. Your eyes start to sting and you have to look away, blinking hard against the sudden heat behind them because you're not going to cry in his apartment, you're not.

Except apparently you are, because your vision's already blurring and there's a tightness in your chest that won't ease and when you try to speak nothing comes out but a slightly choked sound that you immediately wish you could take back.

“Hey,” Bucky moves toward you immediately, concern flooding his face. “Shit, no, I didn't mean to upset you.”

You try and recover the situation, aiming for light, but it cracks halfway through. “No, I’m fine, that’s a very—that's nice, that's a really nice thing to say, thank you for the—”

You stop because you're not making sense, because the whole thing is so mortifying you want to sink through the floor.

“Sweetheart, what’s happening?” His hand comes up immediately, thumb brushing across your cheek with a gentleness that makes it worse. He’s so close now that you can see the flecks of grey starting to thread through his hair at his temples. Close enough that you catch the scent of his cologne - the same one you bought him three years ago for his birthday. Close enough that your body remembers what it feels like to fit against his before your brain can stop it.

And god, he still feels like home. Still looks at you like you're something precious. And it's too much, all of it is too much, and the tears that have been threatening finally spill over.

“Don't call me that,” you choke out, but there's no heat in it. “And don't—you can't just—”

The words are getting tangled up with the crying, which is humiliating, but now that you've started you can't seem to stop.

“You don't get to do this,” you manage, and it comes out accusatory and broken at the same time. “You don't get to make all these changes and become this better version of yourself after we're divorced. You don't get to quit the job you hated and figure out what you actually want and get a cat and look at me like that when we're not—”

You stop, pressing your palms against your eyes because maybe if you can't see him this will be easier.

“You're doing everything right and it's too late. And god, I'm here being pathetic, showing up at your apartment because I couldn't handle not seeing you at a meeting. You've moved on, you're this whole new person, and I'm still—”

“You think I could ever move on from you?”

The question stops you mid-sentence. You lower your hands and look up at him, and his face has gone soft and raw and heartbroken in a way that makes your chest cave in.

“I haven't moved on.” His voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “I couldn't move on from you if I tried. You think I got a cat because I moved on? I got a cat because I was so fucking lonely and every time I tried to date, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let anyone else in here. Couldn't stand the thought of someone in this space who wasn’t you.”

He takes a breath that shudders slightly on the exhale, and you can see him fighting to hold himself together.

“I'm not a better person because I moved on. I'm a better person because losing you destroyed me and I had to either figure out who I actually was without you or let it kill me. So I figured it out, because I owed it to myself to be more than just the wreckage of our marriage.”

His thumb continues to trace slow paths across your cheekbone, catching each tear as it falls. The space between you has shrunk to almost nothing. You don't remember either of you moving but suddenly you can count his eyelashes, can see his eyes are wet too. 

Your eyes drop to his mouth. His lips are slightly parted, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across your skin, and you watch him notice where you're looking. Watch the way his pupils blow wider, the way his grip on your face tightens just slightly.

“But god, I’m sorry,” he continues, and his forehead drops to rest against yours. “I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. For running for Congress without talking to you first. For shutting you out instead of letting you help me. For making you feel like you weren't enough when you were always everything.”

“Bucky—”

“I'm sorry for manipulating your calendar and lying to Matt and thinking I could orchestrate our marriage back together instead of just talking to you like a fucking adult.” His other hand comes up to cup your face, both palms cradling you as his thumb brushes your bottom lip “I'm sorry for taking you for granted and not fighting for us until it was too late. I'm sorry—”

You kiss him. 

You can't help it. Can't wait another second, can't stand anymore distance between you when he's been standing there saying everything you'd needed to hear for months and he's finally, finally letting you all the way in and you need him closer. Need his mouth on yours more than you need air right now.

He makes this startled sound against your lips, like he didn't dare let himself believe this was actually happening. But then his hands tighten on your face and he's kissing you back, desperate and messy, your face still wet with tears.

“Keep going,” you gasp against his lips between kisses. “Don't stop.”

“I'm sorry for every time I chose my pride over our marriage.” The words tumble out between kisses as he walks you backward, one hand now gripping your waist, the other sliding up to cup the back of your head. “For every time I made you feel small or unimportant or like you were the problem when it was always me.”

You hit the wall with a soft thud, his palm deliberately taking the impact for your head, and his mouth finds your throat immediately, hot and desperate, teeth grazing your pulse point before his lips soothe over it.

“I'm sorry for wasting so much time,” he breathes against your neck, hands finding the hem of your shirt and pulling back just enough to drag it over your head. “For not appreciating every second I had with you. For not telling you every single day that you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Bucky—” You plead, fingers tugging his hair hard enough to make him groan against your skin.

He pulls back just enough to look up at you, chest heaving, lips swollen, eyes blown completely dark, and the desperation on his face mirrors everything coiling tight in your stomach.

“Let me make it up to you,” he pants, mouth already trailing lower, kissing down your throat, your collarbone, your sternum. “Please. Let me get on my knees and show you exactly how sorry I am, sweetheart.”

“Fuck—please, Bucky. Yes!”

His mouth keeps moving lower as he sinks down, lips pressing hot and wet over your stomach. When he reaches the waistband of your skirt his hands slide around to find the zip, tugging it down over your hips. 

He peels it down slowly, mouth following the same path, pressing open kisses down your hip, the outside of your thigh, your knee, helping you step out of it carefully but making absolutely no move to take your heels off. For a moment he just stays there, looking up at you from the floor with blown dark eyes.

The sight of him down there looking at you like that makes your breath come out shaky.

“Missed you so fucking much,” he breathes against your inner thigh, lips dragging higher again. “Missed this.” His fingers find the waistband of your panties, peeling them down slowly, and when they're gone his right hand lingers on your calf, squeezing.

“Missed the way you sound when I do this—” He presses his mouth to your clit, barely anything, just enough to make you whine and your hips jerk forward chasing more. “Missed the way you taste. Been so fucking long, sweetheart, I'm gonna make sure you feel every single apology.”

Then he hooks your leg over his shoulder, spreading you wider, the stiletto of your heel digging into his back. He groans against you like he's been waiting months for exactly this, tongue dragging through your folds, tasting every inch of you, before his mouth closes around your clit and sucks.

You're already soaked, embarrassingly so, slick and swollen and desperate, and the obscene sounds he's making against you make your face flush hot. Like he's enjoying this more than you are, which makes the heat pooling in your stomach coil tighter and more urgent. 

Your fingers bury themselves in his hair, gripping hard, and the moan that rumbles out of him against your folds is immediate, hips shifting like he can't help it. You tug again, twisting tighter, and he groans louder, like he'd let you pull as hard as you wanted as long as you kept him right there.

His tongue curls and your back arches off the wall with a broken, high little sound, thighs trembling against his shoulders. The heel of your stiletto presses harder into his back as your leg tightens around him.

He teases you mercilessly, knows exactly how to make you chase it. Tongue circling your clit until your hips roll forward without shame, grinding against his face, chasing friction with a desperation that would be humiliating if you had any capacity left to feel embarrassed. Every time you get close he pulls back, mouthing at your inner thigh or the crease of your hip, until you whine with frustration.

“Please—” It comes out wrecked, barely recognisable as your own voice. “Bucky, please—”

He makes this low, pleased chuckle against your folds that you feel everywhere, clearly delighted with himself, and the vibration of it makes you desperately clench around nothing and moan so shamelessly that he does it again on purpose. 

His tongue fucks into you and the world goes soft at the edges, thoughts dissolving one by one until there's nothing left but the wet heat of his mouth and the needy little moans you can’t seem to stop making. His nose bumps your clit with every movement, pressure building so deep and overwhelming that you've stopped being capable of anything as complex as forming words. 

Just fingers buried in his hair, back arched, existing entirely at the mercy of his mouth.

Then his left hand closes around your standing thigh, metal fingers wrapping around soft flesh. He pulls his mouth away just far enough to speak, his breath hot and damp against your soaked, swollen folds.

“Up,” he rumbles directly into your cunt, breath hot, and you hear it somewhere distant and unimportant. 

Your legs aren't really receiving instructions anymore - you're not capable of much of anything right now, every nerve ending in your body shorting out under his mouth. Too far gone already to manage something as complicated as lifting a leg.

The crack of his metal hand against your ass brings the world back in one sharp snap.

“Up, pretty girl. C'mon.” His voice is rough, amused, unbearably fond. “Can't have gone dumb on my tongue already, sweetheart. I’ve barely even started.”

“Fuck,” you manage.

“There we go,” he murmurs, the deep warmth in his voice is devastatingly attractive. “Good girl. Up.”

His hand guides you this time, helping you move your other leg up and over his shoulder so both thighs bracket his head. Before you can process what’s happening, he rises, straightening to his full height with an ease that makes it obvious how little you weigh to him. How effortless this is. How completely in control he is of the situation. And it makes your stomach swoop. 

Your fingers yank his hair on instinct, panic and want tangled together, and the moan that drags out of him reverberates directly against your pussy in a way that makes your whole body shudder.

The wall catches your back. His hands lock around the backs of your thighs, one warm, one cool metal, fingers pressing into your flesh as he pins you exactly where he wants you. His face is buried between your legs and there's nothing below you but six feet of immovable super soldier who has absolutely no intention of letting you go anywhere. The realization of how thoroughly he has you, how completely helpless you are right now, sends a fresh rush of arousal flooding against his mouth that makes him moan his encouragement.

“Fuck— please—Bucky.”

The answering groan he makes against you says he heard it just fine. And then he gets greedy.

His tongue finds your clit and doesn't leave, licking and sucking with a focused relentlessness that has you sobbing. You're soaked, dripping down his chin. Every careful, deliberate stroke of his tongue pulls another helpless mewl from your throat while his hands keep you pinned exactly where he wants you, going nowhere, taking everything he decides to give you.

He learns you all over again like he has all the time in the world. Finds every spot that makes your thighs clench around his head and returns to them, again and again, cataloguing your reactions with the focused intensity of someone who has missed this more than they can articulate and intends to make up for every lost month tonight. 

“Taste so fucking good,” he groans into you, the words vibrating against your clit, hips grinding forward against nothing. “Missed this pussy so much. Missed how wet she gets for me. Could eat her all night and never get enough.”

The knowledge that he's this worked up just from going down on you makes another rush of arousal flood against his tongue. Heat spreads through you in waves, the orgasm building each time he seals his lips around your clit and sucks, each time he groans against your folds like he's the one being taken apart. Your thighs are shaking around his head, his name spilling out of you in a broken, continuous stream that you can't stop.

“That's my girl,” he rasps into you, fingers digging into your thighs. “Feel her getting close. Gonna give me what I want.”

You come with a wail, clenching so hard around his tongue that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt. His hands remain steady around your thighs as he licks you through every shuddering wave, greedy for every last pulse of it, not pulling back until you're twitching and whimpering and completely wrecked above him.

He pulls back with one last filthy, open mouthed kiss to your cunt that makes you mewl, and then his hands shift, sliding you down his body until your legs wrap around his waist. You can feel how hard he is through his jeans, thick and insistent against where you're still throbbing, and your hips roll forward instinctively.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your throat, hands gripping your ass, holding you up effortlessly. “So pretty when you cum for me. Did so good.”

You make some soft, wrecked sound against his neck that might be his name.

Then one hand comes up to grip your jaw, tilting your face up to his. His chin is slick with you, lips swollen and pink and kissable. His thumb presses against your bottom lip, dragging it down. “Open that pretty mouth.”

Dazed and pliant, you open your mouth without thinking, too gone to do anything but comply. He leans in and lets a slow string of spit drop onto your tongue, mixed with the slick mess of you.

“Atta girl,” he rumbles, watching your face with a primal satisfaction. “You taste so fucking good, sweetheart - had to let you have some.”

You swallow and he groans his approval, crashing his mouth back to yours before you can breathe. The taste of yourself on his tongue makes you dizzy, fingers twisting in his Henley. Your brain several steps behind your body as he starts moving, carrying you through the dark hallway without breaking the kiss, navigating entirely on muscle memory.

The bedroom is dark. He lays you out across his bed, stepping back to look at you. Spread across his sheets still in nothing but your heels and bra, chest heaving, thighs slick, eyes blown completely dumb. The look on his face makes your stomach flip all over again.

“Been dreaming about seeing you in this bed again,” he says, crawling over you, caging you in with those unfairly big biceps. “Not done with you yet, pretty girl. Not even close.”

Your hands find the hem of his top immediately, fisting the fabric, and he helps you drag it over his head. His dog tags fall forward as the shirt comes off, swinging between you both as he dips back down to your mouth.

Already your fingers are at his belt, clumsy and impatient, fumbling with the buckle while he kisses down your jaw and unhooks your bra before tossing it aside. His mouth finds your nipple immediately, greedy,tongue curling around it, and your hands stutter.

“Bucky—” You're swearing under your breath, hands shaking as you try and fail to get the buckle undone. “Come on, fuck, come on!”

He grazes his teeth against your nipple and your fingers slip entirely. 

“Shit, please,” you whine, utterly shameless.

Bucky just laughs against your tits, warm and low, not even slightly helpful. Finally, though, the belt gives, button pops, zip drags down, and you're shoving everything down his hips in one desperate motion as his cock springs free. Thick and hard and heavy between his legs, and your mouth goes dry. 

It’s been almost a year since you’ve seen him like this and your eyes drag down his body with a hunger you can't even pretend to hide. You reach for him immediately, needing to touch, needing to feel the weight of him in your hand, but he catches both wrists before you get there, pinning them above your head against the pillow. 

“Patience, pretty girl,” he murmurs, hips settling between your thighs, cock heavy against your folds but not where you need him. “We've got time. Not rushing this.”

You whimper, hips lifting, trying to find friction, finding nothing.

He slides his cock through your folds, dragging through how obscenely wet you are, and the feeling of it pulls a broken noise from both of you simultaneously. Slow and deliberate, he teases the swollen head through your slick, catching your clit on the way, and your whole body jerks underneath him.

“Bucky,” you mewl. Your wrists flex against his grip, not really trying to get free, just needing somewhere to put the desperation flooding through you. He drags his cock back through your heat while you clench desperately around nothing, watching your face fall apart with an expression of filthy satisfaction.

“There it is. Look at that pretty little cunt begging for it.” Another slow roll of his hips, cock dragging through the mess of you. “Gonna give it to you. Just want you to ask nice price.”

“Please,” you manage, and it comes out so small and wrecked and needy that his hips stutter. “Please, Bucky, I need—I can't—please—”

He releases your wrists and your hands fly to his shoulders instantly, nails digging in hard, needing to touch him, needing to anchor yourself to something solid while his cock nudges your entrance, barely breaching, just enough to make you clench desperately around nothing.

“Shh,” he coos, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, holding you exactly where he wants you even as your hips try to roll forward chasing more. “I've got you, baby.” The head of his cock presses a little deeper, teasing, and your nails drag down his shoulders as your back arches off the bed. “Always gonna take care of you. You know that.” 

He pushes in slowly, and the stretch of him makes your whole body go rigid, nails carving lines down his shoulders that make him hiss as you take him inch by inch. Your walls flutter around him, clenching, trying to pull him deeper even as your body relearns the thickness of him, the weight, the specific fullness that you'd spent three months trying to forget and never quite managed.

“Fuck,” he grits out, hips stilling when he's buried completely, forehead dropping to yours, breathing ragged. “Always so fucking tight. Feel that? Feel how well this pretty cunt fits me?” His hips roll, just slightly, and you cry out. “Feel so perfect around my cock, pretty girl.”

You can't form words. Can only moan and dig your nails deeper into his back and breathe through it, through the overwhelming stretch and heat and the fact that it's him, it's Bucky, it's finally Bucky again after everything.

Then he starts to move.

Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive place inside you, his cock splitting you open over and over until you can't remember what it felt like to be empty. The cold metal of his dog tags brushes your chest with every thrust. His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and the dual sensation pulls a needy little wail from you, toes curling in your heels

“That's it,” he breathes against your lips. “That's my girl. Take all of it.”

You drag him back down into the kiss, desperate, one hand tangling in his hair and the other still clawing down his back, needing more of him, needing every part of him pressed against every part of you. He gives it to you, kissing you filthy and deep, hips rolling into a rhythm that's making coherent thought impossible.

“Missed you,” you gasp between kisses, and once it starts coming out you can't stop it. “Missed you so much, I missed you every single day, I tried not to but I couldn't stop, I missed you, I missed you—”

“I know.” His voice breaks on it. “Missed you too, baby. I'm here. I've got you.”

“Don't stop,” you sob against his mouth. “Please don't stop.”

“Not stopping.” His thumb keeps circling your clit and his hips snap forward harder, the wet obscene sounds of him fucking into you filling the dark bedroom. “Not going anywhere ever again.”

The pleasure and the grief and the overwhelming relief of having him back crash into each other all at once and the tears come again without warning, spilling hot down your cheeks. You're coming and crying at the same time, clenching so hard around him that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt.

Instinctively you hide your face against his neck with a mewling, broken little sound, as the waves keep crashing through you. His hand finds your jaw immediately, fingers gentle but certain, tilting your face back to his.

When he sees you - eyes wet and glassy, tears tracking freely down your cheeks, kiss-bitten bottom lip caught between your teeth - his expression cracks wide open. His thumb drags slowly through the wetness on your cheek, just looking at you, chest heaving, cock still buried deep inside you. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, hips driving deeper, mouth dragging across your wet cheeks, licking away the tears. “Don’t hide from me. Not this. So beautiful when you cry for me like this.” 

Another deep thrust punctuates his words and your sob breaks against his throat. The orgasm is almost too much, pleasure cresting so sharp and overwhelming that you're squirming beneath him, trying to get away from it and chase it at the same time. Your hips buck uselessly as his thumb keeps bullying your swollen clit , wringing every last shuddering wave out of you whether your oversensitive body can handle it or not.

“Made you cry too many times for the wrong reasons.” His mouth moves to your other cheek, kissing the wetness away gently even as his hips keep pounding into you. “Never fucking again. Only time you cry because of me now is when I've got you so full of cock you can't fucking think straight.”

Then he pulls back to look at you, pupils blown, taking in your wet lashes, your ruined expression. “That's the only reason I ever put tears on this pretty face again. On my fucking life.”

You're trying to say his name but it keeps breaking apart every time his hips drive forward, dissolving into breathless, helpless sounds against his mouth. But you can’t stop them, can’t control it, can’t do anything other than moan because he just keeps fucking you through every shuddering wave of your orgasm until you’re trembling under him. 

You whimper, oversensitive and shaking, hips trying to shy away from his thumb even as your walls keep fluttering around him.

“Can feel her gripping me,” Bucky murmurs, almost to himself, hips still rolling slow and deep. “Feel that? Still so greedy even when you're all fucked out.” His thumb lifts and you exhale in relief, but his cock is still thick and heavy inside you, every slight movement magnified by how sensitive you are. “Got one more in there for me, baby. I know you do.”

