Mysteries Of My Mind

“Been waitin’ all night for you,” he murmurs. His hands are under your skirt, fingers teasing the edge of your panties. “I know she’s been waitin’ too.”

He kisses you deep, all heat and tongue, while sliding two fingers into your pussy, curling just right. “Fuck, she’s so wet for me already.”

“Bucky!” you gasp into his mouth. “Anyone could see!”

Bucky pulls his fingers out from you and you watch him suck his fingers clean. He wipes his hand on a napkin and then stands, offering you his hand. He leads you outside, tipping his hat to others on the way out.

He tugs you into the back alley, pressing you against the brick wall. He drops to one knee, hiking your leg over his shoulder, and buries his face between your thighs. His tongue laps at your pussy like he’s starving, sucking your clit hard as you drip down his chin. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let her sing for me.” You cry out his name as you come, shattering hard all over his face.

He stands and kisses you before turning you to face the brick. You hear the sound of a zipper and you gasp as he fills you completely. The alley echoes with skin slapping skin as he fucks you hard, one hand gripping your ass, the other pawing at your breasts through your dress.

Your pussy squeezes him tight. “I’m gonna make her mine, all mine,” he growls, as he pounds harder, claiming you under the moonlight.

This was probably the worst decision you have ever made.

But, hell, now you officially jumped without a parachute, the ledge is gone, the air is passing by quickly, and your only hope is that you’ll somehow learn how to fly on the way down and you’ll be able to land on your feet.

The hallway outside has lost its symmetry, as you have lost your sanity, and now nothing seems to make sense anymore. Everything seems longer and crueler, your panic stretching the hallways into a long, suffocating throat. Each of your hectic footsteps makes you feel too exposed in this big mansion, they seem to echo your exact coordinates throughout the floors. Every hallway hears you, the walls themselves are turning their heads.

You take the first turn on instinct, then another, and another, trying to remember the route, trying to retrace the thread that brought you here, but your terror and all that bottled-up panic smashes sequence, steals direction, leaves you with nothing but speed because you know that if you stop, you’re done.

Your feel your heart everywhere. In your throat, in your ears, behind your eyes, beating against your teeth.

You blow past a side table where a cluster of pale lilies sits, blooming so aggressively, looking so wrong and even ugly in the corner of your eye, you have to take another turn.

You’re no longer thinking, you’re just running.

Your chest is a hollow chamber and all you hear is your own pants when you pass a maid who startles and calls something you don’t catch. You pass a window tall as a church promise and for one insane second consider throwing yourself through it. 

Somewhere behind you, from the office, you hear a loud crash. His voice follows. His voice. It sounds so much more blood-curdling now. 

He’s calling your name. Loud and baffled and then sharper. He doesn’t sound angry yet, but definitely alarmed in a way that makes every warning bell inside you turn rabid. Because there is something uniquely petrifying about hearing alarm in the voice of a man like him. It means you have disrupted the script. It means he does not understand. It means he is coming.

You run harder, every nerve in your body overflowing with adrenaline.

But, as expected, the house doesn’t simply spit you out. Corridors feed into corridors, archways into alcoves, burnished halls into rooms you have never seen, and every choice you make seems to slide you deeper into the belly of the place instead of toward freedom. 

With a ragged and desperate breath, you shove through one swinging door expecting another passage, and stumble instead into a kitchen vast enough to feed a wedding. There is all this gleaming steel and those butcher-block islands and hanging copper, bright under the lights in a way that feels grotesque after the dim severity of the office. 

It is wrong, all wrong, too open and yet somehow still a trap, because there is no front hall here, no visible exit, only counters and cabinets and startled staff, and you realize with a sick plunge of your stomach, that you have run yourself into a dead end dressed as luxury. 

This is bad, this is so bad. 

You stop abruptly, spinning around helplessly. The breath tears in and out of you like it is trying to escape without the rest of your body. The halls behind you are full of pounding footsteps, and you know it’s just one single set, but you also know it’s him.

He’s advancing and you can’t keep escaping.

A woman near the far counter goes still with a mixing bowl in her hands. Another man freezes by the sink with his hands in water. No one speaks. No one moves. The whole room seems to hold itself in suspension around your panic, everyone watching without watching, and then from somewhere behind you in the corridor comes Bucky’s voice sounds again, practically yelling your name—no confusion left now, only alertness, apprehension; and it punches you in the gut. It rings through you, through the kitchen, through the bright metal and tile and silence, and you know it has all been for nothing. 

But before there is anything you can do, before the ground can open a portal for you to fall through, Bucky appears in the kitchen doorway, looking like an avalanche with a name. A big name. A dangerous name. A name that will be the end of you. 

He doesn’t look raging in the obvious way, but he’s lost a bit of control. And for the man that he is, you don’t know how to survive it. And this intensity with which he came thundering after you is so extremely frightening because it looks expensive on him, tailored to fit, like one of his suits, like one of his watches, like all the impeccable and dangerous things he wears so naturally you once mistook them for elegance instead of that blaring warning sign they actually are. 

Why just have you been so stupid, my god.

He’s totally got you wrapped around his finger—and dick, as embarrassing and daunting as it is—or you would have maybe been able to open your eyes for a second, you idiot. 

But now they are open, wide, wide open, and you see him. You see him as the man he is. But maybe it’s a little too late now. 

He stops the moment he sees you pressed half-backward against the dark island, sees the way your hands have come up slightly as if your body has decided on defense without consulting you, sees the wet shine gathering in your eyes, the terror you are no longer managing to powder over, and something happens to his face that is so brief and so devastating, but all you can do is stare at him so you see that clean strike of realization. 

He doesn’t look confused anymore, and it makes him even more menacing.

He knows. He knows that you know. And he probably knows what he’s going to do to you now but you don’t know if you want to know that.

The air seems to cinch around you, seems to wrap itself around your throat, and squeezes. You can’t breathe. You don’t try to.

Bucky—James, your mind insists now with a sick recoil, James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes, biggest crime boss in the city—does not look away from you when he tilts his face to the staff. That, more than anything, makes your blood run strange. His attention stays fixed on you with a steadiness so absolute it feels like a physical thing, a hand at the back of your neck, while his voice turns toward everyone else in the room and comes out low and unquestionable. “Everyone out.” 

His command is dropped into the kitchen and nobody argues. The immediate obedience of his people makes you visibly shudder. 

A woman near the stove sets down a towel with trembling fingers. The man by the sink lowers his eyes and moves. Another staff member glances at you once with a quick look that seems almost guilty, almost pitying, and you feel the pulse of it pounding all around you, everywhere inside you. 

Nobody looks at you too long, nobody does anything besides leaving the fucking room. They won’t meet your fear and they won’t step between it and the source. Nobody here belongs to themselves enough to choose you over him. But it’s clear that they don’t. They’re his people for a reason. Nobody here will be on your side, whatever happens. 

A door swings. The kitchen empties in a matter of seconds, everyone slipping out with the furtive speed of people evacuating a room where something dangerous has just unsheathed itself. They leave with the scene in their eyes. They leave you with him. And the silence after the last one goes is so sudden it roars.

You take another step back and only feel the unhelpfully solid press of marble against your spine. There is nowhere else to go unless you want to climb onto the counter like a cornered animal, and for one hysterical beat of a second, the idea does not even seem ridiculous. 

You keep your eyes on him because looking away feels somehow more chilling, but your gaze is frantic within that line of sight, darting to the side entrance, to the swinging service door, to the corridor beyond him, to windows that suddenly seem decorative rather than useful, to every possible seam in the room where escape might be hiding in miniature.

There is none. The whole kitchen gleams at you with pitiless order that’s just full of steel and stone and copper, knives in their block and pots all around. 

He notices you looking, but you can’t care; all you have to care about is the distance between you and him, the distance between you and anything that might become escape if panic suddenly grew wings. 

Could you run past him? Maybe, if he were anyone else. Maybe, if this were some ordinary man with ordinary reflexes and an ordinary body and an ordinary life. 

But he is none of those things. You’re in this damn situation because he’s none of those things. 

He fills the doorway without even trying. He stands there in the collectedness of his dark clothes and encroaching presence, looking at you as if he can hear your thoughts tripping over each other and your fear has turned you transparent. 

His shadow has finally caught up to his skin and you now realize how dark it is.

Even if you got around him, where would you go? The front hall might as well be on another continent. Every corridor in this house has already left you stranded. There is no map in your mind now, only panic. No way out.

The knowledge gathers in your chest until it hurts. Behind your eyes, heat stings. Your throat tightens around a lump and only something choked leaves your lips. 

And Bucky sees all of it. You keep trying to shrink back from him because his very outline has now become a threat, and it doesn’t make your situation better, but he already knows, so you don’t have to pretend anymore. 

And his face alters. It’s as if the floor has given way under him. As if he had stepped expecting hard tiles and found air.

He does not advance. That should help. It does not. He stays where he is, one hand dropping slowly from the doorframe to his side, as if he understands that any sudden movement from him might send you straight through the nearest pane of glass. 

There is a fervor to him now that feels different from the one you knew in bed, at dinner, in the soft-lit luxury of his attention. It has made you feel protected, loved, worshipped. 

But there is no feeling of that anymore, none of that, because now it’s stripped of adornment, revealed as what it perhaps always was beneath all that heat and gentleness. It’s focus. Pure and frightening focus. 

His eyes are on you in that unwavering, devastating way of his, but the expression in them is nothing easy. There is something dark in there, something grim and braced, something that knows a door has just slammed shut and is already calculating what can still be salvaged from the wreckage. 

His mouth is set. His jaw is hard enough to cast shadows. He looks, absurdly, heartbreakingly, like a man who has been struck and is refusing to touch the bruise. But he stands, and he’s still so tall, much taller than you thought he could become, and he is not the man you thought you knew. 

He stands there with his hands visible, shoulders squared but not aggressive, and the intensity in him is bridled.

His stare does not feel like a threat in the crude sense, but it’s so full of attention, too much attention, because total attention from a man like him is its own species of fear. 

“Sweetheart.”

His voice has changed. It is calm but only in pretense. It is soft, technically, but not the way it was before. Before, his softness had warmth in it, a hand held out in the dark. 

But this is lower. Straighter. It has gone cool around the edges. It’s not vicious or unkind in any sense, but your body clocks it instantly. It’s almost formal in its restraint, as though he’s speaking across the lip of something that’s close to breaking and he’s trying not to widen the crack.

And that nickname makes you want to let the tears fall. Whatever he tries to achieve by calling you that, it doesn’t work. It’s just torture how familiar he tries to make it sound. 

His gaze falls in fast snaps over your face, your posture, your trembling hands. “This looks bad,” he concedes roughly. His throat works once before he continues. “I know it does. But it isn’t what you think it is.”

The words land in you and do nothing. They just sink. Sit there.

He studies your face, sees he has not reached you at all. “What did you see, baby? What has you—” He breaks off with a crack, shakes his head slowly, and lets out a shuddering breath, eyes still on you. “Tell me what you saw.”

What answer could you possibly give him? 

That you are looking at his mouth and thinking of all the times it softened around your name, and your own mind keeps turning traitor and overlaying that tenderness with headlines, with whispers, with ravening rumor? 

That the same voice which once coaxed and soothed now sounds capable of making rooms empty and men obey and whole situations forgotten? That the current version of his voice is a masterclass in control and it terrifies you to no end?

That his hands are hanging open at his sides, looking so damn human and ordinary, as though they’ve never done anything wrong? 

Which is a lie, you now know, a lie that runs deep and leaves you scarred, because all you can think is that these bare hands are the same hands you’ve had under your chin, lifting your face to his, tucking hair behind your ear, buttoning you up against the cold, and you’ve had them gripping you tight in the dark, moving inside you until you couldn't breathe, wrecking you in the best way possible.

These hands were your favorite things. 

But looking at them now, you picture what they are doing when you aren’t around. Doing the dirty work, the ugly work, the unspeakable work, hidden back in the blacked-out corners of a life he kept under lock and key.

Your throat feels too dry to talk and you stay quiet, letting the stillness in the room ripen, letting your lack of words and the fear in your eyes speak for themselves.

A hard, hollow tension knots his face, makes his jaw grind, and look as solid as a piece of rock. His hands ball into fists and when your eyes snap to them immediately, your body already flinching, he flexes them, but it seems forced. There is an almost brute rigidity to his throat, a silent scream of dread choked down only barely.

“What do you know?” he grits out through clenched teeth. 

