RowenVelvet

He’s enormous, tangled in the torn mesh, his long dark hair plastered across his face, his chest heaving against the ropes. Eventually, you notice the black scales begin on his ribs and spread down into a tail that thrashes hard enough to dent the deck. You see fins flare along his sides,  torn in places like old battle flags. Gills open and close violently beneath his jaw, dragging at air that cannot help him.

A merman. The first recorded one seen in decades. For all you know, he might be the only one left.

…. And his left arm is metal.

It isn’t a prosthetic like ones you have ever seen in medical journals. It’s too intricate, too seamless, as dark plates overlap from shoulder to fingertips, each segment fitted directly into scarred flesh. Thin lines of blue light pulse beneath the metal, matching the frantic glow beneath the scales along his throat.

There are markings etched into the arm: serial numbers and old surgical codes. You finally see a star by a faded symbol you recognise from declassified reports you were never supposed to read.

HYDRA.

Your stomach drops. You’ve heard of them before. 

Before their products ever reached the weapons market, HYDRA was infamous for testing them on humanoid and hybrid creatures, from werewolves, to nymphs, anything close enough to human to provide useful data and different enough that the law rarely bothered protecting them.

They had been blacklisted years ago for ethical violations so extensive that most institutions refused even to cite their research.

You had always assumed their subjects were dead. You had never considered that one of them might still be alive.

When the merman wakes, the deck explodes into chaos.

The creature tears through the net with his flesh hand, snarling so low that the sound vibrates through your bones. His metal fingers clamp around the nearest railing to crush it inward. A crewman stumbles too close, and the merman whips around with his teeth bared, not attacking so much as trying to make space, trying to get away from the floodlights.

Someone screams, “Sedate it!”

That’s when Bucky—the name stamped beneath the designation on his metal arm—becomes truly violent.

His pupils contract, and the blue light under his skin flares wild. He throws himself against the deck with such force that two people fall backward. His metal arm snaps out and catches the tranquilliser rifle before the dart can fire, crushing the barrel into useless scrap.

You see the recognition in his eyes now.

He has been on a deck like this before. He must’ve been under lights like these, surrounded by people wearing gloves like yours, holding tools like yours, speaking in calm voices while they decided which part of him to cut into next.

“Wait,” you say, but nobody hears you.

The captain is yelling for the cage while the medic calls for restraints. Your assistant is already asking whether the specimen has lungs or gills, because scientists do that sometimes. They turn the horrors they were committing into knowledge so they don’t have to feel responsible for it.

Specimen.

The merman hears that too, and you knew he’s heard that before. 

He makes a broken, furious sound, and you step forward. “Stop calling him that.”

Nobody listens, but you shove the second tranquilliser rifle away.

“I said stop!”

The merman’s head turns toward you.

You expected his face to be blank and animal. Instead, you find blue eyes watching you through the wet strands of his hair. 

Eventually, you realise he’s breathing too fast. He’s suffocating.

His gills are collapsing in the open air.

You grab the seawater hose and drag it across the deck, ignoring the captain shouting your name. The merman flinches when you kneel, but metal arm lifts immediately, shaking with the effort of holding himself upright. 

You freeze with both hands visible.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” you say, though the words feel pathetic. People like you have absolutely hurt him. People with research grants, with latex gloves, who write reports about how long he survived before his body tried to shut down.

His eyes drop to the knife at your belt.

You unclip it and place it on the deck between you.

Then, just as slowly, you pick it up by the blade and offer him the handle.

His stare flickers, but he takes the knife.

Everyone behind you panics and yet you don’t move

The merman grips the knife in his flesh hand, but he doesn’t use it on you. He only watches as you reach for the hose and turn it toward his gills. Saltwater pours over his throat, and his entire body looks relieved.

“There,” you whisper. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

His metal hand, still buried in the deck, flexes once.

You see the old injuries more clearly now: circular scars along his ribs where monitoring discs must have been attached, thin marks on his throat where restraints rubbed raw, a deep seam at his left shoulder where the metal arm has been fused.

You have spent your entire career loving the ocean. Bucky has spent decades surviving the people who claimed they wanted to understand it.

The net is still wrapped around his tail, tightening each time he thrashes. One of the cords has cut beneath the scales, and dark blood leaks into the water spreading across the deck.

You reach for the rope.

He snarls immediately.

“Okay,” you say. “Okay. I know. I know.”

You do not know, not really, but you can imagine enough to hate yourself for the gloves on your hands.

When you peel them off, he watches every movement.

“I need to get this off you,” you tell him. “That’s all. Then you can go.”

Behind you, your captain says your name in warning.

You don’t look back.

“He goes back in the water,” you say.

“He could’ve killed us!”

You look at them. “He could have already.”

The merman’s eyes stay fixed on you, so you start cutting.

When the final cord snaps loose, he doesn’t flee even when he has every reason to.

Instead, he stares at a cut across your palm where the rope burned you.

“I’m okay,” you say.

He looks at the blood again.

Then, very carefully, he takes your wrist in his metal hand. He lowers his head and presses his mouth to the cut.

A… magical seal, healing it instantly.

The crew goes silent.

Then Bucky releases you and lets you guide him back to the rail.

He drops into the water without another sound. For a moment, the floodlights catch the black fan of his tail beneath the surface. Then he sinks, blue lights fading into the dark.

You think that will be the end of it, but of course it’s not.

The first gift appears at dawn: tuna the size of a child lies on the lower deck, arranged carefully outside the lab door. Nobody knows how it got there. The second gift is a cluster of shells, placed in a neat spiral beneath your window. The third is a jagged piece of deep-sea glass, set directly on top of your notebook.

Your assistant asks if this is some kind of threat.

You look at the offerings and feel something ache inside your chest.“No,” you say. “I think he’s saying thank you.”

Bucky begins following the ship.

At first, he’s only a shadow on the sonar. Then you start seeing him during sample collection, surfacing just far enough away to watch you work. If another crew member approaches the rail, he disappears. If you come alone, he stays.

He never speaks.

You’re not sure he can.

But he understands more than the crew gives him credit for.

When you say his name, he looks up.

You learn it from the old HYDRA file buried in the university research archive. An experimental deep-sea weapons program with the designation: Bucky, The Winter Soldier.

Program abandoned when the labs lost contact with its primary subject in arctic waters.

Primary subject.

You sit in the lab at three in the morning, reading what they did to him with one hand over your mouth.

They replaced the arm he lost with abyssal alloy and pressure-responsive machinery. They studied whether pain, cold and isolation could produce obedience where hypnosis had failed.

The notes describe his distress responses as “aggression.” They describe his attempts to escape as “territorial agitation.” They describe his refusal to eat as “subject resistance.”

Not once does anyone write that he was afraid.

After that, you stop sleeping much.

You find him outside the glass observation window beneath the deck every night, suspended in the black water, one metal palm pressed to the glass. The blue lights beneath his scales pulse whenever he sees you.

The first time you press your hand to the other side, he goes perfectly still.

The metal fingers spread against yours through the glass.

You teach him to sign through the observation window. Simple things first, like food, safe, stay, friend, no hurt.

