š¤ Hola, mis palomitas! Juniper ā she/her, 20, Mexican-American, 18+, minors do not interact. click here for palestine, other methods of supporting palestine.
š WHERE TO SAIL TO NEXT? REQUESTS ARE OPEN
doodle requests, writing wants, thirsts, whatever your heart so desires!
š UNCHARTED WATERS ā works in progress, ideas, etc.
š« MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE: before exploring the tide pool, you must familiarize yourself with THE LINES IN THE SAND.
āŗ Care to purchase your captain a bottle of rum?
šĀ CAPTAIN'S DIARY (a.k.a. MASTERLISTS):
āŗ [STRANGERS THINGS] ā strange creatures lie below the surface.
āŗ [DC] ā murky waters and troubled tides.
Some light reading to pass the time? After Hours w/ Eddie Munson
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A piece I did for my favorite fictional girl group!!
From left to right: Ananya, my self insert OC, Morgan
If It Barks has literally consumed my entire being to the point where the need to draw these ladies felt like a possession and this faux magazine cover was my exorcism.
Thank you so much to @luveline for writing such a magnificent piece of literature and for allowing me to interpret their characters! If you havenāt read If It Barks yet you are sooooo missing out!! Genuinely one of the best Rosckstar!Eddie fics Iāve read.
this is the coolest thing thatās ever happened to me! thank you so much for sharing this, wow! i am blown away!!! ananya and morgan are exactly as i imagined them, and wow, you are so talented! i donāt draw anymore so sorry if i sound like a poser but youāre so talented, i mean, the skill it must take! their expressions, their poses, the shine on things, their beautiful hair!! and itās so cool that you made it a magazine colour you are incredibly creative! I know sheās a self insert youāve drawn but the way sheās posed like reader really would be on the cover, hidden away behind everyone holding her guitar properly looking so serious, while ananya looks like sheās ready to run and morgans posing. Sorry Iām so rubbish at expressing myself here but oh my god! youāre the coolest EVER, and idk itās a privilege to be read by everyone but insane to be shown your art you made cos you liked a fic i wrote, Iām touched that youād enjoy the fic and so appreciative that youāre sharing your talents, i know you didnāt do it for me but Iām still honoured you made it!! It also reminds me so sorely how desperately that fic needs to be continued because things were getting interesting and ananya is about to pull the pin on things š my beautiful angel. i love your oc with her silk shirt and the mid length skirt, she looks like she needs a hug (or to be taken seriously!). sorry for rambling! you are amazing! thank you for reading always and for sharing this i am so happy to see it! ā„ļøā„ļøā„ļøā„ļøā„ļøā„ļøā„ļø
Genuinely so kind!! Iām glad I was able to do your characters justice! Like I said, Iāve been soooo obsessed with If It Barks and not even solely for Eddie and readerās dynamic (though it does play a huge part lol) but also for Godlessās dynamic and the way the girls interact with each other. Some of the parts I anticipate most are the scenes where the girls are sharing space.
You have such a knack for creating distinctive characters and thatās probably why Iām so invested! Characters like Ananya and Morgan add so much to the story, I love them! Even if theyāre high key really messy and catty lmao
A piece I did for my favorite fictional girl group!!
From left to right: Ananya, my self insert OC, Morgan
If It Barks has literally consumed my entire being to the point where the need to draw these ladies felt like a possession and this faux magazine cover was my exorcism.
Thank you so much to @luveline for writing such a magnificent piece of literature and for allowing me to interpret their characters! If you havenāt read If It Barks yet you are sooooo missing out!! Genuinely one of the best Rosckstar!Eddie fics Iāve read.
from your wips- are there any snippets of Eddie Munson x Reader (13 Going on 30 AU)? I love how you write eddie
Ah! I love when y'all send me asks! Thank you so much for the compliment!
So to be entirely honest, my 13 Going on 30 AU is in the very very early stages of development... and by that I mean all of it has been mapped out in my mind. BUT! Since you asked politely and I haven't posted some of my writing in a cool minute, I thought I'd write a lil snippet just for you, so enjoy this itty bitty little taste.
Your eyes dart around the narrow hallway, taking in the dull yellowed walls as you chew at your bottom lip and fuss with the lacy hem of your slip dress. You avert you gaze down to your shoes where your left foot canāt keep from bouncing. In some odd way, the continued click, click, click of your heel against the hardwood soothes your anxious nerves and you become distracted byĀ your freshly manicured toenails glinting up at you through the peep opening of your pumps.
The door opens with the jangle of a chain lock and your wide eyes find a mature face, smile lines deeper, stubble less patchy but dark honeyed-brown eyes the very same. Your lips canāt help but twitch up at the edges as you take him in.
āYouāre not the pizza boy,ā he says with a slow skepticism, breaking your engrossment.
You blink at him before speaking with a renewed enthusiasm. āEddie, itās me!ā
He stares at you blankly for a second, eyes roving over your features and your attire as much as he can through the sliver of space afforded between the door and its stop. His lack of fervor causes your eyebrows to furrow and your mouth to curve into a worried frown.
āYou donāt remember me?ā You ask, voice desperate for the opposite.
His eyes squint before he says your name with an inquisitive inflection towards the end.
You immediately perk up, exhaling excitedly, āYes!ā
He pushes the door forward to slide the chain lock off and opens it so he can lean his frame against the threshold.
āUm, do you want to come in orā¦ā his sentence trails off as he nudges the door the rest of the way open with his knee. You nod emphatically, holding your clutch close to your stomach as you silently step inside.
Your gaze immediately wanders over every expanse of his apartment thats available to you. Thereās a modest audio system in one corner with records filling up multiple crates and cassettes stowed away in a rack hung upon the wall. Posters of bands you know well and some that youāve never heard of take up the majority of the wall space, all except for one dedicated to his guitars. Youāre well acquainted with his Warlock, having accompanied him to every gig he was lucky enough to lock down. Sheās well-worn, the crackled body decorated with scattered nicks and scratches while the fretboard houses divots from what you assume is years worth of playing. Surrounding her are much newer guitars with glossy finishes and brightly shining strings ready to be plucked.
Your gaze trails down from the wall to where a simple acoustic guitar is propped up on a stand. The strings poke out from the headstock in every which direction and the white message along the body has been scratched away and made much less legible: āTHIS MACHINE SLAYS DRAGONS.ā You touch the headstock and smile, glad to see that Eddie is just as sentimental as when you left him.
He watches you waltz around his apartment, gazing at his belongings like that of a child totally enthralled by the bright colored fish housed in an aquarium. His brows furrow and he attempts to speak, his mouth forming the beginning shapes of a sentence two or three times before he manages to get something out.
āDo you want something to drink?ā Is what he settles on. āI have some Budweiser or, uh, I think I have some orange juice left.ā
āWaterās fine,ā you say absentmindedly as you walk towards his recessed shelves, built-in under the line of his short staircase. Youāre able to make out the debossed silver letters and the blue cotton-bound spine as you approach. You slip the book from in-between the others and begin to flip through it. You find your photo, small and all too easily swallowed by the sea of other faces on the spreadĀ but itās you just the same. Itās odd to recognize a face that no longer belongs to you; yesterday, you looked in the mirror and saw the girl in the book but now itās like that face is a lightyear away. Before you can drive yourself mad trying to decipher that feeling, you pinpoint Eddieās photo. You smile and swipe your thumb over the image. Heās scowling and itās made clear despite the shoddy printed resolution. Itās a wonder he even showed up for Picture Day in the first place but, as you map out the features of this Eddie, the one youāre familiar with, youāre more glad than ever that he did.
āHere you go.āĀ
He presents the glass of water to you and you take it with a quiet āthank you,ā walking over to his couch in the middle of the room and plopping yourself down just as you would have on the ratty old loveseat back at his trailer. You tuck your feet under yourself and take a sip of your drink as you continue to browse the clubs and extracurriculars.
āUh,ā he calls your name to grab your attention,āwhat are you doing here?ā
You look up and are suddenly confronted with how to answer his question without sounding entirely ridiculous. You make the best attempt you can while his disbelieving stare bores down into you.
āRight,ā you begin as you set the yearbook and the glass of water aside, straitening your posture and folding your hands in your lap. āSo, yesterday was 1984 and I donāt mean that in like the metaphorical or sentimental or Orwellian sense, I mean yesterday was literally 1984, specifically my birthday. Jeanette McBride was there and she swore sheād get me in with her dad who worked at Haloed Magazine and then you and I, we got into this big fight and I ran into your closet and I wished to be older so I could get out of Hawkins! And now⦠now Iām here. Itās like I skipped everything else. Yesterday I was 18 and now Iām⦠well, I guess Iād be about 34 right now.ā
Your speech slows as you consider your last point staring off to the side before looking up at Eddie. Heās eyeing you funnily, eyeās slightly squinted, head tilted, and mouth open as if heās preparing to say something but canāt seem to decide what would be the most appropriate response. Thereās a stretched out moment of silence between you before he speaks.
āAre you on something?ā He questions, leaning in with his hands on his hips, his gaze now focused on trying to discern how dilated your pupils are.
āNo!ā You say, frustrated that he didnāt seem to grasp any of what you just said.
āReally? āCause it kinda seems like youāre on drugs,ā he pushes the possibility.
āEddie!ā You cry out, exasperated, āIām being serious! My life is allā weird now!ā
āLook,ā he says as he rubs at his eyes with his finger and thumb, trying to muster as much patience as he can manage in this undoubtedly absurd scenario, āmaybe you should see a psychiatrist or maybe check yourself into a hospital, but I donāt know why youāre telling me this. We havenāt spoken in well over a decade.āĀ
āEddie,ā you say softly, features taking on an inquisitive look as you stand and step towards him, āYouāre my best friend.ā
You reach a hand out to touch his upper arm, mostly in an attempt to anchor yourself. When you make contact, Eddie looks down at where your hand rests over his bicep. He rolls his lips in towards his teeth and grabs your hand, squeezing it once before setting it back down between the two of you. You watch as he does this, your mouth held helplessly agape.
āNo,ā he says with a clement tone, āIām not.ā
Deep hurt washes over your features and all of the air that occupied your lungs seems to have vaporized as you fight to take in a steady breath.
Noticing the slump of your shoulders and the weariness of your eyes, Eddie attempts to extend an amicable offer, āLet me walk you home, you seem⦠unwell.ā
You nod, hardly processing what heās said as you step towards the couch to grab your clutch, holding it, as a comfort, inwards. āOkay,ā you respond, voice meek and broken towards the end.
He places his hand on your shoulder and helps to guide you towards the door, walking in time with your dragging steps. As you step past the threshold, he shrugs on a jacket from the coat hanger and closes the door with a quiet click.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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PAIRING: Din Djarin x Mandalorian!Reader
SUMMARY: What if a different mandalorian managed to get to the child before Din?
Tasked by an anonymous patron to protect the child, you, a Mandalore-born and Tusken-raised bodyguard butt heads with a mercenary that aims to take what you have and deliver it to his client. Forced to share a ship and evade what remains of the Empire, you must work together to return the child to his kind and stay alive while doing so.
forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers, reader is a single mom who works two jobs and loves her green child
A troubled war veteran is introduced to the hidden dance and music scene of Black and Tan clubs. Within the liveliness of this hidden scene he meets a dancer who performs above ground for a wealthy hotel. Despite your conjecture about Bucky Barnes, when your dance partner is injured and there's no one available to fill his place, you're forced to accept this stranger into your world of dance and teach him the moves all the while falling in love.
forced proximity (can you tell I love this trope?), one sided enemies-to-lovers (reader is rightfully suspicious of this white man)
PAIRING: Bucky Barnes x Burlesque!Reader (1920's AU)
SUMMARY: A lonely war veteran stumbles into a gentleman's club on New Years Day and grows enamored with one of the strip-tease performers.
This idea kind of morphed into the one above but Iām still attached to the 1920s AU aspect of it. Despite this one rattling in my head for the longest amount of time, I still don't have a solid premise but I love the pairing and I'm sure I could cook something up
š ONE-SHOTS
PAIRING: Eddie Munson x SingleMom!Reader
SUMMARY: How Sheena and Eddie meet!
PAIRING: Eddie Munson x SingleMom!Reader (Apart of the Half Elf in a Pine Tree Universe)
SUMMARY: Winter shopping dates, hot chocolate, empanadas, and longing glances.
The winter just makes me need to write for Eddie and Sheena like no other time of year
This blog is both a place for me to post my writings and art and a place for me to muse aimlessly about the things that I enjoy. I mostly just lurk in the shadows and reblog my current reads only popping up to post my writings, art, and (less so) my thoughts.
This blog is not a safe space for: racists, transphobes, zionists, homophobes, pro-shippers, generative ai users, or pro-ana blogs.
This is an 18+ blog, minors, please, just... just don't. Blank, ageless, and underage blogs will be blocked.
If you're being a weirdo, harassing myself or others, or are attempting to start vitriolic discourse you will be blocked, straight to the brig!
do not plagiarize my work or claim it as your own, I will become your worst nightmare
do not repost my work to other platforms
that includes pinterest, ao3, "fan fiction audiobook" apps or websites, as well as any other platform without my explicit consent
never will it ever be okay to feed my writing to ai and if I find out that you are, not only will you be blocked immediately, but I will also spread the word to all others who need to know
typically I write for fem!readers and afab!readers, if you'd like me to write for a gender-neutral!reader please specify and I will happily accommodate :)
I write both SFW and NSFW. Interaction is so much appreciated, please comment, reblog, and send me asks! I really love reading them and engaging with y'all.
For requests, first and foremost, I am very picky about what I write and what I want to draw so please don't take it personally if I decide not to engage with your request, it's really a matter of interest and time.
Speaking of time, I'm a college student! That means that works will take a while to be posted as I am constantly consumed with homework, personal projects, and my actual job lol. Please be patient with me and, if you want some little snippets of content, send me your thoughts and some scenarios and read my WIPs!
WHO I CURRENTLY WRITE FOR:
āŗ STRANGER THINGS: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington
š š š ļ½”š¦¹Ā°ā§ GET TO KNOW YOUR CAPTAIN! Juniper, June, Junip, Junie Bee, the list goes on and on, she/her, 20, a lover girl at heart.
I am a Mexican-American fangirl! I am currently attending college with a focus in studio arts (textiles and natural fibers) and a minor in chemistry. I don't post my textile works on Tumblr but you can see plenty of my fandom doodles here!
On Isla de Enebro you'll find fandom ramblings, fan art (lots of self insert art), and, primarily, my writing!
š¼ likes: perfumery, podcasts (currently listening to Rehash), my two pet rabbits, monchhichis, knitting and spinning my own fibers, fashion history, video essays (currently in my Ro Ramdin era), cosplay, silver jewelry, calla lilies, burlesque, pineapple curry, equine animals
š¼ dislikes: writing academic papers, eggplant, dark roast coffee, doing dishes, rude customers, the sun in my eyes, itchy wool, nonchalance, tomato skin, meanies, cheaply made products, billionaires
š¼ my babes: Eddie Munson, Bucky Barnes, Din Djarin
š¼ fave media: Truman Sinclair, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Poly Styrene, Broey Deschanel, Czech stop motion films, The Hannah Montana Movie, Suzanne Doucet, Alison's Halo, Mina Le, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, 13 Going on 30
š¼ currently reading: Emma by Jane Austen
š¼ currently watching: Breaking Bad
Want to know more about me? Send a bottle out to sea and it might just find its way to me!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Summary:Ā Your boss was an assāyou knew it, the office knew it, the entire country knew it. Working for Senator Brown was never easy, but you had managed it for the better part of three years and didnāt want to see your career go up in flames. Unfortunately for you, Bucky was slowly falling in love with you, and Congressman Barnes didnāt think managing it was enough.Ā
Word count:Ā 9k
Warnings:Ā Injury (kinda), hospitals, angst, an abusive boss, protective Bucky!!
a/n:Ā Ahh a Bucky fic that's not an AU (that's also one million words)! Idk how the government works tbh so sorry if things are a little inaccurate there lol. This takes place right before Thunderbolts! Thank you for reading, I love you!! ā¤ļøā¤ļø
Masterlist
~~
āCongressman Barnes,ā you greeted, a slight nod of your head the only acknowledgement you could afford. Senator Brown was only a moment away from screaming at you again, and you could only take so much screaming in one day.Ā Ā
Bucky, unfortunately, did not care about being screamed at by Senator Brown. He took your upper arm in a light grip and shot you a confused smile. āWhat, you avoiding me? Canāt be seen in the halls talking to me?āĀ
A fairer assessment of Buckyās interruption was that he didnāt know of the wrath Senator Brown could incite upon you. Sure, Bucky knew that Brown was a hardass, and by association, his executive assistant would have to put up with it, but he had no way of knowing just how terrible the man was.Ā
When you met Bucky a few weeks ago, you had been alone in a hotel lobby. The heels accompanying your freshly pressed pantsuit had been killing you, and you needed a moment for your feet to breathe. Bucky, apparently, also needed a moment away from the conference, and you had gotten to talking when he plopped into the overstuffed armchair beside you.Ā
He knew you worked for Senator Brown. You knew he was a Congressman, obviously. You also knew his background and the complexities that came with it. Many people in the political space turned up their noses at him, something you had a similar experience with as you were āonly an assistant.ā The two of you had joked about it, eventually making your way to the hotel bar and laughing over the amount of hidden toupees currently residing in the ballroom.
In the weeks that followed, you had texted with him, met for coffee twice because he was āin the areaā, and had maybe even considered the fact that you were friends with Congressman Barnes. Friends were invaluable to have in D.C., but they were also something to be wary of. Bucky didnāt feel the type to be wary of.Ā
As you stood halfway frozen in the hallway, his comment began to make sense. He was calling back to your initial hotel conversation, making a joke about biases and stuck-up politicians, but this was not the time. Not that he could have known.Ā
Senator Brown barked out your name when he noticed you were no longer beside him, surely trying to get you to jot down some thought banging around in his head. You whipped your head to the side, almost missing the affronted expression on Buckyās face as he registered the tone that your name was spoken in, and shook your arm from his hold.Ā
āSorry, Congressman,ā you murmured, turning on your heel and making quick strides in Brownās direction. āI apologize. What can I do for you, Senator?āĀ
Your boss barely hid a scoff. āYou can start by being where I need you to be. And write this downāI do not believe that the House takes the properāāĀ
You scrambled to take out your phone and open the notes app. A rookie mistake; you usually had it open the second his meetings ended, but you had been distracted. By Bucky.Ā
Your heels hurriedly clicking against polished marble, you took a fleeting glance over your shoulder. Bucky remained there, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed over his chest, metal from his hand glinting against the gentle fluorescence of the hall.Ā
Three days later, he brought it up.Ā
You thought youād found a private spot to scarf down your lunch in your allotted fifteen-minute break, but with a sandwich only half finished and your mouth full, the call of your name reminded you that there is never any privacy for you at this job. The sound of Buckyās voice softened the blow a bit.Ā
āHe always treat you like that?ā Bucky asked, swinging his leg over the bench on the other side of the table. He watched as you tried to chew quickly, some of the hardness heād sat down with melting from his expression.Ā
You covered your mouth with your hand and swallowed hard. āWhat?ā you finally got out, reaching for your water bottle.Ā
Bucky raised a brow. āBrown. Does he always yell at you?āĀ
After a few sips and swallows, you gave up on being able to finish your lunch. You had to plan out your meals very meticulously to finish, and Bucky had already taken up 30 precious seconds.Ā
āOh,ā you began. You swiped a hand through the air. āItās fine. He just gets a little intense sometimes. Itās just his personality.āĀ
āYouāve been working for him for three years.āĀ
āRight.āĀ
āThe guy should treat you better. He could only keep assistants for a few weeks at a time before you.āĀ
āHow do you know that?āĀ
Bucky slid your food towards you. āEat. You looked like you were in a hurry when I got here.āĀ
You eyed him for a moment. With his hair tucked behind his ears, you could see the tenseness of his jaw and the shadow of his beard dusting above his collar. It was no secret that Bucky was alarmingly handsome in a sea of 60-year-old politicians, but you had never gotten the opportunity to see it at work. You were always too busy, and Buckyās office was three floors down.Ā
āIām sorry I didnāt text you back,ā you said, reaching for the fruit in your bag. āI meant to. Iāve just been working late since the meeting on Monday.āĀ
āItās alright.ā A pause as you continued to eat your food. You had maybe four minutes left. āHow late?āĀ
āOh, um, Iāve been going home around 10. Itās such a pain in the ass to get a taxi at that time, you wouldnāt believe. Uber isnāt much better, and I definitely canāt walk home in these things,ā you joked, motioning to the bandaids strapped behind your heels. āItās not so bad, though. After about a month of late nights, Brown will go on a āvacation,ā and Iāll have a few weeks to reign in the chaos during normal business hours.āĀ
You were giggling as you spoke, adding air quotes and sarcasm to try to alleviate the irritated look Bucky was sporting. After a few weeks of being around him, you understood that Bucky was quieter than you, but his silence right now was pressing. Your jokes werenāt getting him to talk, so you switched gears.Ā
Popping a grape in your mouth, you asked, āWhat are you doing up here, anyway?āĀ
Bucky let out a breath and tapped his hand on the table. āHonestly? I came to check on you.āĀ
āTo check on me?āĀ
āAfter Monday, I wanted to make sureāāĀ
Your phone started going off, the āSenator Brownā contact making your blood run cold. You brought your watch up and let out a gasp that made Bucky jump.Ā
āWhat?ā he rushed, standing from the table as you started to pack your things in a panic. He went to help you, but after two brushes of his hands, he realized he was only in the way.Ā
āMy break was over two minutes ago. I have to go right now.āĀ
āTwo minutes? Whatāy/n, that isnātāāĀ
He was here to check on you. Right. That was really sweet.Ā
Your brain tried to catch up with your panic as you reached over and squeezed his arm gratefully. āIām really fine, Bucky. It was nice to see you. We should get coffee again.ā You were sliding through the double doors and back into the building as you called, āIāll text you. I promise this time.āĀ
And you did. In the seven minutes of free time you got around 9 pm, you sent him a quick follow-up text. The bubble went right below his text from two days ago, and you felt a small pinch of guilt for not answering him until now.