The question is gentle in shape and brutal in substance. It makes your stomach turn. Because it sounds like a test. It sounds like inventory. It sounds like the kind of thing a ruthless man would ask before deciding what to do with the damage.

You let your fingers grip the edge of the counter. You can’t answer him. All you can do is try to breathe. All you can do is stare at the exit behind him, and his body standing between it. 

He draws in a slow breath, lets it out. “Look at me, Y/n. Please.”

You didn’t know some part of you would still obey, but you notice too late. Maybe it’s better this way. Your eyes lift fully to his. 

And you can actually see the way he has lost his grip. It’s right there in his eyes. If you were to describe it you’d say it looks distraught. As if he’s lost, his entire biography that’s been neatly written on paper now ripped away and he can’t find the next line. 

Judging by the way you act and look at him, he knows you know something, he just doesn't know what, and the mystery is eating him alive. Just for one disorienting second he doesn’t look that much like this untouchable figure from all those disturbing rumors, but rather like a simple man who knows that if he tries to force his way out of this, he’s just confirming your worst fears about him.

“My name,” he starts with a little hesitance. The gravelly low timbre of his voice makes you shudder, “is James Buchanan Barnes.”

Something in your face gives you away. 

You feel it the moment it happens. Some tiny involuntary flinch. Some helpless widening. 

Because something crosses his expression, his throat bobs hard enough to show that everything inside him is suddenly in pieces. 

He sees that the name is not new to you. He sees that you are already standing several steps ahead of where he hoped this conversation was.

He goes very still.

“You knew that already,” he acknowledges, and it almost hurts how he tries to sound calm about it all. 

Your mouth is dry. Your whole body feels like a struck match. You let out a pitiful small breath.

He takes one careful step forward, and it’s not really a step, not even truly an advance, but you recoil so sharply, you ram your whole body against the wall of marble behind you. Your back stings, but your eyes sting more. 

His face changes with your reaction, something like pain flashing through the severe framework of him before he reins it back in. 

“How?” he asks, and he’s no longer trying for calm. He ducks his head, pleading eyes on you, and he speaks with a wounded quiet. “Sweetheart, how did you find out?”

Your throat works around the answer. “Your tags.” It comes out so faint it is almost nothing, just a shaking breath that accidentally caught a few letters on the way out. 

For a second he shuts his eyes. For just one cut of time. 

His head tips back the slightest amount, and he deflates. A breath of air leaves him in a hitching, rattling shudder, like he’s finally run out of things to hold onto.

He looks back at you and seems briefly at a loss. James Buchanan Barnes, man of closed doors and fixed outcomes, with no ready sentence in his hands. 

It is strange and unnerving and it makes you talk more, bracing for him to yell and threaten and turn cold. 

“And,” you whisper, voice wobbling and blundering around in your mouth, “there was a gun.“ 

You want to explain, want to urge that you didn’t mean to find it, didn’t mean to come across anything at all. You want him to know you would like to dump your eyes in a container of white paint so your vision is a blank canvas and you can color it with other pictures, but it’s too late, and your words already seem to break across him, differently.

He does not move at first. He almost flinches, but catches it halfway, as if his body forgot for a moment to be disciplined. 

His eyes stay on you, and all that’s in there are things you’ve never seen in him before. Or in anyone, really. It is a stricken grief, resulting from the way every new piece of your fear is arriving inside him one by one and finding purchase. 

He looks at you like he can see the exact route your mind took from one discovery to the next, and hates every mile of it.

“Baby, I—” he croaks, having to pause. Instead, he starts toward you again, even slower this time, palms open a little, perhaps meaning only to soothe, perhaps meaning only to be nearer, but simply more trepidation triggers in you before thought can intervene. “Please listen to me—”

Your gaze snags on the knife block. 

The sleek black handles. The bright clean suggestion of defense. It’s without thought that you run to grab one. 

It is graceless and frantic and you don’t brandish it like someone brave in a film. You don’t know how to do this well enough for that and you don’t have the nerve to think about it. 

Your hand shakes around the handle almost immediately, and you pull it close to your chest, because fighting this vile man would be ludicrous considering who he is and who you are, knife or not, but you use it to protect yourself with the mere fact of holding something sharp. Hopeful that this thing will keep your horror from spilling out of your body altogether. 

The blade catches the light and makes it meaner. You hate that you have done this. You hate more that you had to.

Bucky stops dead.

The whole room seems to stop with him.

His eyes go first to the knife, then back to your face, and what crosses his expression then is so nakedly agonizing it is difficult to bear. 

Because he sees that you are not trying to threaten him, unlike how someone in danger might. 

You are not foolish enough to think a kitchen knife turns you into his equal. You are holding it because your body needs one small fiction to survive on—the fiction that you are not entirely empty-handed in a room with a man who could ruin you if he chose to. The fiction that you still belong, in some tiny harrowed way, to yourself.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice cracks clean through the middle of the word.

You have never heard that happen to him before. Never heard his composure split like badly fired glass.

His stare stays locked on yours, but now there is no distance in it, no coolness, no stranger’s cadence. Just a visceral, human ache. “Hey,” he says again, softer, but it sounds so incredibly heavy. It’s the way you’d talk to someone who’s just woken up from a nightmare and doesn't know where they are yet. “I’m— I’m not going to hurt you.”

Your grip tightens. The knife trembles visibly. “Don’t come closer.”

He stops breathing for half a beat and nods slowly. 

“Okay.” The word is a single rasp. “I won’t.” He swallows. You see the muscle move hard in his throat. “I won’t come any closer.”

You cannot stop shaking, no matter how hard you try, because a man with his power shouldn’t see you be so obviously afraid, but there is nothing you can do.

“Please believe me, sweetheart, when I say that I never intended to hurt you,” he swears, and there is no command in him now, none of that cold-sounding authority from a moment ago when he emptied the room with few syllables.

This is worse, in its own way. This undone version of him, this man trying to hold himself very still because the sight of you recoiling has clearly perturbed something structural inside him. “I have a thousand sins on my head, and it’s no use to claim otherwise now,” he speaks with a vulnerability in his tone that washes past you. “I’ve done a lot of things I can’t take back, but hurting you was never on the table. Okay? It was never even a possibility. You were supposed to be the only thing I didn’t ruin,” he ends with a lacerated wince.

You stare at him and have no idea how you can understand anything at all.

The knife handle bites into your palm. Your chest rises and falls too fast. The kitchen is suddenly too loud with all that humming of the refrigerator, the lights, the distant bloodstream of the mansion; and in the center of it all he stands facing you with that wrecked look in his eyes, as if your fear is not merely inconvenient to him but unbearable, and he’d rather be struck than watched this way by you.

And in a world that wasn't currently collapsing, maybe you’d actually care, maybe you’d actually notice how he would take a bullet to the chest just to stop you from flinching, but all you can think is that you are standing in the house of James Buchanan Barnes, with a knife against your own ribs as much as against him, and the man looking at you like heartbreak has found him at last is still the same man the city says should never be underestimated.

It’s so silent all of a sudden that the kitchen seems to be held in a trance. It feels as if there is a vacuum pressing against the walls and now the molecules of the room are terrified to touch the mess of what’s happening. 

The last bit of help you could have possibly still leaned on due to your desperation has vanished, echoes of footsteps now pull back into the depths of this mansion.

The overheads feel hostile, throwing down a flat glare that skims over the stainless steel and floorboards with an inert eye. 

And centered in that manufactured peace is him. 

James Buchanan Barnes.

The name has already erupted once inside your chest, but it keeps echoing, reverberating through your bones in smaller aftershocks. It feels strange to attach it to the man standing in front of you, when his hands have mapped every part of you—right to the most intimate ones—you’ve come to recognize his voice even in half-sleep and his laugh once wound through the cage of your ribs, vibrating against the bone until you couldn't tell its rhythm from your own heartbeat.

It feels like a wronged ownership. It feels like a glitch, an error in the logic of the world, but who are you to find a way out of it. Surrounded by him, in a mansion that is now suddenly as big as the world itself.

But you see it now. And god, it’s so painfully clear. So agonizingly obvious. 

You were delusional, you know that. It’s what hurts so terribly bad. You know exactly how this looks to anyone else. After all, this all started with you dating a guy for over a month and not even knowing his actual, legal name. But when you’re used to being nobody, a little bit of hyper-focused attention feels like a drug. He looked at you as if you were the only person in the room, and you would get this tight, anxious knot in your throat, thinking don’t ruin this. Asking for a last name or a background check felt like a quick way to feel high-maintenance, and you didn’t want to give him a reason to feel uncomfortable and walk away.

It was a habit born of pure insecurity, being so grateful for the crumbs of love that you don’t dare ask who’s baking the bread. He must have picked up on that on day one. He must have realized right away that as long as he kept making you feel special, you’d keep your mouth shut and let him stay hidden.

He used your loneliness, your blind spots. You were so desperately hoping to be seen, that you fell for the most obvious trap. And it’s your own fault, really. But it still makes you feel completely hollow, like someone scooped the air right out of your lungs with a cold spoon.

Now you have to live with the shame of that mistake.

Your jaw aches from clenching it, trying to swallow down the urge to throw up right there on the kitchen floor.

His presence alone seems to pull at the corners of the ceiling, dragging it down to squash you like a grape. He anchors the room to his foundation, consumes it with all he has, and tracks you with a pinpoint focus that has you shivering and sweating, because his gaze is treating the harsh thudding of your pulse as more vital than the massive, blood-stained kingdom currently cooling its heels on the other side of the door.

The roar in your ears turns outwards, seemingly engulfing the whole room with your panicked pulse. Your vision narrows down until the room stops spinning, and for the first time, you actually feel the air in the kitchen

And in the quiet, your awareness gives you the alarm that there is still something jarringly chilling resting just above your heart. It takes you a moment to realize it’s something physical. There is a weight there that now suddenly feels so deeply misplaced. 

Your hand moves on its own, your fingers lifting toward your throat to find the source of that cold, sinister pressure.

The tips of your fingers brush pearls. 

And for a moment, you stay frozen there, grazing the smooth curve of one luminous bead where the necklace drapes across your throat. 

It once made you smile, had your shoulders drop in ease when you made contact with this present of Bucky. But it no longer feels like a present at all, it feels like a bribe, a hook, a trap because its ultimate purpose surely wasn’t meant as a gift but rather to restrict your freedom and keep you bound to him.

This necklace, these shiny pearls, they aren’t about you. Honestly, you don’t think anything is about you. It never was. It’s just a reflection of what he wants you to be, confining you in his version of your identity.

He manipulated you and stole you and wanted to make you believe you’re the luckiest damn girl in the world.

And you had been. But now you’re just the stupidest.

And you keep on being, because your mind just continues jumping back to the evening he gave it to you, how it felt so soft and intimate, something chosen carefully and fastened around your neck with that glint of pride that lived in Bucky’s eyes. And you want to cry and break down at the way he stood there in front of you so awkwardly with the luxurious velvet box in his hand like it was something far more serious than jewelry. The way his voice had gone rough when he said he saw them and thought of you.

And now, sitting against your collarbone all cold, these are no longer gems, but tiny hooks sinking deeper into your skin, reminding you with every little sting, that you walked into this prison willingly.

You let James Buchanan Barnes clasp it around your neck. The man whose name crawls across newspapers like a stain. The man whose stories carry blood and conspiracies and savagery in their wake.

Somehow you manage to close your fingers around the strand despite of their shakiness.

Across the kitchen, Bucky’s gaze drops to your hand the moment it moves.

The necklace feels impossibly smooth beneath your touch, each pearl round and shining like a row of innocent little moons.

A gift.

From a man you didn’t know.

Or maybe a man you knew too well, just not in the way the world did.

Your throat feels hot suddenly and you know it's the cursed pearls burning holes there, pressing into your pulse with every overwhelmed beat of your heart.

You cannot stand it.

Your fingers curl harder.

Bucky's gaze snaps up to your face, then quickly back to your hands, and then he goes still. But still in the way of an animal that sensed the crack of a branch in the forest. Every line of him tightens in subtle increments, his shoulders locking, his breathing halting so abruptly you see the pause ruffle through his chest.

He knows what your heart doesn’t yet.

His attention sharpens and his eyes grow wide. It almost seems like he’s about to move toward you.

“Hey—” he starts softly, though the word is unfinished, frail, fearing the direction your thoughts are taking.