Bucky learns slowly, not because he is unintelligent, but because nobody has taught him anything with patience in a very long time. He expects corrections to be violent, to the point where the first time he signs something wrong, he jerks back from the glass.

Your face falls.

“No,” you say quickly, pressing both hands up. “No, Bucky. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He watches your mouth form the words as you sign, Okay.

His throat glows faintly as he signs it back. Okay.

After that, he begins appearing with less fear.

He brings you fish you cannot possibly eat and looks offended when you try to explain refrigeration. He leaves coral samples from depths your equipment cannot reach, then hovers proudly outside the window while you label them. He scares off a shark during one of your dives and then spends the next hour sulking because you scold him for ramming the cage.

“You cannot solve every problem with violence,” you tell him through the speaker.

Bucky’s lights flicker as he signs, Worked.

You try very hard not to laugh.

He’s sweet, even though there’s nothing harmless about the creature who once dragged an entire illegal HYDRA vessel into the trench and left no survivors. But around you, Bucky becomes almost shy. He ducks his head when you praise him. He flinches away from sudden movement, then pretends he didn’t. 

The crew still calls him dangerous, but you call him misunderstood.

Then he proves both things can be true.

A private salvage vessel starts following your research ship. At first, the captain says it is probably nothing. Then you catch encrypted transmissions on the radio and realise they are not interested in your samples.

They are interested in him.

Bucky knows before you do.

The night the other ship comes too close, you are in the observation room when he appears outside the glass. His lights are dimmed to near-black. His metal hand is flexing slowly, each plate sliding into place like a weapon remembering itself.

“Bucky?” you whisper.

He looks at you, but frowns before he goes. 

The salvage ship loses power three minutes later.

By dawn, it is drifting empty, its hull ripped open below the waterline, its weapons systems crushed. Nobody dies because you once signed no kill to Bucky until he understood you.

But every single person aboard is found locked in the emergency raft, refusing to speak.

Your crew quits within the week. They call him a monster.

You stand at the rail while the replacement vessel takes them back to shore, watching Bucky circle beneath the water in restless patterns. He hasn’t come close since the salvage ship. You think he believes he has frightened you.

Eventually, sick of not seeing him, you climb into the dive cage before anyone can stop you.

Bucky appears immediately, slamming his metal hand around the bars as if he can physically drag you back to safety.

Not scared, you signed.

He bares his teeth.

Liar, his expression says.

You were scared for him. There was a difference.

You reach through the bars, slowly, slowly, until your bare hand rests against his cheek.

He closes his eyes.

After that, everyone knows there is no separating you from him.

When the expedition ends, he whines because he cannot come with you.

The closer your ship gets to land, the worse he becomes. He follows too high in the water for too many days, ignoring the pressure sickness that makes his movements unsteady. Blood leaks from his gills in thin dark threads as his lights flicker unevenly. Every time you beg him to dive, he signs the same thing with increasing desperation.

You leave.

“I have to go back,” you say from the deck.

No.

“Bucky—”

You leave. They take. 

You understand then, that he doesn’t think you are returning to your life.

He thinks the surface is another lab, another cage that takes things and doesn’t give them back.

You try to explain leases and universities and funding boards and family, but none of those words mean anything to him, not the way he has started sleeping under the hull because it is the closest he can get to sharing a room with you, even though being so close to the surface for so long makes him feel sick.

On the last night, he surfaces beside the ship in a storm.

He’s shaking so violently that he could barely keep his metal hand curled around the ladder. The waves kept dragging him away from the hull and throwing him back against it, but he refused to let go.

You climb down before anyone could stop you, rain soaking through your shirt and stinging your eyes. By the time you reached the lowest rung, the boat was pitching so violently that you could no longer keep your footing.

“Bucky, you’re killing yourself.”

Another wave struck the hull. Your hands slipped from the ladder, and Bucky caught you instantly, one arm locking around your back as you wrapped your legs around his waist to keep from being swept away.

You gasped.

You had touched him through the observation glass. You had rested your hands against his face while wearing a diving suit and thick protective gloves. But this was the first time there was nothing between you.

Your soaked shirt had ridden up around your waist, leaving your bare thighs pressed against the cold scales covering his hips. Your arms were looped around his shoulders, your chest flush against his. His skin was freezing beneath your palms, but the strange blue light beneath his ribs pulsed warmly against your body.

Bucky went completely still.

Even half-suffocated and trembling from the pressure sickness, he stared at the place where your skin touched his as though he had never imagined you could feel like this. His metal hand spread carefully across your back, while his flesh hand hung on to the ladder, now both of you half-submerged.

Then the boat rocked again, forcing you tighter around him.

His eyes lifted to yours.

“You can’t stay this close to the surface,” you whispered, tightening your arms around his neck. “Please. You have to go back down.”

His forehead dropped against yours.

His eyes are too bright in the dark as he carefully lifts one hand, encouraging you to hold on tighter to him. Stay.

“I can’t live down there.”

For a moment, he looks away.

Then he brings your hand to the centre of his chest, where the blue light glows beneath the scales over his heart.

You have seen that glow before in fragments of the HYDRA file. The researchers called it an adaptive organ. They believed it was the source of his survival in the trench, it was a biological engine of pressure, salt and light.

They also believed that his kind can also share it in a magical ritual, when they mate with non-merpeople.

Bucky signs slowly, each movement careful. Can change.

You stare at him.

He signs again. Depths. Like me.

Your breath catches.

He doesn’t look triumphant. He looks miserable, because this isn’t a romantic offer to him, at least not entirely. It is a wound he is willing to reopen for you, the same biology HYDRA violated.

You, a human.

He seemed to want you to know that The Depths can make a mate, by sharing the living light under the heart, by letting it enter another body and teach it how to survive the abyss.

He can give you eyes that can see without sun and blood that does not rupture under pressure. 

But it’s permanent.

Bucky makes sure you understand that.

He signs it again and again, increasingly frantic. No force. Your choice. No hurt if no. I wait. I wait.

The fact that he thinks he has to promise not to force you breaks your heart.

You press your forehead to his. “Oh, Bucky.”

You kiss his salted nose goodbye and tell him you have to go back to land.

And when you do, you try to be normal.

You teach lectures about deep-sea ecosystems while thinking about the man beneath the water. You analyse the coral samples he brought you and find structures no human instrument has ever recorded. 

The university asks you to present your findings, and military contractors attend the lecture.

One of them asks whether the organism displayed signs of trainability.

You stop speaking.

The organism?

You look at the room full of people like you. Humans, who are now all beginning to look like monsters.

And finally, you understand why Bucky looked at your gloves and saw a weapon.

You leave before they can ask more questions.

Two weeks later, you return to the trench alone.

Bucky is waiting.

The moment your boat reaches the coordinates, the water beside you lights blue. He surfaces slowly. His hair is longer, and there are new scars across his metal arm. He looks more tired, but so relieved. You climb down the ladder.

He catches you carefully, metal hand braced beneath your back, tail keeping you both steady in the dark water.

“I couldn’t stay up there,” you tell him.

His eyes search your face. You place your hand over the light beneath his heart.

“I want to come home with you.”

His grip tightens for half a second, then loosens immediately, terrified of holding too hard.

He signs with shaking hands. Sure?