You: Free Saturday morning?
He answered you almost instantly.
Bucky: Depends. Are you still at work right now?
You frowned at your phone.Ā
You: If I am does that mean you wonāt get coffee with me?
Bucky: So you areĀ
You: ā¦maybeĀ
And then, your seven minutes of silence were up. When Brownās footsteps could be heard by the door, you tucked your phone into your desk and went to work on the stack of papers he assigned you. He so graciously let you know that he was going home now, and you could leave once you were finished.Ā
That was perfect.Ā
It took you an hour and a half, but when you sorted the final paper and checked his schedule for tomorrow for the last time, a sense of relief flooded you. You didnāt even care that it would take another 30 minutes for an Uber to arrive. All you could think about was your shower and your bed and taking these shoes off your feet.Ā
You gathered your belongings and swiped your phone from the desk, clicking to the rideshare app and somewhat dreading the small talk to come. It would be extremely convenient to have a car, but that wasnāt something in the cards for you. Your tiny apartment had barely any parking, and everything else was within walking distance.Ā
As you continued to ponder the pros and cons of taking the bus home, a honk from the curb made you jump. You lowered your phone and squinted into the distance of the now barren road.Ā
āSomeone order an Uber?āĀ
Disbelief was your first emotion, and then shock and then confusion. āBuckāCongressman Barnes?ā you asked, correcting yourself when the memory of the building at your back resurfaced.Ā
āYouāre not getting in my car if youāre calling me that,ā Bucky replied, leaning down to peer out the passenger-side window.Ā
āWhat are you doing here?ā you asked him for the second time today.
āI told you, Iām driving for Uber. You called for one?āĀ
A disbelieving laugh fell from your lips. You shook your phone by your face and leaned down towards the window. āHavenāt even ordered it yet. Iām not supposed to get in the car unless they can put in the code verifying my identity.āĀ
āGive me a code, then. Here,ā he passed you his phone, the background illuminating a small white cat. āWait, sorry, I have to unlock it.āĀ
Your next laugh was more of a scoff as he reached through the window to take it back. āSeriously, what are you doing here?āĀ
Bucky paused, looking you up and down for a moment before his jaw ticked to the side in a smile. āIām taking you home. You live close, it wonāt take very long.āĀ
āI canāt ask you to do that.āĀ
āYouāre not asking. Now, hurry up and get in. Iāve been in the fire lane for 20 minutes and parking enforcement hates me here.āĀ
You went to argue again, but Bucky only raised a brow and unlocked the doors.Ā
Sliding in the car was somewhat of a mess with your bag and your jacket and the file you had meant to finish at home almost suffocating you. Bucky tried to help, grabbing items and waiting for you to buckle in before placing them by your feet. You were flustered from the transition, trying to adjust your skirt and seatbelt as Bucky reached forward to tuck a strand of hair stuck in your lip gloss behind your ear.Ā
You turned to look at him instantly, but the man only gave you a closed-lip smile and shifted the gear of his car, pulling away from the building of your nightmares. You blinked back towards the dashboard, needing a few more seconds to settle yourself.Ā
āI really didnāt mean to make you feel guilty,ā you stressed to Bucky after he flipped the radio on, low music trickling in. āWhen I told you about staying late, I mean.āĀ
Bucky tsked, knocking his head to the side to shoot you a lingering glance. āYou didnāt, alright? This is my own problem. I just didnāt feel comfortable with you trying to find a way home so late.āĀ
āIāve been doing it for a while and I havenāt died yet,ā you attempted to joke.Ā
Not the best joke, it seemed, with Buckyās fist clutching the steering wheel a hair tighter, the sound of leather meeting your ears. He shook his head. āWhereās Brown? He doesnāt let you take work home?āĀ
āOh, he does sometimes,ā you chipperly replied, trying to sound awake and get Bucky un-pissed off. āHe just checks my timesheets when we work overtime, so I have to make sure I stay late enough so that he wonāt say anything. I still have this to take care of once I get home.ā
You tapped the manila file in your lap and looked over to Bucky as he drove. He was wearing jeans and a pullover crewneck, his hair tied back and casual, and even though youād seen him outside of work before, he looked different this way. Something about the night and him driving you home made him look different.Ā
Bucky didnāt make a comment about your work or the system you had to avoid criticism from the Senator. Silence lapsed in the car, you lightly drumming your fingers on your thigh as the D.C. night swept past along the car windows.Ā
āI would like to get coffee Saturday,ā Bucky finally said. āIf the offer still stands.āĀ
āOf course it stands.āĀ
You only briefly caught the half-smile that lit up his face before the light of the streets was lost to a tunnel.Ā
~~
Coffee was relaxed and enjoyable, as it always was with Bucky. He asked a few more questions about your work, a topic he had previously not touched on. He wanted to know about your coworkers, if the interns ever helped you, how much time you got off, and in turn, you asked him about being a Congressman and if he actually enjoyed it.Ā
Both answers left the other person less than satisfied.Ā
āWhat about you?ā Bucky asked, tilting his cup up. āWhy have you been an executive assistant for so long?āĀ
You hummed. āI donāt know, really. My dad was in politics, and he would only really accept my work if I was, too. Heās⦠not around now, but I feel like I have to stay. Iām good at it.āĀ
āI believe it. Could be good at a lot of things, though.āĀ
You shot him a mock glare. āTrying to get rid of me, Congressman?āĀ
Bucky leaned forward, placing a hand on the small table that only separated you a few inches. He answered you earnestly, but a small amount of humor lightened his eyes, made him look less serious. āNow, why would I want to do that?āĀ
Your lips parted to quip something back, but then he was raising his hand again, the heat of his skin lingering at the corner of your mouth. He swiped his thumb there, and you were frozen, a replica of when he brushed your hair back a few nights ago, but the car had been a distraction then. You had been flustered and trying to sort out your belongings, so you didnāt think about it for longer than a few seconds.Ā
āWhipped cream,ā he explained, holding you in his gaze for a moment longer than you should have been. Even as the barista from behind the counter was now standing at your table and speaking.Ā
āHi! Would the two of you like to try our new coffee cake? Free samples since itās new.āĀ
Bucky was the first to look away, tearing his eyes from yours to smile politely at the barista. You shook from your stupor and quickly reached for a napkin, brushing it against your lips even though nothing remained.Ā
You felt fuzzy, confused. But also nothing was confusing and you were reminded, again, how attractive the Congressman was. How attractive and how definitely off-limits he was.Ā
It would be so taboo for Bucky to be dating an assistant.Ā
āWhat about you, maāam?ā You blinked several times and looked up to read the small ācoffee cakeā sign lying next to the treats, the baristaās blinding smile expecting and very retail.Ā
āIām allergic to cinnamon, but thank you.āĀ
āAllergic to cinnamon?ā Bucky asked as the barista left.
āYeah, anaphylaxis and everything. I carry an epipen with me, but Iāve only had to use it once when I was 10. Did you know that some bakeries add cinnamon to buttercream birthday cakes?ā you chuckled, reorienting yourself to the present. āAre you allergic to anything? Or, I guess you probably arenāt. Isnāt that a serum thing?āĀ
āNot allergic to anything, but if I had been, it wouldāve been wiped out by the serum. We didnāt really have a lot of food variety in the 30s. Could have been allergic to shellfishādidnāt try that until after.āĀ
You had to pause the cup at your lips. āOh my god, I forgot youāre like 100 years old.āĀ
Buckyās expression morphed into an offended wince. āAlright, I wouldnāt say that. I havenāt exactly lived 100 years.āĀ
āI was just thinking the other day how you donāt exactly fit in with the rest of Congress, but you so do! Maybe even on the young side,ā you teased.Ā
āOh yeah?ā Bucky egged on, nodding with his brows raised. āYou were thinking about me?āĀ
You knocked your head back in a laugh, holding your stomach with your forearm. āHow did I forget this?āĀ
āYou know what? Iām not driving you home anymore.āĀ
With lingering giggles, you righted yourself in your chair, a smile still clear in your voice. Contrasting his words, Buckyās smile was just as wide as yours, a slight redness to his cheeks making him look softer. You brought a hand to cover his arm on the table.Ā
āOkay, okay, Iām sorry, Bucky. You arenāt old. I take it back.āĀ
āYeah, you better,ā he taunted, though his arm flipped over and he gave your wrist a soft squeeze as he said it.Ā
~~
Bucky wouldnāt stop touching you.Ā
You didnāt know if he was doing it consciously or if this was something he commonly did with his friends, but he was going to get you in trouble.Ā
Outside of work, it was fineādistracting and disorienting, but fine. A brush of his hand helping you into the car, fixing your bag on your shoulder, a hand on your back when you left the coffee shop; over the past few weeks, it had all begun to feel commonplace.Ā
It could have been frequency that made you more aware of this habit of his, because Bucky had begun picking you up every time you worked late and planned coffee or lunch or even a walk at least once a weekend. So, maybe this was his norm and you were just around him more oftenāsomething you enjoyed, but also something that made feelings more difficult.Ā
Because, again, Congressman Barnes could not be dating an assistant. His credibility among the rest of Congress was already being questioned almost daily, and he did not need the court of public opinion breathing down his neck on top of that. It was a fortunate truth that while the internal part of his job was tricky, most of the public favored him.Ā
So, as much as your chest hurt and your stomach flipped whenever you were around him, you settled for friendship. A touchy friendship.Ā
At work, things felt heightened in the worst way possible.Ā
You couldnāt even understand why he was coming to the top floor so often, seemingly lingering there so he could scare the crap out of you when youād turn a corner. And then it would be a smile and another hand at your back when he was passing youāa hand that was not necessary. Or he would find you at the tail-end of your lunch break and move your hair away from your eyes, distracting you to the point of no return.Ā
It was the worst because you were getting distracted, and when you were distracted, you got yelled at.Ā
Bucky had seen you get yelled at a few times now, each seemingly worse than the last. He kept quiet about it, but you could tell it bothered him. He almost stepped in onceāwhen Brown was irate at the coffee youād gotten him and chucked it at the wall, you saw Bucky step forward from down the hall. He stopped at the slight shake of your head.Ā
You were used to the Senator throwing things, and as long as it wasnāt in your direction, it was no harm done. At least, thatās what you thought.Ā
āYou should go to human resources,ā Bucky commented one Sunday, the two of you sitting along a lake by the Capitol building.Ā
You almost snorted. āRight. And what do you think old Mrs. Martha is going to be able to do for me? Brown has been in office for over a decade. If anything, that would just get me fired.āĀ
Bucky shook his head, expression taut. āThereās gotta be something else then. You donāt deserve all of that.āĀ
āIf weāre talking about not deserving torment, I think Iām the least of our worries here, Sergeant,ā you noted, knocking your shoulder against his in an attempted lightness.Ā
But when you turned to look at him, Bucky was already facing you. āIām serious, y/n. Heās throwing things at you. Iāve stayed out of it because you told me to, but after todayāāĀ
āBucky, hey,ā you calmed. āI know it seems crazy, but I know how to deal with it. I know he wonāt actually do anything.ā
āRight now, maybe.āĀ
You sighed, searching his eyes and trying to discern when this became such an intense conversation. Trying to figure out when the two of you had discussions like this and not just lax coffee hangouts. Against your better judgment, you placed a hand over his thigh and relented.Ā
āOkay, fine. Iāll work on it, but Iāll be the one working on it, okay? It definitely canāt be youāhe would freak out if a representative started ordering him around. Even if you could totally knock him out.āĀ
Bucky shook his head in disbelief, a smile begrudgingly sneaking onto his face. āI canāt believe youāre joking about this.āĀ
āYou can definitely believe that.āĀ
āYeah, I can.ā And then you were tugged against his starched, ironed suit, his metal arm holding you close to his chest.
You gasped a little at the initial contact, your heart hammering against your ribs as Bucky simply kept you there. This is dangerous, your brain reminded you, but it was also harmless, if you looked at it the right way.Ā
āYou know, Iām not going to die, Bucky. Iāve dealt with this for years.āĀ
āYeah, you keep joking about that,ā he gruffly replied, the words a ghost against the top of your head. You hadnāt realized his lips were that close. āIf we could keep the death jokes to a minimum, that would be great.āĀ
You pulled back from him enough to look at his face. āWhy? Afraid your only friend will bite it?āĀ
āHey, I have other friends.āĀ
āI havenāt seen āem.āĀ
āShut up,ā he groaned, tugging you back in. āYou can meet them as proof. Next weekend.āĀ
āOkay, sure, Bucky,ā you sang out, tapping his chest. āBut if we need to reschedule this meeting with your 'friends,ā I would understand.āĀ
As Bucky went on to refute your insinuations in a grumpy tone, you tried to pretend that this felt like thatājust a friendship.Ā
~~
Approximately four days later, everything went to shit.Ā
Senator Brown was on a tirade, screaming at everyone and everything in his path. When he got like this, the admin staff usually locked the doors to his office and the entire floor if they could, but today, they werenāt ready for how angry he was.Ā
It was a bill, or a speech, or maybe even the press catching wind that he was cheating on his wifeāit didnāt matter. He was pissed and you were going to have to answer for it.Ā
You stood in his office with a clear view of the glass wall connecting to the hallway, hands behind your back and fighting off a wince with every curse and insult the Senator threw at you.Ā
āI hired you to take care of this bullshit! Why the hell am I dealing with this when Iām supposed to have an entire staff? This is fucked!āĀ
āYouāre too worried about going home early, you canāt even assemble a reply to an email correctly! A fucking email!ā
āI shouldāve fired you weeks ago. When you started fucking off to wherever you take too long for your lunch break and stopped doing your job. I swear to god, this country hasāāĀ
You were only retaining about half of what he said, which was good, considering everything was an attack on you, and your work ethic, and then he even started going in on your clothes and your apartment. It must have been something really bad this time. After he was done yelling, you would check his texts and probably find a couple of mentions of divorce sprinkled in between messages with his lawyers.Ā
Affairs and divorce were always messy for politicians.Ā
āOf course, Senator. I will do better. I apologize,ā you offered, unsure what you were apologizing for at the present. It wouldnāt matter; he would just start up again about another topic.Ā
āDamn right you will or Iāll send you out on the streets. Do you know how hard it is to get a job in D.C when a Senator blacklists you?āĀ
Did you ever.Ā
When Bucky had asked you why you stayed, you left out that key bit of information. He was still newer to the field and didnāt need to know that Senator Brown held that over your head each time you even hinted at moving on.Ā
You figured the screaming was almost over. Brown was in his 60s, so he would be getting tired. And it probably would have been over if he hadnāt checked his Apple Watch and read a text that got him fired up once more.
You greatly regretted setting that up for him.Ā
You braced yourself for further yelling as his face began to turn red, but were alarmed as the Senator reached for the wooden pencil case on his desk and threw it. Pens flew, and you knew he wasnāt aiming for you, but the cup hit a vase on a high bookshelf to your right, which then toppled over and shook loose the framed art hanging above your head.Ā
You should have moved, but you spotted Bucky in the hall, and he always distracted you.Ā
The frame shot straight down, smacking you in the head and causing your knees to buckle in surprise. You fell to the ground, feeling dramatic and disoriented as the room silenced and your ears rang. You knew he wouldnāt apologize, but the continued quiet as you pushed yourself up and sat back on your haunches was almost deafening.Ā
The glass door to the office swung open.Ā
āWhat the hell?ā A hand was on your elbow. A colder one felt around the top of your head. It was Bucky, obviously it was Bucky, but you were too afraid to look, keeping your gaze locked on Senator Brown. āHey, you okay?āĀ
The hand on your head moved down to your jaw, forcing your gaze to Bucky. He searched every inch of your face as you blinked at him, mind blank. āUm, Iām fine.āĀ
Your brows furrowed, trying to connect the chain of events that led to this. You brought your hand up to replace where Bucky had placed his, the action seemingly spurring him into action.Ā
āThe hell is wrong with you, huh?ā Bucky shouted, rising from the floor. āYou think it makes you tough to throw things at her?āĀ
Senator Brown had gone from furious to unsure, probably aware of the physical strength Bucky harbored. But, as was typical with politicians, he would not put anything before his pride. Brown righted his expression and pursed his lips.Ā
āI wasnāt trying to hit her, Congressman. It was a simple accident. You werenāt even in the room to see it happen.āĀ
Bucky narrowed his eyes. āI didnāt need to be. Youāre screaming at her when youāre not throwing. What kinda grown man does that?āĀ
āBuckyāā you cautioned, glued to the floor still.Ā
The senator directed his attention towards you, brows raised accusingly. āOh, so youāve been gossiping about me, then?āĀ
You shrank back, hand lingering where your head ached, but Bucky stepped in front of you, blocking you from Brownās line of sight.Ā
āHey, Iām talking to you,ā Bucky seethed, jutting a finger into Brownās chest.Ā
Brownās head sharply turned. āThat you are, Congressman. But it seems like my assistant here no longer wants her role, so this conversation is moot.āĀ
āWait, IāāĀ
āMaybe if you spent time picking on someone your own size instead of acting like a cowardāāĀ
āBucky, donātāāĀ
āA coward? A coward? Whoās the one who cannot speak for himself on the board? Tell me, Barnes, is that part of some unresolved trauma from some nondescript decade?āĀ
āYou shut your mouth before IāāĀ
āCongressman Barnes,ā you called, authority that didnāt belong to you heavy in your tone. You were two seconds away from losing your job and being blacklisted, neither of which you could handle. Bucky froze, his anger still held in his shoulders. āThank you for your concern, as Iām sure you were just passing by when you saw what happened, but I can assure you that it was an accident and I am fine.āĀ
Bucky looked over his shoulder with furrowed brows, but took a step back and dropped his hands by his sides when he caught your expressionāstill disheveled, but resolute in your decision. He needed to leave. You needed to save your career. You could⦠figure everything else out later. Probably.Ā
You bit into your bottom lip until it hurt.Ā
Bucky looked at the wall behind your head and then tracked his gaze to the forming lump on your crown. āButāāĀ
āI am fine,ā you repeated slowly. Having risen from the floor before calling his name, you walked to the door and held it open. āWeāre very busy. Please excuse us.āĀ
Bucky licked his lips as he looked to the floor, shaking his head in abject disbelief and following your direction. When he met the entryway, he tilted his head slightly, opening his mouth to say something, but thinking against it. His hand twitched at his side, and then he left, taking long, purposeful strides away from the office.Ā
You took a deep breath, allowed yourself a moment as the door closed, and then you did something purposeful yourself. Even if it killed you to do so.Ā
~~
Buckyās POV
Bucky was losing his mind.Ā
After leaving Brownās office, heād stormed into his own and promptly shut and locked the door. Tugging his tie away from his neck and prying the uncomfortable suit jacket from his shoulders, Bucky then began to pace. He was pissed. He was so beyond pissed.Ā
It would have been so easy for him to knock that Senator out, and he would have deserved it. Bucky had had to watch for weeks as you were berated and screamed at, and then the line was crossed when he saw him throwing things. You hadnāt let him do anything, and then you hadnāt let him do anything again after youād been hurt.Ā
He watched you flinch and cover your face, and even that hadnāt been enough.Ā
Bucky swiped a hand over his mouth.Ā
When had you started to matter to him so much? That was a stupid question, and apparently, he was full of stupidity today.
He promised that heād let you take care of it, and then he went in there and almost killed Senator Brown. A replay of you falling to the ground looped in his mind, and actually Bucky didnāt feel stupid at all. All he felt was rage.Ā
āShit,ā he breathed out, knocking his head back and falling back into his office chair.
Heād messed up. He wasnāt sure exactly how, but he knew you were not happy with him. What did ātaking care of itā even mean? And why were you so dead set on keeping that awful job? Bucky could think of at least a dozen other jobs in D.C. that would not involve you being verbally and physically abused.Ā
Fuck, he wished he had more pull, but as a Congressman of only a few months, there was little he could do against a Senator. And he had a meeting in five minutes.Ā
Bucky pulled his phone out and sent you a quick text about talking after work, let out the longest sigh of his life, and then readjusted his tie.Ā
That had been three days ago.Ā
You never texted him back. And you left the building far before he could give you a ride home. When he asked your coworkers, they said you were no longer working overtime and left during normal hours.Ā
Fine. That was good, actually. Only, Bucky never saw you.Ā
He frequented all of your normal spots, wandered up to the top floor, and even stopped by the coffeeshop two days in a row, and you were nowhere. Avoiding him, obviously, and while he understood (he didnāt), he mostly wanted to put eyes on you. To make sure you were okay.Ā
Sure, you didnāt have a severe head injury, but it was more than that.Ā
Bucky brought his turmoil to the barbecue Sam was holding that weekend. The one you were supposed to be at.Ā
Nursing his fifth beer that wouldnāt do anything, Bucky leaned back against the fence of Samās yard and sulked. Heād talked to a few people when he got there, but sulking was on his agenda for the afternoon.Ā
āWhatās up with the stank face?ā Sam asked, entering Buckyās orbit of solitude and despair. āItās gonna get stuck like that if you keep it up.āĀ
āI donāt have a stank face,ā Bucky argued.Ā
āRight, right. Well, right now you have more of a pissed off face, but I guess I bring that out in you.ā Sam paused and then smacked Bucky in the shoulder. āCome on, man. Whatās going on, seriously? Does it have to do with that girl you were supposed to bring?āĀ
āI donāt want to talk about that.āĀ
āOh, you donāt? Then itās that.āĀ
Bucky rolled his eyes, knocking back more of his beer as the sizzle of burgers juxtaposed with his somberness. āAlright, fine. Itās that. But itās stupid. We werenāt evenā¦ā
āDating?āĀ
āYeah. That.āĀ
āYou told me you went out for coffee and all that. That you would go on long walks at the lake and canoodle at work.ā
āAre you going to take this seriously?ā Bucky accused. āāCause if youāre not, Iām leaving right now. Iāll leave.āĀ
āOkay, okay. Iām sorry,ā Sam surrendered, raising his hands. āBut really, Buck, that all sounds like dating. Tell me why she didnāt come.āĀ
Bucky clenched his jaw and stared out at the merriment of the barbecue, remembering the scene more vividly than he would have liked. He tried to find an exact moment that would have led to you avoiding him, but he couldnāt pin it down. Maybe it was the entire thing?Ā
āI think sheās mad at me. I kinda went off on her boss and she told me she wanted to take care of it.āĀ
āWhat do you mean āwent offā? And isnāt she working under a Senator?ā
Bucky puffed out a breath. āYeah, Senator Brown.ā Sam let out a low whistle as Bucky continued. āHe yells at her. Throws things. I felt like it crossed a line this week, so I guess I kinda stormed in. She threw me out andās been avoiding me since. We had talked about it before and she said to stay out of it, but, Sam, the guyās a dick.āĀ
āAnd you really like her,ā Sam added casually.