But your brain is no longer interested in choosing to make decisions carefully.

The necklace feels oppressive, every inch of it tied to a truth you did not have when he first placed it there, and so you can’t think or react any differently.

Your hand jerks in one swift motion just as Bucky releases a desperate choking sound.

The strand snaps free from your neck with a sharp little noise, like a thread breaking under too much strain, and now the pearls explode outward from your hand and scatter across the kitchen floor like a sudden spill of tiny white stars. They strike the tile with a bright, haphazard clatter that echoes far too loudly in the empty room.

tik—tik—tik—tik—

Some bounce high, ricocheting against cabinet legs. Others roll wildly across the floor, spinning in spasmodic circles before coming to a stop beneath stainless steel counters and chair legs.

The sound fills the kitchen in poignant, crystalline bursts.

A rain of little impacts.

A beautiful mess.

For a second you don’t even breathe.

You just stare at them—those small, perfect pearls—rolling farther and farther away from each other, punctuating the heartbreak in the air.

Across from you, Bucky doesn’t move. Something is breaking across his face. His breath leaves him in a soft, stunned exhale, and all he can do is stare with his eyes unguarded. It startles you.

He takes a step back. Not a deliberate one. More like his body forgot the floor was there. His boot slides half a pace behind him as though the sound of those pearls hitting the tile physically pushed him away from you.

His mouth parts.

For a moment he looks like he cannot quite process what he just witnessed.

His eyes—those confident, storm-colored eyes that usually hold such controlled intensity—have widened in a way you have never seen before. It doesn’t seem to look like anger, or anything like it.

It looks like hurt. Pure, unhidden hurt.

His gaze falls to the floor, tracking the scattered pearls skittering across the kitchen tiles, watching them roll away from where you stand with that look in his eyes that says he never wished to see them destroyed.

Then his eyes return to you. Slowly. And the expression there is devastating.

Because it is not rage.

It is not even disappointment.

It is heartbreak so unexpected and unfiltered it seems to hollow his chest from the inside.

His jaw tightens as if he tries to speak, but no words come immediately. The muscles along his throat move with a hard swallow, his chest rising and falling once in a slow, unsteady breath.

You realize then that he is looking at your bare throat.

The place where the necklace used to rest, and he stares at the place with sullen eyes.

Then his eyes lift again, meeting yours, and they are still wide, still aching.

For the first time since you’ve known him, Bucky Barnes looks like a man who has just watched something precious fall apart in his hands and realized too late that he cannot gather the pieces fast enough to put it back together.

And in the bright, echoing kitchen, the last pearl finishes rolling.

Tick.

Then silence returns, and your dread turns harrowing and now Bucky doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands, which is such a small, irrational thing to notice in the middle of your terror and yet your mind notices it anyway, because this is a man who has always seemed like a structure that was built out of conviction, who has been a straight line for you to follow in your world of scribbles, a man who enters every room as though the room had the good sense to expect him, and now he stands before you with your fear pointed at him in the shape of a kitchen knife and looks, inarguably, like he has been shoved off-script and dropped into the crack that formed in his foundation and now he is walled in by the very bricks he laid.

His eyes stay on your face, then the knife, then your face again, careful, heartbroken, alert in that frighteningly intense way of his, and you feel yourself shiver as he is tracking every tremor in your fingers, every drag of your breath, every microscopic shift in your balance in case you bolt again or collapse or cut yourself by accident on the trembling edge of your own panic.

“What you think you know about me,” he starts, and his voice is lower now, roughened at the seams, “what you’ve heard… what people say, it isn’t the whole truth. It isn’t even most of it.”

You barely hear the words. They hit the air and fall uselessly to the floor. Because what else would a man like him say, standing in a cathedral-sized kitchen in a house full of people who obey him before he finishes speaking, after you found the gun and the tags and the name that can turn a city’s rumor mill rabid by itself?

No matter what he says, no matter that he looks so unbelievably shattered—the shape of him is wrong now. That is what your body keeps insisting on. Wrong in the doorway, wrong under these lights, wrong with that caution and that gentleness still trying to live in his face as if it is genuine. You cannot make him fit into one meaning anymore. He is split down the middle in your mind—tender and terrible, gentle and catastrophic—and the fracture is making noise inside you.

He takes a breath, slow, as if he is trying not to startle you even with the sound of his lungs working. “I know how this looks.”

A cough breaks in your throat, or maybe it's a huff or a wet laugh, or whatever, but it hurts coming up and out of your throat. Your hand shakes so badly the knife glints in nervous little flashes. “You used me.”

The sentence leaves you wheezy and small and much too true-feeling inside your own head. But they are out, and you take a whimpering breath, and two tears fall. They don’t arrive elegantly, and they sure as hell don’t spill subtly. They feel hot and you feel humiliated and betrayed, so deeply betrayed, and you hate that they are coming in front of him, giving him the satisfaction because your body is not able to choose a fight, to give you steel and armor and an exit and a miracle. All it can provide you with is dread and tears, and a terribly shaking kitchen knife in your unpractical hands. Your whole body has become an argument against calm and there is nothing you can do.

His face changes so sharply it is almost like watching a flame twist drastically in wind.

“No,” he gets out quickly, and his voice trips over itself. It is denial stripped to the bone. Pure and cruel because he’s genuinely the greatest actor on earth. “No,” he chokes out again, softer and somehow more desperate. “No, no, I— It's not— I never—” He swallows, the line of his throat moving hard. He looks like he is about to walk barefoot through broken glass without letting you see the blood. “You matter to me. You— God, shit, that doesn’t even come close to—”

“Stop,” you whimper while a fresh tear slips down. You shake your head because the words feel obscene now, feel almost insulting in their tenderness, like someone laying roses on a crime scene.

“I’m not pretending.”

“Stop.”

His jaw flexes. He looks toward the ceiling for half a second, and it seems like he is trying to gather language before it deserts him entirely, and when his gaze comes back to you there is something naked in it, something grim and pleading and painfully real. He seems to grope for something that keeps him standing.

“I wanted to tell you,” he despairs, voice scratchy. “I was going to.”

You stare at him through your blurred vision. Every instinct in you rejects the sentence on impact. It sounds nonsensical. The knife quivers against your chest with each breath you are somehow able to take, but they are shuddering.

“When?” you choke out. “After what? After I was stupid enough? After I—”

“No.” He takes a step before remembering himself and stopping immediately, hands opening at his sides. “No. When it was safe.”

The word safe almost makes you laugh, except there is nothing funny left in you.

He hears how deranged it sounds in this room, and grief moves across his face in one dark, swift shadow. “Listen to me,” he presses, and his voice cracks, stripped of that expensive control he wears so well. “I know this life is ugly from the outside. I know what my name sounds like to people. I know what kind of stories get told. I knew if I handed you all of it too soon, all at once, you’d run before you ever had the chance to know what was real.”

Your tears keep coming and you don’t have it in you to wipe them away. You fear your heart won’t ever be able to unclench again after this day. If you even make it out of here. “So you thought you’d just let me” —fall in love first— “into your life the way you did?”

He closes his eyes, and you know the sentence hit exactly where it meant to. When he looks at you again there is nothing smooth or seamless about him, and you have never seen him this way. Because you have never really known him. He is no longer buttoned-up and bulletproof. He honestly looks about ready to be hit in the heart one final, fatal time. “I thought I would give you time,” he supplicates quietly, voice husky. “I thought I would let you know me before the rest of it ruined everything.” The breath that follows his words sounds full of sorrow and a deeply seated regret. “Which it seems like it has.”

Yes, it has. Yes, he ruined it. But would you have felt any other way if you found out another way? In another setting, maybe while you were tangled in the sheets together, or while he was holding your hands? You don’t know because it didn’t happen that way and you found out the way you did and now the world is upside down and all wrong-angled, and your mind is spinning in a room with no corners, completely unanchored by a lie you never saw coming, or maybe you have, because a guy like him couldn’t ever want a girl like you, and perhaps first and foremost you’re just mad at yourself.

Your throat has gone tight with crying, with fear, with the dizzying effort of keeping your body upright when your whole nervous system is trying to flee in eight directions at once. He sees you struggling and looks halfway to moving again, then stops himself so hard the restraint shows all over him.

“I’m a patient man,” he keeps going, and you just want to run past him, out of this hell. You don’t hear how there is no pride in his voice, no menace, just a worn sort of honesty, as if this is the one truth he can still offer without it breaking on impact. “I would have waited. As long as I needed to. I was waiting for the right moment, for when you felt safe with me, for when I knew you wouldn’t hear my name and only hear every lie this city tells itself at night.” His voice lowers further. “For when you loved me enough to at least stay in the room while I explained.”

You blink at him as if he has said something in a language your body no longer speaks.

And then, because this nightmare apparently still has room to worsen, he says, very softly, “Because I love you.”

All you can do is stare at this stranger, and it feels like you are looking at him through a broken window.

It is not the first time he has said it, not at all, and you had loved how he had no shame in telling you, how he pressed those very words into your skin night after night, even this early into your relationship.

Gosh, you had cherished it, fallen deeper for him because of it, and now you know it's all been part of his manipulation. So what else should it be now. But at the same time—why should he still be saying it? How can he still say that? How can he say that now, after all of this, after you know who he is, after the room has filled with the bomb of revelation? What kind of man says I love you while being the very thing you are trying to escape from?

You don’t understand him. You have no clue about who this man is and it is making your hands sweat around the handle. You don’t understand how his eyes can look this shattered, how his voice can sound this human, how his face can hold this much pain and still belong to James Buchanan Barnes.

The knife is still trembling against your chest. Your arm aches from holding it so tightly. The tears keep slipping down no matter how furiously you blink. He stands there with grief in his eyes and power in every line of his body, and both things are true at once, and both things are hurting worse because no single version of him will stay still long enough to be hated cleanly.

“I was going to ease you into it,” he explains achingly, as if confession has broken loose now and cannot be coaxed back in. “Slowly. Over time. I was going to tell you what I could, when I could, and let you decide what to do with it piece by piece. I was never going to throw you into the deep end and watch you drown in it.” His throat works. “Y/n, I’m so fucking sorry you had to find out like this.”

But you are not really listening anymore. Or rather, you hear every word and none of them settle. They clatter against your panic and bounce off immediately only to land in a repressed corner of your mind.

Because maybe he means them. Maybe that is the tragedy of it. Maybe he means every single inconceivable word. But meaning them does not open the door. Meaning them does not make this house less of a trap or his name less of a threat or your pulse any less palpitating in your throat. Meaning them does not undo the gun, the tags, the scathingly smooth way everyone in this place disappears when he tells them to. Meaning them does not turn James Buchanan Barnes back into only Bucky, back into the man whose shirt you wanted to pull on because it smelled like him.

All you need now is a way out.

You don’t want justice, or answers, or even the damn truth. You just want a way out of this. You want to get the hell away from him and everything that smells and looks like him. And the room starts reorganizing itself around that instinct. The service door behind him. The hallway to the left. The distance to the far counter. Whether he is standing on the balls of his feet or flat. Whether the island might slow him for a second. Whether dropping the knife would help or harm you. Whether there is any point at all in planning when this is his house, his kingdom, his maze, and you are just a girl crying in the center of it with shaking hands and nowhere good to go.

He sees your eyes move and something in his face folds inward with understanding, with woe, with the excruciating knowledge that while he is pouring his heart out in rough little pieces, all you are doing is looking for exits. He looks completely emptied out, as if his ribs had been pried open and the only soft part of him had been torn away.

“Baby—” And now he just sounds pleading. But he doesn’t get the chance to keep on going with his drama.

The kitchen ignites with noise before you even understand what you are hearing. There was just you with your messy breathing and Bucky standing a few feet away with that awfully gutted look on his face and then the door slams open so hard the plaster cracks and the sound ricochets against your nervous system.

A crowd of men comes flooding through the opening, like a breach in a dam, so fast and threatening and all of them primed for dirtier work than anyone should ever have to do. The floor shudders under their hard slam of boots. Nobody hesitates and nobody asks questions. They all just move on some sick instinct, weapons out and raised in the space of a single heartbeat.

And now all of them are pointed at you.

The sound that hitches in your throat is not at all dignified or brave. You wish you could stare at the end of your life with at least a small sense of bravery, but it doesn’t seem like it. Every weapon these uniformed men hold is fixed on your ribs, your throat, your eyes, and the paring knife you are gripping feels pathetic. It is a useless piece of household metal against a wall of black iron, against men who don’t care that you are small and fearful.