“Yes.”

Forever?

“Forever.”

Bucky can only smile.

You kiss his forehead, because he deserves gentleness in every language you have.

The transformation hurts, but not the way HYDRA hurt him.

Bucky doesn’t strap you down or cut you open. He holds you against his chest in the black water and presses his glowing heart to yours. As he sinks with you and begins the mating ritual, light enters you warmly.

Your lungs burn first.

You panic when water rushes into your mouth, when your body tries to reject it, when your legs twist with pain and your bones feel briefly, horribly, breakable.

Bucky holds on, anchoring you.

His metal hand cradles the back of your head, stroking again and again, as the ocean opens inside you.

Eventually, after a long and awful process of two days and two nights, you breathe water.

It fills you, and your body doesn’t die. It changes.

When you gather your thoughts, you’re floating in Bucky’s arms beneath the surface. Your skin glows with the same blue light as his as black scales shimmer along your hips and ribs. Your legs are gone, remade into a tail smaller than his but strong enough to move with the current. When you lift your hands, you find webbing between your fingers and tiny claws where your nails used to be.

Bucky hovers in front of you, looking wrecked as his dark blue lights flicker in a ramble. 

For one horrifying moment, you think something has gone wrong. Then you realise he’s waiting for you to hate him for changing you. 

You swim to him clumsily.

Bucky catches you before you can drift sideways. Even now, in the middle of his own terror, his first instinct is to keep you from falling in a world where falling is no longer possible.

You take his face in both hands.

Your lights flicker uncertainly beneath your skin. You don’t know what language you’re speaking yet, but you know this much.

Safe. you sign. Home.

His whole body lights up, every marking beneath his scales flares bright enough to turn the water around you blue.

He touches his forehead to yours.

For the first time since you met him, Bucky looks loved.

Then he takes you down into the Depths, past the last reach of moonlight, past cliffs of glowing coral and forests of black anemones, into a trench-city built from volcanic stone and old shipwreck bones. Its towers are shaped from old shipwrecks and the bones of things too large to imagine alive. Windows glow from within the rock, ropes of pearls and polished glass hang between structures, moving gently in the current, and gardens of luminous coral spread across the rooftops.

You barely have time to take it in before the merpeople begin emerging.

You realise, amazed, that he was never some lone monster wandering beneath your ship.

He was one of theirs.

They come from cave mouths, from archways carved into the stone, from the dark spaces between wrecked ships. Some resemble Bucky, with long tails covered in black or silver scales and fins running along their spines. Others have translucent skin through which their glowing organs are visible. Some have delicate fins like veils, while others bear teeth larger than Bucky’s and claws designed for splitting shells.

Many of them carry evidence of the surface world, with old hook scars split their mouths and shoulders, pieces of fishing line remain braided around wrists or woven deliberately into jewellery, transforming from instruments of capture into trophies of survival. One older merwoman has the rusted curve of a fishing hook hanging from her necklace, and another has a section of net wrapped around the handle of her spear.

Your stomach knots.

Of course they know what humans have done to the ocean. Of course they know what scientists did to Bucky. You expect hatred when they see your face, some instinctive awareness that you were born among the people who hunted them, so you press closer to Bucky.

He notices immediately. His arm tightens around you as the lights beneath his scales begin to darken in warning.

Then one of the older merwomen swims forward.

Bucky bares his teeth.

She ignores him completely.

Instead, she takes your face between her hands and studies you with large, black eyes. Her thumbs brush across the new gills beneath your jaw. You brace yourself for anger.

She presses her forehead warmly against yours.

The light beneath her skin blooms gold as if to say, welcome home.

You don’t know what it means yet. By now, you understand that they communicate in colours, but you do not understand any of the colours rippling across her body, or the waves of blue, silver, violet, and green that answer from the merpeople gathered around you. Their language passes, each body responding to the next until the entire trench glows.

For one frightened moment, you wonder whether they are warning one another about you.

Then the elder strokes her thumbs beneath your new gills.

Another fastens a string of polished shells around your neck, and a younger one touches your tail with careful fascination. The smaller merpeople begin circling you excitedly, darting between Bucky’s fins and fleeing playfully whenever he turns toward them.

Beside you, brilliant blue light bursts beneath every one of his scales, illuminating the metal plates of his arm and turning the water around him bright enough for you to see the pride on his face.

The younger merpeople flash rapid patterns in his direction. Whatever they are saying makes Bucky’s fins flatten with embarrassment before he sends them scattering into the coral with one sweep of his tail.

They return almost immediately, glowing with what you are beginning to suspect is laughter.

You realise then that they already know you, because Bucky has been telling them about you for months.

You cannot understand the exact stories moving across their bodies, but you recognise yourself in their gestures. 

—

One year later, the language of the Depths moves beneath your skin as naturally as English.

It no longer looks like random colours or disconnected flashes, and each brightness carries tone, each rhythm creates a word. 

Sometimes you wake with Bucky curled around you, his tail tangled securely with yours and his metal palm resting over the light beneath your ribs. Dark blue moves across his chest before you have even opened your eyes.

You are awake. Did you sleep well?

You nuzzle into his neck, allowing your baby blue light to answer against his skin. I always sleep well when you are holding me.

Bucky’s arms tighten around you. I missed you while you were asleep.

Your lights flicker with affection.

One year in, you continue your research, technically.

You have filled your cave with stone tablets as journals, labelled samples, pieces of shed scales, and specimens collected from regions no human vessel could ever reach. The Depths have become your field site, an entire ecosystem you’re slowly learning without harming anything inside it.

Bucky appoints himself your research assistant.

Unfortunately, he has little understanding of reasonable sample sizes.

One morning, he proudly deposits an enormous bioluminescent eel across your stone worktable. It is nearly twice your length, still glowing irritably as it coils around your equipment.

You stare at it.

You needed one scale.

Hopeful blue light pulses beneath Bucky’s throat. You asked me to find a specimen with silver markings, so I brought you the best one.

Your lights shimmer with exhausted affection. I only needed a single scale.

His head tilts. This one has thousands.

You smile.

He hovers beside his offering, watching you with those wide eyes. A smaller pulse of uncertain blue moves beneath his ribs. Did I do well?

You look at him, the creature humans had called violent, untrainable, and monstrous. You swim forward and take his face between your hands.

Light blue spreads from your palms and pours across his skin.

You did very well. You are the finest research assistant in the entire ocean.

Bucky glows so brightly that the eel startles.

You kiss the corner of his mouth, then nuzzle your face against his. He ducks his head shyly, but there is nowhere for him to hide the brilliant blue racing through every marking on his body.

Above you, the surface world continues searching for its missing scientist and its missing specimen, never understanding that neither of you is lost.

You are in the Depths, surrounded by people who call him family and who welcomed you as one of their own.

You are home.

—

Your relief dies a sudden, horrific death as you look at the top right corner of the screen.

“No service…” you whisper in disbelief. You hold the phone higher in the air, waving it around like a lunatic trying to catch an invisible butterfly. “Are you shitting me? How is there no service? We’re in the middle of a major city, not the fucking wilderness!”