āAnd I really like her,ā Bucky confirmed.Ā
Sam paused to contemplate, though Bucky didnāt know what he could possibly offer that Bucky hadnāt already considered. He really, really liked youāmore than he figured possible, especially with all of his attempts at dating since his pardon. But then youād surprised him that night at the hotel, and heād been hooked.Ā
He hadnāt even had the chance to tell you.
āWell, two things,ā Sam began, leaning on the fence next to Bucky. āSounds like she knows what sheās doing, so you should have trusted her. Butāā Sam cut out as Bucky opened his mouth āāit also sounds like Brownās a major ass with a lot of power. You donāt know what he might have over her, slimy dude like that.āĀ
āWhat, you mean like blackmail?āĀ
āMaybe, who knows? You just gotta talk to her, man. Work it out.āĀ
Sam clapped Bucky on the shoulder before wading back into the party in the yard. Bucky, feeling somewhat lighter but also still at peril, kicked off the fence and made his own attempts at being sociable.Ā
āAs soon as I can actually find her,ā he grumbled to himself.Ā
~~
The charity gala had been on your calendar for the past six months, and still, nothing could have prepared you for how much you didnāt want to attend.Ā
You usually enjoyed events like this. You got to dress up and eat nice food, and Brown always got too drunk to remember that his assistant was even in the building. The first hour felt like work, and then the rest of the night was cosplaying as a rich politician.Ā
That was not the case for this gala.Ā
Ever since the ordeal with Bucky, Senator Brown had kept you on a tight leash. Whether that was due to how much he enjoyed intimidating you or his fear that you actually were telling people he was a mean, abusive boss, didnāt matter. All that mattered was that this gala was going to suck and there was nothing you could do about it.Ā
You had apologized profusely, swore up and down that you didnāt know Congressman Barnes, and practically pledged your life to Brown in every way you knew how. You never left the office, never took a lunch breakāyou were pretty sure your eyes were permanently dry from how long you stared at a screen all day.Ā
Making you attend this gala and not leave his side was another ploy to make you atone for your wrongdoings. Maybe the man knew how much you enjoyed these events and was taking advantage of that.Ā
āCheck this,ā Senator Brown lazily ordered, draping his coat over your arms. āAnd meet me back in the dining room. You get to sit right next to me.āĀ
You offered him a tight smile and felt the ache in your shoulders begin to fester. You were more uptight this week than ever, but that had nothing to do with Bucky Barnes. Nothing.Ā
It was just this job and your future in D.C. hanging in the balance.Ā
Obviously.Ā
You meandered over to the coat check, taking longer than you needed to and dragging your feet along the way. Your phone was buzzing incessantly in your bagāmost likely some PR fire youād need to put out before more people realized Brown was cheating on his wifeāand you had absolutely no inclination to drag it out.Ā
āJust these two,ā you offered, pressing the coats into the attendant's hands and taking the ticket in return.Ā
āActually, can you add this one to that ticket?āĀ
As if this night couldnāt get any more uncomfortable.Ā
You could feel his chest against your back even before you heard him. He shifted his arms out of his sleeves and placed a hand on your shoulder as he leaned towards the counter. Of course he smelled good. Why wouldnāt he?
You fought the urge to roll your eyes in repressed⦠something and spun on your heel.Ā
He was just as close as you were expecting and also far too close for comfort. You knocked your head back to catch his gaze, trying to appear unamused and angry.Ā
āWhy would you do that?ā you asked.Ā
Bucky paused for a moment, searching the planes of your face for a beat too long before replying, āNo reason to open another ticket. Iāll just leave when you leave.āĀ
āYou mean youāll leave when Brown leaves, then?āĀ
The muscle in his jaw jumped. āSo, nothing's changed.ā
This time, you did roll your eyes. You clutched the coat check number in your hand and began to storm off, not in the headspace to have this conversation at this gala. Bucky, however, did not seem to mind.Ā
The hand on your arm was soft but firm as you were tugged into a closet and subsequently shoved into a rack of hanging coats. It was too dim to see beyond your hands out in front of you, but Bucky solved that predicament as he entered your space.Ā
āDid you seriously just throw me into a closet?ā you whisper-yelled, all too aware of the staff only feet away.Ā
āI had no choice,ā he replied with the same urgency. āYou were stomping off. And I didnāt throw you in here.āĀ
āI was not stomping off,ā you scoffed.Ā
āYou were.āĀ
āWas not!āĀ
āI could hear your heels. You were stomping.āĀ
You groaned, pushing into his chest to try and create distance that wasnāt available. Your back only hit the wall.Ā
āFine. What do you want?āĀ
Bucky froze for a moment. āI⦠I didnāt actually think youād stay in here. Or let me talk, if Iām being honest.Ā
Your jaw fell open, an incredulous laugh slipping out. Youād almost forgotten how endearing he was in just about everything he did. Even as he stood in front of you in a full, three-piece suit, smushing you against a closet wall because he had dragged you in there with no plan, a part of your chest warmed.Ā
Your phone vibrated in your bag, and that warmth turned to ice.Ā
āI donāt have time for this,ā you determined, wiggling your way towards the door.Ā
āWait, hold on. I do have something to say, wait,ā Bucky pleaded, metal handāmore gentle than you were sure it was ever used forāencircling your wrist. He tugged you back even closer this time, your face inches from his. āI wanted to say sorry. And⦠and I want to get it.āĀ
āGet it?ā you parroted, trying extremely hard to ignore the dropping feeling in your gut as he stared into your eyes.Ā
āI want to get why you stay. Why you let him treat you like that. I want to know so I can⦠feel okay backing off.āĀ
All you could get out was, āWhy?āĀ
Buckyās next words were spoken as he stared down at your lips. āI think you know why.āĀ
Breaths began to fail you, each exhale more ragged than the last. You had been expecting this, in a way, and that was why you always made excuses. He couldnāt be with you because he was a Congressman. You were only an assistant. You couldnāt date him because you were too busy. He wouldnāt want to date you, anyway. Senator Brown would never be okay with it.Ā
All of those excuses evaporated within the shared space of the closet, and then you got scared. So, you blurted out what he wanted.Ā
āHe wonāt let me quit. He wonāt let me work anywhere else.āĀ
Bucky blinked, a fog clearing from his heated gaze. His head jutted back an inch, and the hand that had somehow found a home on your jaw paused its ascent into your hair. āWonāt let you?āĀ
āIād be blacklisted.āĀ
āHe canāt do that.āĀ
āHe can.āĀ
Bucky opened his mouth to speak again as the air in the closet became breathable and light peeked in from the cracking door. You sprang back from the Congressman, pushing his hand away from your cheek and slamming your back into the wall. It didnāt help much; the fifteen-year-old with the shawl in her hand was already making her own assumptions as you rushed past her and left Bucky to his own devices in the closet.Ā
Amazing.Ā
Just amazing.Ā
You debated moving states, or countries, or entire career paths as you hurried into the dining room of the gala. Not only had you taken too long at the coat check, but you knew you looked completely flushed and out of it. You prayed that Brown was already drinking and wouldnāt catch on.Ā
Thankfully, your prayers were answered.Ā
While he was not happy to see you, his raised brow and side-eye deadly as you sat down, he didnāt say anything. And that was how dinner wentāquiet and uncomfortable for you, but otherwise par for the course for Senator Brown.Ā
Bucky was staring at you from across the table. The room was backlit by dull candles and expensive chandeliers, and you could feel his gaze on the side of your face like an unprecedented heat. He often flickered that gaze to Brown, but it would harden, become angry.
There was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do.Ā
You either stuck it out with Brown or tossed your political science degree in the trash can on your way out.
When dinner passed and dessert was served, you eyed the lemon tart mocking you from your plate. Dessert, when your life felt so out of control and confusing, couldnāt hurt, you figured, so you picked up your fork and ignored the knots taking up space in your stomach.Ā
āYours looks better.ā Senator Brown picked up the lip of your plate and slid his in its place. āHere.āĀ
āButāāĀ
āOh, donāt complain about it. Who complains about chocolate cake?ā he peeved, snickering to the men on the other side of the table. He then went on a drunken rant about āgood helpā and the āyouth of todayā as you looked down at the cake in front of you.Ā
Was D.C. even worth it?Ā
Bucky was staring at you again. He wasnāt directly across from you, a few centerpieces blocking your view, but you could feel it. To avoid himāand your feelingsāyou ate the cake. Brown and the men sarcastically cheered as you did, alcohol clear in the air at this point, and you took another bite to get them to find some other novelty.Ā
You took three bites before it started to sink in.Ā
You vaguely registered that Bucky had pushed out from the table, a clink of silverware preceding the motion. It was too late for him, however, because as your own fork clattered down, you could no longer breathe.Ā
Your tongue felt ten times too big in your mouth and your throat was glued shut, air tunneling through any openings it could find. You pushed out from the table and stood. The extra space didnāt do anything. You clawed at your throat until your legs became unsteady and failed from the lack of oxygen.Ā
The table was extremely long, so at some point, you thought you heard Bucky dive over the dinner party rather than continue his trek around to your side. Other sounds filtered past the panic clogging your ears.Ā
āWhatās wrong with her?āĀ
āI donāt know!āĀ
āIs she allergic to something? Itās an allergic reaction!āĀ
āBrown, what is she allergic to?āĀ
āHow should I know?āĀ
āWell, do something!āĀ
As you were grappling for your purse, a choked whine fell from your lips. It had been kicked somewhere, pushed out of your grasp, and no one at this damn gala was helping you. Several older women had gone to their knees with worried expressions at your eye line, but they werenāt doing anything.Ā
āMove.āĀ
Your head was beginning to spin, and your thoughts were blurring, but you heard Bucky. He came to your side much faster than it felt, moving things around that your blurred vision couldnāt catch. And then, pain. And then relief.Ā
Your gasping breaths were supported by gentle hands on your face, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones. You grappled at Buckyās wrists and tried to parse out panic from physical symptoms, but there was so much commotion in the room and your head was still so fuzzy.Ā
āYouāre okay,ā Bucky assured you, voice almost too low to catch. Someone was on the phone with 911 in the back. āYou can breathe with me. Come on. Donātāheyādonāt look at them. Look at me.āĀ
Your chin was pushed forward, and then your forehead connected with his. Ringing persisted in your ears. Your hands were beginning to shake from the epi, your jaw following close behind.Ā
āI got you, okay?āĀ
āF-f-feelsāāĀ
āI know,ā he hushed. When your breath was somewhat steadier, he tucked your head beneath his chin and began barking out orders. He asked for an ETA on the ambulance, for your jacket, for ten other things you couldnāt register. And then, āYouāre a piece of shit, you know that?āĀ
The chaos of the room went silent. Within your shaking hands clutched in Buckyās suit jacket, your fingers spasmed out of fear.Ā
āExcuse me?ā Brown scoffed. You were honestly surprised he was still in the room.
āWhat, throwing things at her wasnāt enough? Had to try and kill her?āĀ
āB-buckyāāĀ
āThrowing things at her?ā you heard from across the room. āBrown, what is Barnes talking about?āĀ
āI have no idea,ā Brown spat out. He jutted his hand out towards you on the floor. āHe never knows what heās talking about. Weāve established that.āĀ
āRight,ā Bucky deadpanned, pulling you closer to his chest as you gasped for breath. āSo what do you call this?āĀ
āAn accident, obviously.āĀ
Bucky let out a puff of air through his nose, shaking his head in disbelief. Silence blanketed the room once more, and it was clear that he had given up. His hands were glued to the back of your head and your back, and he didnāt have the time or the drive in him to care about Brown right now.Ā
āI saw you switch the plates.ā The quiet voice came from across the table, the young blondeās face registering in your memory as you peeked out from beyond Buckyās chest. āShe had a card with it, too. It said there was an allergy accommodation.āĀ
Low murmurs fell over the room. Brown, much to your surprise, looked at a loss for words, his expression betrayed as he stared at the woman across the room. It clicked then, where you knew her from. She was on the front cover of every article you were pressured to get taken down, and the contact photo for the main caller in Brownās phone.Ā
āWhat? No,ā Brown refuted, a nervous chuckle escaping him. āShe doesnāt know what sheās talking about, either. Sheās barely even a secretary. SheāsāāĀ
The eyes around the room made his words trail off. āBarely even a secretaryā was certainly a degrading title for his mistress, and everyone in the room knew it. If you were to look at your phone, youād have seen that the newest story of their relationship had been blowing up all night. You guessed she was fed up with him denying it.Ā
Sirens sounded beyond the doors of the ballroom, breaking up the tension at the wide table. Brown used it as his getaway, throwing his napkin down and muttering something about insolence or idiots or something of the sort. You couldnāt really hear anything over Buckyās low whisper in your ear, followed by his lips against the side of your head.Ā
~~
After being monitored in the emergency room for approximately six hours, the night shift staff sent you off with a horde of medication to take for the next month and, of course, a new epipen. You trudged out past the waiting room, prepared to wait in the parking lot for an Uber, when a certain man sitting in a chair far too small for him caught your eye.Ā
He was half asleep, his face held in his metal hand as he nodded off and woke up just as quickly. His suit looked stiff and uncomfortable as he twisted his wrists, dragging the sleeves up to his elbows. Heād discarded the jacket somewhere, probably lost to the world now. And then he spotted you, your dress awkwardly draped over your body in your haphazard attempt to re-dress, your hair completely out of place, and your hands filled with paper bags of medication.
He shot out of the chair, holding everything in your hands in one of his, and assessed you himself. His gaze roved the mess youād become. He should have made a joke about it, maybe teased you for almost dying, but instead, he ran a hand over your head and dragged you against his chest.Ā
āScared the shit out of me,ā he murmured into your hair. He pressed another kiss there, reminding you that the first one hadnāt been your imagination.Ā
āYou didnāt have to stay,ā you said, clutching his button-up in your hands.Ā
āāCourse I did.ā He leaned you back, hand still woven at the base of your hair, not caring that he was in the middle of the ER waiting room. āYou okay?āĀ
It only took you a moment to make a decision.Ā
You pressed up, kissing him even though you were in the ER waiting room. Even though you both looked like a mess and youād almost died and you had no idea if you still had a job. You kissed him and it startled him, the paper bag of medications crunching in his hand, but he kissed you back without hesitation.Ā
It wasnāt a passionate kissānot like the breathless, wanting kisses you would share late, share tomorrowābut it was confirming something. Bucky held you and had his lips firmly against yours, his brows furrowed in a way you couldnāt see, and he confirmed everything youād suspected.Ā
You figured you wouldnāt need to work if your boyfriend were a Congressman.Ā
But, as you would soon find out, Senator Brown didnāt have very much time left as a Senator, anyway.Ā
if you leave something behind (you gain something too.)
pairing: bucky barnes x multiverse! reader
summary: youāre a TVA agentāmeant to observe, never interfereābut you fall for him in every universe. every iteration. every version of james buchanan Barnes. and across centuries, across collapse and convergence, that love stays. steady. inevitable. written into the code of the multiverse like a rule it canāt break. (multiverse!) inspired by past lives (2023) and the ministry of time. for an expanded explanation and playlist, click here.
word count: 15.7k
content warnings: 18+ mdni, fem reader, heavy angst w/ a happy ending, oral (f and m receiving), creampie, piv, praise, overstimulation, hair pulling, breast worship, use of pet names, mentions of death and loss
This is it.
The glamorous, sparkling career of a TVA precision-field agent.Ā
Emphasis on āprecision.ā Emphasis on āfield.ā Emphasis, mostly, on āagent,ā because the term āanalystā was deemed too misleading after what happened in 1806 Prussia (one rogue spreadsheet, a very confused Napoleon, and three weeks of bureaucratic bloodshed).
Youāre not like the Minutemen, stomping into timelines in those tactical chic jumpsuits, pruning anomalies with the self-satisfaction of people who still think ādeleteā is a solution. Youāre not an auditorāthank Godāsquinting at branching event charts and muttering about entropy coefficients over cold tea.
No. Youāre the needle. The thread. The hand that sews.
Your job is surgical. Your presence is a whisper. Where others correct by erasure, you correct by inclusion. You enter the timeline. You become part of it. You donāt push the dominoes overāyou walk by, breathe funny, and trust the air will tip them just right.
Thereās no glory in your work. No medals. No mission logs, either.Ā
Everything you do is redactedāeven from you. You carry the residue of other peopleās lives under your fingernails, and sometimes forget which memories belong to whom.Ā
Sometimes you wake up choking on grief that was never yours. You learn to live with that.
Itās the first thing they ask you in training, during the psych filters: Would knowing the future help you grieve less?
No one answers yes. Not honestly.
You understand now why. Thereās no solace in foreknowledge, just the burden of it. Knowing that someone dies doesnāt stop you from loving them. It just makes every moment feel like a countdown.
You specialize in delicate convergences: moments in history so precariously balanced that a sneeze in the wrong direction could avalanche into centuries of collapse. Your handlers call them āsoftpoints.ā You call them āthe edge of the knife.ā
Sometimes youāre a midwife in 1421. Sometimes youāre the barista who smiles just enough to make a physicist reconsider her route to work. Sometimes youāre a corpse at the right place, the right time, to remind a man of the past he keeps trying to forget.
Right now, you're really fucking hungover.
You started having the dream again.
Not a dream, exactly. A memory with the edges worn smooth. At first it came in piecesāclipped sounds, filtered light, the low hum of something old and mechanical beneath your feet. You dismissed it. Just timeline residue. A misplaced echo.
But it kept returning.
Always the same: a red-brick apartment building. New Yorkāno file, no mission tagāin winter. Brooklyn, more specifically, from your view of the bridge. Youāre on a stoop. Someone calls your name and you turn just in time to see a shadow disappear around the corner. A laugh rides the wind, low and familiar.
You wake up before you follow. Every time.
Your mouth tastes like floor polish and betrayal. Your eyes open one at a time, not out of coordination, but protest. Your skull seems like it's determined to play a high-stakes game of ping-pong against itself.
You groan.
This is how your days usually start.Ā
You sit up slowly, bones cracking like old film reels, and assess the carnage around your quarters.
Clothes: on the chair, on the floor, one boot in the sink.
Timepad: blinking faintly on the nightstand, still charged.
Your hair is somewhere between āungovernableā and āformerly respected.ā You run a hand through it and immediately regret that decision. Your reflection in the tiny wall mirror is a damning indictment of last nightās choices. Smudged eyeliner. A smear of something neon-orange near your jawline. You shower quickly ā TVA-issued water pressure: inconsistent, ironic. You pull on a button-up and slacks instead ā neutral, inoffensive.
Youāll blend into whatever century they throw you into next. For now, you settle for looking like you might belong in the TVA cafeteria line.
By the time you lace your boots (twice ā the first attempt ends in a mild panic attack and a missing sock), the hangoverās down to a dull roar. Your breath smells like expired mint gum and broken dreams, so you down two cups of black coffee and chew on one of those flavorless temporal hydration tablets like it might save your soul.
You do your job. Reliably. Unremarkably. The way they like it.
And sometimes you drink enough that for a few hours, you donāt remember how you got here. Or how youāve always been here.
You toss your timepad into your holster, slap a mediocre patch on your face to cover the worst of the under-eye shadows, and mutter something vaguely threatening at your own reflection.
Time to go.
Three mugs deep into lukewarm cafeteria coffee that tastes like regret and the glue holding office furniture together, youāre hunched over yet another Form G-17 ā āSuspected Non-Nexus Deviation: B-Class Branch.ā Your fourth this week. Youāve logged more hours categorizing existential anomalies than actually interfering with any, which is particularly unusual, for you anyway. You've been dormant for much longer than you're used to.
The previous G-17s included such branch classics as ācow develops rudimentary consciousness,ā āSteve Rogers blinks twice during a televised 2013 speech instead of once,ā and āLoki starts a book club.ā (Unauthorized self-improvement remains a hot-button issue.)
This one, thoughāthis oneās different.
The case file reads:
CASE FILE: #616-BE0
MISSION CLASS: Softpoint Convergence
LOCATION: Siberia, USSR
DATE: February 1955
SUMMARY:
A low-grade temporal softpoint has been detected. Origin ambiguous. Energy output consistent with pre-convergent instability. Divergent potential is not yet sufficient to trigger a Nexus Event, but the timeline is exhibiting signs of local timeline āfraying.ā Mission parameters suggest passive stabilization through presence, not correction. Duration: 3 hours. Environmental hostility high.