Even so, your knuckles go numb around the handle from how hard you are gripping it. Your fingers lock up, your skin flashing from freezing cold to scorching hot while your heart thrashes against your ribs.

You think, irrationally, that this is how it happens then. There is no big speech, no lightning strike from the sky. It is just going to happen here on the linoleum, next to a bowl of apples on the counter, and a row of clean water glasses that are catching the light of the kitchen while strangers decide to put bullets in you.

Bucky pivots.

It happens so quickly it feels supernatural, like a weather change, like the room altering under the weight of him. He steps in front of you without quite blocking you, but enough that every single man in that doorway seems to remember all at once who exactly they have just disobeyed.

His expression does not merely harden; it shears. Whatever softness had remained in his face a moment ago is gone so completely it is frightening, scraped away until all that remains is authority in its most lethal form.

You feel fused to the counter behind you. You wish you would be.

He fixes his stare on his men and his eyes become glacial, pale and freezing, incandescent with a fury that somehow feels far more menacing than an outburst. He speaks, and the volume is so low that the room has to go completely breathless to catch it.

“Guns down.”

The response isn’t fast enough. No one moves quickly enough. One of the guards hesitates—just a fraction, just long enough to die for it in any other circumstance—and Bucky’s gaze lands on him so heavily, it’s as if he is deciding where to leave the body.

“I said,” he repeats, and his voice comes out with a rough friction, stripped of any emotion except the promise to do harm, “if any one of you ever points a weapon at my girl again, I’ll put you in the ground myself and make sure nobody bothers digging you back up. Do you understand me?”

His words are deadly. It doesn’t even sound like he’s acting at all, he just sounds absolutely lethal. He talks as though he has already buried people before and wouldn’t think twice about doing it again.

Around you, the momentum of the raid falters. The guards look genuinely unnerved, expressions switching so quickly between shame, panic, and obedience in ugly little flashes. Guns lower and now point toward the floorboards. A muted apology gets muttered into the silence and some of them take a step back. But it is too late, far too late, because the last thread inside you has already snapped, and your body no longer cares about reason.

You run.

There is no time for anything else; you simply hurl yourself at the nearest gap in the room, toward the delusive hope of open space, of slipping between bodies, of somehow becoming smoke, becoming speed, becoming anything but this cornered and shaking thing inside your own skin.

You aim for the narrow corridor between Bucky and the island counter, convinced by sheer panic that if you can just get past him this once, just this once, the house might cleft and let you go. Your shoulder twists, your breath catches, your feet slip against tile and then catch again, and the world blurs into motion and noise and the blood-bright animal need to escape.

But Bucky is faster.

His arms hook around your waist in one brutal, seamless movement, and it yanks you backward before you’ve even made it past his shoulder. Suddenly you are no longer running, your feet lose the air, leaving you floating for half a heartbeat, before you are driven hard into the breadth and heat of his chest.

The cry you let out this time actually tears your throat. You thrash on instinct, your body fighting him with the full deranged force of your mind freaking out, and somewhere in that struggle your hand jerks.

The knife you have been using as a means of senseless protection, hits resistance. It slides cleanly, sinking into skin and it makes you gasp sharply, your lungs suddenly jamming. It’s not your skin.

The blade has opened a shallow red line across his forearm.

And that’s gotta be it. You’re now totally and completely fucked.

The knife drops from your hand and clatters to the floor.

For one aghast second you stare at the bead of red welling against his skin, bright as a neon sign, and horror crashes through you so adamantly it almost eclipses your fear.

But Bucky does not let go. He does not even flinch properly or draw back his arms. His wounded arm stiffens only enough to keep you from pitching forward, his other hand coming up to cradle the back of your head, not pinning now so much as containing, as if he is trying to physically keep something from breaking apart right there in his grip.

He seemingly is completely blind to his own bleeding skin, as if the knife you were holding was never a danger to his life and only a threat to yours. Even with his blood on the floorboards, his only instinct is to pull you deeper into his chest.

“Hey, hey, hey,” he calls, and the transformation in his voice makes your head spin, because the man who just threatened death into a roomful of armed soldiers is gone again, folded away, leaving only this hoarse, pleading tenderness that feels almost more agonizing. His mouth is at your temple, right at your hairline, his breath gasping against your skin. “Baby, baby, stop. Please—please, don’t do this, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

You fight him anyway because your body refuses to do anything else. Your hands shove uselessly at his chest, your shoulders wrench, your whole body convulses with the effort of getting free. But he is built like a locked gate, and every single push only burns through the last of your energy. Tears pour hot and shamefully down your face. Your lungs burn. The room swims at the edges. Somewhere nearby, boots shuffle, and Bucky snarls over your head without releasing you.

“Out.”

It is one word, but every person in the kitchen obeys it instantly. You hear the kitchen staff backing away, hear the door open and shut, feel the room empty until there is no one left but you and him and the sound of your own sobbing.

Bucky’s hold eases just a fraction, softening the pressure so you can actually draw in air even if inhaling right now feels like swallowing water. He presses his cheek against your hair for one heavy second, and when he speaks again his voice is breaking in places you have never heard it break before.

“Listen to me,” he murmurs, each word roughened by strain, by remorse, by something that sounds so heartbreakingly sincere you almost hate him for it. “Hear me out, sweetheart, please. I got you. I got you. Nobody’s gonna touch you, nobody’s gonna lay a hand on you. I won’t! I would never. You hear me? You’re safe.”

Safe.

The word is a total deformity. It is so grotesque in this moment you could probably laugh, except it comes out as a broken cry instead.

You feel the way his body tenses around the sound, how it seems to travel straight through him with his heart as the target. He bows his head, his lips brushing your temple by accident or desperation, you cannot tell which.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and now there is nothing controlled left in him, no command, no careful poise, only a man fraying in real time. “Jesus Christ, I’m so sorry. I wanted you to know, doll, I did, just—not like this. Fuck, not like this. You mean everything to me. You gotta believe that. You are everything.”

You shake your head against his chest, small and uncoordinated, feeling spent. You do not know whether you are denying him, begging him, or simply coming apart. His shirt is damp beneath your face now, whether from your tears or the sweat chilled over your skin or the blood from his arm, whatever it is, it feels symbolic somehow—one more blurred line in a night made of them.

“I wasn’t gonna let anybody hurt you,” he whispers, and even that seems to drag through his throat, hitting the walls of it. “Nobody would ever be able to hurt you. Especially me, my love, especially me! I swear to God.” His forehead grinds into yours until you can taste the heat of his skin. “I’m still the same guy who kissed you this morning. I don't care if I’m a monster to the rest of the world, but not to you, sweetheart, please not to you. I would never—god, I would cut my own hands off before I ever used them to hurt you. You have to believe me, darling, please!”

But your body no longer knows the language of swearing, or soothing, or reason. Your muscles don’t translate his pleading into safety. Your body only knows that he is stronger than you, and that the arms holding you are the same arms that can dismantle a life without raising his pulse. The palm mapped so carefully across the curve of your head is the exact same hand that commands a firing squad, directs the local precincts, and seals fates with a slight tilt of his chin.

Every touch from him now delivers a repulsive duality—a rescue that feels like an arrest, a stroke that resembles a chokehold, an overwhelming affection that wears the exact outline of a cell.

You can feel how easy this is for him, how negligible his effort is in keeping you contained even while he tries his best to appear harmless. That insulting fact finally starves out the last bit of resistance left in your veins. Your nervous system runs out of fuel, leaving your body to go completely toothless against his chest, without actually surrendering or any returning trust. Your body is simply done.

Your fingers drop their useless leverage against his chest, your joints go limp and your knees refuse to carry your weight anymore.

You sag in his hold all at once. The sobs keep coming, but weaker now, thinning out, scraping instead of breaking. Bucky feels the change immediately. His grip loosens just enough to become support instead of restraint, his palm rubbing between your shoulder blades in one of those soothing motions you used to love so much and it makes your chest ache with a fresh wave of grief.

“That’s it,” he coos, though his voice sounds completely mangled by the words. “That’s it, honey. I know. I know.”

You don’t know what he means by that. You’re not sure he does either. Perhaps he simply recognizes that your stamina has bottomed out, that even the sharpest panic has its boundaries, and that the rush of survival instincts always burns hot and fast, leaving behind this full-body collapse.

He holds your dead weight upright anyway. He keeps murmuring into your hair but it doesn’t glue your broken pieces back together or erase the reality of what he is, what this fortress hides, and what you stumbled into. His sliced arm stays locked around your waist. You can feel the sticky warmth of his blood soaking through your clothes. It is startlingly human, and it should probably make him look less like a monster, the simple fact that he can bleed. But it makes every detail about your situation so real and dreadful.

When your body finally ceases its rebellion entirely, it isn't an act of submission. It is pure depletion.

And Bucky, keeping you pinned against the wall of his chest, seems to grasp that exhaustion better than anyone else could. His lungs expand and contract in uneven hitching motions. He drops his chin heavily onto the crown of your head. He closes you in not like a conqueror taking a prize but like a man trying, too late, to keep a catastrophe from widening under his hands.

Beyond the kitchen threshold, the entire estate drops into a dead, listening sort of silence, as if the plaster and timber have cocked an ear to the room.

He keeps holding you as if you are something he has no right to touch anymore and still cannot seem to make himself release, and it’s crazy that even like this, even with your body rigid from all the things you have learned too quickly and too late, he is still somehow heartbreakingly careful, his hand spread wide and warm between your shoulder blades, his hold immovable but never bruising, his mouth close to your temple as though he cannot bear to put distance between you if distance means losing you for good.

It is all just so utterly confusing because this is not entirely what you had expected would happen.

“The way you looked at me,” he continues, and his voice comes out rough as gravel dragged through water, ruined by restraint, by panic, by the sheer effort of trying not to frighten you further with the depth of what is in him. He does not sound like the man in the hallway, not like the man who commands rooms into silence with a glance, not like the man whose name can make other people blanch and step backward and say yes, sir, with their pulse all up in their throats. He sounds flayed open. He sounds like the sight of your fear has gone into him like shrapnel and lodged somewhere vital. “The way you looked at me in there—” He stops, breathes in shallowly, like he has run straight into a blade and is trying not to lean on it harder. “Christ. I’ve taken bullets that didn’t hit like that. To have you look at me like I’m something you need to survive.”

Your face is turned into his chest, your tears soaking through the expensive dark fabric of his shirt, and still your whole body is listening against your will, because his voice is all around you now, low and urgent and splintering in places that make something cold move through you.

His hand slides back up the back of your head, not forcing, only cradling, his fingers threading carefully into your hair as though the gesture itself aches. When he speaks again, there is something almost disbelieving in him, some stunned grief that does not seem feigned, cannot possibly be feigned for this long without becoming madness.

“If I could do it over, I would do every goddamn thing different,” he breathes brokenhearted. “Every part of it. I would tell you sooner. I’d tell you cleaner. Shit, I should’ve just told you. I should’ve given it to you straight before it got this messy and before you had to figure it out by yourself and piece me together out of all the worst parts with nobody there to shield you. I would have died before I let it happen like this. I swear.” He swallows hard enough that you feel it where your cheek presses near his sternum.

The kitchen is too bright and everything is stinging so harshly with those clean counters, the severe gleam of copper pans above the island, the neat little arrangement of knives in their block where one slot is now empty, the overhead lights turning everything brutally visible.

There is nowhere for your agony to hide. It shivers right out in the open, lives in the tightness of your lungs and the salt on your mouth, and the fact that every soft word from him only makes the unreality of this more baffling. Because he sounds sincere. He sounds devastated. He sounds like a man speaking over the body of something precious he helped kill.

He says all of this like he’s offering you his throat, while all around you the evidence of his power still glints and twinkles from every glazed surface, every distant footstep, every forced silence in a house built to keep his secrets and carry out his will.

He is talking with all the gentleness he has. He is nearly breaking with it. And still, inside you, fear sits and it pants and it is unconvinced, because love does not make a cage less locked simply because the hands closing it are shaking.

You make a small sound then—not a word, not even close, just some thin and wrecked little fracture of breath—and he tightens around you reflexively, then instantly checks himself, as if terrified you will read force into even that involuntary movement.

His next words come faster, crowding each other, not panicked exactly but pressed by urgency, by the sense that you are slipping through his hands even while he is still physically holding you.