Turning your face into his neck, you make a sound that's half-protest, half-desperate agreement. 

“C’mon pretty girl,” His voice drops to something low and coaxing, lips brushing your ear. “You gonna give it to me?”

You nod weakly, barely managing it, pliant and soft and entirely his to do whatever he wants with. You'd agree to anything right now. Give him anything. You just want whatever he'll give you, want to stay exactly like this forever, warm and full and completely undone.

The rumble that comes out of him is deep and satisfied. “Good fucking girl.”

The words land low in your stomach even before his hands are moving, even before he pulls out with a groan that you both feel everywhere, even before the cool air hits the slick mess between your thighs. The empty whine that escapes you is involuntary and embarrassing and he hears every second of it.

His hands find your hips, turning you with that easy, devastating strength, flipping you over like you weigh nothing. Your face finds the mattress, and before you can process the change in position his palm is pressing warm between your shoulder blades, urging you down while his other hand slides under your hips, pulling them up to meet him.

You go pliant without resistance, body soft and utterly compliant beneath his hands, brain several steps behind everything. Your cheek presses into his sheets and you can smell him on the fabric, sending a fresh pulse of want through you.

He leans over you, his chest warm against your back for just a moment, and then his hand slides into your hair. Gathers it gently, sweeping it away from your face with a tenderness that's completely at odds with how thoroughly he just fucked you apart. His fingers are careful, unhurried, and you turn your face slightly into his palm like a cat.

“There you are,” he murmurs, low and warm, and you can feel the smile in it. His lips press to the nape of your neck, the top of your spine, each vertebra down between your shoulder blades.

He stays there for a moment, just looking at you. Taking in the slack, cock-drunk softness of your expression. The way your eyes have gone heavy and distant, lashes still wet, lips parted and swollen.

Then the blunt head of his cock presses against your entrance again and you keen into the sheets.

He pushes in slowly, achingly slowly, and the stretch of him at this angle is deeper, fuller, hitting every nerve ending at once. You're so wet and so oversensitive that every inch of him dragging inside you pulls sounds from your throat that you couldn't muffle if you tried.

“Fuck,” he gasps, hands locked around your hips, pulling you back onto him as his last inch disappears inside you. “Look at that. Taking every fucking inch. Good girl.”

He starts to move and your eyes roll back.

It's different like this. Harder, deeper, each thrust rocking you forward into the mattress, his hips snapping against your ass with a sound that fills the dark room, punctuated by his own rough exhales. One hand is splayed across your lower back to keep your hips tilted exactly where he wants them, the other gripping the curve of your hip hard enough you'll have fingerprints tomorrow.

You fist the sheets. It's all you can do. Knuckles white, face pressed into his pillow, breathing in desperate gasps because he keeps knocking the air out of your lungs with every thrust.

“Fuck, baby. Listen to how pretty you are like this.” His voice has gone rough, stripped of everything except want. His cock drags out slow and thrusts back hard, knocking another moan from you. “Hear that?”

You hear it. The wet, filthy sounds of him fucking into you, the slap of skin, the helpless little mewls you can't stop making. His dog tags swing forward with every thrust, cold metal grazing your back. Your face burns hot in the dark.

“C’mon, use your words,” he murmurs, hand smoothing up your spine. “You hear how good this pussy sounds taking me?”

“Yes,” You moan agreement, barely recognizing as your own voice. “Yes, fuck, yes”

His hand snakes around your throat, pulling you back against his chest in one smooth motion like you weigh nothing at all. And god, to him you don't. You’re so light in his hands that he barely has to think about it, and the ease of it sends a sharp pulse through you. You gasp as your back hits his chest, Bucky’s free arm secure around you, while his cock keeps driving up into you, the new angle hitting deeper.

He groans softly against your ear when you clenches hard around him. “Fuck. Knew you’d like that.”

You can’t respond. All that comes out is another needy little sound while your hands scramble desperately for purchase, one gripping his forearm where it rests against your throat, the other reaching back blindly for him. Bucky catches your hand immediately and presses it flat against his lower stomach, holding it there so you can feel every thrust, every flex of muscle as he fucks into you.

“That’s it, good girl. Hold on,” he murmurs approvingly, feeling you squeeze around him again. “Feel what you do to me?”

His free hand slides down your stomach, over the curve of your hip, fingers finding your clit once more. You jolt at his touch, a high broken sound tearing out of you, hips lurching forward despite yourself.

“Shh.” His lips brush your ear. “I've got you. Stay still for me.”

You try. You genuinely try. But he's fucking up into you and rubbing your swollen clit simultaneously and the combination is devastating, pleasure crashing through you in waves that make it impossible to do anything except squirm against him and make sounds you'll be embarrassed about later. Your fingers dig into his forearm, nails pressing crescents into his skin, and his breath hitches against your neck.

“Fuck, good girl,” he hisses. “Scratch me up, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”

His fingers work faster and your head drops back against his shoulder, completely gone. Everything is his hands, his cock, his voice in your ear saying things that dissolve into heat before you can parse the words. You're making these desperate mewling sounds with every thrust, fingers scrabbling at his arm, his hip, any part of him you can reach, just needing to touch him, needing to feel him everywhere at once.

“Feel how wet she is,” he murmurs, fingers slipping through the absolute mess between your thighs. “Dripping down my hand. Making a mess of me.” His cock drives deeper and you sob. “So fucking perfect.”

His hand shifts from your throat to your jaw, turning your face toward his, and then he's kissing you.

It’s messy and overwhelming, his tongue sliding against yours while he keeps fucking you hard enough to make you moan helplessly into his mouth. Bucky swallows every needy little sound you make, kissing you deeper every time you squirm against him.

You can barely keep up with it. Head fuzzy, heavy with pleasure, especially with the way he’s still rubbing your clit in relentless slow circles that make your whole body shake harder every second.

“Come for me,” he breathes against your lips. “Want to feel that pretty pussy squeeze my cock again, baby. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Bucky, please.”

“So fucking good for me.” The hand at your jaw slides back to your throat, tilting your head back against his shoulder, baring your neck. His mouth finds your pulse point immediately. “Best thing I've ever had. Best thing I've ever touched.” His teeth graze your throat and you whimper, thighs shaking. “The only thing I ever want.”

His fingers press harder against your clit, hips rolling forward in a way that make you tremble in his grip, knees threatening to buckle, the only thing keeping you upright the arm locked around you. 

“Fuck—I love you,” he grits out against the back of your neck, and it sounds like it's been tearing at him from the inside for months. “I love you. I love you.” Each repetition punctuated by a thrust that makes you cry out. “Loved you every single day I was without you. Never stopped for a second.”

The words hit somewhere deeper than anything else. Deeper than his hands or his mouth or any of it. Something cracks open in your chest, warm and enormous, and you’re coming again. Harder than before, your whole body seizing as you clench around him so completely that your knees do give out entirely. Just ragdoll weight caught entirely in his arms.

“Bucky,” you cry name in a needy a sob. “I love you too—fuck—I love you so much.”

The confession tears out of you and follows you over with a groan that shakes through his whole body. He buries himself to the hilt, cock pulsing in deep, spilling inside you with your name on his lips.

You’re both breathing in ragged pulls, and if it weren’t for his arms still locked around you, you’d have collapsed onto the bed. His chest heaves against your back, lips pressed somewhere near your temple, and neither of you speaks for a moment.

Eventually, carefully, he lowers you both down to the mattress, turning you over and pulling you against his chest. You lay boneless against him as his hand strokes slowly up your side, over and over, like he can't stop touching you now that he's allowed to again.

“I've got you,” he murmurs into your hair. “I've got you. You're okay. I've got you.”

And for the first time in almost a year, you actually believe it.

You stay like that for a while, neither of you moving, his hand still stroking slowly up your side. The room has gone quiet and warm around you, just his heartbeat under your ear and the city humming distantly outside.

But eventually he shifts, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Stay there.”

A weak sound of protest escapes you when he moves but he's already up, disappearing into the en-suite. You hear water running. When he comes back he sits beside you on the bed, warm cloth in hand.

“I can—” you start.

“I know you can,” he agrees simply, but he does it anyway, cleaning you up with gentle, unhurried hands. Then his free hand strokes down your leg, gently tugging one heel off, then the other, puts them both on the floor.

When he's done he disappears briefly, and then the mattress dips and he's pulling you into him, tucking you against his chest. The duvet settles warm around you both, and his hand starts moving slowly through your hair in soothing strokes.

“Sleep,” he murmurs against your temple, lips barely moving. “I've got you.”

You don't have much choice. Your body is already pulling you under, warm and safe and held in a way you'd spent months trying to convince yourself you didn't miss. His heartbeat is slow and steady under your ear, his chest rising and falling with a deep, even calm that pulls you further under with every breath.

His hand keeps moving through your hair, and the city outside feels very far away, and sleep takes you before you even feel it coming.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The blaring of you alarm pulls you up from the deepest sleep you've had in months, and for one blissful, unthinking moment you're just warm. Bucky’s chest rises and falls slowly beneath your cheek. Reality hovers at the edges of your consciousness, waiting to be let in, and you squeeze your eyes shut against it, burrowing deeper into the duvet like that might keep it at bay.

Alpine is curled heavy and purring against the backs of your knees, warm and certain, like she's been there all night. Like you belong here. The thought sits in your chest, complicated and tender.

But your phone doesn’t stop shrilling from the nightstand. 

You reach over and fumble for it, managing to silence before Bucky stirs. His arm tightens around you, pulling you back into him with a sleepy, wordless sound of protest, lips pressing somewhere near your hair. But then he goes still. 

“…Was that your alarm for your flight?” His voice is rough with sleep, and underneath the grogginess you can here the carefulness.

“Yes,” you reply quietly, but make no effort to move.

The city hums distantly outside the window. Somewhere below, DC is already going about its morning. Up here, in the warm dark of his bedroom, time feels suspended, neither of you quite willing to be the one to break it.

You turn over. His eyes scan your face with an intensity that's so nakedly desperate it makes your chest ache. Like he's trying to memorize your face in case this is the last time he's allowed to be this close. Like he hasn't yet let himself believe last night was real.

“Stay.” The word comes out before he can stop it, blurted and slightly wrecked. His jaw tightens immediately afterwards, like he's bracing for it to land wrong. “Could you stay? I want you to stay. Just—a little longer, or—I know we haven't talked about anything properly yet, I just—” He exhales, slightly pained. “Please stay.”

You look at him for a moment. Let him sit with it a moment longer than necessary, watching the soft, desperate hope on his face exist exist without rushing to meet it, because you find you want to keep looking at him like this for just another few seconds. This new version of him that doesn't hide behind composure when something matters. 

It's devastating and wonderful in equal measure, and you want to hold onto the sight of it for a second before you say anything.

“I suppose,” you begin slowly, watching his expression flicker, “I could probably stay a little longer. Get to know this version of you that coaches Avengers and has a cat and apparently owns cookbooks he's actually used.”

The exhale that comes out of him is enormous. Pure relief, pure joy, and the smile that follows it - wide and unguarded and slightly incredulous - is the most beautiful thing you've seen in a very long time. He pulls you in and presses his lips to your forehead, warm and certain.

You let him. Then you pull back gently, hand finding his jaw, tilting his face down to yours.

“But slowly,” you add, and mean it. “We do this slowly. No grand gestures, no orchestrating, no deciding things on my behalf. We actually talk. We work through all of it - the things we broke and the reasons we broke them. We make real effort this time, not just falling back into old patterns because it's easy and it feels good short term.”

He nods. Immediately, earnestly, like every word is being carefully filed away. “Slowly,” he repeats. “Yeah. I can do slowly.”

You raise a brow.

He has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “I can learn slowly.”

You're both quiet for a moment, considering this. You are not, historically, two people who do anything slowly. Your entire relationship has been characterized by intensity and momentum and grand gestures and catastrophic miscommunications. The idea of slow is almost comically foreign to you both.

“I'll come to London more,” he offers after a moment. “My schedule is flexible. I can make it work—I want to make it work. And I know the distance is real, and I know it won't always be easy, but I'd rather figure it out than spend another year without you.”

“And I'll come here too,” you add quietly. “I should've done that more. Made the effort in both directions instead of letting the Atlantic become an excuse.”

“Okay,” he says. “We start there.”

“We start there,” you agree.

And maybe it’s foolish. Maybe you'll look back on this morning and recognise it as just another impulsive decision in a marriage that's always run on chemistry and stubbornness and the particular madness of two people who can't seem to leave each other alone. Maybe the distance will be hard and the conversations will be harder and somewhere down the line you'll hit another wall neither of you knows how to climb.

But when he looks at you like that - open and unhidden in a way he spent years not knowing how to be - it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like something you've been working toward through every wrong turn and bad decision and midnight argument. Like the mess of the last year was just the long way round to something you were always going to find your way back to.

“Come here,” he murmurs, and you let him turn you back over, let him pull you into his chest where you fit so perfectly.

The relief of not having a flight to catch settles over you like the duvet itself.

His lips find the curve of your neck, lazy and warm, just the occasional soft press of his mouth against your skin. Just enjoying the fact that he can. That you're here and not leaving and there's nowhere either of you need to be.

Your eyes drift closed, hovering in that soft place between sleep and waking again. Alpine purrs against your feet. You feel more at peace than you have in longer than you can remember. And then, through your sleepy haze, you gradually become aware of his hand.

It's moved without him seeming to notice, fingers drifting down your arm, over your wrist, settling at your left hand. His thumb brushes absently over your ring finger, back and forth, over the bare skin where your ring used to sit. Slow and absent, like he doesn't even know he's doing it.

Your right hand moves to cover his, and he still immediately. A slight tension moving through his chest, like he's been caught at something, like he's about to pull back.

“Ask me again someday,” you murmur into the pillow, half-conscious. “When we're ready.”

The tension bleeds out of him all at once, his whole body exhaling like he's been holding that breath for months. His arms tighten around you and his mouth presses to the back of your neck again.

“I will,” he affirms quietly, against your skin. “I promise you, one day, I will.”

His thumb resumes its slow path over your ring finger, gentle and deliberate now. A quiet promise being made in the dark.

“I love you,” he murmurs into your hair, lips barely moving. “Missed saying that. Missed you hearing it. I love you so much.”

You sink deeper into his arms, into the warmth of him, into the love in his voice, into the particular peace of being somewhere you belong after a very long time of being without it.

You fall back asleep before you can answer. But that's okay, you have time now.

more mads: that's all folks! I really, really hope you enjoyed, like seriously. this fic has both been the bane of my existence and a precious little baby because i do really love these idiots. i hope i gave them a satisfactory ending and that it was worth the wait, and i would absolutely love to know your thoughts via any comments or reblogs! thank you so much for reading :)

You’d watched him, as he looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where you’d gone. He wouldn’t find you. You’re too good at it.

Fading into the background. Where you didn’t have to be seen. 

It’s something you’ve practiced your whole life. You’d call yourself an expert at it, if that didn’t sound more pathetic than anything in the world. People aren’t supposed to notice you. It’s better for your job that they don’t, better for your sleep, better for your brain that can’t stop seem to racing away from you with thoughts that nobody wants to hear. 

And you’ve managed to go so, so long without being noticed. Years of flitting between shadows and watching from corners, content in only having the music in your headphones and book in your hands as company. 

You see everything. You see Clint stealing Tony’s ice cream out of the fridge, and the subsequent rampage that follows. You see Natasha moving past you in the shadows, giving you a tiny nod but nothing more. Sometimes Peter stares at you, you smile back at him, and his eyes widen as he flushes and walks away. 

They all know you’re there. They’ve all tried to talk to you, and you appreciate it, but it never helps the way they think. It only makes your skin feel like it’s being pricked with needles. Makes you wrap your arms around your stomach, hoping the shadows will get longer and save you from being seen. 

You’re not make of sunlight and stardust like they are. You can’t command a whole room with a laugh—you don’t even laugh, you snort—and a few charming words that send everyone under a spell. You’re good at the missions, but that’s about it. And even then, it’s less good at them and more useful. 

You’ve seen Bucky on about three, larger missions. Wearing a tactical suit, not bothering to keep his hair out of his face, carving through Hydra lines as if he’s just swimming with the tide. You’ve always watched him from the rafters—it’s your job to watch, so that’s not weird—and he’s always ruthless, but today there’s something more. 

His jaw is clenched, and when bones snap, he tosses them to the side like they’re nothing but potato sacks. 

There’s a cruel heat between your legs, and a misty fantasy of him tossing you around like that. But with more care, and another secret smile like with the phone. 

It’s a pointless thought. In a sea of Gods and Heroes, you’re not going to be the one he chooses. 

But it doesn’t stop the adoration, slowly starting to take root in your heart. Or the way it blooms when your see him rip a door off its hinges one second, then—as they reach the lab you’d been looking for—pick up a kitten with such tender care, holding in protectively in his hand as he marches around the lab.

“Bucky,” you hear Sam sigh, frowning up from his own lizards. “Just put it in the cages, man-“

“No.” He grunts, glaring down at the kitten. “It’s scared, I’m not putting it a freakin’ cage.”

“You’re acting like we’re not setting them free after-“

“Sam.” Bucky snaps, and Steve sighs from somewhere near the bunnies. “Keep saying stuff, and I’m going to throw the spiders at your face.”

You laugh. You can’t help it.

And Bucky hears it. Steve probably does as well, but he’s used to it. Bucky, though, is whipping his head around with a tight frown—the kitten still tucked so safely into his chest—and your heartbeat is in your ears. 

His gaze lands on you, bright blue eyes seeming to pull you apart in a million ways, and his tongue flicks over his lips as you hold his stare. 

Then he turns away, and you let out a long, slow breath of relief. You didn’t make it weird, and maybe it aches that he doesn’t want to look at you, but you’re really not expecting more. You’ll be fine. You can go home, maybe get lost in a daydream of that metal hand tracing over your features or his stern, deep voice humming your name, and not have to worry about if Bucky was disgusted by what he saw. 

Fuck, what if he was disgusted by what he saw. What if he looked away because he didn’t want to look at you, and your heart is going to keep skipping while he only thinks of you as a weird, ugly, useless-

“Hey.”

It’s in your throat now. Your head whips to the side, and there’s Bucky. Still carrying the kitten, fallen behind Sam and Steve to walk with you.

He’s even more handsome up close. You can feel the heat, radiating off his body. There’s an itch in your fingers to reach out and touch him. 

“Hi.” You whisper.

“Hey.” He grins at you, standing a little taller, and you flush. 

“You already said that.”

“Uh, yeah. Guess I did.” He shifts the kitten into his metal arm, offering you his hand. “I’m Bucky.”

You stare at him. You don’t want to shake his hand. You’ll fall over. 

But it would be rude not to.