NOTES:
Embed into local context. Observe anomaly behavior. Maintain temporal camouflage. Apply Softpoint Integration Protocol if deviation escalates.
You stare at the file.
Cold, quiet dread coils low in your stomach. Siberia. February. 1955. No glamour in that assignmentājust ice and silence and the kind of untraceable damage that leaves timelines limping.
Across from you, Casey is organizing his pen caddy by weight again. You catch a glimpse of the sticky note on his lunchbox: āPlease do not eat my croissant. Please.ā The second āpleaseā is underlined three times.
You stole that croissant yesterday.
Honestly, he should thank you. It was a little dry.
You turn your eyes back to the file and eye the temperature index: -43°C. S. āOh good,ā you mutter to no one. āToe amputation weather.ā
You stand, suit creaking as you shift, and tug on your tie with practiced resentment. You snap your timepad into place on your wrist. The UI pings with a mild hum ā dull orange light, sanctioned and soulless.
Casey looks up.
āHeading out?ā he asks, hopeful. He always wants your desk when youāre gone. You have the only chair that doesnāt squeak like a dying goose.
āYup,ā you say. āBrad flagged something āmildly interesting.ā Weāll see if itās another raccoon wasted off shrooms.ā
āOr a bear,ā Casey offers.
You click your timepad open, keying in the Siberia coordinates. āOr a hallucinating bear.ā
Casey nods gravely.
The door opens, temporal energy flaring in its signature burnt-orange halo. You take one last swig of your bad coffee, grimace as it hits your tongue, and mutter, āLetās go see what broke this time.ā
Then you step through.
The light swallows you whole.
And you forget, for a secondājust a secondāthat you were ever anything else.
EARTH-616 | SIBERIA, 1955
The walls groaned when the wind pressed against them. Not urgently. Not like they were in danger of collapse. More like an old man muttering in his sleep.
You didnāt trust the ship, not entirely. It had been retrofitted for temporal operations, but barelyāstill more icebreaker than chronal vessel. The insulation was patchy in places, and every vent exhaled a little breath of cold that bit at your ankles. If the TVA had a top-shelf of deployment crafts, this wasnāt on it. This was bottom-shelf. Dusty. Dinged up. Probably cursed.
Still. It was warm. Warm enough.
Outside, Siberia stretched like a battlefield already lost. White, endless, blank. Indifferent to watchers, to wanderers, to time itself. It didnāt care that the threads of history bent here. That the TVA had deemed this place a convergence zoneāa softpoint where multiple outcomes were forming brittle overlaps. No Nexus spike yet. But something was pulsing.
You leaned back against the wall and let the thermos rest against your chest. The rhythmic thump of the engine hummed through your bones. You liked that. The vibration reminded you that you were still solid. Still here. Still someone with a job to do.
Observe. Do not interfere.
And yet. A flicker on the monitor caught your attention.
Unidentified movementāQuadrant C. Low thermal. Not vehicle. Not patrol. One heat signature. Steady. Moving through the storm.
Human-shaped. Probably.
You didnāt move yet. Just watched. Let it crawl across the display while you listened to the wind.
You checked your timepad again. No nexus flare. No spike. But there was a pulse. Faint, irregular. Like the anomaly was alive.
You didnāt believe in fate. But you believed in gravity. In the way some people pulled history around them like cloaks. This place? It felt pulled.
The door behind you hissed open, then shut again with a metallic shudderājust a shift in cabin pressure, but your body went still anyway. One hand tightened around the cooling thermos; the other hovered near your holster. Not paranoid. Just prepared.
You took a breath. Let it sit in your lungs like steam.
The blip on the monitor moved closer. Still slow. Still steady.
Somewhere out there, in that wide, white nowhere, something was walking toward you.
Before you can focus or fixate on the blip, you hear the bang. Itās not the ship groaning this time. Not the distant thunder of ice shifting. This is close. Inside.
You didn't run. Running was noise, panic, a rookie move. Instead, you moved swiftly and fluidly, silent as frost.
The corridor narrowed as you descended, metal groaning beneath your boots, the walls sweating condensation from the sudden temperature drop. Ahead, you heard clear sounds of intrusionāboots scraping against metal, something sharp and metallic snapping like bone.
Voices shouted orders in Russian, clipped and urgent.
You pressed against the wall outside the sub-hold entrance, flicking your wrist to pull up the heat signatures on your timepad. Fourāno, fiveādistinct signatures flickered on screen, scattered and frantic, like dropped matchsticks.
Far more than the single blip you'd tracked earlier.
You move anyway.
Quiet. Calculated. Not to neutralizeājust to see.
Inside, the hold is chaos: crates overturned, equipment flickering, something sulfuric in the air. A soldier stumbles into your path, disoriented, eyes wrongālike the mind inside doesnāt fit anymore. You sidestep, smooth and practiced, letting him fall without intervention. Another crashes through the smoke and doesnāt even register you.
Your breath clouds the air. The hold smells like ozone and rust and something sharperālike old blood sealed in with frost. And then you see it.Ā
In the corner of the hold, something humsālow, persistent, and thoroughly annoying. Not a cryo chamber, thank god. You've had enough encounters with frozen bodies this fiscal quarter.Ā
Instead, it's a pulse field generatorāstandard TVA gear, uncomfortably grafted onto mid-century Soviet tech. You frown deeply, which is practically your default expression at this point. This thing was supposed to be dormant.
According to the updated log, this thing is officially a Temporal Dissipation Nodeāa fancy TVA euphemism for a safety valve that bleeds out timeline tension. Supposedly passive, no-contact. The kind of setup they drop into delicate softpoints, relying entirely on subtlety and minimal human interaction.
This node, however, isn't subtle at all. It's malfunctioning, stuttering irregular pulses instead of smooth ones. Perfect. You crouch, eyes narrowing as you spot obvious manual overrides and Soviet tampering. Wonderful. Someone's been messing around inside the casing.
āGreat,ā you mutter under your breath, tasting bitterness that has nothing to do with your morning coffee. āNo wonder they didnāt send backup. Needed someone expendable.ā
Before you can fully embrace the gravity of the situation, the far wall explodes inward in a decidedly dramatic fashionāmetal screeching, smoke filling the room. You whip around, baton raised instinctively, already calculating how much paperwork this will generateā
āand freeze.
Because someone's standing there. Just standing. Breathing hard, like he ran the whole way here through the ice.
His hair is long and damp at the ends, curling slightly where the frost is starting to melt. His clothes are frayed at the edgesāstandard-issue Soviet combat gear, only half-zipped, soaked through. Thereās snow clinging to the edges of his sleeve. His stance is wide, solid. Familiar in a way that makes your blood run cold.
But it's his eyes that hold you still.
Not the metal arm, titanium and deadly. Not his sharp-edged stance, nor the rifle slung almost forgotten across his back. It's the eyesāpale blue, intensely focused. Clear. Too clear.
Just staring.
Like youāre an answer to a question he hasnāt been able to phrase. Like heās seen you before and forgot until now.
And maybeāyou freeze, stomach folding in on itselfāmaybe you forgot too.
The Winter Soldier. James Buchanan Barnes.
Itās not recognition, exactly. Not full-blown. But something in you shifts, quiet and tectonic. The sensation of stepping into a half-remembered dream. Or maybe it's the ache youāve been waking up with lately, the dream you can never hold onto, just shapes and colors and a voice you almost know.
Youāve heard plenty about Buāthe Winter Soldier from hushed whispers in break rooms and blurry security footage in restricted archives. Never once did you picture him looking so⦠aware.Ā
At the TVA, heās quietly regarded as a tragedy. Not a threat, not a glitchājust a sorrow too persistent to be useful. His story, in every version theyāve managed to scrape together, is one long unraveling. Grief braided into duty. Identity shredded and rebuilt, over and over, never the same way twice. Heās the man who keeps losing himself and somehow finding his way backābloodied, wrong, resilient.
Maybe thatās why he doesnāt replicate well. His storyās too heavy to echo cleanly across timelines. The trauma calcifies too early or never forms at all. He fractures, or fades, or dies too soon. The man doesnāt scale. Whatever makes him who he isāthe loyalty, the guilt, the staggering, stubborn will to keep tryingāitās never quite transferable.
The few variants that do emerge feel more like flickers than full lives. Glimpses. Reverberations. None of them last long. Some of them are never quite right.
In all your missions, all the cautious mentions of him across different centuries and realities and debriefs and documents, youāve never actually met any versions of him.
Not directly. Not face-to-face. Youāve seen the aftershocks he leaves behindācratered timelines, corrupted code, confused agents muttering about ghosts with metal arms. Youāve traced the outlines of his story across so many fractured worlds, each one slightly wrong. The scent of smoke where he shouldāve stood. A silhouette in archival footage. A name carved into a resistance wall in a language long dead. But never him. Not until now.
It should be insignificant. It shouldn't matter. There should be no correlation, not even a twinge of paths intertwining.
Except now heās standing in front of you, and it feels like being struck clean through the chest with something invisible and ancient.
In one smooth movement, he dispatches a soldierāa precise blade across the throat. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Then his eyes sweep the hold again, landing on you and locking in place like he couldn't stand to take his eyes away.
You take in the rest of him.
His face is younger, but that's to be expected. Well, not young, exactlyābut preserved, like a man caught mid-sentence and left on pause. Strong jaw, a haunted set to his mouth, cheekbones that look sculpted more by winter than by genes. He looks like he hasnāt shaved in a week and hasnāt cared in far longer. You run a mental calculator, it must've been only about a decade since⦠the thing.
But itās the eyes againāflicking over you, sharp and clinical. Blue, frostbitten, edged with something youād almost call suspicion, if there wasnāt so much⦠exhaustion in it.
And finallyāhis silence. Not blank, not confused. Just... watchful. Like he's seen this play out a hundred times already. His head tilts slightly. Just a fraction. Like heās cataloging the shift in your body language.Ā
Realization hits you with an unpleasant jolt: heās uncertain. Of the timeline. Of the mission. Of you.
Whatever brutal conditioning was poured into him hasnāt fully rebooted yet. Thereās still too much of the man bleeding through the programming. His breathās too ragged. His movements, a fraction too slow. His gazeānot vacant, not robotic, but⦠blinking too hard. Like the worldās coming in too fast, too bright, too much.
Your timepad buzzes insistently, a sharp vibration at your wristātwenty minutes and some change until convergence. You lower your baton slightly, resigned, and open your mouth.
āLookāā
But your sentence is abruptly cut short as a shadow drops from the walkway above, gun raised. Before you can react, a powerful arm wraps across your mouth, hauling you sharply back against a solid chest. The bullet punches into the floor exactly where your head had been, sparking furiously.
āQuiet,ā he rasps. His voice is rough-edged, wind-scouredāhoarse from disuse or screaming into nothing or god knows what else. The metal arm presses lightly against your abdomen. Not pinning. Just⦠grounding.
You nod. One deliberate motion. A signal that you understand. That youāll play along.
Thereās a beatāone heartbeat, maybe twoābefore he releases you. The contact disappears like breath off a mirror. Quick. Clean.
Two more figures drop from aboveāarmed, definitely not TVA or Soviet. Fantastic. A third-party complication. Just what this mission needed.
Bucky moves first, a blur of ruthless precision. You watch him take down an attacker effortlessly: elbow, weapon disarm, throat strike. Smooth, clinical, deadly poetry.Ā
The air shudders againāan ugly crack in the hull overhead. Your timepad screams: fracture line detected. asset instability threshold imminent. Everythingās shaking. You grab his arm and mutter, āWe have to move.ā
He hesitatesābut only for a second.
Then he runs.
You donāt speak as you sprint through the corridor, ducking falling beams and sparking lights. He stays close. Too close. Like heās guarding your back on instinct. Like he hasnāt figured out yet that you arenāt the one who needs protecting.
You hit a collapsed hallway and double back, darting into a maintenance shaft. The walls here sweat condensation. Buckyās chest is heaving from exertion, breath coming too fast.
You glance back.
Heās stopped.
Heās leaning a hand against the wall, eyes shut. Not from exhaustion. From something else.
His metal fist clenches tightāso tight the plating groansāand he presses it to his temple like heās trying to block something out. His whole body shakes, just once. A full-body flinch. Like his brainās short-circuiting.
āHey,ā you say, softly now. No command. Just presence. āHey.ā
Nothing.
āBucky.ā
It slips out before you can catch it.
And it works.
He startles. Freezes. His eyes snap openāand they find yours instantly.
Something ancient and aching floods his expression. Not anger. Not threat. Just confusion. Recognition. Fear.
Not of you. For you.
His lips part like heās going to speakābut no sound comes out.
You move toward him. Slowly. Hands up. Nonthreatening.
You reach him slowly, each step cautious, deliberate. His back is against the bulkhead now, shoulders rigid like heās trying to hold himself together through sheer force of will. You stop just short, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body.
The lighting flickers, painting sharp angles across his face. For a moment, he looks nothing like a weapon. He just looks... young. Tired. Worn raw from too many ghosts.
āIām not here to hurt you,ā you say quietly. āI swear. Iām not.ā
His jaw twitches. His eyes wonāt leave yours. That look againālike he knows you. Like heās trying to dig the truth out of your face with nothing but instinct and desperation.
āI know this place is loud,ā you continue, softer still. āI know your head must feel like a war zone right now. But youāre doing fine. Better than fine.ā
A sharp breath. His fingers twitch at his side, metal knuckles flexing like heās fighting the urge to reach for you. Or to run. Youāre not sure which would be worse.
And then the timepad on your wrist pulsesāa slow, resonant tone. The kind it only makes when a divergence has been successfully reabsorbed. You glance down.
Of course. Thatās what this was. The system was waiting for the moment he didnāt break. For the second he chose not to collapse, or kill, or disappear. A single, improbable outcome unfolding exactly as needed.
It was him. He was the pulse.
You let out a shaky exhale. The node in the hold mustāve gone inertāno more timeline bleed, no more irregular pulses. Outside, the stormās intensity drops by half in minutes. The hull creaks as pressure stabilizes. Everythingās slowing down. Calming.
Itās over.
The right call now would be to leave. Every protocol youāve ever memorized is screaming at you to disengage, to extract clean, to leave no mark and make no memory.
But.
Youāve alreadyāfuck, youāve already. The moment he looked at you like thatālike you were familiar, like you matteredāit was over. You are so utterly, catastrophically screwed.
āI donāt know what they told you,ā you say, and your voice barely clears your throat. Itās quieter now. Gentler. Like youāre afraid of scaring him back into whatever shell he crawled out of. āAbout this place. About this mission. I donāt even know if youāre going to remember this tomorrow. But I wanted you to knowāā
You donāt finish.
Because he speaks.
āWill I see you again?ā
The words are soft. Barely voiced. Like he had to haul them out of someplace deep and rusted shut. They land heavyādenser than sound has any right to be. It knocks the breath out of you.Ā
You blink. āWhat?ā
He steps forwardājust one measured stepābut itās enough to change the air between you. Close now. Close enough to see the uneven skin at the corner of his mouth, the wind-chapped crack at his lower lip. Close enough to notice how his left hand shakes, barely-there tremors betraying the tension heās trying to lock down.
He doesnāt say it again. He doesnāt need to.
You could lie. You could make it easier. There are a dozen lines youāve used beforeāsmooth, forgettable, safe. But you donāt reach for any of them.
Instead, you smile. Itās lopsided, weary, born of too many years being the one who leaves first. Itās your shield and your surrender, both.
āOnly if you start talking more,ā you say, a half-hearted tease wrapped in something much more fragile. You flip open your timepad as the breach activates, casting soft gold light against the hallway walls.
The portal hums. Warm. Waiting.
But your heartās a thunderclap now. Relentless. Youāre already tucking away the tilt of his head, the way his gaze softenedānot like surrender, but like a question. Like maybe heād found something in you worth staying awake for.
And you know betterāgod, do you know betterābut your feet donāt move. You hesitate. Just a second. Just enough to feel it. Then you step through.
You donāt look back. You never do.
But the image of his eyesāice-clear, impossibly humanāfollows you like a ghost you didnāt mean to keep.
.
You wait for the hammer to fall.
You expect it in the usual waysāa recall order, a message from Oversight, a polite but unambiguous invitation to report to Subsector 8 for disciplinary review. You expect the breach notice, the system ping that says unauthorized designation use or noncompliant field contact, maybe even timeline contamination: agent-induced.
You expect something.
Because you said his name.
Because you looked at him like a person, not a variable. Because you touched him. Not in passingānot incidental. You chose to.
Youāve seen people get demoted for less. Scrubbed out. Timeline reassigned, memory wiped, consigned to desk duty or worseāshunted into the Void or the Nullspace, that softly brutal end-of-line where broken things go to dissolve.
And youāyouālet your guard down in the middle of a convergence zone and called the Winter Soldier by his name. Thatās not oversight. Thatās not mission drift. Thatās a lapse.
And yet⦠nothing happens.
Not a single alarm. No reprimand. No haunting message from Internal Realities. No pulled credentials. No veiled threats in Performance Management.
Instead, your timepad pings three days later with a new assignment.
Business as usual.
You run it back a dozen times, trying to parse the angleāwaiting for the catch. It never comes. You go on a mission in Year 3830 where the only threat is a sentient vine and a mild temporal rash. You document a collapsing micro-timeline in 1994 Missouri. You sit through three mandatory debriefs and a cross-departmental cultural sensitivity training that somehow lasts six hours.
Nothing.
Just⦠more work.
You fall back into the rhythm, the TVA's particular brand of unremarkable eternity. The recycled coffee, the endless corridors, the clipped dialogue, the dozens of agents who all look slightly frayed around the edges in the same way. The paperwork is never-ending, the bureaucracy divine in its pettiness. Time moves strange hereālike chewing on tinfoil. Sometimes it gallops. Sometimes it forgets you entirely.
But thereās something different now.
Itās you.
You keep seeing himāin flickers and echoes, half-formed thoughts you donāt realize youāre having until they hit the page. You start reviewing your field notes only to find entire paragraphs written in shorthand about the moment he tilted his head. About the way he said Will I see you again?
You shouldnāt care. You donāt care. Itās just a glitch in your focus. Just⦠inertia.
Still, you pull up his file. James Buchanan Barnes.
Itās a fractured thing. Not quite whole, like someone took sandpaper to the edges. Parts redacted, others duplicated. A timeline that canāt seem to decide if it wants to be linear. No two missions involving him look the same. There are strange annotations. Personal tags from long-retired analysts. Notations like non-repeatable trauma pattern and event recursion index unstable.
Some entries are missing dates.
You read through anyway. Not for duty. Not even for curiosity, really.
You just want to.
And then, one standard TVA cycle later, it lands. Another assignment. This time the seal is embossed in goldāCausal Preservation Division. Low-risk, softpoint reinforcement. Routine.
You flick through the details:
CASE FILE: #456-TH9
MISSION CLASS: Softpoint Reinforcement
LOCATION: British Isles, Kingdom of Latveria Borderlands
DATE: JUNE 1602
ASSIGNED COVER: Itinerant Herbalist, non-native, licensed under local superstition codes
SUMMARY:
Objective is limited to passive timeline stabilization: ensure delivery of a restorative tonic to a six-year-old child suffering from swamp fever. This act preserves a familial survival event critical to a downstream medical lineage. Mission does not intersect with major temporal figures.
You are not to interfere with core narrative threads. You are not here for Bucky Barnes.
(But the file doesn't say that last sentence. You just write it down anyway.)
You frown at the file. It feels⦠small. Intentionally. A clean mission. An easy one, all things expected. No soldiers, no storms. Just a timeline that needs a nudge.
Still, you hesitate.
Not because itās dangerous. Because itās not. And because part of you wondersāquiet, insistentāif heāll be there again. Not as the Winter Soldier. Maybe as something else. Someone else.
The TVA says every mission is randomized.
But it never quite feels like that, does it?
EARTH-456 | BRITISH ISLES, 1602
The first thing you register is the smell. Damp earth. Horse sweat. Pine sap and someone nearby frying something questionably birdlike in lard.
Your boots sink into wet loam as the time door closes behind you with a dull sigh. Itās quiet here, beneath the canopyājust birdsong and the faint crackle of something cooking over a badly constructed fire pit.
You scan the clearing.
They call it a "camp," but itās more aspirational than functional. A few makeshift tents, some scattered crates stamped with the royal crestārecently liberated, if the smashed locks and missing inventory are any clue.
You move quietly, cloaked in the nondescript garb of a traveling herbalistādirt under your nails, satchel full of fake tinctures, a few well-placed knives.Ā
You watch from the shade of the trees as he crouches beside the firepit, running a cloth along the edge of a short dagger. His hairās tied back, rough and practical. Thereās mud up to his knees and blood on his knuckles, dried like old guilt.
He doesnāt see you, not yet.
Later, after setting up a modest stall in the village square (all intentional smoke and drying herbs, designed to blend in more than stand out), youāre told by a fellow field agent to visit the pub.
āThe meadās surprisingly tolerable,ā they say, nudging your satchel. āAlso, your contactās not due for another twelve hours, so donāt just sit there and brood. Blend in.ā
You go.
The pub is suspended in a towering yew, three stories up a gnarled trunk, accessible only by a ladder that looks like it hates everyone who uses it. The structure groans in the wind but holds, its branches creaking like tired bones. The inside smells of firewood, old ale, and something herbalāprobably the same bitterroot tincture youāve been pretending to peddle all day.
The mead is surprisingly tolerable. You settle into a booth carved into the wall, lit by low-burning lanterns. Itās warm. Quiet. You sip and let yourself feel anonymous.
Right up until the door slams open in that unmistakably theatrical way only someone with a chip on their shoulder and too much presence can manage.