“I know what I am.” He breaks off again, and this time you feel the tremor that runs through him. “I know what kind of man I’ve been, what people say about me, what they’re right about. I know exactly what it looks like from where you’re standing.” His voice goes raw. “But, darling, I never meant for you to be afraid of me. This was never supposed to happen.”

The words enter you but you just don’t know where to store them. There is something so naked in the way he says them that your mind keeps tripping over it, keeps trying and failing to fit it beside the other truth—the guns, the guards, the coldness in his authority, the name that belongs in whispers, the empire standing tall all around you in all its obedience. Or maybe it’s just loyalty. Respect? What even is it?

It’s hard to acknowledge that he still sounds like himself. James or Bucky, the man who kissed sleep into your skin and tucked blankets around your legs and pressed absent-minded kisses to your shoulder while reading beside you in bed still exists inside this other, larger, more terrible man. He has not vanished cleanly enough to make your fear simple. You give a small whimper.

“I was selfish,” he rasps, and now the confession lands without defense. “That’s the truth. I was selfish as hell. Because I wanted you anyway. I wanted you even knowing I should’ve stayed away from you. I know I should’ve left you out of all this. A girl like you deserves something clean and safe, and I’m neither of those things. I knew that. Fuck, I knew that. And it’s been killing me. I let myself have you and it’s been so fucking selfish.”

His breath hitches around the last word, and the grief in it is so unexpectedly torturous it almost makes you nauseous. His forehead lowers for a second against your hair, and he scarily looks so weary, suddenly too full of feeling to carry it elegantly.

“Because you are...” He exhales a broken laugh with no amusement in it whatsoever. “Christ, sweetheart, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You couldn’t ever imagine what you walking into my life did to it.”

Your eyes squeeze shut and fresh tears slip out anyway. Somewhere inside you, some tired and furious part wants to scream at him for speaking like this now, for laying tenderness over terror as if one can cancel the other out, as if love—even if it is love, even if it is real and not just another instrument in his alluring hands—can unmake what you know. But before you can push any of that into sound, he keeps going, quieter, the words drawn so close to your skin they seem less spoken than confessed into it.

“If you want to go,” he states, and there is a pause before it, the kind that tells you the sentence is costing him blood, “I’ll let you go.”

Your breath snags. You don’t trust it nor believe it instantly, but even imagining the words coming out of him feels like a tectonic event, a mountain bowing. He does not release you yet, but his body changes with the promise, some iron set inside him going rigid with the effort of saying it and meaning it.

“I will,” he says, with more force now, as if he knows you don’t believe him and cannot bear that either. “If that’s what you want, I will. I’m not gonna keep you somewhere you don’t wanna be. I’m not gonna turn into that for you. But, baby—” and here his voice gives way altogether, drops into something so human and stripped down it hardly seems to belong to the same man who froze a room full of armed guards with one look, “—I am begging you not to make that choice before you hear me. I am begging you. Stay this one night, give me one chance to explain it all to you, to answer every possible question you could have. One chance to do this right, even if I already did it all wrong.”

Begging. The word would sound absurd from almost any other man. From him, it sounds cataclysmic. His hand shakes at the back of your head before steadying, his chest rises too sharply under your cheek, and he continues speaking as if silence might kill him.

“I love you too much to let this be the end of it if there’s anything I can do to stop it,” he croaks. “Too much to let you walk out of here thinking none of it was real. It was real. Every second of it was real. Me wanting you, loving you, worrying about you, making room for you in my life in ways I never made room for anybody—none of that was a lie. The only lie was thinking I could hold both worlds apart long enough to protect you from what I am. That was the lie. That was my arrogance. My mistake.”

The mansion remains hushed in that eerie, cathedral-like way that comes after a disturbance, as if everyone occupying this huge mansion is pretending not to hear the aftershocks.

But here in the kitchen, everything feels narrowed to his voice and your breathing and the blood drying on his forearm and the fact that he is speaking to you like a man on his knees, even if he is still standing, even if his arms are still around you, even if his kind of desperation does not know how to unclench fully.

There is a daunting sincerity in him now, not because it is soft but because it is not. Because it is fierce. Because even his tenderness carries the shape of obsession, of decision, of something chosen with his whole irreversible heart.

What can you possible answer here. What can you possibly think.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do.” He sounds so full of conviction. Technically, the words are quiet, but there is a hard core somewhere in his tone, and it glows fiercely. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel safe again. To prove this to you. To earn back one inch of your trust. I don’t care how long it takes, I don’t care what you ask for, I don’t care what I have to lay down at your feet. I’ll do it. I will.” He takes a beat and the next words are so low you almost miss them. “I know I don’t deserve another chance and you have all the best reasons to run, but I’m asking for it anyway, Y/n.“

At that, finally, he leans back just enough to look at you. It’s not much, but the hand at the back of your head can guide your face up with painful gentleness, giving you every opening to pull away if you need to, though you are too wrung out now to do much except tremble.

His eyes find yours and stay there, and the sight of his face nearly brings you to your knees all over again. There is no coldness in him. No cruelty. No mockery. Only a kind of bereft intensity, a ravaged devotion, and beneath it the severe understanding that he is seeing himself reflected in your fear and cannot survive the image.

The whole fact of how broken he sounds starts to mess with your head. It cracks the armor of your panic, if only just a little bit. You’re trying to hate him. Because, honestly, you want to. You want the fear to be this insurmountable wall between you, but his voice keeps crumbling pieces of it.

The worst part is that you can’t just flick a switch and stop loving the guy you were tangled up with this morning. You fell for him so fast, so completely, because his version of happy felt like the safest place on earth. But with all those shocking revelations, that same love feels like a trapdoor that just dropped you into a cellar, and you are so angry at your own heart for still wanting him to hold you.

Underneath the exhaustion, there is a nauseating doubt starting to rot everything you remember about the last few weeks, and you really don’t need your mind going that far, but it does. You start wondering if you ever actually loved him, or if you were just hooked on the way he looked at you.

He treated you like you were the only important thing in the world, and you just hung off that affection, soaking up the protective way he took care of you. Even though he’s standing here right now, bleeding and hollowed out, swearing that every single touch was real, how can you ever be sure? Every memory you have is suddenly poisoned by the thought that it was just a beautifully built illusion, and the whole thing makes you feel completely seasick.

It’s just too much to handle all at once. Your brain is trying to hold two completely different men in the same space—the gentle guy who tucked the blankets around your feet in the dark, and the boss who froze a kitchen full of killers with one word. They are both real. They are both right here in front of you, and the fact that he isn't a cartoon villain makes it a hundred times worse.

If he were just a monster, you could run. But he’s a monster who tells you he loves you with this gut-wrenching, unyielding honesty, and looking at his ruined face, all your willpower just turns to mush.

“I should have asked more questions,” you whisper, and still, your voice breaks, the words tumbling out of you like loose gravel. You aren’t trying to be eloquent anymore, you are just trying to get the noise out of your head before it chokes you. “From the start, I— When you wouldn’t tell me things. I— I don't know, I was scared, I guess.”

Your fingers tighten into the expensive wool of his lapels just to keep your knees from giving out. Letting this mob boss know about your fears is probably a bad idea. But your life consists of you making bad decisions and so your mouth keeps opening. “I think I just liked the way you were to me too much to risk messing it up.”

The words drag themselves out of you like they do not want to be born, like each one has to force its way through the knot in your throat and the salt on your tongue and the simple, mind-numbing fact that nothing in you knows where to place anything anymore—not him, not yourself, not the last weeks, not the hands that held you so tenderly and the empire those same hands command with a flick of the wrist.

Bucky’s gaze is piercing as he looks down at you, listening with his breath visibly held.

“But I— I still don’t understand. I think.“ Your voice comes thin at first, scraped nearly transparent by crying, but it sharpens on pain the way a blade sharpens on a whetstone. “I just— I saw this gun, and—,” you blur out, the memory making your heart do that awful stutter against your ribs again while Bucky nearly flinches. His eyes go wide, pupils shrinking until they look like two dark pinpricks. “It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. I was just— you told me to grab a shirt of yours but I couldn’t reach up your wardrobe and so I was just going to go grab the shirt you've been wearing, but your jacket was there and then it just fell out. And I— I completely lost my mind because I realized I didn’t actually know anything about you, and I’ve been so stupid, and I’m really not good at this. I'm not good at talking things out or figuring out the right things to say. It’s just— this is so much to take in.”

Bucky´s chest hitches, a rough, dry stutter or air that sounds like he just took a fist to the solar plexus. His face looks almost unrecognizable with the pain plastered on it. You feel his hands tremble against you and he slowly takes them away, putting himself at a small distance to perhaps give you some space. His palms stay open, as do his eyes. He looks entirely unhinged by the clumsiness of his own life seeping into yours.

How could anyone understand how a man can kiss your forehead like a saint and still have blood and fear braided into his name. It’s so hard to understand how someone can look at you the way he is looking at you now—like you are both miracle and mortal wound—and still have lied, still have omitted, still have arranged the world around you so skillfully that you walked through it unknowing, barefoot and bright-hearted, straight into the center of his hidden life.

You do not understand what parts were real and what parts were merely curated, and worst of all, there is a terrible little splinter of you that already suspects the answer is not clean enough to save you. That some unbearable amount of it was real.

Your mouth trembles and you know that he can see it.

“You lied to me,” you sob, and although you mean for it to, it doesn’t sound like a weapon you’re throwing at him. It just sounds sad. “You made it so easy. I didn’t even think about it. I just— I just woke up every day and trusted the way you looked at me. And the whole time, I didn’t even know you.”

You look down at his chest so you can stop having to meet those devastatingly sunken eyes. “You let me fall in love with you not knowing who you were.” Your sentence has a shape now, the grief in you finally managing to find a spine. But you still can’t make your words sound all that accusing. Because you got yourself into this situation. You’re supposed to be furious at yourself first.

You haven’t used the word love before. You just dropped it, being the first time it cleared your teeth and the timing of it feels completely disastrous.

And Bucky suddenly undergoes a drastic freeze, as if his nervous system has been struck by lightning. He seems to tip back just a tiny bit but stays in your orbit. He stares down at you, his mouth parted, his chest stalling on an intake of air that he forgets to let back out.

The fact that you love him—and that you are saying it right now, while covered with dread and shivering nearly against his chest—seems to completely break his brain.

There is a dark heat flooding his face, his jaw tight enough to snap a tooth. He looks agonizingly vulnerable like this, the dangerous mob boss utterly gutted by four letters. His fingers twitch where they are now hovering near your neck, desperately wanting to bury themselves in your hair and pull you back into his skin, but he forces his hands down to his sides, his knuckles trembling against his tailored trousers.

“You…,” he starts, eyes burning with a starved intensity that makes the air in the kitchen feel boiling hot. He swallows loudly, taking a moment, staring out into some space behind you, and switching focus back to you. “Don’t call yourself stupid,” he goes on, voice dropping into a rasp that shakes with the failure of his own arrogance. “None of what you told me and none of what you felt makes you stupid.”

His face leans closer to yours and somehow you only shrink back a tiny bit, not really at all. You can feel the wavering rhythm of his breath against your lips. He looks thoroughly undone by his own greed, stuck in the realization that he won the only thing he ever wanted, right at the exact moment he stopped being the man who holds you in the dark and turned into the reason you’re afraid of the dark.

“The love was real,” he sounds so convinced. His face is breaking, but his voice is not. He knows what he is saying. “Every single second of it was real. I am the one who ruined it. But what I feel, and what we have, that isn’t a lie. I swear to you on my life, it was never a lie.” His eyes close briefly, and it looks like he is losing his footing somewhere internal. “I know how it feels from where you’re standing. But I wasn’t playing some game with you. I wasn’t trying to—” He drags a hand over his face, and for an instant he looks older than you have ever seen him, not in years but in burden, in wear. “I wanted more time. That was my sin in it. I wanted time. I wanted to tell you in a way that didn’t make you look at me like this.”

Like this.

The phrase feels unkind. Because yes—there it is again, the damn nucleus of the whole thing. The way your eyes have changed on him. The way he has noticed every flicker of fear in you as if each one were a cut and he keeps taking your terror not as an insult to his pride but as an injury to something much more private and much more vulnerable. And that, more than any fake excuse could have, is so hard to process. 

Because men who only know cruelty do not usually grieve like this over being feared by the woman they supposedly love. Men who are only monstrous do not usually look half-unmade by it.

You don’t want that thought, you honestly don’t, but it does arrive.