You take Bucky’s hand for one quick shake, and it’s immediately a mistake. His hand fits so well in yours, and your swear you could feel little sparks flying up your skin at the contact, and his grip is firm enough you can already imagine it on your hips or thighs or neck or waist- 

Bucky clears his throat, pulling away to rub the back of his neck, and you were shaking his hand too long. You made it weird. Even now, you can’t stop staring at him. He’s pretty. Sharp jawline and dark, attractive features, but pretty. There are lines on his brow you’d like to soothe with your fingers. 

You don’t think you’re going to get the chance to touch him again, though. And if you do, it won’t be to soothe him, as if you could mean that to him. As if he’d turn to you for comfort. 

“Do you have a name?” He asks, giving you an odd look, and at this point you might end up setting yourself on fire. 

You tell him, and he stares at you for another second, repeating it back slowly—and it sounds so nice when he says it, and you’d like him to say it a million more times—before nodding, giving you one last grin, and jogging to catch up with Sam and Steve. 

It’s odd. You’re trying not to think about it.

But when you glance up, on the Quinjet, he’s looking at you again. He shouldn’t be looking at you. It’s making you feel warm everywhere, and you can feel your heartbeat in your fingers. 

You give him another close-lipped, sweet smile, and stare at your hands, hoping that will make this rush stop. 

It doesn’t. 

Is he still looking at me? You whisper to the shadows, lining the Quinjet walls, and they hum back to your ear. 

Yes.

Fuck.

———

It’s as if floodgates are opening. Bucky won’t stop showing up, wherever you look, and it’s going to give you a heart attack. 

A heart attack you’ll welcome, as long as it involves Bucky being near you.

Even it won’t really mean anything, when you fall down and nobody bothers to pick you up.

“Hey, creeper.” Tony waves you over one night, after one of his fancy let’s all celebrate how we’re the Avengers parties. “Stop lurking and come talk to us like a person.”

“I, um-“

“I did not spend thousands of dollars on lighting just for you to stand in the corner and talk to shadows the whole night.” Tony gives you another, slightly firmer wave. “Come here.”

You’d really rather not, but it doesn’t seem like you have a choice. It’s not that big a group anyway. Tony and his smug smirk, Steve—sighing and giving you an apologetic look as you shuffle over—Sam, and-

“Have you met Barnes yet?” Tony says, an almost taunting drawl lying under his tone. “He’s like you, but grumpier.”

Bucky scowls, but doesn’t speak. He’s just staring at the glass in his hand, his eyes flicking up to yours every few seconds, and this is something kind of beautiful nightmare. Everyone’s looking at you. You’re supposed to answer, but you’re going to say the wrong thing. There might be a world where you can just stare at Tony and they all give up on trying to talk to you, but then Bucky will think you’re weird. 

That might be the worst thing in the world. You can feel your palms sweating from just the idea of Bucky frowning at Steve later, and asking who let the crazy girl join the team. You don’t have Nat’s looks and charm. Don’t have Bruce’s intelligence to pair with your powers. You’re just you, and you got lucky enough that Steve decided you were useful enough for the team. 

They’re still all looking at you. 

You’re going to throw up. 

“I- I have.” You mumble, turning a bracelet on your wrist. “We’ve had a few missions.” You give Bucky another small, nervous smile. It seems to be all you can remember how to do. “Hi.”

“Hey.” He grunts. “You, uh- Hi.”

“You heard how her powers work, Barnes?” Tony drawls, shoving a fancy looking drink into your hands before seeming to materialize a new one for himself. 

“No.” Bucky grunts. “You don’t hand out pamphlets, Stark.”

“She’s-“ Tony pauses, frowning at you, and you’d like to sink into the floor forever. “How does it work? Are you a shadow? Or just- One with them. Like the Lorax of darkness.”

“We’ve talked about this, Tony.” You chew on your lower lip, trying to look anywhere but Bucky as you answer. “I’m the Lorax of darkness.”

“So you speak for the shadows?” Sam jumps in, and Steve frowns at him. 

“You’ve known her two years, you’ve never asked about the powers?”

“That’s rude, golden boy, I’m not just pokin’ you and asking how you run so freakishly fast-“

“Everyone knows how, Wilson,” Tony cuts in, and maybe if you’re fast, you can sneak away. “It’s very public information.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Man, don’t tell me about the Smithsonian again-“

“I just think we all contribute to the legacy of the Avengers, and I contribute by making sure everyone knows all our great heroes-“

“What’s a Lorax?”

You start slightly, and Bucky’s suddenly right next to you. Smiling at you—mostly just in his eyes, but still painfully gentle in a way that’s going to make you explode—and muttering right in your ear as Sam and Tony keep arguing.

“It’s a, um- Children’s book?” You can’t look him in the eyes. He’s too pretty, and you haven’t earned that. “It’s about environmental conservation. The Lorax is a character who speaks for the trees.”

Bucky hums. He won’t stop looking at you. “So you… speak for the shadows.”

“Yeah.”

“What do shadows talk about?”

“Anything.” You shrug, watching the ice in your glass clink off the rim. “Gossip, mostly. They’re nosy little bitches.”

Bucky snorts, and you’re smiling. You can’t stop it. You probably look insane, but Bucky laughed for you, and it was a deep, rough sound that’s going to follow you into your dreams. 

“What kind of gossip? Anything, uh- Juicy?” He bumps his shoulder with yours, and now you’re giggling.

“Not really. Everyone here is really bad at secrets, so most of what they tell me goes public like, five days later. They mostly just, um-“ You glance up at him, unable to help it, and his eyes are so blue. “They help me. I can fly, in really dark areas.”

“Huh.” He nods slowly, not breaking your gaze. “That how you got on the ceiling?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” He coughs, scanning over you so intently it might be searing into your skin. “That’s- Interesting. Are you- Uh- Do you like stuff?”

You frown at him. “Stuff?”

“Music. Or- Books.”

You’re not entirely sure what’s happening. Bucky’s face looks almost red, in the low lighting of the room. You don’t know what stuff you’re supposed to like, and you must be incredibly boring if that’s all he can think to ask. 

It’s also quiet. Really quiet. 

The fight has ended, and Steve, Tony, and Sam are all just staring at you now, and you’d like to maybe jump off a cliff.

 Tony sighs. “God, this is pathetic to watch-“

“Tony-“

“Was it the Hydra animal mission?” Tony pushes on, ignoring Steve’s warning tone. “That you two met on? Were you there when he took the cat? Because I know you took the cat, Barnes, I don’t care how many times you say you found it on the grounds.”

Bucky narrows his eyes, and you tilt your head at Tony. 

“What cat?”

“The cat.” He frowns at you. “God, not you too-“

“I don’t remember a cat.” You say, trying to make yourself a little taller than you are. “There were about twenty lizards, a few puppies and rabbits, and a bunch of bugs. Sam swallowed one.”

Sam scowls. “I only swallowed it because Barnes fuckin’ tossed it at my face-“

“He’s going insane.” Bucky shrugs, giving you another unreadable look. “You see everything, right doll? Were there any bugs?”

Oh.

Your heart is trying to beat out of your chest, because doll. He called you doll. And he said it so smooth, with a small twitch of his lips and all his attention. You’re doll. It might just be part of whatever game he’s playing with his friends—that you’ve been pulled into, like a surprise witness—but you’re doll for it, and you’d love to keep that. Even if it’s just a momentary illusion to fuck with Sam and Tony, for a second, you were treasured enough to Bucky to be doll.

“I didn’t see any bugs leave their containers.” You shrug, holding his gaze. “Or any cats.”

Bucky grins at you, and your heart seems to be hitting a rapid pace that’s going to pound right out of your chest. He must be looking at you because there’s something wrong with your face. That’s the only plausible explanation. 

But he’s still looking at you, and grinning. 

Even as you manage to excuse yourself, and vanish back into the corners of the crowd. You don’t see Bucky for the rest of the night. 

But he keeps seeing you.

In the gym, Bucky’s suddenly there whenever you go to try and train. Shirtless and sweaty, metal arm shining and muscles flexing with every movement. You have to leave early five times in a row, because it’s distracting, and you keep imagining your face pressed into his chest as those huge arms wrap around you. During briefings, Bucky’s suddenly across from you all the time, rather than at the front with Steve. He’s probably just trying to avoid Tony—who’s still caught on the cat thing—but it means you can’t look up from your papers without Bucky being there, and your heart doing it’s stupid little kickdrum beat. 

He’s in the garden, whenever you try to do your nightly walk. Wandering aimlessly and staring at all the flowers. You’re developing a bad habit of asking the shadows where he is, at any given point during the day, and they’re not being very helpful.

The handsome one is near you again.

You look up from your book, frowning at the air. I didn’t ask-

You should know. They hum. He’s sweet. We like him. You should talk to him. 

Where is he? 

In the hallway. Pacing.

You sigh, and shake your head, looking back to your book. 

They keep bothering you about talking to him. Keep telling you where he is, until almost half your thoughts are dancing around pretend conversations where you do go to him, and you somehow end up making out against the wall. One of his hands on your ass and the other resting gently on your throat, maybe his rough, deep voice humming your name and his body pressed comfortably over yours-

You wander into the kitchen, lost in the daydream, and the shadows didn’t fucking warn you this time.

Bucky’s at the islander counter, cutting up a cucumber at the slowest pace you’ve ever seen.

“Hi.” He grins at you as you walk in, and you freeze in the doorway. “Salad.”

“I-“ You gape at him, your face far too warm. “What?”

“Salad.” He nods to the cucumber. “I’m makin’ one.”

“Why?” You’re blurting again, without thought, and Bucky frowns down at the cutting board. 

You’re making it weird. 

“I dunno. Steve and Nat wanted one, and I, uh- I said I’d do it. So now I’m doing it.” He shrugs, flipping the knife in his hand, and you feel a little dizzy. “Do you want something else?”

You shake your head. It’s not your salad. It doesn’t really matter what you want. “I’ve got my sandwich,” you mumble, and he frowns. 

“Alright. You eat here, I don’t need the whole counter-“

“It’s okay.” You try not to brush past him, on the way to the fridge. 

It doesn’t work. Your shoulders bump, and now you’re lightheaded from the rush. 

“Thanks.” You give him a tight smile, clinging to your sandwich like it’s a lifeline, then sprint out of the room before you can make it worse. 

There must be someone out to get you. Trying to make your heart kick into a high enough overdrive to kill you, or playing a cruel game where Bucky is everywhere, and you don’t get to have him.

“There’s another Tony-mandated press event.” Natasha smiles at you a few days after the kitchen incident, and you stare at her with wide eyes. “You want to go shopping with me? For an outfit?”

“I, um- I have clothing already-“

“Yes, but this is an excuse to get more.” She takes your hand, giving you a well-designed, sweet smile. “It will just be you, me, and Wanda. Easy. We’ll spend all of Starks money and go home.”

You swallow, and there isn’t really a choice here. Saying no to Natasha is the most terrifying thing to do in the world, and you’re going to spend the whole time staring at the mirror—trying to will your body into a different shape with your mind—but at least you can maybe walk away with something more flattering, using Wanda and Nat’s fashion skills. It won’t be horrible. Just a long, tiring afternoon with free food. 

So you give him. And Nat gives you a squeeze of your arm and a smile you don’t understand, before starting to drag you out of the common room. 

“Wait, now?”

“The event is in a month.” She shrugs, stopping in front of one of Tony’s fancy cars. “But I have a mission, then you have a mission, then we all have things. We have to go now, if we don’t want to be running around like idiots in the morning.”

There’s some logic to that, but something about this feels off. Maybe it’s that Nat lets you pick the music on the drive, or her finger keeps tapping on the wheel. Her phone keeps buzzing, but it’s face down, and it would be rude for you to look at the screen. 

She didn’t wait for Wanda to join you.

And when you pull up to the curb, in front of the store, your eyes narrow on the street in front of you. That’s Sam’s truck. 

“Nat,” you mutter, the shadows in the car starting to grow longer as you take long, slow breaths. It’s fine. You’re going to be fine.

“Hm?”

You shoot her a glare. “You said it was just us.”

“And Wanda.” She shrugs, turning off the car. “I said Wanda, too.”

“Then why-“

“Because I lied.” She doesn’t sound very fucking guilty about it, and the shadows are starting to move over your thighs, trying to shield you from view. 

They’re going to see you. Everyone’s going to see you, and think things about you that you don’t want to see on their faces, and if Sam’s here, that means Bucky’s here. 

He can’t see you. You won’t be able to think or speak clearly as long as you know Bucky might be looking at you. And it’s not like he’s never seen you wearing formal clothing before, but this is different. This is intimate, with all your friends, trying things on to see how you look. 

You just won’t go to the party at all. Tony can yell at you all he wants, you don’t want to see Bucky staring at you, silently judging how you look in a too-tight dress, being too much of a gentleman to tell you that you should stick to baggier pants and shirts-

“Hey.” Nat takes your hand, her voice impossibly firm. “Breathe. I didn’t want to lie, but you wouldn’t have come otherwise-“

“But you could go without me- I’ll just stay in the car-“

“No. I want you to hang out with us.” She sighs. “We all want you to. If you hate it, I’ll let you punch Sam.”

You blink at her. “Sam?”

“Yeah. I’ll hold him, you punch. We can do that even if you have fun.” She raises her brows. “Alright? Because you either come into the store and eat all the free shrimp, or I make everyone take rotating shifts to keep you company. Like a dog.”

“Or I could sit in the car alone-“

“You can sit in the shop alone. With free shrimp.” She sighs, holding your gaze. “Please.”

That makes the shadows retreat, if only out of shock. Nat doesn’t say please for almost anything, let alone to beg for something. Something as stupid as you, going shopping with her. 

“Oh- Okay.” You sigh. “Fine. You win.” 

“Good.” Nat lets out a slow breath. “Let’s go, we’re like ten minutes late. Steve’s going to start trying to get me to buy a watch again.”

Steve. Steve is here. 

Which means Bucky’s probably here as well. 

And everyone falls silent, when you and Nat walk up to them. You’re trying to stay behind Her, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Sam says your name with a grin, clapping a very rigid Bucky on the shoulder, and you’d like to go back to the car now.

“You made it,” Wanda smiles at you, and you try to return it, but you see yourself in the mirror, and you look insane. “Come, I’ve been looking for things you will like.”

She almost drags you away, before the rest of them can see anything, and suddenly you’re behind a curtain and everything is quiet. 

You take a loud, stuttering breath, and Wanda sighs.

“I am sorry.” She hums, turning a dress on a hanger. “I told them this was a bad idea.” 

You frown at her. “What?”

“You know of my powers.” She murmurs. “I try not to invade, but- You are very loud. In here.” She taps her head, and you flush. 

She knows. Of course she knows. She can see into your mind, see how you’re just some vermin among gods, and you’re pining for something on a mountain when you’re barely even good enough for the dirt-

“That is not true. You are not vermin.” She frowns at you, and you wrap your arms around your gut. 

“Can you- I know you can’t help it, but-“

“My apologies.” Wanda sighs, looking back to the dress. “But he does not know. And I will not tell. I just thought you might want to not be there.”

“I didn’t.” You mumble, pressing your back against the wall. “Thank you.”

She shrugs, looking back to the dress, and you want to ask it. You don’t want the answer, but it’s still itching at your tongue, and at least you’ll be able to give up-

“I do not know.” Wanda says suddenly, pulling the dress off the rack. “I am not part of their circle, I am only here because Natasha thought it would lure you.”

“Oh-“

“And Bucky’s mind is…” She trails off, shaking her head slightly. “Guarded. He does not let any thoughts slip where I can hear them. But if you are asking my opinion, as a friend.” She gives you a small smile. “I think you are beautiful, and sweet. And he is not blind. He tries to speak to you. That is more than others.”

More than others.

You can take more than others. Beautiful, you don’t believe, because you’ve never believed it. When people call you that, it’s a trick or a lie. They want something, or they’re trying to cheer you up, and it doesn’t count.

But if Bucky talks to you more than others, there’s at least a shot, no matter how blind. You could be his friend, and nothing more. You could be a ghost he likes to talk to more than the skeletons under his bed. There when he needs it. Trying to touch him, but simply not capable of it. 

And you’re going to hold onto it under you’ve strangled it. 

“Hey-“ The curtain swings open, Natasha grinning at you from the other side. “Did you try on Wanda’s dresses?”

“Not yet-“

“We’ll come back.” She grabs your arm pulling you out of the dressing room. “If you don’t like what I found for you. Which you will.”

You glance back at Wanda, and she smiles at you before you vanish. 

And Nat found you a lot of dresses. You ask the shadows—while she’s letting you change—and they say she’s got twenty more in a closet somewhere. And you don’t really have an opinion of any of them, but Natasha has about a thousand. Apparently, you look hot in all of them, but she’s looking for the one that dazzles.

“What does dazzles mean.” You mutter, fidgeting with the skirt, and she sighs. 

“You’ll know when we find it.” She shrugs. “Try on the pink one.”

You do. And then the blue one. Then the lace one. Then the other pink one. And none of them—according to Natasha—dazzle.

But this one. 

This one is nice. 

The others felt too tight, or too frilly, or too itchy. But this one doesn’t make you want to shrink into yourself, or maybe peel off your skin and see if there’s someone better underneath. It’s just nice. Feels good. 

And when you walk out, Natasha grins at you, sitting up a little taller. 

“This.” She takes both of your hands, squeezing them tight. “This is dazzles. Let’s go.”

“Go?” You stumble back, shaking your head. “Can I- The dress-“

“It looks great! I want to show off what we did-“

“Natasha.” You swallow, your arms going back around your stomach at your breathing picks up. “Please. I don’t want to.” 

She frowns, crossing her arms over her chest and scanning you up and down. “Why?”

You shrug. “I think you know.”

You have no fucking idea if she knows. But whatever she thinks she knows is going to get you out of this. 

And it does. Nat sighs, glances down at her phone, then back to you.

“Okays. I’m- I didn’t mean to make it. This.” She waves around the room, then at you, and it’s the closest you’ll get to an apology. 

You’ll take it. “It’s okay. Just- I can’t.”

“Yeah, I know.” She pauses. “Do you want to get the lunch I promised you? Just us?”

“And Wanda.” You add quickly, and her lips twitch. 

“Sure. You guys meet me out front, and I’ll tell the boys they can fit Bucky for a suit by themselves.”

You nod, rubbing your sides and trying not to think about Bucky in a suit. Strong. Ripping through the seams of it and cleaned up so nice, you want to see how fast he can get dirty again. 

But you can’t. There’s a shot, and if Bucky sees you like this—wearing a dress that you have no right to, panicking and trying to shrink into yourself—you’ll miss. 

All you have to do is be his friend. 

And that can’t be that hard. He keeps showing up everywhere, his face even on Natasha’s screen as he tries to call during your sorry for making you have a panic attack lunch.