You look upāand still, somehow, youāre not ready.
Heās changed, of course. Thatās the constant.
His hair is pulled back in a low tie, streaked with ash and caught with a bit of red cloth. He wears a leather cloak patched with scavenged velvet. The left arm, impossibly, is still metalābut shaped like something out of myth. Not sleek. Not sterile. Forged. Etched in old runes that flicker faintly in the lantern light.
A blacksmithās nightmare. A knight's inheritance.
And then thereās the way he movesālike someone used to silence, used to watching the world from its edge and only stepping in when absolutely necessary. He doesnāt walk so much as arrive, and the moment he does, the tavern seems smaller. Quieter.
His eyesāthose same pale, searching eyesāfind yours almost immediately.
He pauses, mid-step. The look on his face isnāt surprise. Itās that ache of recognition, buried too deep to name. Like catching your reflection in a mirror that doesnāt quite match.
He walks toward you without invitation. Controlled. Coiled. Not hostile. Just inevitable.
āMy lady, you shouldnāt be out this late,ā he says, voice worn at the edges, smoke-scoured and rough from a life thatās clearly involved too many cold nights and too few comforts. āNot alone.ā
You take a slow sip, meet his gaze. āItās always late here. And rarely alone.ā
He studies you. Not just your face, but your posture, your stillness. The way you speak like youāve been somewhere else too long to fully belong here.
Something flickers in his expression. Not memory. But something adjacent.
He lowers himself into the seat across from you without asking. Heās still damp at the collarārain, or sweat, or both. Heās got a scar running from his jaw to the hollow of his throat, clean and straight like a blade meant to silence. But his voice doesnāt shake.
āHave we met?ā
You offer a small, unreadable smile. āI donāt believe so.ā
But he keeps looking. You can feel him doing itāmapping the angles of your face against some invisible sketch, something etched into his bones that refuses to fade.
āYou look lost.ā
āJust passing through.ā
His mouth pulls tight at the corner, like that answer doesnāt satisfy. You can tell he doesnāt believe youābut he doesnāt press.
He nods toward a table in the back, where a small crew drinks from shared mugs and watches the door. They wear scraps of stolen uniforms and carry themselves with the weight of people whoāve stopped pretending theyāll live long lives.
āYou shouldnāt be here,ā he says again.
You glance at them. āNeither should you.ā
His silence is telling. It confirms what you already guessed.
Heās part of something. A resistance, sure, but not just that. Heās the center of it. The calm in the chaos. The one who moves supply through enemy lines and burns bridges behind him. His coat bears a crest heās tried to removeāonce royal, now repurposed. His fingers twitch when heās still too long, and thereās something reverent in how the others look at him when they think heās not paying attention.
This version of him is no less dangerous. But more visible, somehow. More known. To these people, heās a savior. To himself, probably a liability.
Always the same story: a man pressed into myth by the weight of his own regrets.
And still, he looks at you with that same protective wariness. Like something in him knows you donāt quite belong hereāand wants to guard you anyway.
āCome on,ā he says quietly. āIāll walk you home.ā
The words strike you harder than they should. Like something remembered from a dream that felt real long after you woke.
The night outside is so still you can hear the wind whispering between the boughs.
He pauses under the lantern hanging from a bent branch. Looks at you, shadow-draped and silent.
āWhy are you here?ā
You should lie. You want to lie.
But instead, you say it softly. āBecause I said I would be.ā
He blinks. The words hit something deep. Maybe he doesnāt understand them. But he feels them.
You step closer. Just close enough to reach up, cup his jaw gently, feel the sharp edge of his breath catch in his throat. And then you kiss him.
The moment your lips touch his, the rest of the world blanks. Not goneājust irrelevant. The pub, the low burn of lanterns, the sound of rain tapping against the wooden slatsāit all slips away. All that remains is this.
His mouth is warm, unexpectedly so, and still. Cautious. As if heās holding still for a test he doesnāt know the answer to.
Youāre the one who moves first. Just slightly. Just enough to let it mean something.
And godsāit does.
It means everything you havenāt said aloud. Every hour you spent since Siberia rewatching that moment when he looked at you like he knew you. Every line of his file you traced with your eyes long after you were supposed to close it. Every anomaly he left in his wake, the hollow prints he pressed into timelines like fingerprints you couldnāt scrub clean.
Youād told yourself it was curiosity. Professional interest. A harmless fixation. Just trying to cover your own ass in the event that the TVA catches up to you, foolish, foolish girl. But now you know better.
Because kissing him feels like gravity finally catching up to you.
He doesnāt pull away.
His hand twitchesājust onceālike he might lift it, might anchor you there with the metal one, or with the other, the one that remembers touch. But he doesnāt. He just breathes against your mouth like he doesnāt know what heās doing. Like no oneās kissed him like this in years.
Like no oneās ever kissed him like they remembered him.
The kiss is brief. You make yourself pull back before it deepens, before it turns into something hungrier, something you wonāt be able to file away as incidental.
But you linger close.
He sends you off with a kiss to your forehead.
You complete the mission in silence.
The child is easy to findājust as the file described. Freckled nose, limp in his motherās arms, fever-bright. You hand over the tonic with a reassuring word and a warm enough smile to pass for human. The woman weeps when the boy stirs minutes later, the color already returning to his cheeks.
And just like thatāitās done.
Softpoint reinforced. Future intact.
The door opens in a grove just outside the village, where moss curls over tree roots like sleeping hands. Golden light hums at the edges of the breach. You donāt look back. Youāve learned your lesson there.
But as you step through, the last thing you hearācarried faintly on the windāis his voice.
āI never got your name,ā he says into a room thatās not as empty as he thinks it is. Not yet.
.
You try to stay detached. Try to mark each version of him like a data pointādistinct and catalogued, filed neatly beneath coordinates and context. But it never works. The lines blur.
Thereās the one with the scar over his brow and the wild dog stare, who watches your hands like theyāre a threat and touches you like theyāre a prayer.
The one in 2049 who doesnāt speak until the third encounter but holds out his hand like heās known you forever. The one who plays cello in a city that shouldn't exist, who smiles only for children and flinches at thunder. The one who dies before you can reach him. You stay by his body anyway, until the timeline resets.
Each time, itās different.
Each time, itās him.
You start to think: maybe heās not a variable. Maybe heās the constant. The fixed point the multiverse canāt help but echo. A gravitational pull in human formātethered to something your soul must have signed onto long before the TVA ever handed you a timepad.
You wonder if the multiverse is trying to teach you something. Or if itās punishing you insteadāshowing you every version of the thing you canāt quite keep. Like a lesson in longing, rerun on loop.
You try not to hope. But the hope comes anyway. It always does. Soft and bright, a bruise you press on just to feel.
Then you get your next assignment.
The file is clean. Neat. Sanitized in that way TVA summaries always areāeuphemisms in place of grief, percentages instead of people. But you read between the lines. The divergence happened on the train. Or rather, didnāt.
You read it twice. Three times. It doesnāt change.
This Bucky Barnes didnāt fall. The train held. The mission succeeded. Captain Carter rescued him and helped dismantle the remains of Hydraās European cell before the war even ended. He was never captured. Never reprogrammed. Never dragged through a Hydra chamber like something to be melted down and reforged.
You try to imagine him without the weight.
You picture Bucky Barnes smiling easily, untethered to the guilt of fifty years of carnage he never chose. A man who still cracks his knuckles but not because they ache with remembered pain. One who walks into sunlight without flinching.
You wonder what that would be like.
So you go.
Of course you go.
You always do.
EARTH-838 | LONDON, 1944
Youāve never liked the long assignments.
Short ones are surgicalāget in, disrupt or observe, slip out before the timeline notices the echo of your footsteps. This one, though, is different. Your mission folder is three times thicker than usual. Paper-clipped pages in brittle brown envelopes. Dossiers printed on carbon-smudged letterhead. Photographs tucked inside, blurred by time and memory.
Youāre embedded with the 107th, slotted in as a specialist from Intelligence, the kind who shows up with forged credentials and a quiet knack for being in the right place just before things go wrong. Your cover holds. Mostly. They think youāre here to coordinate logistics for Hydra base strikes. Theyāre not entirely wrong.
The first time you see him again, heās making a sarcastic remark about British rations and butterless toast. Heās not in uniformājust a pressed shirt with rolled sleeves and a cigarette dangling loosely between two fingers, a smear of grease on his wrist. He laughs when Howard Stark tosses a wrench and almost breaks a window.
Itās different sound from what you've heard over the years.
But then Bucky Barnes notices you.
Not all at once. Not like in the stories people tell themselves after the factālove at first glance, magnetic fate, sparks across a battlefield. No, it starts in pieces. A glance held a beat too long during mission briefings. A muttered thank you when you slip him a replacement knife requisition that definitely wasnāt cleared. The way he starts lingering near your tent in the evenings, offering lazy conversation while the others clean weapons or sleep.
āYou always write that fast?ā he asks once, elbow braced on the flap of the entrance like itās casual, like he didnāt cross half the camp just to talk to you.
You donāt look up. āOnly when Iām trying to drown out poorly played harmonica.ā
He grins. āHey, Duganās doing his best.ā
You snort. āHis best sounds like a wounded mule.ā
He laughs again, quieter this time. You feel it settle between your ribs like a warm coin. Itās nothing. Just noise. You tell yourself that.
Weeks pass like that. Quiet orbit. You take longer walks to the mess hall because he always times his exit to meet you halfway. He asks questionsāabout where you're from (a place you name off a pre-approved list), what brought you to London (the war, obviously), if you believe in fate.
You lie when you can. You dodge when you must.
But not everything you say is false. You like coffee too bitter and books too sad. You write letters you never send. You donāt sleep well. Youāve lost people.
He listens. He remembers. He starts showing up with extra coffee. Offers to walk you back to your quarters even though itās technically against regulations. You start lingering in his doorway.
He never pushes.
And you hate itāhow much you want him to.
The first time he touches you, it's an accident. Your fingers brush as he passes you a pen. Your skin sparks. Itās stupid, how much you feel it.
He notices.
"You ever get that sense," he says one night in the empty mess, voices low, "that youāve known someone longer than youāre supposed to?"
Your breath catches.
You laugh it off. "I get that about my dentist."
He grins. But his eyes stay on yours too long.
Youāre not supposed to fall in this one.Ā
But God, itās so easy. So familiar.
Bucky tells you about his family. His sister. The stoop of his childhood apartment and how he used to sneak Steve a flask when the nurses werenāt looking. He draws out your laugh like itās a map, like he's been trying to find it for years.
And all the while, you feel it coming.Ā
One night, two months in, he walks you back and you donāt stop at your door. You let the silence linger. The city is dark and rain-slicked, war planes humming overhead like ghosts.
"Youāre not like anyone Iāve met before," he says, leaning against the wall.
You smile sadly. "Youāve said that to a lot of girls, Sergeant."
London spills into the streets like a wound unstitchedāmen and women dancing in front of blown-out buildings, children painting flags onto brick walls, sailors kissing strangers with the urgency of borrowed time. The city doesnāt sleep. Neither do you.
Youāve stayed longer than planned.
Your official timeline expired a couple of hours ago. But your timepadās been blinking quietly in your coat pocket since sundown, like a secret youāre not quite ready to confess. For long-term infiltrations, the TVA grants a small window of flexibilityātwo to three extra hours, soft margin. Enough to wrap up loose ends. Enough to say goodbye without saying it.
Bucky doesnāt know. Heās too busy laughingāreally laughingāface lit by the amber glow of the pub sign behind him, arm draped lazily around your shoulders. Heās had two pints and a victory cigar, and youāve never seen him look so alive.Ā
Heās in his shirtsleeves again, collar open at the throat, hair mussed from the wind. He smells like tobacco and soap and something citrusy he mustāve stolen from Starkās ration stash. His hand grazes your shoulder as you step outside the crowded pub and into the cool night air. Heās warm, even in the London chill. Always warm.
āIāve been thinking,ā he says, suddenly serious, voice low in your ear.
You turn, startled by the shift. āAbout?ā
He runs a hand through his hair, eyes flicking to the cobblestone street, then back to you. The revelers blur behind youādrunk joy and blurred music, a world gone soft at the edges.
āYou could come with me,ā he says. "To New York. Brooklyn."
Your stomach drops.
āWeāve got peace now. Thereās gonna be rebuilding. A hell of a lot of it. I know itās chaos but⦠I donāt know. I thought maybeā¦ā He trails off, then forces a laugh, too bright. āForget it. Itās dumb.ā
You step in close. The timepad at your hip vibrates againāEXIT NODE ACTIVE. TEMPORAL STABILITY REACHED. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. You ignore it.
āSay it,ā you whisper.
āIāll get a job,ā Bucky says.
His Brooklyn accent is thick with hope, slipping out between the cracks like sunlight through boarded windows. His voice is rough and low, but urgentālike if he stops speaking for even a second, this moment might collapse under the weight of everything itās not allowed to be.
āYouāre so⦠so fucking smart it gets me dizzy sometimes. I watch you in a room andāChrist, Iāve seen tacticians, Iāve seen war heroesābut no one moves the way you do.ā
Heās closer now, just a breath away, like proximity might be enough to anchor you to this place.
āIāll get us a place of our own. A tiny walk-up with drafty windows and floors that creak every time you step wrong. The kind of place where no one knows our names, but weāll learn the neighborsā. Iāll fix the heater when it breaks. Iāll learn to make your coffee the way you like itātwo sugars, not too sweet, extra hot. Iāll write it down if I have to. You wonāt even have to ask.ā
He swallows, his voice breaking just a little.
āIāll make pancakes on Sundays, even if I suck at it. Iāll burn the first batch every damn week and pretend I meant to. Weāll fight about the dishes and who left the radio on. Iāll learn to fold the sheets the right way, your way. Iāll leave notes on the fridge. Iāll rub your feet when youāve had a long day, even if you pretend you donāt want me to.ā
His eyes are wet now, but he doesnāt blink them away. He wants you to see.
āIāll build a life where you can rest,ā he says, so softly it barely carries over the celebration in the street. āNo secrets. No war. Just mornings and bad coffee and a bed we donāt have to leave unless we want to.ā
His hand lifts, hovering like he wants to touch you but doesnāt dare. Heās unraveling. And heās never been more sure of anything.
āYou walk around like you donāt belong to anyone,ā he whispers. āBut you belong somewhere. You belong with someone who sees you.ā
His eyes search yours, bright and raw.
āDarling,ā he breathes, āI just wantāā
You donāt speak. You want to. You want to say yes so badly your teeth ache with it.
Instead, your hand reaches for himācups his cheek, thumb brushing the scrape of stubble there. You lean in before you can stop yourself.
The kiss is molten.
Not soft, not chaste. Itās everything you arenāt supposed to want: greedy, aching, desperate. It tastes like smoke and honey and warās aftermath. You can feel the imprint of his hands at your waist, grounding you, like he already knows youāre slipping.
You gasp against his mouth when he deepens the kiss, his hand moving to cradle the back of your neck like heās afraid youāll vanish if he lets go. And youāyou clutch at his coat, fingers fisting in the fabric like itās the only solid thing left in the world. The city roars around youādrunken songs, laughter, heels on cobblestoneābut none of it touches this moment. It belongs to you. To him.
He kisses like heās starved for something he canāt name.
Like every version of himself has been waiting for this.
Somehow, you make it back to his quartersābarely remembering how. The door slams shut behind you and heās on you again, mouth warm and insistent, hands trembling now as they trace your jaw, your hips, the shape of your spine like heās mapping it to memory. You let him. You want to be remembered.
āTell me this is real,ā he murmurs against your throat, breath hot. āTell me Iām not dreaming you.ā
You tip your forehead against his, eyes fluttering closed. āYouāre not dreaming.ā
You pull his shirt free from his waistband, palms skimming over bare skin, warm and ridged with scars you recognize from dossiersāscars youāve imagined tracing with your mouth, with your hands, in every universe that told you not to.
Bucky's mouth finds the edge of your jaw, your collarbone, the hollow of your throat. Each kiss feels like a confession, like an apology, like a promise. "You're so fucking pretty," he moans into your skin, moving and moving and moving, until you feel his thigh part yours, giving you just the right amount of friction to drive you crazy.
Your shirt's off in turn, and all at once, he drifts down to your tits, cupping them with both palms and burying his face in them. For a moment, your brain short-circuitsāhe's groaning, tender kisses against your nipples and sucking, nipping at the swell of your breasts. "You taste so good, darling. God, I can taste you all day."
You pull on his hairāhard. "Bucky, please. Give me more."
"Ask and you shall receive."
You're rewarded with a beautiful view of him shedding the rest of his clothes off. You can'tāwon'tālook away. It never ceases to amaze you, how pretty his cock is. You lick your lips as he gives it a stroke, slow and soft and positively ready for you.
Then Bucky leans forward, capturing your lips again with a certainty that makes your heart near burst out of your chest.Ā
Your hand wraps around the base of his cock and you smile when he wrenches his head back, eyes shut in almost agony. Bucking against your hand, like he can't get enough of it. He says your name, and despite yourself, you grin before pulling yourself away from his kiss to lower your head, tongue swiping out to taste what leaks from him at the tip.
"Oh, god," His hands come to twist around your hair, the pull making your eyes water with something delicious, something filled with need. You keep going deeper, until he hits the back of your throat and you both moan. "You're so good to me. So, so good."
He's babbling now, as your lips stay wrapped around your cock and you're pressing the flat of your tongue against his veins, a hand stabilizing you underneath. "Sweetheart, you're perfect. I'm going toāoh, yes, right thereāgod, I'm gonna marry you. We're never gonna stop doing this. I'm never gonna get enough of you."
You take him there, all the way up, until he's almost to the edge and he has to ground his hands against your cheeks and pull you off. He looks down at you with that goddamned earnest look that makes you fall in love with him in the first place. "Notānot like this. I want to be inside you."
Of course, of course. "Of course, James."
He pushes you onto your back, and you can't help the giddy feeling in your chest, seeing how much of a mess you've made of him. His cock's shining with your spit and saliva, your wetness all over him. When Bucky sees where you're looking, he licks his lips. A preliminary swipe against your folds when you, very intentionally, thrust forward against his hips impatiently.
"So eager."
You glare at him, lips curling even as he takes both of your thighs until he's slotted between them. "There's no need to be a teaseāOh."
He sinks in, inch by agonizing inch, and you're moaning, jaw dropping as his cock disappears inside of you. You're so full. You've never been this full before and it makes you pant, sighing breathlessly, and when his thumb finds your clit, you whine and clench around him. Both of you moan in harmony.
His pace speeds up from there, hard and fast, and it's intensified by the way he looks at you. Eyes dissecting you carefully, trying to remember every expression, every second, every move that makes you keen further into his touch.Ā
"Look at me, baby, please," Bucky growls and you do. "Look at me when you make me come."
You can't look away, feeling the stars gather up behind your eyes as your own orgasm catches up to youāfuck, it's nothing compared to how his release feels inside of you, the warmth, the way he feels so strong under your fingertips. His chest vibrating, mouth falling open in a prolonged, beautiful groan. He pushes himself deeper inside of you, until you feel his release slipping out of you onto the mattress.
You press a kiss to his forehead and let yourself fall asleep like thatāhim inside of you, tangled up in him.
The light is different when you wake up in the morning.
Soft, pale, almost shy. It seeps through the parted curtains like it doesnāt want to intrude, spilling over the uneven floorboards and up the rumpled edge of the blanket half-draped across your hip.
His arm is still around you. Heavy in sleep. Warm. Bucky Barnes is still asleep.
You donāt kiss him goodbye.
Instead, you whisper something he wonāt hear. āI wish we had more time.ā
And then you activate the timepad.
.
Time passes strangely in the TVA.
There are clocks, yes. Digital ones on walls, analog ones in desks, internal ones ticking behind your eyes. But none of them matter. Days donāt pile up hereāthey just... repeat, under different names. Tuesday is a fiction. Sunday doesnāt exist. Lunch breaks happen when the lights flicker just right, and sleep is what you do when your body gives out mid-report.
You stopped counting after the first month. You stopped pretending to count after the second.
Instead, you worked.
Harder than anyone. Longer than anyone. You took missions no one else wantedāscrubbing nexus events off apocalyptic wastelands, ghosting through centuries where empires rose and fell before youād even finished breakfast. You volunteered for side branches, anomaly audits, recursive sync loops. Anything to keep moving.
It didnāt go unnoticed.
A plaque went up in the Hall of Merit. "Agent of the Month." Your name, etched in fake gold. Mobius clapped you on the shoulder with a proud little smile. Brad brought you the worst celebratory cupcake youāve ever tasted. (Vanilla. Dry. Sprinkles like gravel.)
You smiled. You always smile.
You donāt let yourself say what youāre really thinking.
That all of itāall the assignments, all the accolades, all the long nights pinning divergent strands back into placeāis just inertia. Just mass multiplied by pain. Because you know what happens when you stop moving.
And youāve tried. God, youāve tried.
You dodge his branches when you can. You pass them off to junior agents, citing temporal redundancy. You tell yourself itās not cowardice if itās protocol. You let yourself believe it, for a while.
Until the file lands on your desk.
CASE FILE: #2149-BE0
MISSION CLASS: Collapse Softpoint Reinforcement
LOCATION: Earth-2149 ā Brooklyn, United States / Geneva, Switzerland
DATE: April 2018 (Post-Outbreak +1 Day)
ASSIGNED COVER: Civilian logistics runner, no official alignment, false survivor credentials
SUMMARY:
Objective is to reinforce critical softpoint during global collapse event: ensure Scott Lang, Peter Parker, and TāChalla successfully board Wakandan quinjet. This evacuation preserves three downstream nexus threads essential to limited multiversal salvage.