Because he has not hurt you. He hasn’t done a single thing to hurt you, and that makes him so much more complicated at the exact moment you most need him to stay simple.

He has had a thousand opportunities by now to become the thing you are bracing against. In the hallway. In the office. In the kitchen. When you ran. When you fought. When you took the knife. When you cut him. At every turn, there has been room for rage, for punishment, for the kind of retaliatory violence your frightened mind keeps expecting from a man like him, and instead he has done nothing but hold himself on a brutal leash, speak softly, plead, bleed, look at you as if your fear is the one thing in this world he has no defenses against.

And it makes you weaker.

Because fear is easier when it is clean. Outrage is easier when there are no counterweights. But now your thoughts begin to buckle under the strain of contradiction, and you feel yourself growing tired in some deeper way, not merely from running or crying or panic, but from the effort of sustaining one total version of him against the evidence of another.

The story you are trying to tell yourself—that he is simply bad, simply dangerous, simply false—keeps snagging on the memory of his hands shaking when he begged, on the way he threw his men out for aiming guns at you, on the heartache in his face now, open and unarmored and miserable with not knowing how to reach you.

None of it erases anything, how could it this fast, but still it matters, and still some fatal hope flares.

Your lungs are burning. You become dimly aware that your body is leaning, not exactly by choice, but because exhaustion is making choices for you now. The kitchen feels too bright and too far away at the same time. Your fingers feel chilled, your knees unreliable, your heart still overworked from all that horror. Even your anger is beginning to lose its clean edges, dissolving into something wetter and more helpless.

“I don’t know what to do,” you admit, and there is no strength in it at all.

The sentence is barely more than breath, but it changes him instantly, makes his misery seem softer, as if your confusion pains him almost as much as your fear did. His gaze searches your face carefully, greedily, looking for any sign that you have not vanished completely from him.

“You don’t have to know right now,” he comforts, and this time his voice is gentler still, worn down to the most tender parts of his body. “You don’t have to decide anything this second. I know I dropped all of this on you in the worst possible way. I know you’re overwhelmed.”

Overwhelmed. The word is so pitifully insufficient you want to cry some more, but the sound catches and turns to another shivery exhale instead.

Overwhelmed is a rainstorm. A bad day. A missed train. This is seismic. This is having the floor beneath your life cleave open and discovering it was built over a fault line all along.

Still, you know what he means.

Because beneath all the fear, and the betrayal and the urgent need to flee, there is now also this leaden, disorienting fatigue, this collapse of certainty.

You cannot keep all your alarms ringing at once forever. The body is not made for it. At some point even terror begins to sag under its own weight, and in that sagging comes the most dangerous thing of all. Maybe not trust or forgiveness yet, but confusion. A human confusion. The realization that if he truly meant to destroy you, perhaps he would have done it already. That if cruelty were the point, he has passed up too many easy chances. That whatever else he is—and God, he is still intimidating, still hidden, still a man with too much power and too many locked rooms in his life—his feelings for you do not look counterfeit. They look catastrophic. They look real enough to have ruined him too.

He had every opportunity to end this argument with force, not even making his hands dirty in a physical sense. But he didn’t, and that roughened sincerity that seems so deeply wounded keeps gnawing at all the things you thought you found out about this man, the stereotype you made him out to be. It makes a guilty stone drop into your belly and land with damaging intentions.

And you do not know what to do with all this honesty and realness, when real arrives dressed as the very thing you were trying to escape.

But you have to acknowledge that your lack of strength is not the only reason why you have stopped fighting him, stopped trying to get away.

Bucky seems to read some fragment of this in your face, because he does not press harder. He does not crowd you with arguments. He simply stays where he is, close enough for warmth, far enough now that his care has space to breathe. His injured arm hangs at his side, blood drying in a dark seam along his skin, ignored. His other hand lifts as if to touch your cheek, then stops halfway and falls again when he sees the flicker in your eyes. That tiny restraint breaks something in you all over again.

“I know I lied by not telling you,” he says quietly. “I know that. I’m not asking you to call it something prettier. I’m just telling you it wasn’t because you meant nothing. It was because you meant too goddamn much, and I was trying to find a way to bring you closer without making you run.”

The honesty of it is so ugly, so naked, so free of self-congratulation that it feels like he just threw a wet sandbag right at your chest, knocking every scrap of air straight out of your lungs. It’s not an excuse, not quite. More like the shape of the selfishness itself, held out in his own hands for you to look at. He wanted you. He kept you. He delayed the truth because he was afraid the truth would cost him the one bright thing he had allowed himself to love. There is no innocence in that. But there is something crushingly human.

Your eyes burn again and your grip on your own certainty loosens another inch.

You hate that, too, because, damnit, it would be easier to stand here shaking and loathing him if he would just become less tender and less heartbreakingly earnest in his regret. But he stays persistently, ruinously genuine, and all at once you feel not only afraid, not only betrayed, but emptied out by the effort of trying to hold every contradiction at once. He is a bad man. He may also love you. He lied. He is also hurting. He hid things from you. He is also standing here looking like your fear is flaying him alive. None of these truths cancels the others. They just crowd together until your thoughts feel waterlogged, too swollen to separate.

So all that is left is the simplest truth again.

You really are overwhelmed.

You are so overwhelmed that language itself seems too heavy to lift.

Your breathing has started to slowly settle in increments, like a storm reluctantly retreating from a coastline it battered too long. It feels like there are bruises left behind in your lungs, but it no longer aches with each inhale.

Your fear has ebbed enough to make you think again, to make you see again, to make you look at him not as the single monstrous shape your panic tried to build, but as the complicated, human contradiction standing in front of you now.

His shoulders are still too tight, drawn up, and perhaps trying to seem smaller. He keeps his hands visible and loose at his sides to perhaps avoid startling you. The cut along his forearm has darkened into a narrow seam of red, drying in flaking lines against his skin and remaining completely ignored by the man attached to it.

His focus hasn’t left your face. And in that focus, there is not an ounce of triumph. Rather, the opposite. There is only pain. Such a grave torment that lives in the corners of his mouth, the prominent crease between his brows, in the cautious way he keeps tracking your movements as though you still might shove him away and try bolting for the door again.

You swallow and feel the ballast of everything press back down on your chest.

“I—” you start, timidly, using every last scrap of your bravery. You don’t meet his eyes, staring at the floor beside him. “I’ve seen them.” Your voice sounds strange to your own ears, small but a little bit more poised now, like glass that hasn’t shattered but still remembers the impact. “I've seen the news, and the headlines. All the stories about you.”

The words suspend themselves in the space between you.

Bucky takes a moment to answer. His gaze drifts downward, just briefly, as if the floor might offer him something easier to look at than the defenselessness sitting in your eyes. The vulnerable questions there. When he exhales it is long and tired, and it sounds like all the versions of himself he has spent years outrunning are catching up to him anyway.

“Yeah,” he mutters out breathily. But a little flat. There is no denial in it or some sort of excuse. He drags a hand across the back of his neck, his jaw flexing slightly before he speaks again. “I figured you probably had.” He takes a shivering breath, his whole chest lifting. “They’re not all lies.”

You hold your breath, but don’t step back, don’t let fear take its seat at the forefront of your mind again.

He lifts his eyes back to yours then, and the seriousness in them deepens, intensifying into something resolute.

“I’m not gonna stand here and tell you I’m a good man,” he says. The words come slowly, and his eyes are searching yours while he talks. He is placing them carefully like he’s building something honest out of wreckage. “I’m not.”

Your heart stumbles in your chest, but you still keep your feet grounded and meet his eyes.

“I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Things most people wouldn’t forgive if they knew the full story.” His voice lowers slightly. His eyes are full of sorrow. Despite the things he’s saying he unexpectedly doesn’t look threatening at all and it makes something startle abruptly in your chest. “And yeah, I’ll probably keep doing some of those things.” He doesn’t force anything into his tone that maybe should be there. He´s not saying those things with pride or arrogance or even threat. He has just accepted the callous contours that make his life the way it is. “But not for the reasons people think.”

His eyes soften then, slightly. And it makes you realize that they’ve actually been soft all along.

“I do what I do because there are people in this world who deserve protection. People who don’t have the power to protect themselves.” His gaze holds yours a little more firmly now. “And sometimes the only way to keep those people safe is to be the guy willing to do the ugly work.”

Your throat tightens.

“I’d do just about anything to protect you, Y/n. Even if it’s me you want protection from.”

The kitchen feels very still.

You don’t know what to say to that. You’re not even sure there is something to say. The statement isn’t a justification so much as a window, and looking through it leaves you with more thoughts to sort through and you’ve already gone through so many. But you hear him. You really do.

And he seems to notice that you’re listening now—maybe not agreeing, not forgiving, but truly listening, hearing him out—and some small measure of relief loosens the tension in his shoulders.

He doesn’t move a single muscle, standing before you like a brick wall, his legs pinned wide on the kitchen tiles, his frame perfectly still except for the anxious heave of his chest. His arms are hanging at his side, and shit, your gaze just has to focus on that bloody trail on his forearm. Because right, you’ve cut James Buchanan Barnes through his expensive suit enough to make him bleed. The redness runs from his wrist to his knuckles and you see some dots on the floor. The fabric of his suit is soaking it up, turning a dark wet black around the tear.

He still doesn’t glance down at it. He’s still so entirely anchored to your face, his broad shoulders squared as if he’s trying to shield you from the very room he owns. The survival instinct that had you clawing at the air drops away and now there is a sudden freezing emptiness in your head. And in that blank space, something takes place.

You look at the knife on the linoleum, then at the wet red tracking down his arm, and your stomach completely plummets through the ground. The panic you felt earlier didn’t protect you, it turned you clumsy and ignorant.

“Oh, no,” you choke out, gaze fixed on his arm, your words hacking up from your chest miserably. “Bucky, I— Your arm, I— I didn’t mean— This is my fault, I swear I didn’t mean to—”

“Hey,” he cuts in, his voice lowering into a rough, immediate hush that clips the words right out of your mouth. “Hey, no, sweetheart. No.” He steps back into your space and his huge palms come up, traveling slowly until they map themselves carefully across your jawline.

His fingers are trembling and the pressure is incredibly light. His skin is warm, smelling of that same familiar soap from upstairs, and his thumbs softly brush the wet tear tracks off your cheekbones, forcing you to look straight into his eyes. He doesn’t even spare a glance at his forearm.

“You don’t ever apologize to me for that,” he whispers hoarsely, his chest hitching against yours as he tries to get his breathing normal. There is so much regret in his voice, it is too much for your heart to handle. “You were scared out of your mind and I did that to you. That?” He tilts his arm toward you, indicating that he is talking about the cut. “That is nothing, sweetheart. Nothing.” The corner of his mouth lifts faintly, but the expression is gentler and definitely much more somber than humorous. “I’ve taken hits that should’ve put me in the ground, and none of them touched me.”

You shake your head in his palms. “But, I—”

“Doll,” he shushes, his arms keeping your chin locked, but not firm at all. His gaze is drilling into yours and it feels like he’s bleeding more from the inside and not the outside. “That little scratch hurts a hell of a lot less than watching you run from me.”

Your hands slowly stop trying to find leverage against his chest. The heat of his palms against your jaw feels like a grounding force, something so familiar but also completely new. It’s not entirely unpleasant in its newness.

You look up into his eyes, seeing the complete lack of the monster he just unleashed on his guards, and you can’t help but feel a little unmoored.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” you admit breathily, your voice cracking as your forehead drops forward to rest against his tie.

Bucky lets out a long, ragged exhale, his chin resting against the top of your head as his arms wrap around your shoulders, pulling you into a hold that feels firm but unforced.

“You don’t have to figure it out right now, darling,” he eases, his words spoken with a splintered scrape into your hair. “You don’t have to decide anything today, or tomorrow, or next week. Take all the time you need. Turn it over in your head. Think about everything you saw, everything I am. And whatever you choose to do—if you want to pack your bags, and disappear, if you never want to see my face again—I will let you go. I will make sure you are safe, and I will support whatever choice you make. I swear it.”

He pulls back just an inch, his thumbs gently guiding your face up again so he can look straight into your eyes. There is something desperately begging in his stare, but he keeps his posture completely still, refusing to pressure you.