“Are you guys close?” You ask, poking your straw around the glass and Nat frowns at you.

“Me and who?”

“Barnes.” You can’t sound bitter about it. That’s insane. “He’s calling you.”

“Oh, Bucky just wants an update on some work I’m doing for him.” She waves her fry casually through the air. “Wanda’s worked with him more.”

“He is wary of me.” Wanda shrugs. “But I am new, and he trusts me enough to not look very hard for a weapon, when I enter a room.”

You frown. “He does that?”

“Yeah.” Nat shrugs. “Old Red Room training.”

“Oh. I’ve- Never noticed that.”

“I know you haven’t.” Nat smirks at you, and before you can ask what the fuck that means, she’s talking again. “What do you think of him?”

“Of-“

“Barnes.”

You stare at her, and you’d like to go back about ten minutes and never start this conversation. That was a really fucking stupid move for you to make. Now they’re both looking at you, and you’re painfully aware of the flush on your face and way that your hair and how, if Bucky walked in now, he wouldn’t even spare you a glance-

Wanda clears her throat, giving you a gentle look.

Too loud. 

You’re being too loud, and not answering the question for way too long. 

“I like him.” You mumble, focusing your gaze on Nat’s nails. They’re red. Shiny. Yours are just kind of there. “He’s nice.”

Nat nods slowly, and that seems to be the end of Bucky talk. The conversation moves to a TV show you’ve all watched, and you might be out of the woods. 

But Bucky is everywhere. 

And all his friends suddenly seem very interested in hanging out with you.

“Did you do anything interesting last night?” Steve asks you in the kitchen, and you’d nearly choked on your yogurt.

“Not really.” You whisper, starting at a little bit of granola, trying to drown itself. 

You understood the feeling. 

“I went for a walk. Looked at the gardens. Watch some TV.” You gave Steve a tight smile. “Did you do anything?”

“Yeah, Buck and I started measuring out his apartment, we’re trying to find what furniture he’ll want.” Steve’s tone turns soft, and your hands curl on your spoon. That wasn’t a good sign. “Do you want to come with us? I think you and Bucky would be friends-“

“No!” You sit up too tall, your words a little too loud, and Steve blinks. “It’s- I mean, you might be right, and Bucky is great, but I- I’ve got three reports to write and- Yeah. Have fun!”

You almost run from the kitchen. You know you were talking too fast, and Bucky is more than great, but you can’t fucking go shopping with them. Not again. You’ll say something or do something or just stand in the wrong corner, and they’ll never want to speak to you again. 

But that doesn’t stop anyone from trying to get you to do something. Getting lunch. Watching a movie. Sam just corning you and talking about flowers for fifteen, very strange and long minutes. 

You’re not sure what’s going on. Nothing’s different than it was before, when they left you to your shadows and gave you tight smiles in the halls. But now Natasha’s sitting next to you in briefings, and Sam keeps grinning at you, and Bucky-

He’s not looking at you at all. He’s staring at his hands, braced on the table, and shooting Sam a glare every few seconds. 

He’s only tried to talk to you a few times, in the past few weeks. 

And both times won’t stop playing on loop in your brain. 

“What’s your favorite book?” He’d materialized behind you in the gardens, and you’d nearly jumped out of your skin. 

Your heart has still done its stupid little flutter, and it’s had kicked into a high beat when Bucky had steadied you, swearing under his breath. 

“Shit- Sorry, doll, you alright-“

“I like books.” You’d said, your hand splayed on his chest—he was warm, and strong, and you’d had to yank yourself away like you’d been burned—and voice far too breathy to be normal. 

“I know, uh-“ He’d cleared his throat. “What books?”

“Books.” You might have been about to explode. “About dragons.”

You’d run, after that. And then the second time as well, when he’d told you that you were paired together on the mission. 

“Sorry,” he’d said, giving you a grimacing smile before turning away. 

Sorry. 

He’d been sorry. That you were paired together. 

And you couldn’t figure out why. It’s not even that hard a mission. 

“I’d rather this be in and out, guys.” Steve says, in his captain stance at the front of the room. “We’re in teams of two, which means you should all be retrieving one thing. Sam and I will have two, but I’m the Captain-“

“Oh, he’s the Captain.” Tony drawls, and Steve sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You can take the double duty if you want, Tony.” Nat hums, legs on the table. “Wilson just drew the short stick.”

Sam frowns. “I wanted to go to safe house three, but- Oof.”

Nat had elbowed Sam right in the gut, and before anyone could keep talking, Steve was clearing his throat. 

“No trades. I made the teams like this for a reason-“

“Sounds like the reason is Wilson losing a bet-“

“-And we’re going to stick to them.” Steve looks around the table, pointedly ignoring Tony’s comment. “We’ve got back up on standby, in case any of us bite of more than we can chew. Ready?”

There’s a grumble of acknowledgment, and everyone starts to stand up and make their way to the Quinjets. There are seven safe houses overall, so you’ll have to take separate flights to get to each one. 

Which means you’re flying with Bucky. 

Who still won’t really look you in the eye. 

He gives you a tight smile as he climbs into the ship, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. Then he’s punching in the coordinates with the force of a man who really doesn’t want to be in the same area as you for long, and sitting down without a word.

You’re staring at your hands, trying to figure out if it’s dark enough outside for you to jump, and just fly by yourself to the safe house. Bucky clearly doesn’t want to be here with you—you can’t blame him, you wouldn’t either—and the silence is a little too heavy over your chest. You don’t want to listen to music he might not, or try and talk to him, then say the wrong thing. Quinjets have game functions, but you might suggest you play the wrong game. And when you glance up at Bucky, he’s still not looking at you. 

Playing a game would require looking at you. And he doesn’t seem to want to do that at all.

And now that you’ve looked at him, you can’t look away. 

He’s pretty. So pretty. Hair falling slightly in his face, but softer looking than when he arrived at the compound. His tactical suit is perfectly fitted to his body, his gloved hand covering the cover of his book, and his brow pinched slightly as he reads. 

He brought a book. That’s smart. You should’ve thought of that, but you didn’t, because you’re a fucking idiot-

Bucky shifts slightly, and you can see the cover over the book. 

“I love that book.” You blurt, and Bucky looks up at you with an unreadable expression. “It’s- Really good.”

You’re going to jump out of the plane whether you can fly or not. Bucky’s staring between you and the book, and why isn’t it dark, there aren’t enough shadows to hide-

“It is good.” He says, and you blink. He’s talking to you. “I like it. Steve recommended it to me-“

“I recommended it to Steve.” You’re talking so fast, and Bucky’s lip twitches slightly. 

“Yeah, doll. I know.”

“Oh. Cool.” You look back to your hands, picking at your nails, and the few shadows that had curled over your hands are starting to retreat. You can do this. You can talk to him and not make it weird, you can be his friend, you just have to say something-

“Sam told me this thing lets you play Uno.” Bucky cuts through your thoughts, and you look back up at him with wide eye. “I don’t know what that means, but it’s supposed to be a good thing.”

“It’s a game.” You mumble. “Do you- Want to play it?”

Bucky nods, setting the book aside, and you try to make your shaking breath as quiet as possible. It’s just a game. He’s not proposing. 

But your heart won’t stop doing to flutter. And when Bucky grins at you, Tony’s very important mission game closet opening up from the wall, it’s nearly beating out of your chest again. 

He’s helping, though. Bucky’s mostly just letting you take the lead, listening to you explain with a firm attention that burns into your, but doesn’t hurt, and smiling with bright eyes at your every attempted joke. 

“So I just gotta run out of cards.” He mutters, scanning over the deal in his hand, and you nod. 

“Yep. And I, um- I get competitive. So.” You swallow, staring down at your own cards. “Please don’t get mad at me if I call you a cunt.”

Bucky snorts, and it’s like something’s glowing in your chest. “I think we can get around that, doll. Who goes first?”

“You.” It’s a whisper, but he called you doll again. 

And he won’t stop doing it. Talking to you. Looking at you. Grinning at you. 

Something is happening where Bucky is talking to you like you’re not a burden, and you can’t tell if it’s a trick or dream, but fuck you don’t want it to be.

“Do you have a favorite animal?” He asks, and you shake your head. 

“I like all of them. I tried to talk Tony into having, a, um- Zoo.” You flush slightly, playing your card. “He said that wasn’t possible or reasonable, but I could have a cat.”

Bucky hums, making his own play. “He likes you.”

You huff softly. “No, he doesn’t-“

“He likes you as much as Tony can like anyone.” Bucky shrugs. “You wanna see what Tony hatin’ someone looks like? Look at me.”

“He doesn’t hate you-“

“Yeah, he does. He didn’t say I could have a cat.” Bucky pauses. “Never thanked you for that, did I?”

“For what?”

“The cat thing.” It’s his move, but he’s not playing. He’s just looking at you, so fucking softly. “Meant a lot. You didn’t even know me.”

“Yeah, but-“ I might be in love with you, just a fraction, but more than enough to make me insane. “It’s whatever. She seems happy in your room. Healthy.”

“She is.” Bucky sits up a little taller. “How-“

“The shadows.” You shrug, poking him with your foot. “Your play, Buck.”

He stares at you for another long second, and you could swear his ears had turned a little pink by the time he looks back to his cards. 

“So, uh-“ He coughs, looking intently between his hand and the pile. “Those shadows of yours. They just- Tell you anything they’re seein’?”

“Anything they think I should know about.” You shrug, making your own play. “I- um- I’m going to tell you something.” You glance up at him, chewing on your lower lip. “But please don’t tell the others.”

“Won’t say a thing.” He nods sharply, leaning further over the table. “Something wrong-“

“No, I just-“ You sigh. You shouldn’t tell him. 

But you want to. You want him to like you. Trust you. Just keep looking at you like this. 

“When I first moved into the compound.” You mumble, playing your card. “The shadows weren’t used to having me around people. And what they thought I should know what… everything.” You give him a tight smile. “I know a lot. About everyone. Very fast.”

Bucky frowns. “A lot-“

“Vision does have a synthazoid dick. And he and Wanda have been together longer than people think.”

Bucky stares at you, and he’s definitely red now. “Ah.”

“They don’t do that anymore.” You say quickly, watching him play his own card. “I promise. I trained them out of it fast, now they know what’s important and what’s private, they just decided that the cat was important, but anything else you do with, um- Anyone is- I wouldn’t know-“

“Breathe.” Bucky grunts, and you take a loud, deep inhale. “It’s alright, doll. I believe you. And I, uh-“ He frowns at the air, not meeting your eyes. “I don’t got anyone. Like that.”

“Oh. Okay.” 

Bucky nods sharply, making his next play, before saying, “Alpine.”

You stare at him. “What?”

“That’s her name. The cat.” He sighs. “And she’s doin’ good. Thanks to you, lying to Tony.”

“Don’t worry about it.” You shrug, and you’re down to two cards now. “It’s really easy to lie to Tony.”

Bucky’s lips twitch. “You wanna meet her?”

“Yes, please.” You say it before you can over think it, and Bucky grins at you. 

Wide, and real, and sort of world ending. You’re not sure if you’ve ever seen his grin grin, and it’s beautiful. Bright and toothy and filled with a quiet kind of light that would be really easy to get lost in. 

You’re already lost in it. 

You don’t kind of love him. You do. Just one stupid, full conversation, and it’s slamming into you without relent. More than just a crush. More than just an idolization of the strong, handsome man who loves animals. 

It’s fluttering in your heart and spreading into the tips of your fingers. Warm and buzzing and comfortable. 

And there are so many ways for you to say it. That it’s how every single thing you’re telling him, he’s nodding like it’s something to be memorized. How you’ve seen him block food he knows Steve likes from being taken by Clint, or the fact that once you saw him smell some flower in the garden. It could be how he’s dry but not cruel, and firm but not harsh, or maybe just the fact that he’s the kind of man who’d carry that kitten out of a lab like it was more important than the world.

But really it’s just this.

You’d like to see Bucky smile forever. 

“Uno.” He places down a plus four with a slightly smug grin, and your eyes widen. 

“You cunt.” You breathe out, still sort of under a spell, and Bucky laughs. 

And that’s beautiful, as well. 

You’re a goner. Just friends might be more than you can handle, and still so far from enough.

But as Bucky offers you his hand to get up, you’ll manage. He’s everywhere anyway. A least this way, he might keep grinning at you, touching you, and it will be more than anyone else. 

Friends. 

You can do friends. 

———

The mission went well. 

For you and Bucky. 

You’d been in and out. Joking about almost nothing as you walked together through the safe house, your shadows alerting you of traps and Bucky always within reaching distance in case they missed one. 

They did. Just a single tripwire that you stumbled over, and Bucky yanked you back from. His arm wrapped around your waist as he tugged you right into his chest, and spikes shot up from the floor. 

“It’s like the Goonies.” Bucky had muttered, and you’d frowned. 

“Not really, it’s more-“ You’d looked back at him with wide eyes. “You watched the Goonies?”

“Sam made me.” He’d frowned. “It was kind of fucked up.”

You’d hummed, then suddenly realized that Bucky was still holding onto you. Keeping you pressed against him, and you could feel his muscles flexing around you, rest your hand on his forearm, his lips barely inches away from yours-

He’d licked them.

And it was a habit you’d seen him do countless times, but it was different up close. You could see the pink of his tongue and wet of his spit, and you wanted to surge up and taste him-

You’d shoved away from each other at the exact same time. And as you’d stumbled a little too far back, Bucky had caught your hand and pulled you upright. 

He’d held your hand for a long second after, a gloved thumb running over your knuckles. 

Neither of you spoke about it. And when you’d retrieved your data, you’d just gone right back to the Quinjet, no disaster but how you could still feel the phantom of Bucky’s hand in yours.

Everyone else wasn’t as lucky. 

You stepped into the hanger to find a lot of shouting, and a few drawn weapons. Apparently almost everyone else had fucked up somehow, and you were missing half the data you’d needed because of it. 

“Just skip the debrief.” Steve had muttered, watching the rest of the team wearily. “You guys can take the afternoon, just get your post-report done before the end of the month.”

Bucky had decided to stay and help Steve, but you didn’t think you could handle being in the middle of this. Someone might yell at you, then you’ll start crying, and nobody will ever look you in the eyes again. But before you can get out of the hanger, Bucky’s calling your name. Grabbing your wrist and giving you a small grin, his thumb doing the thing again.

It’s like being struck by lightning. 

“Uh- Good work.” He coughs, letting go of your wrist and drawing up to his full height. 

You’d like to climb him. 

You’re lucky he’s touching you at all. 

“Do you wanna meet tomorrow? Do our report?”

You nod, trying to keep your voice as steady as possible. “Yes- I- That sounds good.”

Bucky nods, gives you another grin, then jogs back away, leaving you swaying slightly as you try to get a fucking grip. Friends hang out with each other. People who have mission reports to do also hang out with each other. 

But he asked you. 

And you don’t meet tomorrow. Or the day after that. The aftermath of the mission is being felt through the whole compound, and the week is crawling by, and Bucky’s always busy.

Or he’s not. 

You lie flat on your back in your room, staring at the ceiling and taking deep breaths, trying to keep everything from spiraling. He’s just busy. Everyone’s busy. He didn’t realize that you’re not worth his time or attention, that he shouldn’t even be thinking about looking at you, that you can just do the reports slightly, and he regrets speaking to you ever, at all-

The handsome one wants you to know he is free now.

You frown, sitting up slightly. He wants me to know?

He turned off all the lights in his room. He is talking to the walls. He looks insane, but he is very instant we tell you he is free.

Free of what?

He did not tell us that. 

You sigh, running a hand through your hair, and push off the mattress. Bucky doesn’t hate you. He was just busy, like you thought. And he wants you to know he’s free in his room. 

Which doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a room. 

Bucky’s room. 

That you’re walking to, and you didn’t choose an outfit, and he’s going to take one look at you and kick you out into the hall-

The door opens before you can even knock, or turn around and run away. Bucky grins at you from the other side, and he’s not kicking you out. 

He’s just smiling.

And you can do this.

“Sorry, I, uh- I heard you. Walking down the hall.” He steps to the side, glancing past you carefully. “You should get in before Alpine starts yelling.”

You nod, scrambling inside, and Bucky’s apartment is nice. It’s not cluttered, but not bare, and the kitten—now much larger—is blinking at you slowly from his bed. 

He has a bed. 

And you knew he had a bed, but it’s different to see it. To know that he sleeps there, and might have had other, better women in it. That he’d touched them with that metal hand, and they’d shivered, and those full lips had trailed down their bodies-

“Sorry it’s empty.” He’s frowning around the room at your side, and you have no fucking clue when he appeared next to you, but he’s there now. “I just started usin’ furniture again.”

“No, it’s nice.” You glance at Alpine. “Can I-“

“Sure. She’ll like you.”

Bucky says that like it’s a fact. As if there’s no chance at all that Alpine will lean back, when you offer her your hand. 

And she doesn’t. 

But you don’t understand why he has so much faith in that. 

“Is this the stuff you got with Steve?” You ask, scratching Alpine’s ears as she starts to purr, and he frowns.

“Yeah, uh- It is. How’d you know about that?”

“Steve invited me.” You shrug, giving him an apologetic smile. “I was busy, sorry.”

“’S fine.” He mutters, still frowning and shooting a glare at the door. “Sorry. About him.”

Sorry.

“Why?” You ask before you can think better of it, and Bucky lets out a long, slow breath. 

“I know you’re not-“ He’s still glowering at the door. You might be missing something. “Me.”

You blink at him. “Huh?”

He shakes his head, looking down to the floor. “I know you’re not- I know you don’t like being- It’s not you-“

“Bucky-“

“I’m sorry if they’ve been makin’ you uncomfortable.” His voice raises slightly, and you’ve missed something. He looks distressed, but you’re not even sure what’s happening.

“Who?”

“Natasha.” He mutters, and Alpine stretches, jumping off the bed to go rub at his ankles. Bucky sighs, kneeling to pet her as he continues. “Steve. Sam. They were tryin’ to, uh- They like making friends. And I told them to back off, but even Steve- Never mind. Sorry.”

You still feel sort of lost. You know they were trying to be your friend. You don’t understand why, but you also can’t begin to understand how any of that is Bucky’s fault.

“It’s okay.” You say anyway, because he looks so sad. Staring at Alpine with a deep frown, a sort of weight seeming to make his shoulders hunch and head bow. 

It’s aching, to watch him like that. 

You just want to make it better. 

“I didn’t mind, Buck.” You let out a soft laugh. “I sort of feel bad for them. Trying to like me is hard.”

Bucky’s gaze shoots up to yours, and there’s something in his gaze that’s blinding. Firm and unyielding, driving right into you and making you stand a little taller. 

“No, it’s not.” His tone is almost strict, and you blink at him. 