Do not interfere beyond softpoint parameters. Infected superhumans active.
You stare at it for a long time. You could say no. You should say no.
But your hand moves anyway. Signs the form. Accepts the mission.
No backup. No reassignment.
Just you.
EARTH-2149 | BROOKLYN, 2018 (+1 DAY POST-OUTBREAK)
Out of all the missions you've had so far, you think you hate this one the most. Which is saying something. Zombie apocalypse timelines are the worst.
The air reeks of ash and ozone. Youāre used to strange skies by now, but this one feels wrong in your bones. The light doesnāt fall the way it shouldātoo sharp at the edges, like the sunās been split into shards and youāre walking through the aftermath.
You arrived forty hours ago. Standard infiltration and alignment. The assignment brief was brutal in its simplicity.
Bucky doesnāt make it out of this timeline. He dies at Camp Lehigh. He buys them time.
And youāre supposed to let that happen.
Your first glimpse of him isnāt cinematic. No slow reveal, no stirring strings. Just a sliver of profile through the cracked door of an old deli, combat boots pacing, rifle slung over his back, the metal arm glinting dull and scratched. Heās talking to Parkerālow and firm, the kind of voice meant to ground someone younger, more fragile.
When you step into the light, he turns toward you like he was already waiting. Eyes blue, shadowed. Jaw set. And there it is againāthat look. Recognition.
Your breath stutters. You donāt say anything. You just nod, like youāve been here all along. Like youāre meant to be here.Ā
You donāt know if you can watch him die.
Not when youāve held versions of him in your arms, heard him laugh half-asleep beside a campfire, watched his hands shake after battle and pretended not to notice.
Peter introduces you. A name you chose at random from a TVA list. He doesnāt flinch when Bucky says it aloud. But something shifts behind his eyesāquiet and soft and gone before it settles.
You get through the introductions. Kurt, smiling nervously. Sharon, bloody but unbowed. Okoye nods once at you, sharp and appraising. Happy makes a joke that doesnāt quite land.
For the next two weeks, you stay with them.
You don't mean to get close to Bucky in this one. (You mean it this time. Seriously.) For the first couple of days, you try your best to stay away. You do your best to focus on the mission and he's⦠he's just another person in the crowd. You think that would make it easier, when heāwhen he eventuallyāYou can't even say it.
But it happens one morning, anywayāfog pooling low across the park, the air thick with that awful, metallic smell of rot. Youāre both on perimeter watch, standing on opposite ends of a shattered greenhouse. He catches you glancing toward the skyline, whatās left of it, jagged teeth against the pale pink sky.
āPretty, isnāt it?ā he says, voice low, scratchy from disuse.
You blink from your thoughts. āIn a doomed, post-apocalyptic sort of way.ā
He huffs a laugh. Almost smiles. āI was gonna say the same.ā
Silence settles between you, but itās a companionable thing. Not awkward. Not forced.
You speak first this time. āYou always this poetic?ā
āOnly when Iām tired. Or scared.ā
You glance at him. āWhich is it now?ā
He doesnāt answer right away. Just shifts his weight, runs a hand through his hair, and says, āBoth.ā
You donāt touch. You donāt need to. Itās all there in the space between youāheavy with implication. Unspoken, but not unfelt.
You sleep on opposite ends of the same room. He never touches you. Never asks. But some nights you wake up to find his jacket draped over your legs. Once, during a particularly bad storm, he nudged a cracked thermos of lukewarm coffee toward you without a word.
He doesnāt have to say anything. You feel it.
All of it.
And the worst partāthe most unbearableāis knowing itās temporary. You feel the convergence approaching like a bruise beneath your ribs. Two days now, maybe three, before you lose him again. Before he dies. Before you vanish back into the timeline like a ghost leaving no fingerprints.
You try not to show it. You smile when Peter cracks a joke. You run drills with Sharon. You help Kurt fix a busted radio, even though itās hopeless.
But every time you look at Bucky, your heart tightens in your chest like itās trying to keep him there.
And then it's here.
The journey to Camp Lehigh was fucking gut-wrenching.
You've lost practically everyoneāSharon, Hope, Kurt, Happy, Okoye. It sits in you like a shard of ice. Not griefāthereās no time for grief. Just weight. Just the bitter gravity of survival. The quinjet is prepped and waiting. The remaining survivorsāPeter, TāChalla, Langās floating head in a jarāare already climbing aboard. Youāve done everything the mission brief demanded. You met the moment. You held the line.
Youāve done everything the mission brief saidādown to the minute, the location, the final headcount. And you⦠youāre standing beside Bucky.
And still, youāre standing beside him.
Buckyās chest rises and falls with the kind of steadiness that makes you ache. His metal arm glints in the firelight, streaked with ash and blood, fingers twitching in a rhythm you canāt decipher. Thereās soot on his cheek, a rip in his sleeve, and when he turns to you, thereās something too clear in his eyes. Not fear. Not even pain.
Resolve.
You taste it in the back of your throat: the copper of a timeline ending.
āWe have to go,ā you say softly, not to him, not really. Just to the air.
Bucky doesnāt move.
He turns his head slightly, enough for you to see the hard line of his jaw. The wear around his eyes. Thereās something about this version of himāfamiliar, but not calloused like the others. Still earnest enough to believe in sacrifice. Still sharp enough to choose it without flinching.
You hate that.
āIāll hold her off,ā he says, and you feel something break, neat and irreversible, in your chest.
āNo,ā you breathe. Too fast, too raw.
His brow furrows. āSomeone has to. You said it yourselfāif we donāt get the jet off the ground, we lose everything.ā
āThat doesnāt mean it has to be you.ā
He smiles, and itās that same damn smile thatās followed you across time. The one that says itās already decided.
āI think it always was.ā
You want to scream. You want to tell him heās not disposable, not fated, not just a name on some cosmic itinerary that keeps getting torn out and rewritten. You want to confess that youāve met him over and over, and every time heās left a bruise somewhere deeper.
But the timepad at your hip begins to beep.
MISSION END: T-MINUS 2 MINUTES
You ignore it.
āYouāll make it,ā he says gently, like a goodbye.
āNo, I wonāt,ā you whisper. āNot really.ā
Thereās shouting near the quinjet ramp. Peter calling your name. Bruce waving you over. The others are loading in. You should be there. The moment is closing. The window is narrowing.
You donāt move.
Instead, you step forward and press your hand to his cheek. Your skin is cold from the wind, but he leans into it anyway. His eyes flutter closed for half a secondājust long enough for you to memorize it.
Then you kiss him.
Itās not gentle. Itās desperate. Greedy. A kiss that says remember me. Your hands fist in his jacket. His mouth moves against yours like itās something heās missed without knowing. You drink in every inch of himāthe scrape of stubble, the roughness of his palms against your back, the low sound he makes when you pull away.
āIāll find you again,ā you say. It's a promise.
He nods once. His hand lingers at your waist for a breath longer than it should. Then he turns back towards Wanda.
You watch him go. You always watch him go.
The quinjet door hisses shut behind you. The engines roar to life. The pad at your side flashes, like some sick, fucking jokeā
Mission Successful. Extraction in Progress.
You donāt look back at the ground. Youāve learned that much, at least. Looking back doesnāt stop the bleeding. But when the jet lifts, when the trees blur below and you canāt see him anymoreā
You swear something rips loose in you.
And this time, you donāt think it will grow back.
.
Youāve seen him in snow.
In bloodied ice, in rusted Soviet hulls, in the shadow of burning quinjets and crumbling castles. Youāve seen him with death behind his eyes and guilt threaded into every line of his face. Youāve seen him careful, methodical. Kind in all the ways no one noticesāquiet in a world that demands noise. Someone who doesnāt ask for gentleness, but gives it anyway.
And now youāve seen him in the dark, too. In 1602, under soot-smudged moons and flickering gaslights, a knife twirling between clever fingers. He hadnāt known youānot really. Not as the woman whoād held his gaze in a cryo chamber. Not as the silhouette slipping into the quinjet before he turned to face the Scarlet Witch. But heād looked at you like he wanted to.
The thread stays taut between you, no matter the timeline.
So when you get the assignment to goā
It doesnāt land with ceremony. No formal debrief. Just a flicker on your desk monitor, a soft chime that cuts through the static hum of the TVAās perpetual fluorescent haze. You almost miss it. You almost ignore it. Because everything still hurts.
The kind of hurt that doesn't pulseāit seeps. It rots. You move like youāre wearing someone elseās body, like your own bones are too loud. You havenāt been sleepingānot really.Ā
You open the file with a numb hand. Just procedure, you tell yourself. Just another timeline. Until you see the numbers.
CASE FILE: #616-SV1
MISSION CLASS: Passive Observation
LOCATION: Bucharest, Romania
DATE: March 2016Ā
ASSIGNED COVER: Independent tenant, upper flat
SUMMARY:
Subject Barnes, James B., presumed alive and in civilian hiding following HYDRA data exposure and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Timeline approaching critical inflection. Target is not actively breaching; no temporal instability present. Assignment is preventative: monitor for signs of deviation or catalyst behavior.
Do not engage. No interference unless softpoint destabilization occurs.
You let out a sound that might be a laugh. Or a sob. Itās hard to tell.
Thereās a reason TVA protocol avoids revisiting timelines. Too risky. Too messy. History isnāt built for recursion. But thisāthis is a spiral. A closed loop. Like something unfinished trying to write its own end.
And now youāve been assigned to watch him again.
After all this time. After what you felt splinter through you like glass.
You should tell someone. Flag the conflict of interest. Recuse yourself.Ā
You donāt.
You close the file and begin packing for Bucharest.
EARTH-616 | BUCHAREST, 2016
You land in Bucharest in the dead quiet of early morning, the sky still purpled with sleep.Ā
The city feels brittleālike something trying very hard not to splinter. Your coverās thin again: traveling contractor, repair work, nothing that draws attention. You rent a room across from a narrow building with stained windows and a faulty streetlamp that flickers at 2 a.m. every night like clockwork.
And you wait.
The first time you see him again, heās carrying plums.
Youāre leaning on a railing, nursing coffee thatās more soot than bean, watching the street in that not-watching way youāve perfected over decades. And there he is. Gray hoodie, boots worn to the stitching, a canvas bag slung across one shoulder.
He walks like someone trying to be smaller. Eyes down. Shoulders rounded. Every muscle still taut beneath the fabric, but pulled inward. Controlled.
You almost donāt recognize him like this. Then he glances up. Brief. Casual.
But it slams into you anyway.
Because there it isāthat flicker. That impossible, unplaceable pull. Like gravity, but sideways. Like someone whispering your name in a language you forgot how to speak.
He doesnāt stop. Doesnāt linger. But you feel it. That taut little wire between your ribs goes taut again, humming faint and low.
Youāve seen him across centuries, across madness and ruins and impossible skies. And now, here he is, just... buying fruit.Ā
You observe him for seven days. No contact. No breach.
Each morning, he walks the same path. Plums one day. Bread the next. He pauses at the corner every timeāchecks the shadows, the mirrors. Still sharp. Still trained. But dulled at the edges like heās trying not to be. Like heās tired of being a weapon, and doesnāt quite know how to be anything else.
He never takes the same route home.
You map them all anyway.
Thereās a rhythm to his caution. Itās not paranoia. Itās preservation. You know the difference. Youāve watched enough shattered timelines to recognize when someoneās not trying to escape the worldājust survive it.
And through it all, you pretend not to ache.
You keep the timepad dim, tucked under your coat like a second heart. The updates are clean. No deviations. No instability. Heās not a threat. Not a spark.
Just a man. Still whole, somehow. Still holding.
But you find yourself watching anyway. Not for fractures or fault linesābut for the quiet, ordinary proof that heās still him. The way he double-checks his change at the fruit stall. The soft apology he gives a stray dog he nearly bumps with his boot. The habit of pausing in the stairwell, just long enough to listen for another pair of footsteps behind him. You memorize all of it like itās going to disappear.
You donāt. Of course you donāt.
Until the night you lose him.
Itās raining. Thin, indecisive drops that fall more like static than water. Youāre two streets behind, just enough distance to not spook him, when someone yells, and a car backfires, and you look away for a single goddamn second.
And heās gone.
You circle three blocks. Then six. Nothing. Itās half an hour later when you feel the grip.
Quick, precise. A hand closes over your arm and pulls you sidewaysāinto a narrow alley between buildings that still wear their war damage like it happened yesterday. The wall hits your spine. The air knocks out of you. And then heās there.
Close. Too close.
Hood down. Eyes sharp. Rain slicking through his hair.
You donāt move. Donāt breathe.
Because heās looking at you like heās been waiting.
āYouāve been following me,ā he says, voice low, rough. No heat in it. Just truth.
Your mouth opens. Closes.
He tilts his head, studying your face like heās comparing it to something half-forgotten. Then he says, quiet, like a memory. āSiberia. 1955.ā
The words gut you.
āI remember,ā he says. āYou said my name.ā
His name. That night. The way he shookālike his own mind was something turning against him. The tremor in his breath. The metal arm pressed tight to his temple, like he could hold back whatever wave was cresting inside. And then your voice, just a whisper: Bucky.
And it worked.
He startled like the sound reached deeper than his programming. Like it found something still human.
You donāt mean toābut you reach up, slowly, and press your hand over his where it still grips your coat. His fingers tighten for a second. Then release.
You look at him. Really look.
The rain has soaked through everything, and heās shivering. Not from cold. From memory. His breath ghosts in the narrow space between you, and his eyesāGod, his eyesādonāt look like a strangerās.
It looks like home.
He takes a step back and mutters, āCome on.ā
You follow him through back alleys and slick cobblestone streets to a squat building with iron balconies and doors that stick. His apartment is a few flights up, small and clean in the way that feels practicedāsurfaces scrubbed, not decorated. A cot, a kettle, a folded stack of shirts too neatly pressed. No photos. No noise.
He doesnāt speak at first. Just watches you watch the space, like heās trying to guess what youāll say.
āNot what you expected?ā he asks eventually, voice rough.
You shake your head. āNo. Itās exactly what I expected.ā
He scoffs. Sits on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees. āHow do you know me?ā
And you could lie. You could stall. But youāre tired of running out of time.
But youāre tired of running out of time. Siberia. The hold. The pulse. The kiss in 1602. The quinjet, the gaslight, the plague-soaked rooftops and the boy who lived because you were there. The mission you botched. The rules you broke. The dozens of timelines where he didnāt make it. The handful where he almost did. The way it was always him. And when you finally stopāwhen the words have left you empty and open and rawāhe doesnāt flinch.
He exhales, long and deliberate. His fingers twitch against his knee. Then he looks at youāreally looks, and you can feel the moment shift.
āWhen I saw you again,ā he says, voice quieter now, but steadier, āon the street⦠it wasnāt like remembering something. It was like finishing something.ā
You blink. āFinishing?ā
He nods, slowly. āYeah. Like⦠you know when youāve had a song stuck in your head for days? Not the lyricsājust the feeling of it. The rhythm. The echo. And then one day it comes on the radio, and your chest justāunlocks. Like something you didnāt know was broken gets put back together.ā
He glances down at his hands, then back at you.
āThatās what it felt like. Seeing you.ā
You stay silent, afraid to interrupt the thread he's following.
āAt first I thought I was losing it,ā he admits. āSome hallucination leftover from Hydra. A ghost memory I couldnāt place. But then you moved, andāJesusāI knew it wasnāt just in my head. The way you looked at me. Like you knew me. Like you werenāt afraid of me.ā
His jaw clenches, not from anger, but from something deeper. Held longer.
āIāve seen that look before,ā he says. āFear. Disgust. Pity, sometimes. Iām used to people stepping back. Or pretending they donāt see me. But you⦠you didnāt flinch. Not even in the alley. You looked at me like I wasāā He falters, and then tries again. āLike I was real. Like I had a name worth saying.ā
Your chest aches.
He laughs, a short, unsteady breath. āGod, and hearing you say it againāBuckyālike it was the first time all over. I donāt know why that hit so hard. But it did. It felt like⦠like Iād been underwater for years, and suddenly someone opened a window.ā
You donāt say anything.
Youāre still trying to breathe around the weight of him.
āI donāt remember everything,ā he says. āNot clearly. Flashes, maybe. Cold metal. Smoke. That lightāon your face, in that hallway. But I remember how I felt. I remember peace. For like⦠five seconds. It was the only thing that made sense.ā
His gaze flickers to your lips, then back to your eyes.
āI think Iāve been looking for that feeling ever since.ā
You don't answerānot with words. There's nothing left to say that would hold the weight this moment needs. So instead, you cross the small stretch of floor between you, slow and deliberate, and sink to your knees in front of him.
Your hand finds his, trembling with some emotion neither of you dares to name, and he lets out a soundāhalf-breath, half-confessionāas your fingers thread together.
āOkay?ā you murmur.
He nods, once. But it's not enough. His hands rise, hesitant, then hungryāone brushing the curve of your cheek, the other settling at your waist like heās still afraid you might vanish. Like if he touches you too hard, youāll be another dream, another phantom gone by morning.
And then he kisses you.
It starts soft, reverentāhis lips just ghosting yours, like he's asking permission. But the second you respond, the second you lean in and kiss him back with everything youāve carried through centuries of almosts, it shatters something in both of you.
He surges forward.
Kisses you again, deeper this time. More desperate.
Your back hits the wall with a muted thump, and suddenly his hands are everywhereāone splayed across your lower back, the other cradling your jaw. He kisses you like heās starved for it, like heās trying to map your mouth, your breath, the corners of your teeth. Like he's trying to memorize you from the inside out.
And thenāGodāhe breaks away just enough to kiss the line of your jaw. The soft spot beneath your ear. Your temple. Your forehead.
āYouāre real,ā he breathes against your skin, almost like a prayer. āYouāre here.ā
His lips trail lower, find the bend of your knee as you hitch your leg around his waist. He presses a kiss there too, slow and aching, like it means something. Like everything means something.
Youāre both breathing hard now, hands roaming, hearts pounding in rhythm too fast to be calm, too synchronized to be coincidence. He kisses your collarbone. The corner of your mouth. The space beneath your eye, where something like grief still lingers.
He's so gentle. Gentle all the way through until he manages to shove you to the bed, kissing his way down the column of your throat and then it shifts. His hands find their way inside your jeans and he gasps, shakily. "You're so wet, fuckāyou're so wet. For me?"
You nod, breathless.
It's another slow dance, as he rolls your jeans off, only to quickly find his way back like he can't stand to be parted from you. His fingers find your entrance, the rough pads of them swiftly finding your entrance and spreading the heat, the wetness around, like he's playing with his meal.Ā
Then Bucky brings his mouth, that beautiful, beautiful mouth, to your cunt to replace his fingers and you swear you may have just died. He's soāhe's so passionate, devouring you with a hunger until your spine's arching off the bed, your hands tangling in his soft brown hair. He doesn't stop licking and sucking.
"Bucky, pleaseāoh god, please, don't stop."
You get closer and closer to the edge, hips rutting against his jaw. You feel everything so, so deeply. The way his stubble leaves goosebumps in its wake, his hands digging into your thighs to keep you in placeāand then, he slides a finger back inside you as he hums, satisfied with the moans he's wrenched out of you.
It's like coming home. Your orgasm's like a strike of lightning, crying out as you release, close to tears as he laps up the rest of your orgasm.
When he finally stands to start taking off his clothes, you've been reduced to nothing more than a boneless heap on his bed. Your knees are wobbling slightly, but you force yourself to get up anyway, helping him shed the rest. "I'māhere. Let me help."
Bucky smiles. Softly.
"You're so sweet. You're too good for me."Ā
You think you lose another shred of your sanity.
The look in your eyes lights something up in him. He joins you back on the bed and you can feel him, the weight of him, and it's all so familiar. He rests heavy on your thigh and your heart feels like it's about to come out of your chest.
"Bucky, please."
His cock slips inside of you, with a gasp and a groan, and suddenly, Bucky's locking his hands with yours. "Promise me you'll stay."
It's almost overwhelming, but he keeps you grounded. There's just so much of him. There's his teeth on your neck, the burn of his stubble on your collarbones, the way he sucks off marks against your skin and looms over you, like he never wants you to leave him again. His strength is addicting, the way he pushes you so close to breaking.Ā
He says your name again. "Promise me."
You tell yourselfāyou're never letting him go again. You wrap your arms around him like something fierce, kissing him as he thrusts deeply, hitting the spot that makes stars light up behind your eyes. "BuckyāfuckāIā"
Your name falls from his lips with a groan. "Sweetheart, I'mā"
"Me too," You nod, whining when his pace quickens and itāyou don't mean to, but it makes you clench around him. "Let go for me. It's okay."
Bucky looks at you, his grip around your hands tightening, and suddenly, it's a rolling wave of pleasure, over and over and over until you're trembling. You can feel him, his warmth, so fucking much of it, it's addicting. He's still groaning, hips thrusting, like he's trying to carve a home out of you.
Youāre not sure how long you stay like thatātwined together in the stillness, forehead pressed to his, breath shared in the hush of a room that suddenly feels too charged, too fragile to last.
You donāt want to break it. But you have to.
āBucky,ā you whisper, your voice threading through the quiet like a thread pulled taut. āTheyāre going to try to take me away.ā
His eyes snap open. āWhat?ā
You rest your hand against his chest, feel the beat of his heart stutter beneath your palm. āThe TVA. They monitor softpoint drift. Iāve pushed too many lines. Stayed too long. Thisāā You gesture softly between you, āāthis isnāt sanctioned.ā
He stares at you like he wants to argue. But he doesnāt. Because he knows youāre not wrong.