“It's this building!” Bucky growls, leaning over your shoulder to look at your completely blank signal bars. He is so close you can smell the mint of his toothpaste and the deep, intoxicating musk of his cologne. “The exterior walls are solid, reinforced brick and God knows what else. It creates a total dead zone out here in the alley. I can never get a signal on the fire escape.”

You lower your phone, your hand trembling from the cold. “So we have no phones. And we're locked out. On a Tuesday night.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, running a hand through his dark, messy hair. “That pretty much sums it up.”

Bucky is already digging into the front pocket of his jeans. He pulls out his sleek, black smartphone, tapping the screen. The harsh white light illuminates his sharp features for exactly two seconds before the low-battery icon flashes on the screen. It blinks once, mocking him, and then the screen goes completely black.

Suddenly, a square of warm, yellow light spills out onto the iron grating a few yards to your left. You both turn your heads sharply. The window belongs to apartment 4A. Richard.

Richard is a miserable, sixty-something retired accountant who serves as the self-appointed tyrant of the co-op board. He has reported you for your television volume on a Saturday afternoon, he once threatened to tow your sister's car when she visited, and he constantly complains about Bucky’s irregular hours and “suspicious” guests.

You see Richard's silhouette through the glass. He is standing in his ridiculously plush, monogrammed bathrobe, peering out into the night to see what the commotion was about.

“Oh my God, Richard!” you scream, practically throwing yourself at the rusted railing that separates your landing from his window. “Richard! It's Y/n and Bucky! We're locked out! Open the hallway door!”

Bucky steps up right behind you, his broad chest almost brushing your back. “Hey! Richard! Open the fucking window!” he bellows, his deep voice easily carrying over the wind.

Through the glass, Richard squints. He clearly sees you. He sees you both shivering in the freezing cold. You watch as his mouth forms a tight, nasty little line of disapproval. He looks at Bucky, looks at you in your oversized sweats and Bucky's leather jacket, and his expression sours even further, as if he thinks you're out here having some kind of illicit, delinquent rendezvous.

Without an ounce of hesitation, Richard reaches up, grabs the drawstrings of his heavy, blackout curtains, and sharply yanks them shut. The light vanishes.

You stand there in stunned, vibrating silence. You blink, waiting for the curtain to twitch, waiting for the window to slide open. It doesn't.

“Did he... did that miserable son of a bitch just ignore us?” you ask, your voice dangerously quiet.

“He just closed the fucking curtains on us.” Bucky confirms, a dark, dangerous edge bleeding into his tone. He grips the iron railing with both hands, the metal groaning under his strength. “I'm going to kill him. I am literally going to end his life!”

“I will help you.” you state, turning to face Bucky, your eyes wide with homicidal outrage. “I will provide your alibi. We’ll say he slipped in the shower. Or better yet, we just push his miserable ass down the central staircase and say he tripped over his own bathrobe.”

Bucky lets out a harsh, bark-like laugh, his eyes flashing in the dim light. “Too fast. He needs to suffer, Doll. I have chemicals in my darkroom. Developing fluids. Silver nitrate. I can dissolve his body in a bathtub like a mob hit. Nobody would ever know.”

“We can forge a suicide note...” you continue, the absolute absurdity of the situation making you slightly hysterical. You’re shivering violently now, your teeth clicking together. “Say the guilt of being a complete and utter prick finally consumed him. We’ll take his apartment and knock down the wall to make a mega-loft.”

Bucky stares down at you, his anger briefly dissolving into a look of genuine, captivated amusement. “I like the way you think, Doll. You're completely ruthless when you're freezing.”

A violent gust of wind rips through the alley, slicing right through the thin cotton of your sweatpants. You let out an involuntary gasp, wrapping your arms tightly around your torso, trying to bury yourself entirely inside Bucky's massive leather jacket.

Bucky’s smile drops instantly. He assesses you, his gaze sweeping over your trembling frame. “You're freezing...” he murmurs, his voice softening entirely. “We can't just stand here in the wind. We need to get low, against the brick. It'll block the worst of the draft.”

He doesn't wait for your permission. He grabs your arm gently and guides you to the corner of the landing, furthest from the heavy metal door and shielded by the thick, jutting brickwork of the building's facade. He sits down first, crossing his long legs clad in dark jeans.

“Come here...” he orders softly, gesturing to the space right beside him.

You sink down onto the unforgiving, icy iron grating. As soon as you sit, Bucky reaches out, grabbing the heavy lapels of his leather jacket that is swallowing you whole, and pulls you firmly against his side. The shock of his solid, radiating heat makes you gasp again, but this time it has nothing to do with the cold.

You are pressed flush against him. His arm wraps securely around your shoulders, pulling you in so tightly that your thigh is resting heavy against his, your hip flush to his hip. He is a furnace in the middle of a tundra.

“Better?” he asks, his voice vibrating deep in his chest, right against your ear.

“Y...yeah,” you stammer, trying to control the uncontrollable shaking of your jaw. “A little.”

“We need to keep our minds occupied...” Bucky says, rubbing his large, warm hand up and down your arm through the thick leather. The friction feels like absolute heaven. “If we just sit here thinking about how cold we are, it's going to feel ten times worse. We need a distraction.”

“Like what?” you ask, leaning your head against his broad shoulder. It feels remarkably natural, as if you’ve spent your entire life fitting into the space beneath Bucky Barnes's chin.

“A game?” he suggests. “Something simple. Let's do the alphabet game. Movie titles. I'll start with A, you take B, we go back and forth. No repeats, no searching the internet, which we can't do anyway. Hesitate for more than ten seconds, you lose.”

You tilt your head up to look at him. His jaw is sharply defined in the shadows, his beautiful, messy hair blown back by the wind. “What does the winner get?” you challenge, a spark of competitive warmth finally thawing the ice in your veins.

Bucky looks down, his gaze dropping to your lips for a heavy, lingering second before snapping back up to your eyes. “Winner gets to decide exactly how we murder Richard tomorrow morning. I’m thinking blunt force trauma with a vintage camera tripod, but I’ll let you make the final call.”

You snort, a genuine smile breaking across your face. “You have yourself a deal, Barnes. Start us off.”

He shifts slightly, pulling you just a fraction closer, if that is even physically possible. “Alright. A. Apocalypse Now.”

“Good one,” you concede. “Okay, B. Basic Instinct.”

Bucky lets out a low, dark chuckle that sends a heavy shiver straight down your spine that has absolutely nothing to do with the wind. “Sharon Stone, huh? I didn't peg you for an erotic thriller kind of girl, Doll.”

“I am a woman of multitudes, Barnes...” you retort, your heart beating a frantic rhythm against your ribs. “Your turn. C.”

“Easy. Casablanca!” he fires back smoothly.

“Classic. So you’re a romantic. Interesting.” You tap your chin in mock thought. “D. Die Hard.”

“That is a Christmas movie, babe, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.”

“It is a cinematic masterpiece, you heathen,” you correct him. “E. Go.”

He pauses for a moment, his thumb absentmindedly stroking the fabric of his jacket covering your shoulder. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

You pause, looking up at him, genuinely surprised. “Wow. That is deeply depressing and beautiful.”

“I have depth,” he smirks. “F. Clock's ticking.”