“Wha-“

“Liking you isn’t hard.” He looks back down to Alpine, letting out another slow breath as his tone drops. “It’s actually pretty damn easy.”

“Oh.”

You sound like an idiot. He’s wrong, you know he’s wrong, but for some reason you can’t really prove it to yourself. Bucky isn’t the type to lie, just to make you feel better. You’ve heard him call Sam a bird-assed-feather-dick for messing with the Quinjet controls, and refuse to apologize after. But he’d apologized to you. And he’d said that like it was real. Like it was something critical for you to know. 

And you don’t know what to do with that. 

It’s making you glow again. And you want to say something back, like how not everything is Bucky’s fault, but you can’t find the words without sounding like you’re insane. They all end with I love you, so I’d never be uncomfortable as long as I was next to you. And you can’t say that. I’ll make it weird. And there’s no way he’ll feel it back, so you’ll just be losing whatever fragile thing you’re building here. 

Where Bucky’s letting you into his room. Letting you pet his cat. 

Letting you further into his life.

“You wanna go get lunch?” Bucky asks suddenly. “We can eat, then do the report. If you want- We don’t gotta-“

“I’d like that.” You whisper, and Bucky grins at you again. “Where do you wanna go?”

“Wherever you’d like.” He shrugs, pushing to his feet. “Long as you think it’s good, I trust you.”

You wrinkle your nose at him. “What if I take you to eat snail.”

“Then I’ll eat a snail, doll.” He drawls, and you’re dizzy again. “C’mon. We can talk about dragons books.”

———

Bucky isn’t just appearing everywhere anymore. He is everywhere. 

But mostly because you’re seeking him out, and he’s doing the same for you. 

You’re friends. Real friends. And after you managed to swing the only success on the mission, you’re paired together for everything. 

He eats lunch with you. Tells you about what he’s reading, in exchange for your own recommendations. Sits next to you on the Quinjet, lets you hold Alpine, and sometimes even joins you on walks. Sometimes he’ll help you spar, and you get to see him shirtless. Sweating and focused and strong and big, and when he grins at you, it’s a miracle you don’t fall to your knees. 

He’s been talking to you more than anyone else at all, lately. You’ll be making dinner with him in the kitchen, and Tony will let out a low whistle as he walks past you. If you’re on a mission, Sam will grumble that he’s third wheeling, even though you’re the one that probably shouldn’t be here. 

Everyone can probably see it. How Bucky shouldn’t be wasting his time being your friend, when he could be doing so much more, with something better. 

But he’s not bored of you yet. 

And you don’t hate yourself enough to give him the push to finally put it together. That you’re not worth this at all. 

He’s been floating awkwardly around the common room for about twenty minutes, while you’re watching a movie with Wanda. 

“Buck?” You call over your shoulder, and he freezes, a panicked expression on his face. You’d think you caught him doing something bad. “Do you want to join us?”

“I, uh-“

“It is fine.” Wanda hums, not looking away from the screen. “Sit. You are pacing like an animal.”

Bucky clears his throat, and shuffles over to your side.

His arm goes around your shoulder, and you give him a small grin.

Out of the corner, you can see Wanda’s pointed look. And you don’t want to hear it. You know you love him, that doesn’t mean he loves you. You’d rather keep thinking he doesn’t. It’ll make it easier when he leaves. 

And you’re already hearing enough of it, from everyone else. 

Because you’re going to kill Tony. 

His mandated press event was a charity thing. You’re all supposed to walk around in groups, answering questions and getting people to like you enough that they’ll donate money. And that would’ve been fine. You’re paired with Bucky again, and you could stand in the corner for five hours, watching Steve trying to accomplish more and more insane dares from Sam and Nat. 

But Tony, with his endless pit of money and brigade of assistants, can’t seem to properly book a hotel. 

You got the email with your room number on it last week. You took the bus to the city, because you’d rather eat glass than ride a motorcycle, there will probably be paparazzi if you take the Quinjet, and people don’t tend to recognize you anyway. Not the way they point and giggle about the others. You don’t even really have a code name, you’re just the shadow one. 

It’s part of the job. It makes it easier to go out in public. 

It makes it harder to look in the mirror, because maybe you’re just not recognizable. And this is going to be a long weekend anyway—with cameras and smiling and people asking impossibly invasive questions the whole time—so when you get to the hotel, you’ve already exhausted yourself. 

There’s a reception, before all the actual things happening tonight. Nobody will want you there anyway, and an hour without anyone looking at you sounds amazing.

So you check in under the Stark party, get your key, and go straight to your room.

It should be your room. 

But when you open your door, Bucky’s on the other side.

He says your name with a wide grin. “I was gonna go look for-“

“How’d you get in my room?” You glance around, seeing his suitcase resting on the floor, his suit laid out on the bed. 

Bucky frowns. “This is my room.”

You stare at him for a second, before scrambling for your phone. This would be a really fucked up joke for Tony to play on you. And you really fucking wish you could put it past him, but you can’t. 

“No, look-“ You show him your email. “406. That’s my name-“

“I know, just-“ He sighs, rubbing his jaw with a frown. “It’s also my room.”

No. 

You can’t share a room with him. You’ll do something stupid, or he’ll see you sleeping and realize that he should never look at you again, and the room is starting to blur and spin and-

“Hey.” Bucky takes your face between his hands, lowering his voice. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’ll go fix this, I can crash with Steve-“

“No- no, it’s-“ You shake your head, grabbing at his wrists. “It’s- This is your room, I’ll go to Wanda-“

“Or we can share.”

You blink at Bucky, and he’s coming into focus so fast it’s almost dizzying. 

Share. The room. Bed. With Bucky. 

“I can sleep on the floor,” he adds quickly, and you can’t tell if that’s better or worse. “You just don’t have to go with Wanda. For me. Again, I’m fine with Steve-“

“It’s- It’s okay.” You give him a weak smile, your head still spinning. “We can take it up with Tony. If you want.”

Bucky raises his brows. “Do you want?”

“No.” You breathe, and friends share rooms. He won’t even be sleeping on the bed with you, so it doesn’t mean anything. You’ll be fine. “We can share.”

He nods slowly, giving you a small frown. “Are you sure? You did…” He trails off, rubbing his beard with a frown. “Freak out.”

“I just-“ I want you. Love you. Can’t do this and be normal. “I wasn’t expecting it. I’m good.”

Something flashes over Bucky’s face, but he doesn’t push it further. “Alright. We’ve got like, an hour ‘till we gotta go down there and play dancing monkeys. You wanna- They’ve got movies.”

He points to the hotel TV, and you can’t stop your small smile. 

He still wants you around. You’ve intruded—even if it’s Tony’s fault—but he’s not just being a gentleman. 

You get to sit next to him, and watch a movie until duty calls. And it feels too natural. Bucky’s knee bumping yours, his thigh pressed against you as if it’s nothing. Heat starts to sweep through your body at the contact, and it’s not helped by how you can smell him.

He must have showered before you arrived, because his hair is still slightly damp, and the evergreen smell of shampoo it’s smothering your every sense. When you lean a little to the side you can feel the heat from his body. 

His arm is stretched over your shoulders again, and when you lean back your head is on his bicep. 

You can’t really focus on the movie anymore. The only thoughts in your head are a constant loop of fantasy. Bucky’s arms, wrapping around you fully as he pulls you into his lap. His smooth voice in your ear, humming your name and lower words as he uses metal fingers against your pussy, and you flush and whine and beg, but he drinks it with kisses and calls you good girl-

“You okay?”

You blink out of your daydream, and Bucky’s frowning at you. Your thighs are pressed too tight together, and you’re far too wound up, and if you moved just an inch forward, you’d be resting your chin right on his shoulder. 

It hits you fast. How this is the position of people who love each other. Bucky’s fingers lightly grazing your upper arm, your bodies close but never close enough, your legs having at somehow hooked over his. 

You don’t want to run from it. Then you’ll have to explain why, and you won’t be able to do that. It’s another conversation that will have to end in I love you.

So you settle for soft words, and waiting for Bucky to move. 

He’s the one who’s lowering himself down for you to touch. You’re not strong enough to catch or chase him if he decides to go back up. 

“Yeah.” You breathe, your gaze seemingly locked onto his. “We should probably start getting ready.”

Bucky glances down at his watch, then back to you, expression still unreadable. “You know you can tell me if somethin’ is up, right? I’ll cover for you, with Stark.”

“I know.” You give him a small smile, and you feel like you’re glowing again. 

He would. 

And somehow, you don’t doubt that for a second. 

“I’m okay, Bucky. I just-“ You look down at your hands. “Natasha has my dress.”

“Ah, right.” He unwinds himself from your side, giving you a sheepish smile. “I’ll see you down there?”

You can’t help but return it. Not when it’s Bucky smiling at you, and his smiles are something so priceless and rare. “You will.”

It takes a lot of effort to run out of the room. To walk down the hall to Natasha with a sort of dazed, dopey smile, thinking about his body next to yours. You’d barely been able to handle that—as beautiful and priceless as it was—and you’ll have to go back, when this is done. You can use the gala as a way to practice being around Bucky, for when you have to sleep with him on the floor. 

Your current game plan is wrap yourself in shadows to make sure he doesn’t see you. It’s for his own sake, as no one would possible want to see you. You’d like him to, though. If Bucky wanted to see you, there’s not a world where you’d be able to say no to him. Even if he spent the whole time spitting on you, you’d still be honored he just paid you the thought of being unworthy. 

But you believe him, when he says he’d cover you. He’s touching you on purpose. Seeking you out. Offering to share the room. 

And when you trail after Nat, into the ballroom, he is looking at you. 

It feels raw. Bare. Uncomfortable, in a strange way you’d like to chase. Bucky’s looking at you, and it’s tingling all over your skin, but him looking away now feels like the worst thing in the world. 

Normally, you’d worry that there’s something wrong with you. An expression or bit of grime or lingering shadow on your arm, because it tends to make people uncomfortable. Maybe just a feature that’s wrong, some part of you that you’ll never be able to fix. 

But this room is so well-lit, all your shadows have to linger on the walls and in the corners. And Natasha did your makeup, hair, and chose your outfit. 

It’s the one from the dress shop. And you’d rolled your eyes as she pulled it out, to which she’d sighed and braced a hand on her hip. 

“Just take it.”

“Nat-“

“Did you like wearing it?”

You’d sucked your tongue between your teeth. “Yes, but-“

“That’s all we need. You like it.”

“People might not want to see me in it-“

“Don’t be insane and incorrect. You’re too smart for that.” She’d shoved the dress into your hands with a pointed look. “Fuck what other people think. Wear it.”

And you don’t think you can fuck what other people think. All you know is their secrets and judgmental stares. All you’ve ever know is how to take it as gospel. 

But Bucky is looking at you, wearing the dress that’s supposed to be dazzling.

And you feel like something holy. 

“Ma’am.” He offers you his hand, and you’re not sure how Nat got you to stand fully in front of him, but there’s a chance that was just you. That you went to him like a star, falling into a black hole. 

You’ll let him consume you, as long as he keeps looking at you like this. Like you’re something he’d want to devour. 

“Are you ready to dance?”

You stare at him, giving a weak shake of your head. “I- I thought we just had to take photos-“

“We do.” He’s doing the thumb thing again. Your knees feel weak. “Sorry, doll- I meant like the monkeys, from earlier-“

“Oh.” You take a shaking breath, giving him a weak smile. “Okay.”

Natasha clears her throat. “Earlier?”

“We were talking.” Bucky grunts, shooting her an odd glare, and she just grins.

“Alright. Have fun, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

You don’t know what that means, or why it makes Bucky tense, but then Natasha’s vanished back into the crowd. 

Bucky’s hand is on your lower back. You don’t know when it got there. 

There’s no world where you make him move. 

“You wanna go get some food?”

You blink up at him, and he looks like a god. Handsome and cleaned up so well, jawline sharp and slightly clenched, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to be able to say to him. How you’re supposed to be next to him the whole night, when you’re you.

But his eyes soften, when they land on yours. 

And there might be a world where you can make that enough. 

“Or.” He says softly, rubbing a firm circle on your back that tugs you slightly closer to his side. “Do you wanna go hide in a corner while I get you food.”

“That.” You mumble, still unable to look away. “Please.”

Bucky grins at you, and guides you over to a quieter part of the ballroom, pausing before he turns away. 

“Food’s right up there.” He nods into the crown, and you swallow. “Just, uh- Call. Or come find me. If you need anything.”

Anything.

If you need anything.

Bucky’s willing to get you it, as long as you ask.

And you don’t even have to. He comes back with a plate of your favorite food, and stands with you for almost the whole night. It takes a second for you to adjust to the people and the noise, but he lets you. Watches you the whole time, like you’re something worth looking at. Like there aren’t women far more worthy than you are, out in the crowd and waiting for his attention. 

The attention that you’re getting. All of it. 

He’s positioned in front of you, to block you from most people’s view. He keeps talking to you, as if anything you have to say is more interesting than the rest of the night.

“Who do you think it gonna fuck up first?” He says, scanning around the room at the rest of the Avengers, and you hum.

“Nat.”

Bucky grunts, but doesn’t show his immediate reaction. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Insider information.” You shrug. “I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“Ah.” He clicks his tongue. “You cheatin’, doll?”

“No, I’m committing a felony.”

Bucky snorts. “That’s worse-“

“Is it? Steve would commit a felony. But he wouldn’t cheat. So suck my dick.”

You give him a smug grin, and Bucky bursts out laughing. There’s not a second to doubt yourself, because he’s just laughing. A loud, full laugh that echoes a little as he grins at you, and you don’t think anything could feel better than this. Your heart is in your throat and fingertips. You don’t want it to go back down. 

“That’s a good one.” He grins at you, and your cheeks are starting to hurt from grinning back. “I’m gonna start usin’ that on him, he’s earned it.”

“Can you cite me, when you say it?”

“Every time.” He bumps your shoulder, and you giggle. High and sweet and still a little dizzy, as Bucky steadies you with a hand on your wrist and another chuckle. 

“Thanks.”

“Like I told you,” he shrugs, still grinning. “Anything.”

Anything. “And I don’t even have to like, pay you back?”

“Nah.” He waves you off, still grinning. “I’d ask you to dance, but you’d hate it.”

You swallow. “We can dance, if you want-“

“I don’t want if you don’t.” He shrugs, and he’s saying it like it’s so fucking simple. “We can dance later. When there aren’t people for you to worry about.”

People.

He doesn’t want you to worry about people.

And he doesn’t leave your side for the rest of his night. His hand rarely strays from your lower back. When there’s a desert table opened up, he makes you walk to it with him, but his body seems shrouded over yours to guard you from unwanted eyes. 

Which are any of them but Bucky. He can look at you as long as he wants, if he’s going to keep doing it like that. And when he gets a little bit of chocolate on his nose, you somehow find it deep in your gut—or maybe just some sort of instinct to touch him—to swipe your thumb over it, and eat it yourself. 

Bucky jaw clenches slightly at that, but before you can dive down into thinking about it—until it’s ripped to shreds and nothing but sheer panic—he chuckles, and switches your glass.

“Yours is gettin’ empty.” He says, as if that explains it, and you don’t have the power to question it. You just smile at him, and feel your heart when he smiles back. 

When the crowd starts to die down, you’re still smiling. There’s no overwhelming dread or panic that you did something wrong. There’s just Bucky, nodding a goodnight to Steve and guiding you back to your room. 

Your room. 

The room you’re sharing with Bucky. Who hasn’t moved from your side all night, and who you could’ve sworn keeps stealing glances at your breasts and figure. 

You must be losing your mind, is the conclusion of the night. There’s no world where Bucky looks at you like that. He’s your friend, and your love for him is like the moon loving the earth. Impossible for you not to do, but never manageable. You could never have him. You’re just you, and he’s gravitational and Bucky.

But he got you ice cream, while you were showering. And he turns red, when you shuffle out of the room in your towel, having forgotten your clothing. 

“This is, uh- You.” He holds it back, his eyes locked somewhere over your head. “Another movie, too. I’d watch it with you.”

“Okay.” You set the ice cream down on the bedside table, and he won’t look at you now. In the towel. So maybe he doesn’t want you.

He seems to want you when you’re back on the bed, wearing clothing. His arm goes back over your shoulder, and this time both your legs are over his lap. But then the movie ends, and he’s moving onto the floor without looking back. 

And you’re both supposed to just fall asleep. But you can’t. Every thought keeps spinning around Bucky, on the floor. He shouldn’t have to be on the floor. The room could’ve been his to begin with. He deserves the bed more than you do. You know it’s big for him to be sleeping in a bed at all, and you don’t want to take that away from him just because he’s trying to be nice.

He’s grunting slightly, just loud enough for you to hear. It sends a rush between your thighs, and your fingers curl in the sheets. 

This is a horrible idea. 

You’re going to do it anyway. 

“You can sleep on the bed.”

There’s a beat of silence, long enough that you’re not sure he heard you, then Bucky clears his throat. 

“Floor’s fine. Comfortable.”

You sigh, pushing up to frown at him in the dark. 

He doesn’t have a shirt on. Just bare, broad chest, and shining eyes on yours.

Your heart does the flutter again. You push through. 

“It’s a floor, Buck.”

“Pretty damn good one. I’ve slept on worse.”

“Fine.” You shrug, holding his gaze. “Then I’ll sleep on it with you.”

Bucky sighs. “Doll, you don’t wanna do that-“

“Why?” You raise your brows, leaning over until your chin is right on the edge of the mattress. “You said it was comfortable.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow as he scans over your face, and he lets out a slow, steady breath. “You’re not gonna drop this.”

“No. I’m not. It’s your bed-“

“Yours too.” He grunts, pushing to his feet. “It’s not all about me, sweetheart.”

You could argue with that. But you’ve already pushed it tonight. And you’re going to need everything else you’ve got to get through this. To have Bucky sleep next to you, and keep yourself together.

Neither of you are speaking. The mattress dips, as he climbs into bed at your side. And it’s not a small mattress, but Bucky isn’t a small guy. You can feel the heat from his body again, you can smell him.

You’re not going to be able to sleep.

Your heart is past fluttering. It’s kicked into overdrive, and you can feel it in your throat. You shouldn’t be sharing his bed. Even casually, this isn’t a place you belong. You’re going to whisper that you love him in the dead of night, and he’ll never look at you again. You’re going to try and touch him in his sleep, and he’s going to hate you. You should have just crashed with Wanda, you should’ve never come at all, you should’ve known better than to try and be his friend because you’re not even deserving of that, of his proximity, of anyone looking at you like Bucky’s daring to, and what if that was the dream and you’re going to wake up alone, the only thing you deserve to be is alone-

“You alright?” Bucky’s voice cuts through the dark after what seems like hours. “Your heart is beating really fast.”

“My-“

“Super soldier hearing.” He mutters, and you flush. 