āLet them try,ā he mutters, jaw tight. His hands tighten where they rest on your waist, grounding. Possessive in the way a storm anchors to the sea. āI wonāt let them.ā
You smileāsad, crooked, fond. āYou might not get a choice. But I will. I always find a way back.ā
He swallows hard. āYou promise?ā
You nod. Press your lips to his againāgentle this time, slow and deliberate, like sealing a vow with your breath. Then you whisper against his mouth:
āIāll come back. I always come back.ā
His eyes close for half a second. And when they open again, theyāre full of something wild. Unspoken. Undeniable.
āNext time,ā you say, voice shaking with certainty, ānext time Iāll stay.ā
THE NULL SECTOR | TVA DETENTION LOOP C-9
You broke protocol.Ā
Not for the mission. Not for the stabilization of a softpoint. For him. For a man with a haunted gaze and a heartbeat you should never have memorized.
And the TVA caught up to you.
They always do.
They didnāt drag you out of the field. There was no team of Minutemen, no sirens or threat display. Just a pulse through your timepad, a freeze-frame of motionāand then static. You never even got to say goodbye. Just watched as his apartment in Bucharest faded from view. The world around you disassembled. You didnāt fall through time; it collapsed around you.
And then: nothing.
But nothing wasnāt quiet.
Nothing was the absence of coordinates. A place with no variance, no measurement, no entropy. A sealed chamber of cognitive suspensionāstandard punishment for agents who breach emotional integrity clauses.
They called it ānullspaceā in the manual. But that word doesnāt tell the whole story.
Sometimes you remembered his voice. Sometimes you forgot your own. Time didnāt move here. Not in any way that mattered. You floated in itābodiless, unraveling, stitched together by a thousand what-ifs that all ended in silence. At first, you tried to count days. Then heartbeats. Then regrets.
You stopped when you couldnāt tell which were yours and which belonged to the lives youād watched but never lived.
You thought of his hand on your back. His voice rasping low when he asked you to stay. The way his eyes crinkled when he smiledānot every Bucky, but that Bucky. The one who knew without knowing. The one who held out hope like it was a knife and an offering both.
Maybe theyād left you there forever.
But something changed.
When the light shifts again, itās not like waking.
Itās like surfacingālike clawing your way out of a dream that was also a coffin. You blink against it, vision blurred and lungs tight with the phantom taste of ozone.
The TVA fell, you realize. Or maybe it evolved. The pruning stopped. The sacred timeline shattered. The multiverse stretched open like a wound and youālike so many othersāwere set loose without fanfare.
Just a blinking cursor on a timepad.
Youāre on a bench. Clean metal. White walls. No restraints. Just a single timepad laid neatly on the seat beside you, like itās been waiting.
You reach for it cautiously. No alerts. No directives. No timeline embedded. The screen flashes once and then settles.
āWelcome back, Agent.ā
āStatus: Cleared.ā
āAssignment Log: Vacated.ā
You sit in the silence that follows, your fingers trembling.
āYou are free to go.ā
Theyāve never said that before.
There's no debrief. No memory wipe. No analyst knocking at your door to escort you back to a cubicle and a world of recycled coffee and unread reports. Just⦠release.
It doesnāt feel real. Then you notice the neatly packaged case file.
When you wrench it open, your eyes gaze upon a few simple words. Your name. Not your alias. Not your designation. Your name. Next to a birthplace.
Earth-616. Brooklyn.
And suddenly that dream⦠that dream you've always had isnāt a metaphor. It isnāt psychic bleed or misaligned memory. Itās real.
The stoop. The red-brick building. The muffled laughter on the wind. It wasnāt timeline residue.
It was home.
You see it all now: the way the sun hit the side of that building in the dreamāyour building. The stairs you mustāve climbed a thousand times before the TVA unmade you. The shadow rounding the corner wasnāt just any figure. It was him. That version of him. Bucky Barnes in his sergeant uniform, calling for you before you could catch up.
And you never did. Until now.
The words fall into your chest like stones. Every suppressed instinct, every redacted name, every unexplainable ache when Bucky looked at you like you were someone heād loved in a dreamāall of it clicks into place.
You were never a ghost in the machine. You were a person. You were his.
You stare back at the screen of your timepad. At the quiet, singular prompt at the bottom:
āINPUT COORDINATES.ā
Your breath shakes.
For the first time in your life, thereās no mission waiting. No protocol. No watchers behind two-way glass. Just the choice you were never allowed to make.
You donāt hesitate.
EARTH-616 | BROOKLYN, 2026
You're not sure when you first fell in love with him. Maybe it was the 1940s, maybe it was in 1602, maybe it was earlier than language and names.Ā
But youāve always been sure about how he looks in silhouetteāhow his shoulders hunch slightly when heās thinking, how his hands twitch when heās fighting the urge to reach for something he knows heās not allowed to want.
And maybe thatās why you keep searching for him in the in-betweens.Ā
In lives that never finished writing themselves, in branch timelines that evaporated before they touched soil. You comb through the TVA archives like a woman possessedānot for intel, not even for closure, but for slivers. A timestamp where his name is scribbled in the corner. A blurry photo of someone with his gait. An anonymous field report that ends with, ātarget disappeared into snow.ā
Everywhere, he disappears. And still, you follow.
You love Bucky Barnes the way fire loves oxygen: recklessly, instinctively. Not just for who he is now, but for every life he never got to live.Ā
For the kid in Brooklyn who dragged Steve out of alley fights, for the soldier who fell off a train and was turned into a ghost, for the man who woke up decades later in Wakanda with a name that felt too big for his mouth. You love him for the quiet moments the world didnāt seeāchopping wood in the forest, feeding stray cats on apartment balconies, the way his thumb brushes over his dog tags when he thinks no oneās watching.
Bucky, who made you laugh over terrible coffee in a mess hall in 1943. The one who handed you a damp handkerchief in a zombie-scarred train depot, saying nothing as you wiped blood off your hands. The one in 1602 who watched you from beneath a soot-black hood, eyes squinting through torchlight, and still let you pass.
You remember something he once saidāmaybe it was in 1955, maybe in 2016, maybe in a fever dream. āPeople like us⦠we donāt get soft landings.ā And you think thatās the tragedy of it.Ā
He has always been built to break. And youāyou keep getting assigned to the wreckage.
Thereās a concept you came across once, while embedded in a minor deviation out of Seoul, 1957. Not part of the assignmentājust a detail on a bookstore receipt someone left behind.
In-yun. Fate through friction. The belief that even a passing graze between strangers means your souls have already brushed, thousands of times before.
Itās nonsense, by TVA standards. Sentiment dressed up as spiritual determinism. No measurable coefficient. No supporting data. But you havenāt stopped thinking about it since.
Youāve crossed paths with James Buchanan Barnes in more than a hundred timelines. Youāve logged the hours, cataloged the events, archived the footage. On paper, itās coincidence. Strategic convergence. The mathematics of softpoints aligning with the gravitational pull of significant individuals. He is, after all, a heavily-indexed Variable.
But paper doesnāt account for the way he looks at youāeach time new, each time the same. Like he recognizes your silence before you speak. Like your presence reads to him not as anomaly, but inevitability.
He's not supposed to remember you. He canāt. And still, he always sees you.
Thatās the part that undoes you.
You ache because in every timeline, you find him. In every universe, you lose him.
But you thinkāno, you knowāif you had to live and comb through thousands more universes just to stand in front of him again, in the year 2026, youād do it. Youād do it a thousand more.
Because even if all he says is, āTook you long enough,ā youād still believe it was worth the wait.
EARTH-616 | BROOKLYN, 2026
The year is 2026. This Earth breathes uneasily in peacetime. Starkās foundation has pivoted to disaster relief and neural rehabilitation tech. Wakanda opens its fourth embassyāthis one in Seoul. Post-Blip survivor benefits have just passed preliminary legislation in three states. And James Buchanan Barnesāformer assassin, occasional Avengerāhas just won his election for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Redistricting helped. So did the veteransā vote. So did the way he looked people in the eye when he told them he remembered what it was like to be used, to be weaponized, to be hollowed out and told to smile for the cameras. But mostly, it was him. The myth re-forged as man.
You find him at the VA in Brooklyn. Technically off-duty, technically supposed to be celebrating. But of course heās here. Rolling up shirt sleeves to take constituent questions. Translating bureaucratic-speak into something that feels like compassion. He looks like a U.S. History textbook illustrationāwhite dress shirt, tie slightly loosened, blazer draped over the back of a chair.Ā
And somehow still the same soul youāve met in a hundred different guises. The same gravity. The same ache. Like no matter the universe, heās always trying to make something right.
You step into the lobby, boot heels echoing on tile, and the gravity of him pulls you forward before youāve fully decided to be brave.
Heās facing away, head slightly bowed in conversation with a nurse, his hair still too long for Washington norms, tucked neatly behind his ears. The sight of him hits low in your stomachāfamiliar and wild, as always. The sound of his laugh, rare and rumbling, sends a tremor through your ribs.
āExcuse me,ā you say, steadying your voice like itās just another assignment. āIām a deeply concerned constituent, and Iād like to register a complaint about your policies.ā
He turns.
And the moment lands like gravity reasserting itself.
His eyes go wide. Then narrow. Then go soft in that way only youāve ever seenālike heās witnessing a miracle he doesnāt trust yet. He doesnāt say your name. Doesnāt need to.
You only just open your mouth to say something else when heās already in front of you. And thenā
He kisses you.
Not tentative. Not questioning. Just real. Like this has always been the ending he was holding out for. His hand cups the back of your neck like he thinks you might vanish again if he doesnāt keep contact. You let yourself press into itāmouth to mouth, memory to body. The weight of the years falling off both your shoulders.
You pull back, breathless. Smiling.
āYou came back,ā he says, wonder tucked beneath the rasp of his voice. āYou came back.ā
Your hands are on his chest now, smoothing fabric just to touch him, to confirm heās real. āTook me long enough,ā you echo, and his smile breaks wide and unguarded, rare and all for you.
Then he stills, just a little.
āYou staying?ā he asks.
You donāt hesitate.
āYes.ā
And that, his laugh, short and disbelieving, his forehead pressed briefly to yours like a prayer, is the softest landing either of you has ever known.
I fear this may be one of the best one shots Iāve ever read, and I say āI fearā because now Iām going to have to bind it into a book so I can have it on my shelf forever.
I literally kept pausing so I could talk to my bf about what was going on and why I kept wailing in despair!!
Summary:Ā After a day of being scolded by the Hawkins Community Pool lifeguard, Eddie takes his interest in you home and imagines what it would be like if he called the shots.
Pairing:Ā Eddie Munson (Stranger Things, 2022) x Fem!Lifeguard!Reader
Word Count:Ā 1.5k
Tags: smut (18+ only), solo masturbation on Eddie's part, Eddie is a teensy bit pervy but that's how I like him, imagined oral (m receiving)
Authorās Note: Just a little blurberella inspired by @queenimmadolla and her recent lifeguard!reader x Eddie fic which you can read here! Thank you, Queenie, for letting me develop your idea further!
The trailer shakes as Eddie slams the front door closed behind him. Wayne, sitting slouched on his side of the couch with a beer in his hand, pulls his attention away from the soap opera that plays on the small television set to look at Eddie before his eyes flit back to the melodrama happening on screen.
āHow was the pool?ā Wayne asks, eyes still fixated on the T.V. as he brings the bottle to his lips.
Eddie crosses in front of the luminted screenāWayne craning his neck to make sure he doesn't miss anything as he passesāto reach the desk beside it and the few books that live on the shelf above it. He answers, distractedly, āCrowded, loud, and Iām pretty sure I saw a kid vomit in the grass.ā
āSorry it wasnāt to your liking,ā Wayne says, only half-heartedly providing his attention to the conversation.Ā
āWhat are you on about, old man?ā Eddie says as he snatches a tall hardcover book from the others. āI had a great time,ā he says over his shoulder before jogging towards his room.
His thin, green flannel, unbuttoned and framing his lithe torso, flutters behind him as he makes large strides toward the room at the back of the trailer, his black flip flops smacking along the way. Eddie fixes his sleeves, rolling them up over his elbows, as the door shuts behind him. He locks it with a swift flick of his wrist, beginning to crack open the book over his forearm while he kicks off his sandals, sending them flying in every which direction. He falls back onto his unmade bed, taking the book in two hands: āHawkins High Yearbook, 1984.āĀ
He bought it that year when he was in a sentimental mood, thinking it would be his first and final senior year, the last time he and Ronnie would share a yearbook together. Now, as he skims past his own photo in the book, he thinks it a far away dream and the yearbook itself was rarely revisited explaining the thin layer of dust itās collected. But Eddie doesnāt aim to reminisce. No, heās looking for something, for someone.Ā
Thereās your picture amongst the sea of other Hawkins High Seniors. Of course youāre so goddamn photogenic, he thinks as he gazes at the quarter-size portrait. Your eyes are especially captivating. You have this subtle way of looking at the camera, like you're looking at him directly. Itās eerie yet enrapturing at the same time.
He flips towards the back of the book where the clubs and activities are situated. He finds the Hawkins Girls swim team and there you are in nearly every photo on the spread. In your tightly fitted bathing suit, the stripes along the side accentuate your figure, but more than that he notices your smile and the way you make goofy faces at the camera when itās focused on you, which it seemed to have a hard time not doing.
He sees that coy smirk that you throw over your shoulder as you ready yourself to take your mark on the diving block. Itās that same smirk you give him after sniping back at him at the pool, spread out over your guard stand, towering over him and making him feel small in a way that is all too pleasurable. When he enters your domain, as a lifeguard, youāre the one in control, and he doesnāt mind that, not typically, but he wishes that he could be in control, just once.
He sets the yearbook aside and pulls his swimming trunksāstill slightly damp, the acrid smell of chlorine still clinging to the materialādown his hairy thighs. His cock springs free, half at attention as he grabs it in his large hand and begins massaging it.
He gives his cock three or four dry pumps before pulling his hand back and spitting on it, engulfing it once more.
He pictures, in his mindās eye, the image of you in that red one piece, your whistle dangling between your breasts, and those damn gas station sunglasses. Theyāre that cheap kind of plastic that hardly does anything to polarize the glare from the sun and he knows it based on the way your eyebrows squinch just above them.Ā
He gives his cock a rough squeeze, moaning deep in his throat.Ā
Youāre so cute when you get in the zone, forgetting he exists for a moment as you scan the pool in front of you. Your lower lip juts out and your posture slouches just a tad. Your sunglasses slide down your nose just a fraction, just so he can see your pretty eyes behind them from the right angle. And when you focus your eyes on him for a second longer than you probably should? He notices, even when you think you're being subtle.
He remembers your skin and that thin sheen that covers every inch of it, both from your sunscreen and your perspiration. He remembers the way your nipples, hardened by the breeze, show without any restraint against the thin fabric of your guard suit. He remembers the wiry hairs of your bush peeking out past the high seams near your crotch, the one piece riding up each time you crossed and uncrossed your legs, just before you adjusted it back into place. He remembers when the temperature reached its high and your chest heaved just a little bit heavier with each breath and a single droplet of your sweat fell from your chin, down your neck, over your chest and between the valley of your breasts before disappearing out of sight.Ā
God, how he wishes he knew what came after. Past the tan lines and the high riding seams. What you looked like without that one piece on, how you slipped it off at the end of a hard day spent working in the sun. How you would slip it off for him.Ā
His hand works faster against his dick and his breath hitches as he squeezes tighter.
Cornering you at the end of your shift, when youāre doing your walk-through of the mens showers, when everybodyās left. Grabbing you roughly by the arms and pushing you against those blue tiled walls. Kissing you hard and furiously just to shut that pretty mouth of yours up after having yelled at him all day. He would peel your suit off of you, slowly, savoring each new inch of skin heād get to see as the fabric of it clings to you, the flesh under salty and damp with sweat.Ā
As much as heād like to think his poker face in this moment would be stone cold, he just knows that his jaw would go slack seeing your nipples harden when exposed to the chill air of the early evening that blows in through the open doors on either end of the showers. A chill would be sent running down his spine at the sight of your cunt, obscured by thick hair and framed by your thighs that squeeze together to alleviate the ache he leaves there. Miss high-and-mighty-on-her-guard-stand, he would push you to your knees and watch those beguiling eyes as they stare up at him, demure and mischievous in the way youād bury your nose into the thatch of hair above his manhood and sniff hard and deep, taking in the heady scent of Coppertone, chlorine, and his musk.
Youād kiss up his length and lick at his blushing tip, your tongue red from the Otter Pop youād eaten earlier.
He runs his thumb over his tip, spreading the pearly precum that buds there.
You would engulf him in your mouth after two tentative bobs of your head and the inside would be cool and refreshing against his flushed skin.Ā
The thought makes him shiver in his bed and it makes his movements stutter, a sharp intake of breath before a desperate whimper leaves his lips. Heās close and it becomes harder to hide the noises he wants to make and the rapid squelching of his hand against his cock.
He thinks of you, sucking him off frantically, like youāre desperate to please him. You would keep taking fleeting glances up at him to gauge his reaction and each groan and gasp would be met with a shift in practice. You would suck harder, move faster, lick lighter, pull away and leave teasing kisses when you knew he was close, still vying for control even when it's his only goal to strip it from you. But those eyes and that mouth, Eddie knows he would give you anything, even the control he so desperately craves in that moment.Ā
You would pull off of him and stroke him roughly with a renewed vigor, kissing and licking the tip every now and again before catching his gaze and commanding it to stay. You would look at him, chest heaving as you pumped him faster and squeezed tighter before saying, āCome for me, Eddie.ā
That alone is enough to send him over the edge as his grip on his cock stills and tightens before white hot ropes of cum spill over his stomach and onto his swim trunks. His breathing is labored and his hand falls over his pelvis, fingers kept steady so as not to spread the mess heās made. He looks to the side of him and finds the picture of you on the diving block, smirking as if you know what's taken place here.
He needs to ask you out. Like, right now. Like, yesterday.
eddies extending an invite to you and your bush and guess what? heās bringing his bush too! I could read novels about this man masturbating until the end of time.
the year book detail was incredible I love that heād spent all day drooling over you and came home to seek out more of you.
and heās fantasising about mutually inhaling each others bush. Freak (Iām besotted with him)
even in his day dreams where he gets to chose to exercise more dominance heās still aware that you could at anytime over power him and heād willingly let you
Ahhhh!!! Thank you so much for the kind words and comments!!
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, I am nothing if not a bush truther. Reader gets a bush! Eddie gets a bush! Everyone gets a bush!
I also just love writing Eddie smut. Heās in this in between place where heās both a total and utter freak but also kind of a softie??? Like at the end of the day, heās obsessed
Summary:Ā After a day of being scolded by the Hawkins Community Pool lifeguard, Eddie takes his interest in you home and imagines what it would be like if he called the shots.
Pairing:Ā Eddie Munson (Stranger Things, 2022) x Fem!Lifeguard!Reader
Word Count:Ā 1.5k
Tags: smut (18+ only), solo masturbation on Eddie's part, Eddie is a teensy bit pervy but that's how I like him, imagined oral (m receiving)
Authorās Note: Just a little blurberella inspired by @queenimmadolla and her recent lifeguard!reader x Eddie fic which you can read here! Thank you, Queenie, for letting me develop your idea further!
The trailer shakes as Eddie slams the front door closed behind him. Wayne, sitting slouched on his side of the couch with a beer in his hand, pulls his attention away from the soap opera that plays on the small television set to look at Eddie before his eyes flit back to the melodrama happening on screen.
āHow was the pool?ā Wayne asks, eyes still fixated on the T.V. as he brings the bottle to his lips.
Eddie crosses in front of the luminted screenāWayne craning his neck to make sure he doesn't miss anything as he passesāto reach the desk beside it and the few books that live on the shelf above it. He answers, distractedly, āCrowded, loud, and Iām pretty sure I saw a kid vomit in the grass.ā
āSorry it wasnāt to your liking,ā Wayne says, only half-heartedly providing his attention to the conversation.Ā
āWhat are you on about, old man?ā Eddie says as he snatches a tall hardcover book from the others. āI had a great time,ā he says over his shoulder before jogging towards his room.
His thin, green flannel, unbuttoned and framing his lithe torso, flutters behind him as he makes large strides toward the room at the back of the trailer, his black flip flops smacking along the way. Eddie fixes his sleeves, rolling them up over his elbows, as the door shuts behind him. He locks it with a swift flick of his wrist, beginning to crack open the book over his forearm while he kicks off his sandals, sending them flying in every which direction. He falls back onto his unmade bed, taking the book in two hands: āHawkins High Yearbook, 1984.āĀ
He bought it that year when he was in a sentimental mood, thinking it would be his first and final senior year, the last time he and Ronnie would share a yearbook together. Now, as he skims past his own photo in the book, he thinks it a far away dream and the yearbook itself was rarely revisited explaining the thin layer of dust itās collected. But Eddie doesnāt aim to reminisce. No, heās looking for something, for someone.Ā
Thereās your picture amongst the sea of other Hawkins High Seniors. Of course youāre so goddamn photogenic, he thinks as he gazes at the quarter-size portrait. Your eyes are especially captivating. You have this subtle way of looking at the camera, like you're looking at him directly. Itās eerie yet enrapturing at the same time.
He flips towards the back of the book where the clubs and activities are situated. He finds the Hawkins Girls swim team and there you are in nearly every photo on the spread. In your tightly fitted bathing suit, the stripes along the side accentuate your figure, but more than that he notices your smile and the way you make goofy faces at the camera when itās focused on you, which it seemed to have a hard time not doing.
He sees that coy smirk that you throw over your shoulder as you ready yourself to take your mark on the diving block. Itās that same smirk you give him after sniping back at him at the pool, spread out over your guard stand, towering over him and making him feel small in a way that is all too pleasurable. When he enters your domain, as a lifeguard, youāre the one in control, and he doesnāt mind that, not typically, but he wishes that he could be in control, just once.