“Fargo,” you counter instantly.

“Goodfellas,” he replies without missing a beat.

“Oh, pulling out the Scorsese. Okay, H. Heat.”

“Al Pacino screaming for absolutely no reason. A solid choice.” Bucky tilts his head back against the brick wall. “I. Inception.”

“Overrated,” you tease.

“You did not just call Christopher Nolan overrated!” Bucky gasps in mock offense, his arm tightening around you. “I might just throw you off this balcony.”

“I didn't understand the spinning top, okay?” you laugh. “J. Jaws.”

“Kill Bill,” he counters. “Volume one, obviously.”

“Obviously. L. Lethal Weapon.”

Bucky groans playfully. “You really like action movies with high body counts, don't you?”

“I work in fashion media, Bucky,” you say dryly. “I spend ten hours a day dealing with people debating the exact shade of cerulean blue. I need to see shit explode when I get home.”

He laughs, the sound rich and warm in the dark alley. “Fair enough. M. Matrix.”

“N. No Country for Old Men,” you say, shivering slightly as a fresh gust of wind hits you.

Bucky instantly notices. He shifts his weight, maneuvering his body so he is entirely blocking the wind, practically caging you against the brick wall with his large frame. His face is incredibly close to yours now, the banter fading into something much heavier, much more charged. The sharp smell of the cold city air is completely eclipsed by him.

“O,” he says, his voice dropping significantly, losing its playful edge. His eyes trace the line of your cheekbone. “Ocean's Eleven.”

You swallow hard, your breath catching in your throat. The heat radiating off him is making your skin flush. You can feel the heavy, steady thud of his heart against your arm. “P,” you whisper, struggling to remember the English language, let alone a movie title. “Um... Pulp Fiction.”

“Good,” he murmurs, leaning in just a fraction of an inch closer. You can feel his breath ghosting over your lips. “Q. Your turn to judge. Quantum of Solace.”

“The absolute worst Daniel Craig Bond movie,” you manage to say, though your voice sounds breathless and weak.

“Agreed...” Bucky whispers softly. His hand moves from your shoulder, his rough fingers gently brushing a stray lock of hair away from your freezing cheek. His touch is searingly hot against your cold skin. “R.”

You stare into his eyes, completely lost in the electric blue depths of them. The world around you, the cold, the locked door, the miserable neighbor, the deafening city, completely melts away. There is only this rusted fire escape, the suffocatingly heavy tension, and James Buchanan Barnes staring at you like you are the only thing that matters.

“R,” you breathe out, your eyes dropping to his lips. “I... I can't think of one.”

Bucky’s gaze is heavy, dark, and utterly consuming. A slow, devastating smirk tugs at the corner of his beautiful mouth. “Ten seconds, darling. You lose.”

“I think...” you whisper, closing the agonizing gap between you by a millimeter, “I'm okay with losing.”

Part 1- Part 3

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You barely made it to the couch before you collapsed, groaning as you buried your face in the cushion. You only lifted your head to breathe and check your phone when it went off. A smile touched your lips when you sat that Bucky texted you. 

No matter how rough the days were, your boyfriend was a bright spot.

“Barely heard from you today, sweetheart. You okay?”

Your heart sank when you scrolled through the chat. You usually sent him memes or gifs that you knew would make him laugh, along with sweet messages to let him know you were thinking of him. Today you hardly sent a thing with everything going on.

It was touching that he noticed something was off.

“Rough day. Sorry I worried you.”

You curled up with a yawn, the phone resting beside you.

“Just resting my eyes,” you mumbled.

You weren’t sure how much time had passed when the familiar rumble of a motorcycle engine cut through the quiet of your apartment, making you sit up slowly. Your heart fluttered, not needing to look out the window because you knew exactly who was there. One of your favorite people.

Bucky.

Your Bucky.

The sudden knock at the door sounded impatient as you stood up and stretched. You almost laughed when the knock continued, louder and more persistent. Maybe it was time to give him a key.

You barely got the door open before Bucky pushed his way inside, forcing you to step back as he kicked the door shut without taking his eyes off you. Your breath rushed out of your lungs when you looked him over. The sight of him in a leather jacket always did something to you.

But the crease between his brows pushed the excitement away. 

“Bucky?” you asked.

A small sound left your mouth when he wrapped an arm around your waist and pulled you against him. His other hand came up to cradle the back of your head, his hold protective and tender. It felt like your feet weren’t on the ground. 

“I’m here,” he answered, his voice rough and low. “I’ve got you.”

You felt his heart beat against you steadily, grounding you as your fingers curled in his jacket. The scent of leather and cologne filled your nostrils as you took a deep breath. Your eyes burned suddenly when he held you tighter, almost like he was giving you permission to fall apart if you wanted to. It wasn’t just a hug.

It was exactly what you needed without realizing it.

“I’ve got you,” he said again, his lips touching your temple.

You didn’t break down, but you did sniffle.

“Today sucked,” you said, proud of yourself for not pouting.

It sounded ridiculous. Bucky had lived through years of torture, brainwashing and more. You hadn’t experienced even a tenth of the pain he endured and you were whining about-

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said sincerely, rubbing your back soothingly. He never invalidated your feelings. “I’ll listen if you wanna talk about it, or I can punch something or someone if it makes you feel better.”

You let out a watery laugh. “No punching,” you said, pulling back far enough to look at him. “Did you really speed all the way here because I said I had a rough day? I know you sped.”

“I may have.” The small smile on his face made you smile. “You tell me something like that and you think I won’t drop everything to get to you?”

Your heart skipped a beat. No other boyfriend dropped whatever they were doing to get to you in the past. But Bucky always managed to find ways to put you first. The male species could learn a thing or two from him.

“You were probably busy,” you guessed.

“Doesn’t matter. Nothing’s more important than you.”

Your eyes burned again, but you blinked the tears away. “Thank you.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled. “You don’t have to thank me for showing up,” he said, grasping your chin carefully. “Can I do one more thing?”

His mouth found yours before you finished nodding.

It wasn’t a rushed or hungry kiss. It was something warm and impossibly gentle, like the grip on your chin, a kind of kiss that resonated in your core. He deepened it, like he needed a reminder that you were real and safe as he comforted you. 

It felt like love.

His forehead rested against yours when he broke the kiss. “Did that help at all?” he asked, his breath ghosting your lips and thumb stroking your chin.

“More than you know,” you murmured, leaning into him. 

“Good.” He pressed another soft kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Did you eat?”

Your silence answered that question.

He sighed, not waiting for permission as he walked you backward toward your couch. “I’m ordering your favorite,” he said, pulling you onto his lap once he took a seat. His jacket was still on. “And I’m gonna hold you until it gets here, feed you if you let me, and do whatever you want for the rest of the night.”

You settled into him, your body truly relaxing this time. “Even watch a bad romcom?” you asked, still in awe of how much he wanted to take care of you.

He rested his chin on your shoulder. “If that’s what helps.”

“Getting a hug and kiss from you did wonders,” you said honestly.

Knowing that someone saw you made a world of difference. 

“Wonders, huh? Didn’t know I was that powerful,” he teased, taking out his phone to order.

You giggled and titled your head a bit. “You didn’t tell me about your day.”