“But please.“ His knuckles tremble slightly against your cheek. “Just stay the night. Don't run out now while this is all still so new. Stay until morning. As soon as the sun’s up, the car is yours,” he promises sorrowfully, his thumbs catching the last of the dampness on your cheek. “If you want to leave, you leave. You can walk out of here and never look back, and I won’t follow you. I won’t look for you. If that’s what it takes to make you feel safe, I’ll let you go.”

He stops, his jaw clamping tight for a second, a sharp, jumbled hitch in his ribs breaking his breathing.

“But god, I hope you don't,” he shoves the words past the tightness in his throat, his eyes wide and burning into yours so achingly. “I will spend every single day of my life doing whatever it takes to fix this. I’ll earn back an inch of your trust at a time. I’ll show you the rest of me—the real parts—if you just give me the chance to try. I want you to love me again. I want that more than anything.”

He hitches his weight just a fraction closer, his large hands still framing your jaw with agonizingly slow caution.

“But just stay this single night,” he pleads with a strain in his voice, his forehead dropping down to rest lightly against yours. “Just stay until morning. Let me get you out of this kitchen, and you can just sleep. That’s all. Just tonight.”

You stare at the dark red crusting on his wool cuff, then look into that heavy, broken-down look in his eyes. Trying to picture next week or even tomorrow feels like watching a knotted ball of wire and not finding out where to start untying it.

But right now, your muscles are just running on empty, completely flattened and powerless from feeling all that panic. You let out one long shudder of air, asking your awareness for any reasons why you should still try to get the hell away from this guy, and come up with nothing yet. It’s all too fresh to truly give this some thought and right now all you want to do is curl up in those silky sheets and sleep it all off.

You give him a small nod. “Okay. Okay, Bucky, I’ll stay the night.”

Bucky’s shoulders drop with a massive, rattling relief. He doesn't say anything else, he just tucks your head back under his chin, his big arms closing around you to carry your weight out of the quiet kitchen, leaving the knife and the blood behind on the floorboards.

You don’t know what comes when the sun is up. You don’t know what loving a man like him means. You don’t know if the life he lives can ever exist beside the life you thought you wanted.

You don’t know if trust can grow again from the cracked ground beneath your feet, and considering your decision making skills, you shouldn’t let your heart handle things anymore.

But, frighteningly and also not all that much surprisingly after all, when you imagine leaving now—truly leaving, turning your back on him and walking out of this mansion forever—the image doesn’t bring relief.

It brings something bleak.

Because for all the discoveries of tonight and all that fear, all that shock, and the trust that has been abruptly broken, there is a bullheaded part of you that understands something you can’t yet put into words for him to hear.

You could run from this house.

You could run from his name.

But you are not sure you could run from him.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple”

- Oscar Wilde

A/n: Looking at the word count now, I honestly probably could’ve turned this into a mini series but because this whole thing is essentially one long scene, splitting it up even more just didn’t feel right to me. So I guess I just have to admit that this became an unexpectedly long two-parter lmao.

As always, I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on this continuation, if it gave you hope, or even if you expected something different to happen. I always enjoy hearing your interpretations and feelings after reading ♡

I also wanted to gently address something else. I’ve received a few critical comments regarding certain reactions, choices, and dynamics in the story, and I truly hope this second part helped answer some questions or at least offered a little more perspective. If it didn’t, that’s completely okay too.

What I want you to know, I genuinely do appreciate helpful criticism, especially when it comes to my writing itself, because I’m always trying to improve and become better at what I do. Constructive feedback that gives me something to work with is always welcome and appreciated. But if something in the story simply wasn’t for you, or you personally disliked a choice I made, then sometimes it’s okay to just move on from it instead of tearing it apart. And if you do choose to criticize something, I just ask that you do it kindly. We’re still a community here, and there’s no reason to be harsh or blunt. Talk to me like a human being.

I put a lot of time, emotion, and effort into these stories, not to be told this makes no sense or this is weird without any real conversation behind it. Sometimes I don’t think through every single detail deeply because at the end of the day, this is still fiction born from messy little ideas in my head, written for comfort, entertainment, and emotion—not perfection!

Still, thank you to everyone who continues to boost me and my work and helped me stay motivated to finish this part ♡

The Winter Soldier doesn't love anyone, he’s got a heart made of Siberian ice and a soul that drowned in the dark waters of his past.A past he can’t even remember, leaving him completely numb to the world.

They built him to be a cold-blooded killer, a weapon wrapped in tactical gear, moving through nights like a phantom. He doesn’t know the touch of a real romance, he doesn't know how to hold a girl's hand without feeling the weight of a trigger.He only understands the darkness.

His metal arm is freezing to the touch, smelling of gun oil, cheap gasoline, and the bitter copper of old blood. It's a flawless piece of Soviet machinery designed to break pulchritudinous things into a million little pieces.

He has seen too many empires fall, too many cities burn, and too many innocent people beg for their lives. There’s no softness left in his damaged mind, no vintage love songs from the quadragenarian years playing in his head. The only sound it the loud static of old military radios and a long list of names he was programmed to erase from the earth without a single spark of pity or regret.

He is a monster masquerading as a god, a beautiful nightmare that you just can't wake up from no matter how hard you scream. When he breathes, it’s just the freezing air of a perpetual winter filling up his hollow chest.

He is not a human, he’s just a ghost trapped in a body of muscle.A hollow shell where a man’s soul used to live before they tore it out and replaced it with wires and Soviet steel. He does not feel, he doesn't know what it’s like to have a warm heart beating against his ribs. He doesn’t feel the sting of the freezing rain on his face, he doesn’t feel the ache of loneliness in the middle of the night, and he certainly doesn’t feel a single drop of guilt when his hands are wrapped around someone’s throat in a dark alleyway.

You could cry right in front of him, you could bleed all over his black leather boots, and those storm-colored eyes wouldn’t even blink, because there is no pity inside him, no tenderness.

So why is it that every time he sees you in your little bookstore, tucked away between the dusty old paperbacks and the soft glow of the lamps, he swears he feels something?—a terrifying little spark that cuts right through his chest?

It’s probably a glitch in his programming...right?An agonizing malfunction that shouldn’t exist in a man like him. Every time he looks at you, the heavy static in his brain suddenly clears, replaced by a strange warmth. It feels like a forgotten memory of a summer sun he hasn't seen in fifty years.

It makes no sense to an asset like him; it scares him more than any bullet ever could, because he doesn't know how to handle the sudden weight of being almost human again.

Because of that terrifying feeling, he’s been stalking you for months now. And he's completely unable to stop himself from drifting toward you. He’s become a permanent fixture in the shadows across the street, parking his motorcycle.

He watches you through the rain-streaked glass of your shop as you dust the shelves, drink your black coffee, and read those sad, romantic books until closing time. He knows the exact time you turn off the radio, he knows the sound of your keys jingling in the front door lock, and he has completely memorized the way your perfume smells when you step out into the night air.An intoxicating mix of expensive vanilla and something he can't name.

He tracks your movements like a predator, knowing which train you take, which street corners you cross, and exactly how long you linger at the flower shop down the avenue.

Pink roses are your favorites,he has learned.

He hates himself for it, he hates that a cold-blooded killer like him is utterly hooked on the simple, mundane sight of a girl who doesn't even know his name. He’s an addict, unable to tear his dead eyes away from you.Because in a world full of blood and white noise, you are the only thing that makes his heart beat against his metal ribs.

He tried to forget you, god knows he tried to wipe the very memory of you from his damaged mind. He went back to the dark streets of foreign cities, trying to forget you. He threw himself into the violence, losing himself in the familiar comfort of high-stakes missions and the sound of gunfire.

He was desperate to let the adrenaline wash away the soft light in your eyes. He stared at the cracked ceilings for days, trying to force his brain back into the icy state of a perfect soldier. But none of it worked, absolutely none of it, because no matter how many miles he put between himself and your shop,it just didn't work.

Mostly, he just can’t get your soft lips out of his mind. It’s a sick obsession that keeps him awake in the dead of night A cold-blooded killer shouldn't know longing, but he craves the thought of your lips more than his next breath, imagining how incredibly soft they would feel against his own unholy mouth.

He imagines the sweetness of you on his tongue even when he’s surrounded by the bitter smell of gunpowder and blood, a torture that makes his metal fists clench in sheer frustration. He is a monster completely ruined by the simple, devastating thought of your lips.

He can’t get the thought of you on your knees for him out of his head.It’s an obscene image that burns behind his eyelids every time he closes them. It's a vision so sharp it makes his breath catch in his hollow throat.

He imagines you there, small and completely surrendered on the cold hardwood floor of your little shop, looking up at him through your eyelashes with that soft innocence. He craves the total submission of it. He wants to look down and see you ruined by him

And your lips. God, your lips on his...

The thought alone is a lethal dose of adrenaline running through his frozen veins. He wants to feel the agonizing contrast of your warmth against his vile mouth. He wants to ruin your neat little world with his heavy, rough hands.

He wants to press his mouth against yours until the taste of blood and gunpowder is completely drowned in your sweetness, leaving him choked on a desire he has no right to feel.

It’s a suffocating hunger. He knows he would break you—but the dark, selfish part of his broken soul doesn't care. He wants to be the one who brings you to your knees, and he wants to be worshipped by your mouth.

He knows that this wrong. Every single cell in his genetically engineered body screams at him that this is a fatal error. A weapon doesn’t crave the softness of a girl’s lips. A soldier doesn’t dream of a submissive angel on her knees in the warm glow of a bookstore.

It’s a betrayal of everything he is. Every time his mind drifts back to the vanilla scent of your skin, a cold sweat breaks out under his tactical gear, a raw panic that he hasn’t felt since they first strapped him into the chair.

Because he knows what happens if Hydra finds out.They will come for you. They would see you not as a girl, but as a contagion. A weakness to be excised with surgical precision. They would hunt you down, shatter the glass of your pretty little shop, and paint those dusty paperbacks with your blood just to prove to him that he belongs to them.

They would make him watch. Or worse, they would re-program him, wipe his mind until his eyes are dead again, and force his own flesh and metal hands around your delicate throat.

The mere thought of Hydra discovering your existence sends a spike of pure terror through his chest. He can already hear the clinical voices of his handlers, the heavy clanking of the laboratory doors, and the terrifying phrase that strips away everything he is: Longing. Seventeen. Daybreak.

He should leave. He should turn the key to his motorcycle, speed into the freezing rain, and never look back at this street corner again. He should let the winter swallow him whole.

It’s Valentine’s Day, but the flashing red and pink neon signs down the avenue don’t mean a damn thing to you. You’re standing inside your little bookstore, surrounded by the comforting scent of old paper and dust, completely detached from the cheap, plastic romance that the rest of the city is buying into tonight.

You haven't cared about this day in years, closing your heart off to the hollow promises of drugstore chocolates and rushed dinners, choosing instead the quiet safety of your own solitude. It’s not that you’re bitter; it’s just that you have these impossibly big, cinematic expectations of what love should be.A grand, dangerous kind of devotion that nobody in this mundane world could ever give you. You have these high standards built from the poetry and romantic novels on your shelves, and you’d rather spend your nights completely alone than settle for a lukewarm boyfriend who doesn't understand the depth of your personality.

You look out the rain-streaked window at the couples rushing past under their umbrellas, knowing that you’re waiting for a different kind of romance.

So it shouldn’t bother you that all of your friends are out tonight with their partners, dressed up in their expensive, velvet clothes, drinking cheap red wine under the dim lights of fancy downtown restaurants. It shouldn't matter that they are whispering sweet, mundane little clichés into each other's ears.

But it does, it really does. You can feel your chest tightening with a heavy ache at the thought of spending another long night entirely alone.

It’s always been like this though. They’ve always had their fun, drifting through the easy phases of normal romance, while you—well, you always stayed behind. A disastrous girl locked away in her own ivory tower of old paper.God,it sounds like you're a character in a Paula Fox novel.

You try to tell yourself that you’re above it all, that their drugstore version of love could never fulfill a girl with your kind of imagination. But as the hours tick away, the quiet of the bookstore becomes an absolute prison, and the crushing, agonizing realization that you are completely on your own in the dark.

Or...are you?

You glance at the clock on the wall and realize it’s finally time to close up, because the streets have been empty for hours and nobody is going to walk through that door tonight. I mean, who in their right mind would come to a dusty old bookstore on Valentine’s Day anyway?

You start moving through the golden shadows of the shop, your fingers lingering on the spines of the sad poetry books as you prepare to shut it all down.