He sets the yearbook aside and pulls his swimming trunksāstill slightly damp, the acrid smell of chlorine still clinging to the materialādown his hairy thighs. His cock springs free, half at attention as he grabs it in his large hand and begins massaging it.
He gives his cock three or four dry pumps before pulling his hand back and spitting on it, engulfing it once more.
He pictures, in his mindās eye, the image of you in that red one piece, your whistle dangling between your breasts, and those damn gas station sunglasses. Theyāre that cheap kind of plastic that hardly does anything to polarize the glare from the sun and he knows it based on the way your eyebrows squinch just above them.Ā
He gives his cock a rough squeeze, moaning deep in his throat.Ā
Youāre so cute when you get in the zone, forgetting he exists for a moment as you scan the pool in front of you. Your lower lip juts out and your posture slouches just a tad. Your sunglasses slide down your nose just a fraction, just so he can see your pretty eyes behind them from the right angle. And when you focus your eyes on him for a second longer than you probably should? He notices, even when you think you're being subtle.
He remembers your skin and that thin sheen that covers every inch of it, both from your sunscreen and your perspiration. He remembers the way your nipples, hardened by the breeze, show without any restraint against the thin fabric of your guard suit. He remembers the wiry hairs of your bush peeking out past the high seams near your crotch, the one piece riding up each time you crossed and uncrossed your legs, just before you adjusted it back into place. He remembers when the temperature reached its high and your chest heaved just a little bit heavier with each breath and a single droplet of your sweat fell from your chin, down your neck, over your chest and between the valley of your breasts before disappearing out of sight.Ā
God, how he wishes he knew what came after. Past the tan lines and the high riding seams. What you looked like without that one piece on, how you slipped it off at the end of a hard day spent working in the sun. How you would slip it off for him.Ā
His hand works faster against his dick and his breath hitches as he squeezes tighter.
Cornering you at the end of your shift, when youāre doing your walk-through of the mens showers, when everybodyās left. Grabbing you roughly by the arms and pushing you against those blue tiled walls. Kissing you hard and furiously just to shut that pretty mouth of yours up after having yelled at him all day. He would peel your suit off of you, slowly, savoring each new inch of skin heād get to see as the fabric of it clings to you, the flesh under salty and damp with sweat.Ā
As much as heād like to think his poker face in this moment would be stone cold, he just knows that his jaw would go slack seeing your nipples harden when exposed to the chill air of the early evening that blows in through the open doors on either end of the showers. A chill would be sent running down his spine at the sight of your cunt, obscured by thick hair and framed by your thighs that squeeze together to alleviate the ache he leaves there. Miss high-and-mighty-on-her-guard-stand, he would push you to your knees and watch those beguiling eyes as they stare up at him, demure and mischievous in the way youād bury your nose into the thatch of hair above his manhood and sniff hard and deep, taking in the heady scent of Coppertone, chlorine, and his musk.
Youād kiss up his length and lick at his blushing tip, your tongue red from the Otter Pop youād eaten earlier.
He runs his thumb over his tip, spreading the pearly precum that buds there.
You would engulf him in your mouth after two tentative bobs of your head and the inside would be cool and refreshing against his flushed skin.Ā
The thought makes him shiver in his bed and it makes his movements stutter, a sharp intake of breath before a desperate whimper leaves his lips. Heās close and it becomes harder to hide the noises he wants to make and the rapid squelching of his hand against his cock.
He thinks of you, sucking him off frantically, like youāre desperate to please him. You would keep taking fleeting glances up at him to gauge his reaction and each groan and gasp would be met with a shift in practice. You would suck harder, move faster, lick lighter, pull away and leave teasing kisses when you knew he was close, still vying for control even when it's his only goal to strip it from you. But those eyes and that mouth, Eddie knows he would give you anything, even the control he so desperately craves in that moment.Ā
You would pull off of him and stroke him roughly with a renewed vigor, kissing and licking the tip every now and again before catching his gaze and commanding it to stay. You would look at him, chest heaving as you pumped him faster and squeezed tighter before saying, āCome for me, Eddie.ā
That alone is enough to send him over the edge as his grip on his cock stills and tightens before white hot ropes of cum spill over his stomach and onto his swim trunks. His breathing is labored and his hand falls over his pelvis, fingers kept steady so as not to spread the mess heās made. He looks to the side of him and finds the picture of you on the diving block, smirking as if you know what's taken place here.
He needs to ask you out. Like, right now. Like, yesterday.
yeah, this definitely made me unstable, had me melting like Heather did when the Mindflayer killed her, this was so good, junibee!!!! he came right home after the banter at the community pool and went straight to work on his dick and i love that for him. heās living the ultimate summer.
i loved the wayne appearance so much, i was like, āTHERE HE IS, THERE HE IS, RIGHT THERE LOOK!ā
you really brought the yearning over here too, i was flip flopping from intently reading to putting my phone down so i could have a little mini freak out over how much he THINKS about reader. i spend more time in Readerās head than i do Eddieās so itās always insightful and almost eye opening when i get to read something you wrote because you get inside his head so well. really feels like him.
i donāt think iāve mentioned it enough, but iām really grateful to the fanfiction gods that we somehow have always had the same idea of what/who eddie munson is. his personality, mannerisms, build, lil bit oā perviness, etc., we just seem to be so spot on with each other and thatās why i love reading your works so much.
i also am LOLing about how you wrote the smut for them (well, him but reader would have gotten a kick out of watching) that i definitely would have struggled to do myself and you did it B-E-A-UTIFULLY. you are my other half in this fandom TRULY and this fic deserves every single flower in the world and it was an honor to have you add to Lifesaver (Lifeguard? i dont know i tried to be cute and give that reader a nickname) and Eddieās lil world.
now, iām off to read it again so i can fixate on little details that will surely change my outlook on life.
Like I was saying I our PMs, I have literally not been writing fan fiction at all for like a year but your lifeguard fic literally brought me back to life! The dynamic was too freaking good that I had to dust off the old MacBook and write that man tugging his dick š
*me getting ready to write absolutely filth after reading your fic*
āYou are my other half in this fandom,ā Iām gonna find you, you freak!!! No because only you could post some Eddie blurbs and have me falling head first back into my Eddie feelings!! I have not thought about that man in MONTHS but your Eddie fic literally had me kicking my feet because he is so boyf! And you write him so well!! And youāre so funny! Reading your fics literally just reminds me how fun fandom is supposed to be and the joy youāre supposed to get out of it.
I love you, Queenie!! To many more Eddie adventures (or whatever the hell we end up being into).
Summary:Ā After a day of being scolded by the Hawkins Community Pool lifeguard, Eddie takes his interest in you home and imagines what it would be like if he called the shots.
Pairing:Ā Eddie Munson (Stranger Things, 2022) x Fem!Lifeguard!Reader
Word Count:Ā 1.5k
Tags: smut (18+ only), solo masturbation on Eddie's part, Eddie is a teensy bit pervy but that's how I like him, imagined oral (m receiving)
Authorās Note: Just a little blurberella inspired by @queenimmadolla and her recent lifeguard!reader x Eddie fic which you can read here! Thank you, Queenie, for letting me develop your idea further!
The trailer shakes as Eddie slams the front door closed behind him. Wayne, sitting slouched on his side of the couch with a beer in his hand, pulls his attention away from the soap opera that plays on the small television set to look at Eddie before his eyes flit back to the melodrama happening on screen.
āHow was the pool?ā Wayne asks, eyes still fixated on the T.V. as he brings the bottle to his lips.
Eddie crosses in front of the luminted screenāWayne craning his neck to make sure he doesn't miss anything as he passesāto reach the desk beside it and the few books that live on the shelf above it. He answers, distractedly, āCrowded, loud, and Iām pretty sure I saw a kid vomit in the grass.ā
āSorry it wasnāt to your liking,ā Wayne says, only half-heartedly providing his attention to the conversation.Ā
āWhat are you on about, old man?ā Eddie says as he snatches a tall hardcover book from the others. āI had a great time,ā he says over his shoulder before jogging towards his room.
His thin, green flannel, unbuttoned and framing his lithe torso, flutters behind him as he makes large strides toward the room at the back of the trailer, his black flip flops smacking along the way. Eddie fixes his sleeves, rolling them up over his elbows, as the door shuts behind him. He locks it with a swift flick of his wrist, beginning to crack open the book over his forearm while he kicks off his sandals, sending them flying in every which direction. He falls back onto his unmade bed, taking the book in two hands: āHawkins High Yearbook, 1984.āĀ
He bought it that year when he was in a sentimental mood, thinking it would be his first and final senior year, the last time he and Ronnie would share a yearbook together. Now, as he skims past his own photo in the book, he thinks it a far away dream and the yearbook itself was rarely revisited explaining the thin layer of dust itās collected. But Eddie doesnāt aim to reminisce. No, heās looking for something, for someone.Ā
Thereās your picture amongst the sea of other Hawkins High Seniors. Of course youāre so goddamn photogenic, he thinks as he gazes at the quarter-size portrait. Your eyes are especially captivating. You have this subtle way of looking at the camera, like you're looking at him directly. Itās eerie yet enrapturing at the same time.
He flips towards the back of the book where the clubs and activities are situated. He finds the Hawkins Girls swim team and there you are in nearly every photo on the spread. In your tightly fitted bathing suit, the stripes along the side accentuate your figure, but more than that he notices your smile and the way you make goofy faces at the camera when itās focused on you, which it seemed to have a hard time not doing.
He sees that coy smirk that you throw over your shoulder as you ready yourself to take your mark on the diving block. Itās that same smirk you give him after sniping back at him at the pool, spread out over your guard stand, towering over him and making him feel small in a way that is all too pleasurable. When he enters your domain, as a lifeguard, youāre the one in control, and he doesnāt mind that, not typically, but he wishes that he could be in control, just once.
He sets the yearbook aside and pulls his swimming trunksāstill slightly damp, the acrid smell of chlorine still clinging to the materialādown his hairy thighs. His cock springs free, half at attention as he grabs it in his large hand and begins massaging it.
He gives his cock three or four dry pumps before pulling his hand back and spitting on it, engulfing it once more.
He pictures, in his mindās eye, the image of you in that red one piece, your whistle dangling between your breasts, and those damn gas station sunglasses. Theyāre that cheap kind of plastic that hardly does anything to polarize the glare from the sun and he knows it based on the way your eyebrows squinch just above them.Ā
He gives his cock a rough squeeze, moaning deep in his throat.Ā
Youāre so cute when you get in the zone, forgetting he exists for a moment as you scan the pool in front of you. Your lower lip juts out and your posture slouches just a tad. Your sunglasses slide down your nose just a fraction, just so he can see your pretty eyes behind them from the right angle. And when you focus your eyes on him for a second longer than you probably should? He notices, even when you think you're being subtle.
He remembers your skin and that thin sheen that covers every inch of it, both from your sunscreen and your perspiration. He remembers the way your nipples, hardened by the breeze, show without any restraint against the thin fabric of your guard suit. He remembers the wiry hairs of your bush peeking out past the high seams near your crotch, the one piece riding up each time you crossed and uncrossed your legs, just before you adjusted it back into place. He remembers when the temperature reached its high and your chest heaved just a little bit heavier with each breath and a single droplet of your sweat fell from your chin, down your neck, over your chest and between the valley of your breasts before disappearing out of sight.Ā
God, how he wishes he knew what came after. Past the tan lines and the high riding seams. What you looked like without that one piece on, how you slipped it off at the end of a hard day spent working in the sun. How you would slip it off for him.Ā
His hand works faster against his dick and his breath hitches as he squeezes tighter.
Cornering you at the end of your shift, when youāre doing your walk-through of the mens showers, when everybodyās left. Grabbing you roughly by the arms and pushing you against those blue tiled walls. Kissing you hard and furiously just to shut that pretty mouth of yours up after having yelled at him all day. He would peel your suit off of you, slowly, savoring each new inch of skin heād get to see as the fabric of it clings to you, the flesh under salty and damp with sweat.Ā
As much as heād like to think his poker face in this moment would be stone cold, he just knows that his jaw would go slack seeing your nipples harden when exposed to the chill air of the early evening that blows in through the open doors on either end of the showers. A chill would be sent running down his spine at the sight of your cunt, obscured by thick hair and framed by your thighs that squeeze together to alleviate the ache he leaves there. Miss high-and-mighty-on-her-guard-stand, he would push you to your knees and watch those beguiling eyes as they stare up at him, demure and mischievous in the way youād bury your nose into the thatch of hair above his manhood and sniff hard and deep, taking in the heady scent of Coppertone, chlorine, and his musk.
Youād kiss up his length and lick at his blushing tip, your tongue red from the Otter Pop youād eaten earlier.
He runs his thumb over his tip, spreading the pearly precum that buds there.
You would engulf him in your mouth after two tentative bobs of your head and the inside would be cool and refreshing against his flushed skin.Ā
The thought makes him shiver in his bed and it makes his movements stutter, a sharp intake of breath before a desperate whimper leaves his lips. Heās close and it becomes harder to hide the noises he wants to make and the rapid squelching of his hand against his cock.
He thinks of you, sucking him off frantically, like youāre desperate to please him. You would keep taking fleeting glances up at him to gauge his reaction and each groan and gasp would be met with a shift in practice. You would suck harder, move faster, lick lighter, pull away and leave teasing kisses when you knew he was close, still vying for control even when it's his only goal to strip it from you. But those eyes and that mouth, Eddie knows he would give you anything, even the control he so desperately craves in that moment.Ā
You would pull off of him and stroke him roughly with a renewed vigor, kissing and licking the tip every now and again before catching his gaze and commanding it to stay. You would look at him, chest heaving as you pumped him faster and squeezed tighter before saying, āCome for me, Eddie.ā
That alone is enough to send him over the edge as his grip on his cock stills and tightens before white hot ropes of cum spill over his stomach and onto his swim trunks. His breathing is labored and his hand falls over his pelvis, fingers kept steady so as not to spread the mess heās made. He looks to the side of him and finds the picture of you on the diving block, smirking as if you know what's taken place here.
He needs to ask you out. Like, right now. Like, yesterday.
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Hiiiii my queenie! Could I please request an Eddie fic with lifeguard!reader? Honestly, the plot is up to you I just need this dynamic right now
Ooooh, guurrrrl I was kicking my feet while I typed this up. You KNOW I'm a slut for some enemies-to-lovers when it comes to Lifeguard!Reader x Eddie Munson, so here's exactly that, only š š„šØš šØš šš§šš¦š¢šš¬ šš§š š¬šØš¦š š„šØšÆš¢š§' š¬š§š®šš¤ š¢š§ there since it's a bitty blurb, featuring hellfire and heather my love.
The sounds of laughter, children shrieking, splashing and chatter filled your ears the moment you stepped out of the showers; body framed in the red hot, one-piece bathing suit you were always required to wear while on duty.
Ā With lips slightly pursed, a fresh layer of chapstickāspf 30, alwaysācoating them, you surveyed the crowd that would be your responsibility in just a couple of seconds.
Ā The vulturesāahem, mothers and married women, interested in anyone but who they were due to go home to, were spread out on their towels and chairs. Basking in the sun with futile hopes of obtaining a tan. Mrs.Abernathy was already looking pink, you knew sheād be complaining about the burn for the remainder of the pool day.
Ā Small children occupied the shallow kiddie pool, floaties bobbed around in the waves their excitement created. In the larger pool, adults tried to relax while ignoring the noise that came with preteens and teenagers gathering. It was loud and obnoxious.
Ā Just the way you liked it.
Ā You raised your whistle to your lips and blew as you moved towards the lifeguardās post, hips swaying with a confidence that befell you the moment you clocked in. Almost like magic.
Ā āDonāt even think about it, Curtis.ā You warned the culprit, stopping him just as he prepared for a running start, no doubt ready to cannonball right next to poor, unsuspecting Mr. Williams.
Ā You smirked as Curtis deflated and wandered off, muttering under his breath.
Ā āOh, thank goodness!ā Heather cried out as she climbed down from her post, high ponytail swinging, āYou have perfect timing, I need to reapply some sunscreen to my legs, Iām starting to look like a lobster.ā
Ā With a finger on the temple of your sunnies, you lowered them on the bridge of your nose to look her over, pushing them back into place with a brilliant flash of your teeth, āYou look good to me.ā
Ā She laughed, swatting your arm, āStop itāthereās no trouble today, we almost had a drowning this morning though, kid flipped over in his floatie and couldnāt get back up. But other than that, itās pretty chill.ā
Ā You hummed, pleased as your eyes scanned the crowd again.
Ā āOh, and your number one fan is already here.ā Heather teased and you groaned right before you locked eyes with him.
Ā Your lenses were dark. To anyone it should have been difficult to notice your attention was on them. And yet, Eddie Munson stared you dead in the eye from where he and his ragtag group of pale goblinsāaside from Ronnie and Jeff, you liked them, Ronnie was spunky and Jeff was funny and nice and also blackāhuddled over a table and under umbrellas.Ā
Ā After Jeff had tagged along with his family onceāhe gave you some fruit his family had packed, he was so sweetāhe and his friends, Eddie included, had made frequent appearances, though they werenāt always happy to be at the pool. Heather mentioned to you once, or anytime she got more than five minutes to talk to you, that Gareth had been the one he sacrificed to approach her. Started a casual conversation that continued to circle around to openly wondering out loud about what your schedule on the lifeguard tower could be. She took great pleasure in pretending to be oblivious before she wanted him to go away.Ā
Ā Now, you saw them just about all the time. Why Eddie Munson really wanted to loiter around at the community pool, you had no idea. You had incorrectly, apparently, assumed it would be out of his comfort zone.
Ā All his friends sat inwards, speaking heatedly about something but not Eddie. He sat with his back against the table top, arms spread out over it and legs manspread over his section of the bench. His chapped lips were pulled up into an almost sinister like smirk.
Ā You had a sneaking suspicion Eddie wanted to seem annoying, menacing, or even intimidatingāand he once was to you. You used to avoid him in hallways, despite the butterflies that fluttered around in your tummy, because the guy was so abrasive. Constantly making fun of people he didnāt like, being ridiculously loud when he realized others didnāt like him, either, and heād taken to occasionally picking on your group of friendsāa couple of science nerds, cāmon dudeāso youād just tried to steer clear.
Ā Until you got this gig.
Ā There was something about seeing the local metal head and dealerā usually so imposing with his cool layered clothes, sharp jewelry and ripped jeansāswap out his personality for a pair of black swimming trunks and sandals, exposing his lanky frame, incredibly pale skin and even paler feet. Forgoing his armor, so to speak. Even his tattoos looked kinda funny, randomly placed and spread apart. His normally wild mane was flat, and the ends were wet so you knew heād been in the water, but if the hair hadn't been a giveaway, his red rimmed eyes would have. You could tell the difference between chlorine and weed eyes from a mile away.Ā
Ā Eddie Munson didnāt look remotely intimidating to you. In fact, he reminded you of an anchovy. How long had he been just a guy and not some big, obnoxious overly-opinionated-to-the-point-of-being-mean ogre like you built him up in your head? Sometimes, you wondered what revelations he might be having about you as well. Made you kinda glad your little crush on him was gone.
Ā You tried not to laugh as you broke eye contact to return your attention to Heather who was also biting back a smile.Ā
Ā āIāll have you know he looked pissed to be here up until the moment you walked out. Good luck!ā She sang as she twirled around and hurried away.
Ā Youād barely managed to get settled in your seat when you realized he and his friends had left their possessions at their table in favor of occupying the area of the pool closest to you.
Ā āNo way! Iām not doing that!ā You heard Gareth hiss. It was so funny to see them awkwardly just standing there in the water, like they were waiting for the okay to go home.Ā
Ā āCausing trouble, Munson?ā You asked, trying not to look at him. Eddie had quickly dunked himself underwater, and emerged wiping his hair out of his face and running his fingers through it. The way he was doing it reminded you of how they did it in Baywatch, albeit a bad attempt because his wet hair kind of melded together and his fingers got caught in it so he had to yank. It was obvious he was trying to show off and flex. Distantly, you wondered if his rib cage showing a little could be considered a six-pack.
Ā āJust trying to soak up the last couple minutes of fun, since youāre on duty, Killjoy.ā He shot right back at you without missing a beat, teeth gleaming in the sun as he grinned, āDonāt you have kids to keep from running by the pool or something, or are you just planning on harassing innocent, little olā me all day?ā
Ā āHe wanted me to pretend to drown him earlier so that you might actually have to care about him for a couple of seconds while you do mouth-to-mouth.ā Gareth confessed with a straight face that went momentarily terrified as Eddie whirled around, face set in a sneer and furious.
Ā āDude, why the fuck would you tell her thatāā And then he was back on you, āHeās lying to mess with your head, I wouldnāt want to kiss you to save my life.ā
Ā āThatās good, because I wouldnāt kiss youāitās not a kiss, by the wayāto save your life, either. Thatās a death I would have had to call.ā You remarked, twisting the cap of your water bottle off to take a swig as his friends let out a chorus of Oooh!s.Ā
Ā You tried to pretend not to notice how Eddie seemed to stare up at you, the way he stared up at you, corner of his lip twitching into a smile as he accepted defeat without a rebuttal. For a second, you thought he might have been impressed, maybe even a little proud of you, and then he quickly ducked under water, until he was chin level and nervously glancing around.Ā
"One of these days, you two are just gonna have to get a room." Ronnie laughed, tossing her silky black hair over her shoulder.
Ā You felt your face get warm and chose to blame it on the heat instead of the fact that (one) Eddie Munson had popped a woody to you and (two) you definitely still had a crush on him.
Hmm if Iām being honest Iām not huge on hellguard but @queenimmadolla is! Theyāre the one that requested the Heather x Eddie art I did a while ago