“I got to see you,” he said, smiling gently. “So it’s a good day.”

And being in Bucky’s arms made your day much better.

I know a hug and kiss from Bucky would help me, okay? Love and thanks for reading! ❤️

Entering the kitchen, you stand at the counter mixing something in a bowl. You had changed into comfy clothes, hair tied up in a messy bun, looking as beautiful as ever. Steve leans at the end of the island, phone in hand, brows furrowed, hair sticking out in every direction. You see him first, smile blooming on your face as you drop the whisk and run over to him. Hearing the commotion, Steve turns to see him; he gives a small wave before turning back to his call and moving to the living room. 

Your arms are around Bucky in a moment, squeezing him close; Bucky held you, watching with concern as Steve paced back and forth. 

“So glad you’re home,” You whisper, voice almost cracking. 

Bucky looked at you and then back at Steve. “What’s going on?”

You sag in his arms. “Emma came by.”

His whole body tensed like he’d been shocked. “What?”

“She saw me and you getting out of the truck.” You explain, keeping one hand in his as you go back to the kitchen. “Confronted Steve, though we were cheating on him.” 

A sigh left him, his hand carding through his hair several times. “Goddamnit. I knew I should have gone somewhere else. Or come home.”

Your hands rest on his chest. “Stop. Steve is already spiraling. Feels partially responsible.” Poking at his chest to make sure he understood. “It’s no one's fault. Our relationship is that, ours.”

“You weren’t the one that dated her for three years.” Bucky sighs, running his hands through his hair several times. “Then left her after talking about marriage.”

Steve comes out of the living room, his phone clattering onto the counter. “She was-” A choked-off sob ripped out of the smaller man. Bucky moves and wraps himself around the smaller man. “She was upset, and I didn’t know what to do. I just told her the truth. That we were all together.”

Bucky leans back, cupping Steve’s face. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Let me-” He starts patting his pockets, looking for his phone. Feeling it in his back pocket. “I’ll phone her.”

“Are you sure?” You stand there, eyes red-rimmed, arms around your middle.

“Yeah, she might not pick up, but I got to try,” Bucky says, squeezing Steve one more time before heading out the back door onto the deck. 

His hands shake as he scrolls down to Emma’s name, he’d never deleted her contact. There wasn’t really a reason besides it being the one small string he still had that was attached to her. Squeezing his eyes shut, he hits the contact button, holding the phone up to his face. A litany of curses coming out, for the first time in years he wished he could smoke.

Ring

Ring

Ring

Ring

“Hello?” Emma’s voice sounded rough, he knew that sound. She’d been crying. 

“Emma, it’s me,” Bucky stammers, trying desperately not to hate himself. 

There was silence. 

“You fucking asshole,” Emma cusses at him. Rightfully so. Her voice immediately rising with each word. “How dare you phone me.”

“Emma- please -I-I-”

“No. You listen here.” Her voice is filled with anger, cutting him off sharper than a knife. “I loved you. I fucking loved you, James Barnes. I thought you were it, my person, someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. It broke me. Upended my whole life. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Cause seeing you with your best friend's wife-Steve's fucking wife!” She choked out a sob. “It ripped that wound open all over again. I knew-I knew- how close you were with them. Your best friends.” Bucky can hear her walking back and forth, mirroring what he was doing. “Just to have Steve tell me he knew. He fucking knew, and he said you guys had been together at some point too. Like that somehow made it all make snese. You never told me, Bucky. Never told me that you had been in a relationship with Steve. That’s kind of a big deal.”

“I didn’t know how to tell you, Emma,” Bucky keeps his voice stable, even with Emma yelling at him over the phone. “Oh yeah, me and my best friend Steve had a relationship that was ruined by my dad.”

Emma snorts, “It could have been that easy. You made it difficult. You always made every little thing a goddamn mountain of what ifs. I knew how bad your dad was, how much trauma you endured at the hands of that man. I wouldn't have cared if you had had a relationship with him. It would have actually made sense!”

“I know that. It-it-fuck.” Bucky wants to scream. “I was trying to move past it. To build a different life, something not filled with my past.”

“Yeah, and you dragged me into it. Me.” Emma’s voice cracks. Bucky would do anything to comfort her right now. “Just for you to leave and go live your happy threesome life. How the fuck am I suppose to just be okay with that?!”

“I fucked up. I know I fucked up.” Bucky doesn’t yell; instead, he slides down the side of the house to sit on the wooden deck. Wondering if he could just sink into oblivion.“I was lying to myself, to my friends, to everyone. To you.”

“Why?” 

“I don’t know. Fuck. Emma. I don’t know. I fucked up so bad, and I hurt you, and I will never forgive myself for it. It makes me sick to think about it.”

She lets out a huff of air. “You're an idiot.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky sighs, wiping at his eyes. “See it every time I look in the mirror.”

“Are you happy?”

“You’re not asking me that-”

“Could you just shut up and answer the question for once?”

Bucky goes silent.

“Are you happy?” 

Something in his chest breaks, Emma had always been so kind, sweet, understanding. She had always reminded him of you. 

“Yeah,” Bucky croaks, more tears sliding down his face. “I am happy.” He pauses, trying to find words. “But I never wanted to hurt you. I really didn’t-”

“I know,” Emma says, he can see her shaking her head. Her voice having gone softer, the anger still edging it. “You get upset when spiders would die in the apartment. You fed a cat for a month before finding their owner. Probably why it hurt so much. You actually cared Bucky, why seeing you reminded me with how much I lost.”

Bucky sighs, feeling his heart clenched, she wasn’t wrong. He’d always been a big softie, wanting to be everything his father wasn't. “I am so sorry, Emma. I would never have wanted you to find out like that.”

She snorts, quiet for another moment. “I would have been okay never knowing. Not going to lie, I am kind of jealous of Steve’s wife though.”

His entire face goes red, and he nearly chokes on air. “Jesus, Emma.”

“Hey, I can dream.” She teases, Bucky shocked at the joke. “You never loved me, did you?”

Ice sits in his stomach, bile burning his throat. “Not fully.”

Emma sighs, “Yeah, I figured.” He waits, whatever she has to say, he can take. He owes her that and so much more. “I think I knew. Remember watching you, how you talked to them, laughed, it was like a mask sliding off of you. I kept waiting for that to happen between us, and it never did.”

Bucky has to wipe away more tears. All he wanted to do was go back and change things, but that wasn't an option here.

“You always carried so much weight around. I thought it was because of taking care of your Dad, the business, how hard you fought to keep things afloat. Why I loved you so much.” Emma’s voice goes quiet. 

They both sit on each end for a moment. Bucky is not sure what to say, he didn’t deserve her patience or understanding. It was worse that she didn’t try to burn his life to the ground; she just understood it. Accepted it with more grace than he would ever deserve. 

“Thank you, Emma.” It’s the only words that seem to fit the situation. “I-I missed talking to you.”

Emma snorts, “Don’t lie to me, you asshole.”

“No, fuck no, I won’t do that.” Bucky almost hates that he is smiling. Him and Emma had always got along well, being able to talk about everything and anything. It was why they had been drawn to one another. 