That’s bad. That’s horrible. You didn’t even need to do anything to fuck it up, your body just betrayed you-

Bucky mutters your name, and you wrap your arms around your body, trying to sink into the mattress.

“I’m okay.” You whisper. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” You can hear the frown in his voice, and it just makes you feel rotten. You’re making him feel bad. “I know you worry, sweetheart, I’m not gonna take it bad if you want me back on the floor-“

“No!” You almost shout, your hand flying to your neck, trying to force your breaths back under control. The shadows are wrapping back over your body. You might become nothing at all, and it would be better than this. “I- It’s just- You don’t have to worry about it, Bucky-“

“I want to worry about it.”

The world falters. His voice is firm, and he’s rolled on top of you to stare at you. Watch you shrink into yourself with such intent it seems to be cruelly holding you from vanishing, making you suspended in your own darkness as he scans over your open, panicked feature. It’s like a broken video loop. Everything too slow, then too fast, too loud then starting over dead quiet. Bucky’s still staring at you. It’s still hard to breathe. 

And time doesn’t start again until Bucky so carefully takes your hand, and moves it away from your neck.

“I want you to let me worry about you,” he mutters your name, tangling his fingers with yours. “I’m already doin’ it anyway.”

You stare at him, your voice weak in your own ears. “What?"

“Shit- I- All I do is think about you,” he mutters your name, sounding almost pained by it. “Been like that for months, and it’s not going away. I think about what you like and how sweet you are, but how you got a pretty smart mouth. I think about how you look like the sunset and stars and all the oceans. I think about how you got me talkin’ to walls and reading dragon books, just cause I want to see you a little longer. I think about how I was yours before you even spoke to be, cause I looked at the walls and ceilings and kept thinkin’ I was seeing an angel. Then you were real. And good. And I liked you so much- I- Fuck-“ He bows his head, cutting himself off, and he can’t just stop there.

“Bucky.” You plead, squeezing his hand. “Please.”

“Fuck-“ He groans. “Don’t say that, baby.”

“But-“

“I don’t want to break you.” He mutters, eyes squeezed shut as he presses his brow to yours. “You’re so good, you’re the best thing I’ve had- Ever. But you always get nervous, when I’m in the room. But I couldn’t stop starin’ at you, or trying to- Shit, I wanted your attention so bad. Couldn’t stop thinking about that, either. How I wanted you more than- anything, but I didn’t want to talk to you and love you and make you cry. But Steve and Nat and Sam wouldn’t stop pushin’ it, and they- I’m not trying to make this weird-“

“It’s not.” You say quickly, and his eyes dart open. “Please- I- Please.”

You’re not sure what you’re begging for. 

But Bucky seems to. 

And he gives it to you, without a question.

“I love you.” He mutters your name, and your heart isn’t in one piece. It’s shimmering, beautiful, burning confetti, dancing through your body. “Loved you a while. Would like to love you for a while.”

A while. 

You can take a while. 

“I- I love you too.” You don’t know how you manage to get it out, but the way Bucky tenses above you, the way he looks at you like you’re made of stars—hair still wet, mascara still a little wet on your cheeks, wearing nothing but a sleep shirt and old sweatpants—makes it more than worth it. 

“Really?” He says it like he can’t believe it, and you nod.

“Yeah. Can-“ You swallow. “Can you kiss me?”

Bucky’s nostrils flare, and his thumb traces over your lip. Almost trying to memorize it, map it, study it with an adoration on his face that might set you ablaze. Then he lowers himself down, and his lips ghost over yours. 

You shiver from it, your hand shooting into his soft hair. 

And Bucky groans, before letting whatever tension—whatever leash—in his body snap, and slamming his lips over yours.

It only takes a second for you to be swept away in him. In the taste of the chocolate desert you’d shared, just under the mint of his breath. He kisses you as if he’s been waiting for it, as if every bruise of his lips against yours isn’t close to enough, every soft moan he starts to pull from your throat a song he’s never going to get sick of. Every bump of his nose with yours just makes him kiss you harder, and every time he traces his tongue over you, it’s as if he’s certain you’re going to vanish into nothing the next moment.

But you don’t.

You couldn’t if you tried. 

All your thoughts start to fade from a rush of panic into just Bucky. The way you’re melting into his lead, when his hand tangles in your head and gently tugs it back, deepening the angle of the kiss. Your mouth falls fully open when he pulls your lower lip between his teeth, and loud, desperate sound escaping you, and Bucky chuckles, pushing his tongue fully into your mouth. 

You might be shining, just under something as simple as a kiss. But he does it so well. It’s as if he’s been kissing you for years, studying to know how to shift you below him so your fingers can curl comfortably on his chest, so his teeth can bump against yours before he traces his tongue over them, and sucks your own into his mouth with a groan. His hand has started to move from your hair down to your neck, gently grabbing it and tipping it further back, before his kisses start to wander. Sloppy and open mouthed, claiming over your cheeks, down your jaw, the onto a soft spot at the base of your throat that makes you squeak. 

“Bucky.” You gasp, fingers threading through his hair, every desperate tug only seeming to make him more dedicated to abusing and worshipping that spot. “Oh- Please-“

“You know what you’re begging for, doll?” He murmurs against your skin, slowly kissing his way back up until you’re staring into hooded, gleaming blue eyes. “Cause I’m not doin’ anything you don’t beg me for. And we got a lot to talk about, so this,” he kisses you again, rough and fast and breathless within seconds. “Can wait until morning.”

You don’t want to wait until morning. He said he loved you. He can’t say that, then make you wait, and maybe he just wanted you to calm down and never loved you at all-

“Hey.” Bucky’s hand slides back over your throat, moving your head back until you’re forced to meet his gaze. “Breathe.”

“I- I am-“ You sniff, your eyes already feeling the ache of growing tears, and Bucky sighs. 

“Can I ask you something, sweetheart?”

You nod weakly, and he scans over your features slowly before he speaks. 

“You believe me?”

“Be- Believe you?”

“That I love you.” He mutters. “If you’re being honest-“

“I do.” You say quickly, and his lips twitch down. 

“Your heart is still beating fast.”

“That’s not- I-“ You close your eyes, shaking your head. “I just, I’m-“

You spread your legs beneath him, praying his nose will do the rest of the work for you, and when you peek, it seems to have worked.

Bucky so tense above you, you’re worried his going to snap. His hand is rubbing slowly on your waist, like the movement is the only thing keeping him from losing it, and his attention is so wholly focused on you, it might make you explode into starlight. 

“You don’t have to.” You mumble, tracing your fingers over the panes of his chest. “I- I know love and attraction aren’t always the same-“

“You think I’m not attracted to you?” He sounds offended, and when you look up, he’s glaring at you. “Jesus- You got any idea how many times I’ve fucked my hand just thinkin’ about you. How many cold showers I’ve had to take just cause you looked at me?”

You swallow, throat bobbing, and Bucky groans, dropping his brow to yours. 

“You’re perfect, doll. Every single fuckin’ thing about you is so perfect, sometimes I’m worried you’re not real.”

“I’m real.” You mumble, and he lets out a low, throaty laugh.

“I got that now.” He opens his eyes, examining you for a long, almost terrifying second as his hand glides back to your throat. “I’m gonna make you feel good, baby. Okay?”

You don’t how you manage to remember to speak. “Oh- Okay.”

“Thank you, doll.” Bucky leans down, speaking right over your lips. “You gotta do somethin’ for me, though.”

It’s more of a bobblehead motion than a nod, but you’re lost in some kind of whirlpool of feelings and Bucky’s hand, trailing touches over your midriff, so it’s the best you can do. 

Your back arches, as his fingers dip under your shorts, dancing lightly over your inner thigh, and Bucky groans. 

He’s not moving anymore. Still touching you, but not taking it further, and maybe you ruined it-

Bucky growls your name, and you let out a high, tiny noise from just the rumble in his chest. “Stop thinking.”

You blink at him dumbly, your mouth opening to respond with something about how you’re trying—you’re really trying but it’s all you know—but the words die in your throat. 

Bucky slides two, cold metal fingers between the lips of your pussy, and you gape up at him in a silent moan. 

“There you go.” He mutters, kissing you wet and hot as his palm presses then rolls against your clit. “Good girl.”

Your eyes flutter, arms flying around his neck in a desperate attempt to anchor yourself, and Bucky groans. 

“God, you’re wet-“ One finger teases over your entrance, and your squeak falls into another moan as he presses his tongue on the roof of your mouth, hand on your neck drifting to cup your face. “Slow down, baby, I told you I’m takin’ care of you. You just gotta take it. Can you take it?”

You make a soft noise, and Bucky sighs, fingers starting to rub faster up and down your aching pussy. 

“Can you take it.” He repeats, a little firmer, and you gasp. 

“I- I can take it-“

“Thank you, doll.” He grins down at you, and before you can work out what you’re supposed to say back, you’re gone again. 

Bucky rips off your shorts—the sudden, cool air sending a shudder through your body—before landing a firm slap on your pussy. You take a sharp breath, your nails digging into his shoulder, and Bucky pauses, raising his brows. 

“That-“

“Again.” You breathe out, tipping your head back as his thumb finds your clit, rolling small circles. “Bucky- Do that again-“

“Yes, ma’am.” He grins, nipping at your lower lip, and you almost fly out of your skin as he lands second one, fire starting to bloom in your abdomen.

“Mm-“ You tug at his hair, trying to drag his lips back down to yours. “More-“

He indulges you, this one making you almost fly off the mattress, but before you can keep begging, two fingers push into your entrance, and any thought but Bucky is pushed from your head. The cold of the metal is jarring, but only for a second. The next one it’s only adding to the stimulation, making your eyes roll back as your hand flies to his wrist, trying to hold him inside.

“You loved that, didn’t you.” He mutters, and you nod feverishly, mind numbed by Bucky’s fingers crooking slightly, rubbing against a sensitive spot deep inside you. 

“Bucky-“

“Dirty girl,” he teases, sucking on your upper lip until your mouth is hanging open once more. “So pretty, ruined from barely anything.” 

His hand starts to move, your hand on his wrist flying up to cover your mouth as his fingers drag inside of you, and a lewd whimper building in your throat. 

“Hey.” He grunts, yanking your hand away with a firm glare. “None of that. I wanna hear you. Listen you scream my name.”

The pace of his fingers pick up, scissoring and twisting inside of you, and you start to grind onto him, chasing any more bit of friction to make it enough. 

“Oh, you need my cock, don’t you baby.” He’s teasing again, but it only makes you burn a little brighter. There’s something soft and starved under it, and it just makes you grind faster. “Fingers aren’t enough for you, you deserve to be gripping my dick this tight,” his jaw clenches as he presses in deeper, rubbing against the deepest neediest stop inside of you, and you gasp a sound that’s supposed to be his name. “Shit, sweetheart, just-“

He rises up suddenly, hand moving away, and you barely get a chance to whine before he’s pulling you slightly up off the mattress, holding you so tenderly as he helps you out of your shirt. He kisses over yours shoulders as he works, then lays you back down with a deep, gentle kiss as slaps your pussy again, using your silent scream to shove his tongue fully down your throat. 

Metal fingers slide back inside of you, and you’re already right on the edge. Then Bucky starts to move, pumping slowly and teasing your clit with his thumb, and your eyes flutter shut to try and keep up with the sensations. 

But then his mouth moves from yours. Slowly kisses down your chest, biting and sucking a million tiny marks over your breasts, before taking one nipple and rolling it with his tongue. His thumb presses, finding a rhythm to match his mouth perfectly, and your orgasm crashes through you in a second. It makes the world go white and your finger yank at Bucky’s hair mindlessly as you shake below him. He groans around you, switching to the other nipple as you slowly float down, his fingers slowly fucking you through it through it, until you’re panting and dizzy in his arms. 

He’s not done with you. You don’t need to ask to know that. It’s written all over his face as he over you, trapping your gaze on his as he takes his fingers from your cunt, and presses them slowly into your mouth. 

You suck on them without a thought, swiping your tongue over the pads of metal fingers and moaning around him as you taste yourself, and finally feel the outline of his cock, hard and pressed to your inner thigh.

“You taste good, baby?” He asks, sounding almost staved, and you make a needy sound in an agreement. “Shit, you look so fuckin’ perfect- Hold on-“

He pulls away, and you whine, batting your lashes up at him in a silent plea.

Bucky—somehow—understands exactly what you mean. “I’ll fuck you, baby.” He mutters, swiping a little bit of drool gently off your cheek. “Just gotta taste you first. Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t. That okay?”

You’d have to be insane for it not to be. You spread your legs in invitation, and he chuckles, flesh hand landing on your inner thigh to drawl slow circles with his thumb.

“Needy girl.” He mutters, something like awe lying under his voice. “Don’t know how I got so fuckin’ lucky.”

There isn’t anything left in you to protest that idea. You’re the lucky one, and the world would probably agree, but something tells you Bucky wouldn’t care to hear it. 

He smirks at you, as he starts to trail hot, hungry kisses down your body, his hand slowly but firmly pushing your thigh a little wider open so he can settle between them. A hot breath ghosts over your clit as Bucky drags those same two fingers through your cunt, spreading the mess of your arousal around with an almost predatory focus. 

“Smell so good.” He mutters, and it seems to be mostly to himself. “Can I kiss it, doll? Please?”

He’s begging. Looking up at you with a hopeful expression, his fingers starting to roll around your clit as he waits for your answer, and you’d have to be insane to say no.

“Yes.” You breathe out, your hands drifting over his jaw, and he leans into your touch with another grin. 

“Thank you,” he says your name, pinching your clit before sliding his arm over your abdomen, fully pinning you to the mattress. “Let me hear you.”

It’s a pointless request. 

You don’t think you could stop yourself from screaming, as Bucky dives into your pussy and starts to devour you with such a fervor, you’d think he was tending to an alter. The first mangled, desperate sound—meant to be his name—is ripped from your body as his tongue starts to swipe up and down your cunt, before pushing inside of you and starting to fuck you without relent. His nose press against your clit as you yank at his hair, the moan from his chest vibrating against you and making you arch off the bed. 

“Bucky- Bucky-“ You’re repeating it over and over, like a fruitless prayer, not sure if you need him to stop before you come apart again, or have him keep going until you’re lost in him forever.

He presses a soft, taunting kiss over your clit before going back to the harsh, unforgiving tongue fucking, and it’s the latter. You need this forever. Bucky’s tongue twisting in your pussy before moving back up to flick over your clit, making you try to arch off the bed as he works you into a frenzy. His beard scratching and tickling against your overly sensitive skin, just driving you high and higher as he keeps to you still to do his work. His deep noises of pleasure, and the creak of the bed below you as he starts to rut into it. 

He’s getting off on this. On tasting you and letting you grind onto his face, on every yank of his hair and weak sound of pleasure that escapes your chest. When you glance down, he’s tipped his head up to watch you writhe above him, and it just makes you squeeze around his tongue. 

Bucky groans, his mouth moving to fully latch around your clit, the hand on your inner thigh shoving three fingers into your cunt without warning. Filling you up and pressing firmly inside of you as Bucky starts to suck on your clit like it’s candy, and you fall apart once more. Toes curling and legs latching around Bucky’s head, suffocating him between your thighs as your nails dig into his scalp and you scream his name in a hoarse, breathy sound. You’re falling and falling over the edge, over and over until you’re craning your neck to meet Bucky’s eyes, and he doesn’t stop his attack on your clit until you’re panting, overstimulated, trying to wiggle away from him with no avail. 

“It’s okay, baby.” He murmurs, dragging your legs apart and pressing one last kiss over your clit, before looking up at you with a grin. “Doin’ so good for me. Just one last thing, sweet girl. You still want more?”

You gape at him, because it’s an insane question. Of course you want his cock. You’re a mess of nothing but sweat and cum, and you’re boneless and wrecked, but you don’t think you’ll be satiated until he’s inside of you. Until all the lingering, darker thoughts of maybe he doesn’t mean it are—at least temporality—driven from your mind. 

“I need words,” he mutters your name, pressing a soft kiss to the tip of your nose, and it spurs your voice in a second.

“Yes.” You breathe out, fingers curling on Bucky’s beard. It’s still shining with your own arousal. You sort of never want him to clean it off. “Fuck me, Bucky. Please.”

He groans, diving down for a deep, sloppy and unmeasured kiss, before wrapping his arm firmly around your back and cradling you to his chest. Bucky rolls you both over, keeping you pinned like a koala to his chest as he rips off his own pants.

“Want to see you,” he says lowly, kissing your cheek, and when you twist slightly, you can see his cock. Rock hard, long and thick, being stroked slowly in his flesh hand as he holds your gaze. 

“Bucky.” You breathe out, starting to rub your bare pussy up and down his abdomen, eyes fluttering at the friction. “I want it you bad, please-“

“You got me, doll.” He mutters, slowly starting to pry you off his chest, picking you up as if you weigh nothing. “C’mon. Told you I’m gonna take care of my girl.”

If you were nothing but putty before, you certainly are now. His girl. You’re Bucky’s girl. And a high, happy sound leaves you, right as he lifts up your hips and slowly starts to pull you down on his cock. 

You can’t think anything but good. It feels so fucking good, and better every second as Bucky drives deeper and deeper, pressing and rubbing against every single electric, hungry spot inside your pussy. He’s watching you with that awe again, his grip on you tight enough to leave a bruise as his tongue flicks over his lips, and you can’t stop yourself from clenching around him. 

Bucky hisses, tipping his head back and squeezing his eyes shut, and he shakes his head. “Fuck- Doll, you need to relax-“

“Sorry.” You whisper, and he sighs, looking at you under hooded eyes. 

“Don’t be sorry, sweet girl.” He rubs soothing circles on your thighs, finally letting you sink fully onto him, the tip of his cock bumping deeper inside of you than you’ve ever felt before. “I just want this to last. And if you, Shit-“ He groans, one hand gliding up to roll over your nipple. “You feel so fuckin’ good, babydoll, you have no idea.”

You just blink at him, lost in a heated, foggy daze of Bucky, and plant your hands firmly on his chest. 

He’s being a gentleman again. Giving you time to adjust. 

But if he doesn’t fuck you, you’re going to start crying. 

You roll your hips above him, and Bucky groans. 

“You ready?” 

You nod, repeating the movement, and his hands fly back to your hips, trapping you on his cock. You whine, trying to squirm above him, and Bucky lets out a low, deep laugh. 

“Need it that bad, babydoll?”

You glare at him, digging your nails into his chest, and he hums. 

“Think you’re gonna take it. Keep bein’ so good for me.”

Another nod, and Bucky grins up at you.

“Alright, pretty girl.” He ruts his hips up, and you almost topple off of him. “Let’s clear that smart brain.”

Bucky slams up, holding you steady around him, and you’re barely anything but a ragdoll. A boneless mess above him, scratching at his chest as he fucks up into you, his cock dragging in and out, setting off every nerve in your body and somehow not letting it be enough. You can feel him everywhere, in the punching pace of his cock jerking up into you, in his possessive hold on your body and he rolls and grinds you against him, his every moan he lets out that rolls through your body and sweeps you into fire, and his gaze. 