“Well, I guess I won’t block your number then,” Emma tosses back.

“You can, I wouldn’t blame you,” Bucky replies, the truth burning his tongue. 

“You are the most self-deprecating dickhead,” Emma huffs. “What if my car breaks down? Have to make sure my ex will take pity on me and fix it.”

Bucky lets a small laugh escape. “You’re always welcome to bring it by.”

“I am still mad you never told me.” Emma huffs, “Not sure I am going to make this regular thing.”

“You never liked talking with exes,” Bucky fills in. She’d often rant about her girlfriends still texting their exes and not moving on with their lives.

“I am still sticking with that. Going to make me look like a hypocrite.” 

“Nah, just a good person.”

“Ow. Hurting my mean girl ego.”

Both of them laugh at that, it’s genuine, gentle. That ice in his chest melting away. 

“Don’t worry about me telling people, or anything like that. Not my place,” Bucky believes her. “Didn’t mean it didn’t cross my mind. Do you think people would care?”

“I have no idea, maybe.” Bucky shrugs, letting his head rest against the side of the thouse. “Think Sam would have chewed my ear off for about a week.”

“You should tell him,” Emma replies easily. “Before he figures it out.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Bucky finally takes in a deep breath. “Thank you, really, Emma.”

“Better send me wine and cheese,” Emma threatens. 

“Done.” 

Steve sits curled in on himself on the sofa, Rex resting his head against his lap; you were still working away in the kitchen. He had a feeling it was because if you sat down, you would start to spiral. Bucky had been outside for a while now. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not; there hadn’t been any yelling. Not that Bucky was much of a yeller. Steve could only think of maybe a dozen times that the man ever raised his voice. Once had been when a guy was dragging Steve out of his car; it made his face flush to think of the man sprinting across the parking lot to get to him. The guy who'd attacked him had let him go just seeing Bucky.

The back door opens; Rex raises his big head, tail thumping. Bucky comes into the room, his face red and white from tears. Steve is up, and you are moving from the kitchen. The three of you collide together, wrapping around the man, his arms somehow engulfing everyone. 

“S’okay,” Bucky murmurs, kissing the top of Steve’s head. “I think.”

Steve buries himself closer to Bucky, wanting to just stay here forever. Be wrapped around the smell of his sweat and metal. “That’s good?”

A beeper goes off, you groan and move away from them. Muttering curses about lasagna timers and sauces. Bucky leans back and cups Steve’s face, leaning down to kiss him. Steve melts into his mouth, he couldn’t lose him, not again. Not when he just got him back.

“Are-are- you staying?” Steve has to hold himself back from sobbing. Feeling like he’s suddenly twenty years old again, hiding in the back of a truck under a blanket. 

“Stevie,” Bucky leans his forehead to Steve, arms wrapped around him. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. Not going anywhere.”

A muffled croak leaves him, his fists clenched in Bucky’s shirt. “Thank god,” 

Bucky pulls him tight, and Steve lets tears fall. Some dark part of him had thought he might lose Bucky again, that this little piece of paradise might collapse under the weight of this shitty world. He hates how the tears flow, how his stomach clenches and flutters.

“Never leaving you guys, not unless you want me to.” Bucky murmurs, rocking the two of them back and forth. 

You come over, handing them both cold beers, a bottle of wine tucked under your arm. “Can I ask what she said?”

Bucky kisses Steve one more time, before carefully detangling himself. The three of them moving over to the table where you had put food out. The three of you both take sips of your beverage before Bucky explains what was discussed. 

Steve listens to every detail; you finish two glasses of wine, looking a little wind-swept by everything. It was shocking how well Emma and Bucky had discussed everything. The dread that had been sitting in Steve’s stomach slowly dissipated. He hadn’t been sure if Emma would try to retaliate. Really, it won’t have been that shocking, she had every reason to be filled with fiery rage. Would it have affected his work? It was up in the air, film and tv was a strange beast. Oddball relationships were not abnormal; that didn’t mean that something like this wouldn’t be frowned upon. There was nothing an office loved more than a good piece of drama.

What had really worried Steve was your job. You worked from home, yes, but rumours about you having an affair or threesome would not be looked at as kindly.  Not to mention if you ended up publishing a book. There were so many different things that could have gone wrong if that got out. The world loved to judge anything that was different from the normal.

“Do you trust her?” You ask, swirling wine, and picking cheese off the casserole. Steve could hear the slight tipsy lisp you developed from the wine.

Bucky finishes his beer, getting up to grab Steve another one with is own. “I do. I really don’t think she’ll tell anyone. Emma has never been someone to encourage drama.”

Steve popped the tab on his drink. “I guess all we can do is wait and see?”

Reaching over, Bucky takes his hand. “Whatever happens, we will figure it out. “ Bucky turns to you and reaches for your hand. “Together.”

“Together.” You let out a small sigh. “Now, I do think we should probably tell a few people. Just in case.”

“Yeah, I should probably tell Sam.” Bucky kisses your knuckles before letting go of your hand.

A laugh bubbles out of Steve, “Oh my god, he’s never going to shut up about this. He's going to want to talk to all of us.”

Bucky groans, you giggle, starting to scoop out food for them, telling them to at least have a few bites. Steve wasn't sure how much he'd be able to eat, but you were right.

“Yeah, once Sam knows, Riley will know, it will spread.” Bucky runs a hand through his hair. Steve desperately wanted to just curl up against the man and forget the day. “Gonna be like a wildfire.”

You giggle again, “He is going to ask to move downstairs.”

“No, not a chance. Riley would hunt me down,” Steve shakes his head. “That man was in the military, won’t even see it happen.”

Bucky snorts, the three of you breaking into easy conversation. The tension is still lingering around the edges, but it had started to finally soften. Steve is finally trying to let himself relax. As long as he had both of you, that's all that mattered.

Sam stands in the main area of their small office, typing away on his tablet, completely oblivious to the fact that Bucky’s face is flushed and he is sweating bullets. Sighing, Sam closes out a few things and looks up at his friend. Brows going up in a ‘what is wrong with you’ look. 

“So, what did you break?” Sam asks, arms crossing over his chest. That would be his first question; Bucky had learned a lot about computers and how they meshed with vehicles. It didn’t mean he hadn’t broken several. 

Bucky snorts, letting himself relax a little. “I didn’t break anything. This time.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam puts the tablet down, gesturing for Bucky to lead the way. They go to his small back office, closing the door against the never-ending sounds of the shop. 

Sam sits in one of the chairs, legs crossed, watching Bucky much too closely. “Then why do you look like you’re about to throw up?”

“You know I moved in with the Rogers,” Bucky starts, Sam nods, looking incredibly bored. “Well, ahh, this is hard to explain.”

Staring down at his desk trying to find a way to explain what is going on. It feels ridiculous, it shouldn’t actually be this difficult, Sam has been a close friend since his apprenticeship. The two of them had built this business into what it was today. 

“Dude, spit it out.” Sam leans forward, waving his hands in a please continue motion. “Did something catch fire? Is the second shop too much? What?”

“Things have kind of changed between us.” Bucky swallows, god, this was ridiculous.

Sam slumps, “Do you need to move, again? I can probably let you crash on my couch for a few weeks.” 