His attention.

His eyes are barely leaving yours, only for long, wired and hot seconds where he rakes up and down your figure. You tits bouncing as you ride him, your skin shining with sweat as he drags you up into a third orgasm, every muscles in your body aching and sore, but still trying to chase more. You scratch as his chest and whine, and he angles you slightly forward, letting your clit drag against his abs once more. The metal hand even snakes between your bodies to flick at it, and you flutter around him, back arching and drool almost certainly falling from your lips. 

But Bucky is a drool-worthy sight, below you. Handsome and almost as wrecked as you are, groaning louder and louder every time your skin slaps against his, eyes blown out with lust as he drags your up and down his cock, his movements starting to lose their careful control the longer you go. He seems to be past words himself, only groaning your name and slurring words of praise you can hardly understand, but get the idea of. 

You’re being good for him. He loves you. 

And just the thought makes you start to spasm around him, his cold fingers on your clit sending you toppling over the edge for the third time, everything in the world only color and light at you fall higher than you’ve ever been before. 

But Bucky doesn’t stop. 

His flesh hand wraps around your neck as the metal one hooks around your waist, and he crashes up into you with such force it almost drives you out of your mind. He’s kissing you desperately, rough and almost violent, as he hips piston up into your cunt. And your mouth seems to be permanently open, letting him take and take and take, his tongue dominating yours and pulling sounds you didn’t know you could make from deep in your body.

There’s a new heat in your core. One you’ve never even felt before, and it’s about to snap.  

Bucky slams himself home with a loud moan of your name, his cum hot and painting your cunt and thighs, dribbling down between your bodies as he fucks you through it like an animal, and you fall apart. Something wet gushes out of your cunt and your head falls back, only caught by Bucky’s hand on your neck, pulling you back up into a messy, mindless kiss. 

You’re shaking, when he finally pulls away, pressing a kiss to your nose.

“Good?” He asks softly, and you nod, forcing the strength to wrap your arms around his chest. 

Bucky hums, combing his finger through your hair, and you melt fully into his embrace. 

“You did so good, baby.” He mutters, and you hold him tighter. “Love you.”

Bucky rolls over, burying his face in your shoulder and taking a long, slow breath as you weave your fingers through his hair. He tries to move. To clean you up. But you cling to his shoulders and shake your head, too lost in his warmth to leave this bubble yet. Soon you’ll have to start working out how much he meant it, and you don’t want this moment to ever fade or break-

“Don’t do that to yourself, doll.”

You freeze. “I-“

“I know you’re tryin’ to find a reason this is gonna end. Or why you’re not the person who deserves this. But you’re dead wrong.”

“Bucky.” You whisper, something stinging behind your eyes. “I wasn’t-“

“You were.” He mutters, kissing a soft spot under your ear. “You do it all the time, sweetheart. Never said anything cause I didn’t wanna spook you off or whatever, but-“ He sighs, pushing up on his forearms to scan over your face. “I’ll stand in as many corners as you want. I like ‘em, long as you’re there. And we can keep sparring around dusk cause there’s no one there to watch, and eating dinner ‘round midnight so it’s just us, but the moment you decided you want something else, I’ll be right there with you.”

“With me?” You stare up at him, unable to stop yourself from leaning into his hand as he traces his hand over your features. “But- I’m-“

“Don’t say not worth it.” He grunts, his words stern enough that your mouth snaps closed. “You’re worth it to me. Shit, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever fuckin’ seen, and I don’t really care how long it takes you to see that. Long as I get to keep watching you smile, talk, lose yourself in whatever you do cause you care, so damn much, I’ll be good.”

“But, I- I’m not-“ You shake your head, a tear sliding down your cheek that Bucky wipes away. “I’m not that, Bucky, I’m not beautiful-“

“Yeah, you are.” He kisses you softly, and you let out another breathless, torn sound. “I told you, doll. I loved you the moment I saw you. Only loved you more every time that smart mouth opened up. And I’m gonna stick around ‘till you understand that, even if it takes a million years.”

“A million?” You sniff, clinging to his wrists as his brow drops to yours. “That’s- It’s a while-“

“I know.” He gives you a million. “But I waited a while just to meet you. I can wait damn near forever if I get to have you.”

“Get to?” You mumble, and he nods. 

“Get to.” Another soft kiss is pressed to your lips. “It’s a privilege to know you, doll. Let alone get to have you.”

He’s looking at you like he’d part the sea and rip through worlds in your name, and he gets to have you. 

And something about how it’s Bucky makes you believe him. Not fully. It takes more than those words for you to be able to shed all that loathing grime from under your skin. 

But something deep in your chest, right next to the flutter of your hear, feels clean. And it’s shining brighter and brighter, the longer Bucky looks at you. 

So you’ll let that take you over. Let Bucky have you. 

You’ll see where it takes you.

And with how Bucky’s looking at you, it might be somewhere really, really good. 

End Note: Bucky Barnes giving me a hug would fix me I fear.

If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

Buy me a coffee!☕️

Taglist (Fill out this form to be added!)

@globetrotter28 @lordofthunderthr @youdontknowe @panicking-outside-the-disco @ambiguous-avery

@generalmoonpolice @foxyjwls007 @ilovedeanwinchester4 @tiana-kh @woaheasytig3r

@winchester-whiskey @jsudsgf @deans-yn @jofinka @megara0224

@funkenniffler @disappearintofanfiction @solsborg @sheneedsjesus @bonkydarnes

@whimsicalcherry @charliethemanticore @cats-chaotic-mind @forzalando @roseblue373

@sleepysongbirdsings @angrydragon90 @dumbwhorestuff @biodegradable-glitter-fest @idontwannabehere78

@miss-marmalade @cowboysandcigarettes @mgchaser @starrylanex @cookiemonstermusic258

@milaer @winchestert101 @juliperezsilveira @kamisobsessed @amelya5567

@skrph @kanakarbakar @lcolumbia1988 @sebastians-love @jjwasneverhere

@annoyingrebelsoul @strawberrykiwisdogog @panickedbitch @itserickalove @sineminuse

You had promised yourself you would not spiral today. That promise sits thin as you step out of the library, the familiar pressure of deadlines stacking one on top of the other until breathing feels like a chore instead of a reflex that keeps you alive. There is a quiet pride in having stayed back this late, in choosing tables and notes over distractions, in being the kind of second year who does not get noticed for the wrong reasons. You’re someone who slides through corridors without anyone remembering her name but still remembers every page she read, every line she underlined, every small victory that does not need witnesses.

It should have been a clean exit. Library to hostel. Bed. Maybe a shower if energy allows. A voice cuts through that careful plan. “Hey. Hey, wait.” Your name follows, said with the kind of casual certainty that makes your stomach drop because you do not remember giving it to a him. You slow before you mean to, hate yourself for it immediately, then stop fully because pretending not to hear it is useless now. He is leaning against wall near the steps, fourth year scrubs on, bag slung carelessly over one shoulder like rules never applied to him in the first place. Bucky Barnes.

The name exists in your head long before this moment, passed around in whispers and rolled eyes. The kind of senior everyone knows without knowing, the kind who never seems stressed, the kind who smiles like he expects the world to bend for him because it usually does. He looks at you like this is normal. Like calling you over has not just rearranged your internal organs. “Yeah… You. From second year, right?” The nod comes before you can stop it. Your mouth opens, and closes. Something about air refusing to cooperate. He does not seem to notice, or maybe he does and just enjoys it, because his smile tips slightly. “Good. I was hoping it was you.” Hoping implies intention. Intention implies choice. Your brain scrambles to keep up. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a record book, thick and familiar and immediately ominous. Oh no. He holds it out like a peace offering. It’s not. “I need this filled. Clinical entries. You know how it goes.” Of course you know. Seniors handing down record books like curses, juniors swallowing irritation because no one ever says no. It is tradition dressed up as mentorship, exploitation wrapped in smiles. You have watched others do it, complained quietly about it, sworn you would find a way out if it ever landed on you. It has landed on you.

“Uh,” your voice finally shows up. “I… I have my own, uhmm records. To finish.” He hums, just acknowledging a fact that does not change anything. The book does not move. His hand stays steady between you, patient in a way that feels practiced. “I know. Everyone does. You’re good at it though. Got neat handwriting. I’ve seen your stuff.” Being seen has never felt like a gift. It feels like exposure, like someone has pulled back a curtain you forgot was there. You wonder who told him. You wonder when he looked. You wonder why it matters. You take the book because not taking it feels impossible. Your fingers brush the edge of his fingers for half a second too long, heat flaring where there should be none. You hate that too. “Thanks,” he says, like you have done him a favour already. “I’ll need it by Monday. You can just slip it under my door. Room 318.” Monday. Your mind does the math without permission, counts hours you do not have, pages you do not want to fill, resentment blooming immediately. Your mouth wants to say no now, wants to choke the word out before it becomes habit. Instead, what comes out is a quiet okay that feels like a betrayal. Fuck. “You’re a lifesaver,” his grin widens, the phrase just sticks under your skin because you know he does not mean it. It is just something he says. Something that works. He pushes off the wall then, stretching like this conversation has taken nothing out of him, like he has not just fucked up your entire evening, possibly your entire week. “See you around, yeah?” You nod again, nodding seems to be all you can do around him. He walks away without looking back, already pulling his phone out, already elsewhere. The space he had left behind feels too empty and too crowded at the same time.

You stand there, blaming fate, blaming everything. Irritation simmers, edged with something that feels uncomfortably like embarrassment. Not because he asked. Because you said yes. Why couldn’t you have said no? The walk back to your room passes in a blur of footpaths and familiar turns, replaying the way he said your name, the way he smiled like nothing in the world could touch him. The unfairness of it all presses heavy. Fourth years like him float through med school like it is a game. People like you count pages and hours and caffeine intake and still feel behind. When the door clicks shut behind you, you drop your bag on the chair harder than necessary, the record book landing on your desk with a dull thud that feels deeply satisfying. “Oh my God,” you mutter, then louder, “Oh my God.” Your friend looks up from her bed. She has known you long enough to recognize the particular tension in your shoulders, the way your hands shake when you are trying not to scream. “What happened?” You hold up the book like evidence. “Bucky Barnes happened.” Her face shifts instantly, recognition blooming into something between amusement and sympathy. “No. Absolutely not.” “Yes,” your voice rises despite yourself. “He just handed it to me. Like I’m his personal assistant. Like I don’t have my own shit to do.”

“Did you say no?” The silence answers for you. A dramatic groan leaves her mouth. “You cannot do this. Seniors will see you coming from a mile away.” “I didn’t mean to,” you snap, then immediately soften because she is not wrong and that makes it worse. “He just… called me. And he smiled. And then suddenly I had the book in my hands and it was done.” You pace now, words spilling out faster, frustration finally finding a mouth. “Monday. He wants it by Monday. Do you know how much I have to finish by Monday? I barely sleep as it is.” Her expression becomes gentler now. “Why you though? He has friends. Groupies. People who would do it without complaining.” “Apparently my handwriting is neat,” the bitterness in your tone is obvious. “Apparently he’s seen my stuff. Which is creepy, by the way.” “That man has no boundaries. Also he’s hot, so no one calls him on it.” You stop pacing to glare at her. “Do not.” “I’m just stating facts,” she puts her hands up. “He’s a menace.”

“He’s a fuckboy,” you correct, the word slipping out with venom, satisfying in its accuracy. “And I do not have time for this.” The innocent book still sits on your desk, infuriating you. Pages waiting to be filled with cases you did not attend, observations you did not make. Your jaw tightens. “I should just give it back,” you say, more to yourself than to her. “Tell him I can’t. Tell him I have my own work.” She watches you for a moment, then smiles in a way that is all understanding and zero judgment. “And will you?” The answer tastes bitter before it even forms. You sink onto your chair, stare at the book like it has personally wronged you.

“No. Because I’m weak and stupid and I said okay.”

“You’re just too nice.” A humourless laugh echoes. “That’s not a compliment in med school.” She gets up then to cross the room, and peers over your shoulder at the offending book. “Look. We’ll bitch about him while you write.” That helps. The bitching. “He smiled at me,” the confession slips out before you can stop it. “Like I was already going to say yes.” “Because he knows people do.”

“I hate that it worked.” She bumps your shoulder lightly. “Welcome to being human.” You pick up the pen, flip the book open, anger and resolve tangling together in your chest. If you are going to do this, you will do it right. Not for him. For yourself. Because that is what you do. Because walking away has never come easily.

Still, as the first page fills under your hand, one thought forms inside your head.

Bucky Barnes is going to owe you for this.

Finishing this stupid record book on time might actually be the most irritating miracle you have ever pulled off. Two nights of cramped handwriting and squinting at borrowed case sheets, all for a senior who probably has not worried about a deadline since orientation week. There is a strange mix of pride and annoyance together in your chest. Pride because the pages look perfect, neat lines and careful diagrams, everything organized the way your brain likes it. Annoyance because none of it is even yours. Your roommate watches from her bed while you pack the book into your bag. “You actually finished it,” her voice is impressed and a little horrified. “I had no choice,” you zip the bag with more force than necessary. “If I didn’t, he would find me in some corridor and smile at me again and I would say yes to something worse.” She laughs like she understands exactly what you mean. “Go give it to him and be free.” Free is a strong word, but you take it anyway. The walk across campus feels lighter without the weight of guilt hanging over you. You rehearse what you are going to say in your head, something polite and quick and efficient. Here is your record book, thank you, goodbye. Nothing more. Definitely no unnecessary conversation. You spot him near the canteen. Of course he is surrounded by people. Bucky always seems to exist in the middle of laughter, like he attracts it without trying. A couple of fourth years, one or two juniors, faces you vaguely recognize. He looks relaxed leaning back on the bench. Your steps slow on their own. It would be so easy to turn around, to come back later, to avoid this tiny social nightmare entirely. But the book is in your bag and Monday is too close and courage, apparently, is a muscle you are forcing yourself to use. He notices you before you can talk yourself out of it. “Hey,” he calls out, like you are an old friend and absolutely not a nervous junior.

Every pair of eyes turns in your direction at once. Wonderful. Exactly what you wanted.

Trying to ignore the sudden heat crawling up your neck, you walk closer. “Um, I finished it.”

You hold the book out to him the way a student offers homework to a teacher. Careful, a little formal, maybe even a little scared. His eyebrows lift when he flips through a few pages.

“Damn,” he does not bother to hide the surprise. “This is perfect.”

Praise should not matter this much from someone like him, but apparently your brain did not get that memo.

One of his friends leans forward, curiosity written all over his face. You remember his name after a second. Sam.

“So, this is the famous second year with the magic handwriting,” Sam says, looking at you like you are a rare species. “Hey, listen, any chance you want to do mine next? I will pay you in coffee and eternal gratitude.” Your mouth opens, ready to spit out a polite refusal you have been practicing since last week, but Bucky moves before you can speak. His arm slides around your shoulders, pulling you a fraction closer to his side. “Nah,” he says easily, “she’s mine.” The words echo in your ears long after he says them. She’s mine. You know it’s not serious. It’s just a joke tossed out between friends. Still, your entire body reacts like it is not a joke at all. Your heart jumps. Your face heats. You suddenly understand why half the campus melts over him. Sam raises both hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, territorial much. I see how it is.” “Find your own hardworking junior,” Bucky grins, finally letting his arm drop from your shoulders. Though the ghost of the touch stays behind though. You stand there feeling ridiculous, trying to remember how to breathe normally, trying to figure out how to actually survive. “Thanks for doing this,” Bucky’s voice is softer now, like the rest of them are not even there. “Seriously, you saved me.” “It’s fine,” you manage, which is not true but sounds polite enough. “Just… don’t give me another one.”

“Cross my heart,” he promises, two fingers over his chest in mock solemnity. The group drifts back into their conversation and you prepare to make a quick escape, mission accomplished, when Bucky stands up and grabs his bag. “I’ll drop you off,” he says, like it is the most natural sentence in the world. Did you hear it right? Your brain stutters. “What, no, it’s okay, I can walk.” “I know you can walk,” he sounds amused. “But I’ve got my bike and you’ve done me a huge favor and I’m not letting you disappear like that.” People are watching again. You hate that people are watching. Refusing in front of everyone feels impossible, so you nod before you can overthink it. The bike is parked near the gate. It’s black, shiny and slightly intimidating. Okay, very intimidating. You have never actually sat on one before. He hands you the spare helmet without making it a big deal, and somehow that small kindness settles your nerves more than anything else. “Just hold on to me, yeah,” he says while you climb on behind him. Holding on to him sounds like a terrible idea for your already fragile composure, but the engine roars to life and instinct wins over dignity. Your hands settle lightly on his sides, trying to keep a respectful distance that disappears the second the bike moves. It feels strange and a little unreal, like you have stepped into someone else’s life for a moment. Bucky drives smoothly, confidently, like he does literally everything else. You tell yourself not to enjoy it. You enjoy it anyway.

When the familiar outline of your dorm comes into view, you’re surprised of the disappointment that blooms. The ride had ended too quickly. Sudden quiet wraps around the both of you as he cuts the engine. You climb off carefully, handing the helmet back, already rehearsing another quick thank you and goodbye. Bucky does not move to leave. He stays seated, one foot on the ground, looking at you with that same unreadable half smile. “So,” he stretches the word out, “what do you want?”

“What do I want… for what?” “For writing my record,” he clarifies. “Don’t say nothing because I know how much time that took.” The question catches you off guard. You had not even considered the possibility of getting anything in return. In your head, this whole thing was just an annoying duty, a favor extracted through seniority and social pressure. “I really don’t need anything… it’s fine.” He studies you for a moment, like he is trying to figure out if you are serious. Apparently the idea of someone not wanting something from him is a new concept.

“Okay… but I’m not accepting that answer.” “you don’t have to do anything,” you insist, as you feel awkward all over again. “I just did it because you asked.” “Exactly. Which is why I’m doing something because you helped me.” You shift your weight from one foot to the other, suddenly very aware of how close he is, how easily he holds your attention without even trying.

“Look… let me at least buy you dinner. As a thank you.” Dinner. Your brain immediately supplies a hundred reasons why that is a bad idea. He is a senior. He is Bucky Barnes. People talk. You do not do dinners with boys on bikes who call you theirs in front of their friends. You definitely don’t do dinners with Bucky Barnes. “You really don’t have to,” your voice is weaker this time. “I want to.” He says it like it’s simple, like it doesn’t carry any hidden traps. You try to find a polite way out and come up empty. “It’s just dinner,” he adds, reading your hesitation with annoying accuracy. “No weirdness, I promise.”

The easy confidence, the genuine gratitude and the tiny hopeful tilt to his expression, makes your resolve wobble. “Okay,” you hear yourself say, surprising both of you. “But only dinner.” His grin widens. “Only dinner. Scout’s honor.” You have no idea if he was ever even a scout, but the image makes you smile despite yourself. “Same time tomorrow,” he starts the bike again. “Be ready.” Before you can overthink or change your mind or list all the reasons this is probably a terrible decision, he gives you a small wave and rides off.

You stand there for long after he is gone, heart doing strange unpredictable things, trying to understand how a simple favor turned into this. Deep inside your chest, excitement and nervousness argue back and forth. Dinner with Bucky Barnes. Tomorrow.

Maybe this is a bad idea. Tiredness is sitting heavy in your shoulders, the kind that feels stitched into your bones after a long day of lectures and wards and pretending to understand things you only half understand. The sensible version of you knows exactly what tonight should look like. Pajamas. Leftover notes. An early night. Peace. Instead you are standing in front of your tiny mirror with a dress spread across the bed behind you, trying to decide if it looks normal enough to pass for casual and nice enough to pass for dinner. This is ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. You keep telling yourself that while you brush your hair, while you check your phone for the tenth time even though you know there is nothing new there, while you dig through your drawer looking for the one pair of earrings that make you feel a little less invisible. Getting ready for dinner with Bucky Barnes feels like preparing for an exam you never signed up for. Your roommate is out, probably somewhere with her own life that does not involve spiralling over a senior who asked for a favour and then offered dinner in return. He probably didn’t even mean it like that. That thought pops up while you smooth the front of the dress over your stomach, trying to ignore how nervous your hands feel. He said it casually, like he says everything, like inviting someone to eat is the most normal thing in the world. He did not ask for your number. He did not give his number. People who plan real dinners usually do those things, right? They exchange details and make proper plans and act like adults instead of just throwing out a time and disappearing on a bike like you see on movies. What if he forgot?

What if he only said it because he needed to look cool and effortless like he always does? What if he says things like that to everyone and never follows through because he is Bucky Barnes and the world follows him around instead of the other way? The more you think about it, the more stupid you feel for taking it seriously. You imagine him right now somewhere across campus, laughing too loud with people who are not you, maybe already at a party, maybe already making other plans that have nothing to do with a shy second year who writes neat record books. A small ache starts low in your chest and you hate it instantly. Why did you even get ready? You stand in front of the mirror, turning slightly from side to side, trying to see yourself the way he might see you if he ever actually showed up. The dress is simple and soft and maybe a little nicer than what you normally wear to class, and suddenly it looks silly. Like you tried too hard for something that might not even happen. Oh God, the thought of sitting here all dressed up for no reason, waiting for a message that never comes. This is embarrassing.

You start to take the earrings off, fingers fumbling more than they should. It feels safer to assume nothing is happening. It feels safer to crawl back into your comfortable routine and pretend none of this ever existed. You reach behind you and tug at the zipper, already planning how quickly you can change and wash your face and bury yourself under a blanket. He did not even ask for your number. That sentence loops in your head like a stubborn song you cannot turn off. If he really wanted to take you out, he would have made sure he could contact you. That is basic logic. That is common sense. You pull the dress down over your shoulders, halfway committed to the idea of forgetting the whole thing. But then your phone lights up on the desk. The sound is small but it freezes you completely. For a second you just stare at it, heart suddenly beating in a way that feels unfair. Notifications come from lots of people. Groups and apps and random spam messages. It does not have to be him. There is no reason to assume it is him. Still, you walk over to the desk like you are being pulled by an invisible string. One new message.

Unknown number : I’m here. Come down.

That is all it says. Your face heats so fast it almost hurts. It’s him. He remembered. He actually remembered. The room suddenly feels too warm and too small making your earlier embarrassment shift shape into something lighter and terrifying in a completely different way. He is downstairs. Right now. Waiting for you. And you are standing here with your dress half off like an idiot. You scramble back into it with clumsy fingers, tugging the zipper up again, checking your reflection in a rush of nervous energy. The girl in the mirror looks flustered and a little wide eyed, and there is no time to fix that.

Of course he remembered. Why would he not remember. He literally told you to be ready at this time and you convinced yourself he was lying because apparently your brain enjoys drama. Maybe this is not such a bad idea after all.

You do not want to read too much into it. You really do not. But the feeling is there anyway, impossible for you to ignore. It is only dinner. Just a thank you dinner between a senior and a junior. Nothing dramatic. Absolutely nothing life changing. Still, you catch yourself smiling at your phone like it personally delivered good news. This is how it starts, isn’t it? Tiny things that mean nothing on their own slowly adding up into something heavier. A hand on your shoulder in front of his friends. A ride on his bike with the wind in your face. A message saying he is here when you were sure he would never come. Do not get carried away. Do not turn this into a story in your head. You barely know the guy. He barely knows you. Getting attached to the idea of someone is a dangerous hobby and you have exams and responsibilities and a life that already feels full without adding complicated feelings into the mix. What if this is all in your head? What if he is just being polite and you are turning it into something bigger because you are not used to attention from boys like him? What if tonight is normal and friendly and you walk back to your room later feeling silly for letting yourself hope for anything more? You don’t remember getting down. When you push open the hostel door and step outside, the evening air hits your face gently. For a second all you can hear is your own heartbeat being louder than it has any right to be. But that’s when you see him. Bucky is leaning against his bike exactly the way you imagined he would be, like he belongs there, like waiting for people outside dorms is just another ordinary part of his day. He looks up the moment you appear, and the second his eyes land on you, something in his expression changes. A playful whistle slips out before you can even take three steps toward him. “Okay, wow… yeah, hi. You look… really pretty.” Nobody ever just says things like that to you so casually. Nobody ever looks at you like that either, like you are something worth pausing for. You have no idea what to do with it. “I… um… thank you,” you manage, this is as flustered as you can get and it’s not even two minutes in. He smiles at the reaction instead of pretending not to notice it. “No, seriously. I’m glad you didn’t bail on me.” “I almost did,” you admit before you can stop yourself. “I mean… not because of you… God, no. Just because I thought maybe you forgot.” His eyebrows lift slightly. “Forgot?” “Yeah,” you are suddenly aware of how silly it sounds out loud. “You didn’t ask for my number and I didn’t have yours and I just… I don’t know, I figured maybe you say things like that to people all the time.”

He studies you for a moment.

“Hey… no. I don’t do that. If I say I’ll show up, I show up.”

He says it like he actually means it, and you hate how much relief that gives you.

“Good to know,” you mumble, suddenly very interested in the ground.

He reaches for the helmet hanging on the handlebar. “C’mere.”

Before you can process what is happening, you’re stepping closer, his hands are gently lifting the helmet over your head. He adjusts it carefully, fingers brushing your hair back so it sits properly, tugging the strap under your chin with an ease that makes your stomach flip.

“Hold still for a second,” he murmurs.

“I am holding still,” you answer, trying very hard not to focus on how close he is.

“Yeah but you’re holding still like you’re nervous.”

“I am nervous.”

He chuckles softly. “That’s kind of cute, you know.”

The buckle clicks into place and he gives the top of the helmet a small affectionate tap. “There. Perfect.”

You genuinely have to remind yourself to breathe.

Climbing onto the bike feels a little easier this time, but not by much. Your hands settle on his sides again and you wonder if he can feel how tense you are through the thin fabric of his shirt.

“You good back there?”

“Uh-huh, yeah,” even though your heart is doing ridiculous things.

The ride to the restaurant passes in a blur of lights. It feels different tonight, less awkward and more intimate, like you are sharing a small secret with him that the rest of the world does not get to see.

When he finally pulls up in front of the place, he turns back slightly. “Hope you like Italian. If not, pretend you do for my ego.”

“I like Italian,” you answer quickly. “I mean… pasta is good. Pizza is good. Food in general is good.”

“That might be the most honest review I’ve ever heard,” he laughs.

Everything inside feels new and a little intimidating in the way unfamiliar restaurants always do. Bucky opens the door for you without making it feel like a grand gesture, just a simple natural thing, and you slip inside with a quiet thank you.

He pulls out the chair for you at the table.

Nobody has ever done that for you before.

“You don’t have to do all this,” you say, sitting down carefully.

“I like doing it.”

The menu becomes a safe distraction for a few minutes, something to focus on so you do not have to keep wondering what to do with your hands or your face or your nerves.

“Order whatever you want,” he tells you. “Don’t do that thing where you pick the cheapest thing to be polite.”

“I was not going to do that,” you lie.

“You absolutely were.”

“Okay maybe a little,” you admit, smiling despite yourself.

The waiter arrives and Bucky waits for you to speak first, like your choice matters more than his. You stumble through your order with a little too much hesitation, suddenly hyper aware of how ordinary your preferences sound out loud.

“That’s a solid choice,” he says once the waiter leaves.

“I don’t do adventurous very well,” you confess. “I like safe food.”

“Nothing wrong with safe. Safe is good sometimes.”

Conversation should feel awkward. It usually does for you. Sitting with new people always involves long pauses and overthinking and trying to figure out when to talk and when to stay quiet. But with him, words seem to find their way out more easily than expected.

“So,” he leans back in his chair, “tell me something about you that isn’t related to med school.”

Your brain blanks immediately. What’s there not related to notes, day-old scrubs and stethoscopes?

“That’s… a hard question.”

“Come on, there has to be something. Hobbies, embarrassing talents, secret dreams.”

“I can touch my nose with my tongue,” you blurt out, then immediately want to sink into the floor. Bucky stares at you for a second and then bursts out laughing, real and completely unfiltered. “That is not what I expected.” “You said embarrassing,” you defend yourself, your voice is small like that of a child, cheeks burning a little too much. “No, that’s perfect. I’m genuinely impressed.” The way he laughs makes it easier to relax. It makes you feel less like a nervous junior and more like an actual person sitting across from another actual person. He tells you stories while you wait for the food, small funny things about his friends and the chaos of fourth year. You learn that he drinks too much coffee and hates morning rounds and once fell asleep standing up during a lecture. None of it sounds like the larger than life version of him people whisper about. It just sounds human. “So you really did all that work just because I asked?” he asks at one point.

“Yeah… I complain a lot but I’m bad at saying no.” “I’m sorry about that, by the way.” “About what?” “Putting it on you like that. I should have asked properly instead of… whatever that was.”

The apology catches you off guard. You had not expected that from him at all. “It’s okay. I survived.” “Still… thank you. Really.” Food arrives and fills the table with warm comforting smells, and for a while the conversation slows into easy quiet. He asks if you like it and you nod with your mouth full, making him grin. He pays attention in a way that surprises you. Notices when your glass is empty. Notices when you hesitate over the dessert menu. Notices little things you are not used to anyone noticing. “You don’t talk much,” he says suddenly.

“I know.” “Is it because you’re shy or because you think everyone else is dumb?” A small laugh escapes you. “Definitely the first one.” “That’s a shame. I think you probably have smart things to say.” Your fork pauses halfway to your mouth. “You don’t even know me that well.” “I know enough… and id like to know more.” Somewhere between the main course and dessert, the nervous knot inside you loosens. You start answering more without overthinking every word. You ask him questions too, and he answers without making you feel like a kid for asking. This feels entirely new but safe. Things that usually don’t belong together for you. By the time the plates are empty and the bill arrives, you realize with a tiny jolt that you do not actually want the evening to end yet. “Ready?” he asks.

You’re not. “Yeah.”

“So,” he says as you reach the bike, “dinner was okay.” “Dinner was really nice,” you correct. “Thank God. Because I was low key worried you’d hate my choice and never talk to me again.” “I would have at least finished the food before ignoring you.”

“You definitely know how to humble a guy,” he laughs. You stand there just looking at him, helmet in your hands, trying to hold on to the feeling of the evening before it slips away into ordinary life again. He looks at you with that same easy smile he had when you first came downstairs, but now it feels different. “Thanks for coming out with me.” “Thanks for actually showing up,” you reply before you can stop yourself.

His grin widens. “Told you I would.” As you hand him the helmet so he can help you put it on again, a small undeniable truth settles into your chest. Maybe you are not as immune to Bucky Barnes as you thought you were.

That night he drops you off like nothing extraordinary has happened.

Until you reach the dorm steps, he stands there and makes sure you get inside safely the way he said he would. Just a small wave and a lazy smile.

“Sleep well, okay?” There’s nothing cinematic about it, but it feels like a movie anyway.

You were on your bed for a long time afterward, staring at the ceiling fan and replaying the whole evening in your head from beginning to end, trying to understand how something so normal could feel so important.

You tell yourself not to overthink it. You tell yourself it was only dinner. You tell yourself a lot of sensible things that did absolutely nothing to stop the tiny hopeful flutter still moving around inside your chest.

The first text came later that night.

Bucky: Hey. Did you make it in without tripping over anything?

You laugh out loud because it’s such a ridiculous thing to ask. It felt like he texted because he just had to text.

You: Yes, thank you very much. No accidents reported.

Bucky: Thank god. I was prepared to feel personally responsible.

That’s how it started. Small messages here and there that slowly turned into longer ones without either of you noticing.

Bucky: How was class today?

You: Boring. You?

Bucky: Don't even ask. Surgery rounds are trying to kill me.

He started to slip into your routine in little almost invisible ways. A text in the morning asking if you were awake. Another one in the evening asking if you ate. Sometimes just a random picture of something stupid he saw on campus with a line of commentary that made you smile harder than it should have.

One morning, when you mention that you had skipped breakfast, he shows up outside your lecture hall holding a small paper bag and a cup of coffee.

“You said you didn’t eat,” he hands it over before you could even react.

“I didn’t mean for you to… you know… bring me food.”

“Yeah but I just didn’t want you to starve yourself, so here we are.”

Inside the bag is a sandwich cut neatly in half and a chocolate bar tucked beside it. You do not know what to do except mumble a shy thank you while trying not to look too affected.

You’re not used to people paying attention to small things like that. You’re not used to someone remembering. But here he is, with food, like you’d actually starve if you don’t eat.

Days begin to feel a little brighter with him in them. He waits for you near the library sometimes, pretends it’s a coincidence. You pretend to believe him. He walks you back to your hostel after late study sessions even when it’s slightly out of his way.

“It’s dark, okay. Just let me be dramatic and protective.”

“That is the most ridiculous you’ve ever said.”

“I prefer heroic but sure, we can go with ridiculous.”

He always teases you easily, gently, never in a way that makes you feel small. It always feels like he was trying to pull you out of your shell inch by inch, like he enjoys watching you relax around him.

One afternoon though, he did something that made your entire week.

You had been whining to him about how second years never get to see anything interesting in the operating rooms, how you were always stuck observing minor procedures while the exciting cases went to seniors.

The next day he texted you out of nowhere.

Bucky: Wear clean scrubs and meet me near the main OT at two.

You spent the entire morning confused and curious and a little nervous, and when you show up at the time he asked, he’s already there waiting.

“I pulled some strings... c’mon.”

“Pulled strings for what?”

“For you to watch something actually cool for once.”

He gets you inside an operating room you have no business being in.

You stand against the cool tiled wall with your hands folded awkwardly in front of you, trying very hard to look like you belong.

Bucky leans slightly toward you, voice soft enough that only you can hear. “this is a suspected small bowel perforation.”

Throughout the surgery, he explains before you could even ask anything.

“First perforation ever?” Bucky glances at you with a small smile.

“First case ever.”

He doesn’t seem to miss the awe in your voice. “Not bad, huh?”

Not bad at all.

Afterward you could not stop thanking him.

“You really didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

That sentence becomes a pattern between the two of you. Small thoughtful things wrapped in the same simple logic. I wanted to. I want to.

He learns your coffee order without asking. You learn that he hated pineapple on pizza with an unreasonable passion. You start looking for his face first whenever you enter a room.

Slowly, without any formal decision, you become part of each other’s days.

Evenings often find the two of you sitting on the library steps pretending to study while mostly talking about everything else instead. You told him about your family and how nervous you were on your first day of med school. He told you about his ridiculous group of friends and how he still sometimes felt like he was faking his way through life.

“Everyone is faking it a little.”

“Even you?”

“Have you seen me?”

“Nah,” he chuckles. “You actually know what you’re doing.”

The faith he seems to have in you feels strange but warm and a little dangerous.

Sometimes you catch yourself thinking about him at odd hours, wondering what he might be doing, wondering if he is thinking about you too. The thought would embarrass you immediately afterward, but it never stops coming back.

You try to stay sensible about it. Really.

But he is Bucky Barnes. Charming and confident and surrounded by people all the time.

You are just you, always a little out of place in big social circles. There is no logical reason for him to keep choosing your company, yet he keeps doing it anyway.

One evening he calls instead of texting.

The sound of his voice in your ear makes you realize you had missed it more than you expected.

“Hey… are you busy right now?”

“Not really. Just pretending to study.”

“Perfect. Come downstairs for a bit.”

“Right now?”

In your two years of college life, there wasn’t a day where you’ve not dreamed of a moment like this. But there’s never been a day like this so far.

“Yeah right now. I’m outside.”

You go down in your pajamas and messy hair and he still looks at you like you were worth showing up for.

“I was out with friends, saw this juice you like,” he hands you a juice pouch like it’s no big deal.

He just got you something just because you liked it. You don’t remember the last time someone did that for you.

This shouldn’t make you feel special. But it does anyway.

These little moments pile up quietly. Late night conversations about nothing important. Shared snacks in the canteen. Him saving you from your seniors — who are his juniors by the way — during clinical postings. You helping him organize his notes even though he pretends to not need help.

One day he asks you to help him study for an upcoming exam. Pediatrics. You end up sitting together in an empty classroom for hours, your notebook spread between you while you explain topics he claimed to be terrible at.

“You’re really good at teaching,” he tells you. It’s a simple compliment. But when has there ever been anything simple about him?

“I’m just repeating what the book says.”

“No you’re not. You make it make sense.”

He looks at you with such easy admiration that you have to glance away to hide how much it affect you.

There are days when you wonder how this even happened. How a simple record book favor had turned into shared lunches and inside jokes and a growing comfort that feel suspiciously like happiness.

Your friends start noticing too.

“So are you two like… a thing?” your roommate asks one night while you were smiling at your phone again.

“No. We’re just friends.”

“Friends who text constantly and see each other every day.”

“That is literally what friends do.”

She gives you a look that says she absolutely does not believe you.

The truth is you don’t know what you are to him. He never defined it. Never said anything that crossed an obvious line. He was just there, steady, present and kind in ways that kept sneaking past your defenses.

You find yourself getting used to it. To him.

That scares you a little.

Because somewhere along the way you stopped thinking of him as just a nice distraction and started thinking of him as part of your life. You started noticing how your mood shifted depending on whether you had seen him that day. You started caring a little too much about how you looked when you knew he would be around.

You are not supposed to get attached. You know that. But knowing something and feeling something are two very different battles.