Bucky shakes his head, “No, no, I don’t need to move or anything like that.”

He stares at Bucky. “Could you get to the point? I have a backlog of vehicles that need to be checked.” 

“Me, Steve, and his wife are together.”

His face twists in confusion. “Yeah, I know. You all live together. I helped you move in. Did you bang your head?”

“That’s not what I mean, Sam. I mean-” Bucky rubs at his face, wondering if he should just call this all off. Tell him it was nothing. “I mean- we are- fucking hell -We are in a relationship.” 

Sam’s brows furrow, his mouth opens and closes a few times. “Wait-” His head tilts to the side, like he can’t understand what was just said. “You’re all fucking? Like you, Steve, and his wife?”

Bucky sighs, wanting nothing more than to sink into the floor. “At the most basic level, yes. We are all fucking.” Rubbing his face, this was such a mistake. “All consenting adults in a loving relationship.”

“So you’re bi?” Sam’s eyes narrow; Bucky groans. Remembering endless teasing by the man and his husband, Riley, about being a third. 

“Yes, Sam, I am bisexual, or whatever. I really have never been attracted to another guy besides Steve,” Bucky huffs, already knowing that he’s never going to hear the end of this. “Is that really what you took from this?”

Sam chuckles, “Oh man, I have to tell Riley. He’s going to love this, and now I owe Thor twenty bucks.”

“What?” Bucky sits up, wondering just what his crew has been doing.

“We all made bets as to how long it would be until you three hooked up.” Sam shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“You assholes,” Bucky groans, knowing that everyone will know by the end of the day. It was why he’d decided to tell Sam first; the man could not shut up to save his life. “Does everyone have bets on my love life?”

Sam snorts, clapping his hands together. “Dude, there is a reason you never win at poker. You’ve been looking at that girl like she hung the damn moon. Every time a tall blonde that looks remotely like Steve walks in, your ears turn red. It’s been painfully obvious for years.”

Bucky crosses his arms and wants to deny it, but there is nothing to deny. Not really. He’d been in love with Steve and you for years, and apparently everyone knew about it.

“How long before everyone knows?” Bucky grumbles, tapping his fingers against his arm. 

Sam shrugs, “I will not tell anyone.” He crosses his heart with a finger. “Besides, Riley, unless you want me to.”

Slumping against his chair, Bucky is forced to think about this,” Lets keep it between us, and Riley, for now.”

“So, about being a third.” Sam grins, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh my god. Sam. No.” Bucky grunts. “Now go fix your computer whatevers.”

Natasha and Wanda sit in little boxes on Steve’s computer, he was sweating enough that he felt like he might actually pass out. It’s a bit ridiculous. When he first got into his job Natasha and Wanda weren’t much different then him, bright eye’d, bushy tailed, and ready to do anything. Somewhere a long the way an unspoken agreement was made, they’d stick together, keep working with one another and helping each other up the terrifying ladder that was the film industry. Which is how they ended up here. They were now as close to family as Steve had beside you and Bucky. 

“So, what they change now?” Natasha asks, she had a notebook, a laptop, and two coffees in front of him. 

Wanda sighs, already scribbling into her notebook. “We are supposedly starting in two weeks, why are we having a meeting today?”

Taking a breath Steve lets it out with a shudder, “It’s actually not work related, well it is work related, but not directly. I just.” 

Both women stare at him, waiting for him to spit out what he was going to say. He wasn’t normally like this, most things never rattled him. Scheduled moved up two weeks; it was feasible. An actor's schedule had to be moved, and now you were moving locations, he was on it. Steve had always been level-headed, unflappable; this had flapped him. 

“Did something happen?” Wanda had shut her notebook, adjusting her laptop so she could see him more clearly.

“No-it’s not like that.” Steve had become that stuttering high schooler all over again. 

Natasha now was also looking directly at him, her brows furrowed, glasses pushed into her hair. Great. He’d ruffled everyone's feathers. 

“I want you both to know, in case rumours get started,” Steve has to take off his glasses and rub at his face. “My relationship has kind of changed-” He holds up a hand to stop both women from exploding. “No, I am not getting a divorce.” They both went completely silent. “Bucky is part of our relationship now.”

The dead silence makes Steve wonder if he lost inernet connection. That would be his luck. Then the whole place erupts in questions. So many that Steve can’t actually hear what they are saying. 

“H–h-hold on,” Steve stutters out, as the woman keep talking over one another. “Hold on!”

They go quiet finally. Steve sags down in his seat. 

“One question at a time.”

Natasha sits up straight, a grin on her face. “This is your best friend, Bucky, right?”

Steve nods, “Yeah, it is.”

“The guy that was your best man at your wedding. Big guy, tattoos on his left arm?” Natasha chitters, jesus, she looks way too excited. 

“You’ve both met him at least once,” Steve huffs, feeling ridiculous.

“Does your wife know?” Wanda has leaned back and crossed her arms, looking thoroughly displeased.

“Of course she knows, is- uh- very onboard with the whole thing.” Steve flushes, thinking about you curled around Bucky this morning. 

“Are you okay with this?” Wanda asks, looking towards Natasha. “Like, did you open up your relationship? What does this all entail?”

“No, it’s not an open relationship. Just the three of us, and it's not ‘cause I work too much either. I was in a relationship with Bucky back in College, and things didn’t end well then. It’s a long, complicated story; just, we are all together now, happy, healthy, sane, consenting adults.” Steve rambles; not sure if he is making it better or worse at this point. 

Wanda makes a face, Natasha sighs. “Look, if you’re happy, Steve, that’s what matters.” 

“I'm just not sure a three-way relationship is healthy,” Wanda states. Natasha scoffs at that comment. “No, I am serious here, I feel like someone is always going to feel left out.”

Natasha waves her hands. “Wanda, stop it. Just cause your relationship didn’t work doesn’t mean it’s not going to work for Steve. Did you forget that these three have been glued together since they were kids?” 

Steve looks between the two of them, mouth open. “Wait, what? What happened, Wanda?” 

Wanda glares at Natasha. “I am just worried. Steve isn’t exactly one to be careful.”

“No, he isn’t, but have you seen how he looks at his wife and Bucky? It’s kind of ridiculous.” Natasha counters.

“Okay. Hold the damn phone, both of you.” Steve gapes at both of them. “One, I am careful. Two, I wasn’t trying to make this a whole confession session here. I just wanted you both to know that I am in a happy relationship. It just happens to be with my best friend and wife.”

“Wait, why did you want to tell us?” Natasha stops; Wanda still looks unconvinced but doesn’t try to argue.

Steve deflates a little, “Bucky’s ex found out; she says she won’t tell anyone, but I wanted to get ahead of any rumours that might show up.”

Both women nod at the statement. “Makes sense, you worried people won’t hire you?”

“I have no idea,” Steve confesses, not sure how to feel about any of this. “Plus, you’re both my friends; you should know.”

“As long as you’re happy,” Natasha says with a smile. “That’s what matters.”

Wanda huffs before she leans forward, relaxing a little. “Just be careful, Stevie. The last thing we would want is for you to get hurt.”

Chapter 14

Shockingly, I am not foreshadowing anything

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