You turn off the vintage radio, cutting off the melancholic jazz that was keeping you company, and the sudden silence hits your chest like a physical weight. You grab your keys, the metal clinking sharply in the quiet room, ready to lock the door, completely unaware that the only man who has ever truly looked at you is still waiting out there in the dark.

You step out into the freezing night, turning the key in the lock until the bolt clicks firmly into place. You pop open your black umbrella against the pouring rain, pulling your trench coat tight around your chest as you take your first step onto the wet pavement.The wind is howling down the avenue, and you’re walking with your head down, just trying to escape the bitter cold.

You only take three steps before you crash hard into a solid, unyielding wall of muscle and wet leather. A force so heavy it sends a sharp shock straight up your spine and makes your umbrella wobble in your hand.

You stumble back, your breath catching in your throat as you look up through the rain-streaked air, trying to make out the silhouette towering over you.It’s too dark to see his face under the shadows of the street corner, but you can perceive his shoulders and the dark tactical gear strapped tight under his jacket.

Then you look down, and your heart skips a heavy beat.A single, delicate pink rose is lying in the puddle, its soft petals bruised by the cold water. It must have fallen from his hands the moment you collided.

“I'm so sorry,” you whisper, your voice trembling slightly in the freezing air as you lean down to gently pick up the flower.You stand back up, holding the bruised pink rose out to him. You wait for him to take it, wait for a curse, a brush-off, or the sound of his voice—anything to break the awkward silence stretching out between you under the pouring rain.

He doesn’t say a word. He just reaches out and takes the pink rose from your hand, his black leather glove brushing against your fingers for a brief second. He tucks the flower into his jacket pocket, turns around, and walks away into the rainy night, leaving you standing alone under your umbrella.

You stay there on the sidewalk for a long time, watching the spot where he disappeared. Your mind is spinning, completely confused by what just happened.

You wonder who this giant of a man was.You touch your fingers to your lips, still tasting the bitter scent of his gasoline and gun oil in the air.

You walk back to your apartment, the freezing rain soaking through your coat, but you can barely feel the cold. You climb the stairs, turn the key to your bedroom, and throw your wet clothes on the floor.You pour yourself a glass of cheap red wine and sit on the edge of your bed, staring at the ceiling.

Your mind is completely hijacked by him. You can’t stop thinking about the dangerous contrast of his body against yours.It’s a haunting image that keeps looping in your head—this silent, terrifying monument of a man, carrying a single pink rose through the storm like a cliché.

You crawl under the blankets, wondering where the stranger was going.

You don't know that outside your window, tucked away in the alley, his motorcycle sits idling in the dark. The Winter Soldier feels so incredibly foolish, a cold-blooded assassin frozen in place by a girl who smells like vanilla and old books.

He looks down at the bruised pink rose resting on the leather seat of his bike. He hadn't planned on any of this. He had only intended to slip into your shop during the closing chaos, to leave that soft, stupid flower on your counter when you weren't looking—a silent, anonymous token from a monster who has no right to feel like this.

But then the brass lock had clicked, you had stepped into the rain, and you had broken right against his chest.He couldn't even speak. A machine that knows how to order an execution in five different languages completely lost his voice the moment your hands brushed his glove.

Oh,he's pathetic.

Maybe it was because, for the very first time, he actually looked at you. Not through the distorted scope of a rifle, not through a rain-streaked windshield, but right there in the blackness of the street corner.

He saw the soft innocence in your eyes, the gentle way you rescued his bruised flower from the puddle. He feels trapped between his violent programming and the terrifying realization that your sweetness has officially conquered something inside him.

He decides it’s better to keep his distance, at least for a little while. He needs to pull back and disappear, if only for a single day, just to analyze the fatal error running wild through his system.

He needs to look at the situation with the calculating precision of the weapon he was built to be, rather than the desperate longing of a man who has lost his mind over a bookstore girl.Yeah..he's pathetic.

Few hours later he sits in a cheap motel room on the edge of the city. The bruised pink rose sits on the nightstand next to his silver handguns and his black tactical knife—a delicate little intruder in his violent world.It's kinda ironic.

He tells himself that one day away from your bookstore will cure this sickness, that twenty-four hours of isolation will put the ice back into his veins and force the vanilla scent out of his head. He promises himself he will stay away, that he won't drive past your street corner, and that he will find a way to become himself again.

And then...the air in the motel room is thick. He sits on the edge of the mattress, his tactical gear half-undone, staring at that pale pink rose on the nightstand until his vision blurs. He tried to think like a soldier, he tried to run the numbers, but the cold analysis completely shatters under the memory of your body breaking against his chest in the pouring rain.

His heavy leather glove hits the floor with a dull thud, and he reaches down with his bare human hand, his fingers trembling with hunger he hasn't felt in a lifetime.Or has he? He knows what he's doing,how to...but why? He knows pieces are missing from his brain.

He closes his eyes, and suddenly he’s not in this rotting room anymore—he’s back in the golden glow of your bookstore, watching your soft lips part, visualizing you shape,your submission as you drop to your knees on the hard wood floor just for him.

He touches himself with a rough slowness, his breath catching sharply in his hollow throat as the image burns behind his eyelids. He visualizes his metal fingers tangled ruthlessly in your hair, holding you down, forcing you to take every inch of him.You look up at him with those innocent eyes,that tear up a bit,and he gets harder at the thought. Every stroke is fueled by adrenaline and a fatal error in his system that makes his muscles lock up and his chest heave as he chases the taste of your skin and your sweet, ruined mouth in the dark.

He groans into the empty room, a low sound that tastes like sins, his hips moving in a punishing rhythm against his own bare hand. He’s completely losing his mind in the red neon light of Valentine's day, hallucinating the friction of your soft thighs against his waist.

He pulls his own hair with his metal hand, wanting the sharp sting of pain to wake him from this wicked dream, but he’s too far gone, too deeply drowned in the fantasy of ruining you. His imagination ahifts from the bookstore.He imagines pinning you down into this mattress, your delicate wrists held captive above your head by his silver fingers.

He is chasing a high he was never meant to know, driving himself closer and closer to the edge with the devastating thought of your lips stretched wide around him.

His muscles lock, veins standing out against his neck as an electric jolt of adrenaline tears through his frozen spine. With one final thrust against his own hand,it hits him like a physical blow, that leaves him completely undone in the bleeding red light of the neon sign.

He gasps, a low sound echoing against the peeling wallpaper. He collapses back onto the damp sheets, his human hand slick and his silver fingers trembling against the mattress, completely paralyzed.

The static in his brain is gone, replaced by a silence that offers no comfort,and terrifying realization that he didn't wash you out of his system at all. He just let you entirely inside,his heartbeat slowly drops back into the freezing dark.

...

Two days. Two whole days of absolute silence.

He managed to stay away from your street corner for forty-eight hours, hiding out in the dark. Trying to cure himself of a wicked addiction. He cleaned his weapons, and tried to pretend that the sweet scent of vanilla had finally faded from his leather jacket.

He told himself that the error in his system was corrected, that the cold-blooded killer was back in control, and that your little bookstore was just a hallucination he had successfully left behind in the rain.

But it was all a lie, a delusion he built just to keep from tearing the city apart. Every single tick of the clock on his nightstand felt like a blow against his ribs. He didn't cure the sickness; he just let it fester in the dark, his hands shaking under his tactical gloves every time he pictured your soft lips.

Two days of playing dead was all his broken soul could take. He needed you.During those two days, you felt a strange mix of disappointment and relief. Part of you wanted the dangerous stranger to reappear out of the rain, to prove that the shock of your bodies colliding wasn't just a figment of your wild imagination. But as the hours dragged on and your shop remained empty, the ache in your chest began to soften into a familiar numbness.

You told yourself it was for the best. You cleaned the shelves, reorganized the poetry section, and drank your black coffee in silence, slowly letting the memory of his heavy leather jacket and the bruised pink rose fade into white noise.You had almost forgotten the whole thing, convinced yourself that he was just a nameless stranger passing through the dark, never to be seen again.

He can't take the distance anymore, and he sure as hell doesn't do polite invitations.So he writes you a letter.It’s not a soft, romantic Valentine's card; it’s a rough piece of paper torn from a tactical notebook, written in aggressive black ink that nearly rips through the page. It’s short, blunt, and so utterly typical of the Winter Soldier that it’s almost funny—a dangerous machine trying to command a girl who smells like vanilla.

Midnight.The old abandoned observatory on the hilltop. Under the broken dome.Don’t make me come fetch you.Be there.

He slips the note straight under the front door of your bookstore right before closing.You find the paper lying on the hardwood floor, your heart doing a dangerous flip against your ribs as you read the crude ultimatum. He isn't asking for a chance,—he is ordering a surrender.

You hold the rough piece of paper in your hands while the cold adrenaline starts to flood your veins. Your mind is racing, honey, frantically trying to piece the puzzle together as you stare at the ldark ink and the aggressive handwriting that feels more like a tactical order than a love note.

You find yourself wondering who could have possibly slipped this under your door. Who even knew you were here...well,you have a lot of costumers. So it could be anybody.

But deep down, in the dark corner of your soul, you already know the answer. Or at least, you desperately hope you do.

You know it’s crazy, you know a smart girl would tear the paper to pieces and lock her bedroom door, but your heart is hammering a frantic rhythm against your ribs because the thought of him waiting for you up on that star-lit hilltop is a drug you’re already too weak to refuse.

You spend the next few hours in a fever dream, the minutes ticking away on the wall. You step into your bathroom, the mirror fogging up with warm steam as you try to wash away the mundane exhaustion of the day.

You pick out your clothes. You slide into a soft, dark slip dress that clings to your curves, and pull your heavy leather trench coat over your shoulders to protect you from the freezing night air.

You don't put on much makeup, just a touch of your signature expensive vanilla perfume behind your ears and on your wrists. You stare at your reflection one last time.

The winding mountain road is completely black, swallowed by the suffocating silence of the pines and the cold mist rolling off the hills. You drive up the dark asphalt, while the radio hums a slow melody.

When you finally reach the crest of the hill, the abandoned observatory rises from the darkness. Its massive, rusted dome looks like a fractured skull against the midnight sky, with jagged shards of broken glass catching the brilliant light of the stars above.

You cut the engine.You step out of the car, the gravel crunching beneath your boots.And then, you see it—tucked away beneath an old oak tree, the dark silhouette of his motorcycle sits in the dark, its guttural purr vibrating straight through the ground and up into the soles of your shoes.

He just watches you step closer in your dark slip dress and leather trench coat, his jaw clenched tight as he realizes you actually came.

He cuts the engine, and the sudden silence on the mountaintop hits you both. He swings his leg over the seat, stepping off the motorcycle with a predatory grace that makes your breath catch in your throat. He takes a long step toward you, his massive combat boots crunching against the gravel.

“You came,” he mutters.

“I didn't think you'd actually show up,” you whisper.You try to sound brave, but the slight tremor in your voice betrays every high expectation and desperate hope you've been nursing for the last two hours.

He leans down just a fraction of an inch closer, his hot breath brushing against your cold cheek.“You've been in my sights for a very long time.”

He grabs your wrist—his grip tight but not breaking you—and leads you up the rusted iron steps of the observatory, toward the highest observation ledge right under the open sky.

When you reach the top, the entire world opens up below you. The city is distant, completely insignificant compared to the silver cosmos stretched out over your heads.He walks right to the edge of the stone platform. He sits down, letting his heavy combat boots dangle over the ledge into the empty blackness, and nods once toward the space beside him.

You take a slow breath, your heart hammering against your ribs, and sit down right next to him. The contrast is devastating—you in your delicate black silk, and him wrapped in cold tactical gear and wet leather.

Your bare shoulder brushes against his heavy jacket, and the electric warmth of his body almost makes you shiver. You both look up at the infinite dark, completely isolated from the rest of the living.You sit there on the cold stone ledge, your bare legs dangling into the empty blackness right beside his heavy combat boots.

“Which one is your favorite?” you ask softly. You tilt your head back, your eyes search the silver dust of the Milky Way.

He doesn't look up at the sky. His storm-colored eyes stay fixed on the side of your face, watching the way the starlight hits your cheekbones.

“I don't look at them to admire them,” he grunts. He reaches down with his human hand, his rough fingers tracing a line along the seat of the ledge. “In Hy— where I was trained, the stars just meant we had three hours of navigation left before dawn. They aren't pretty, They're just coordinates”

You let out a soft laugh, turning your head to meet his intense gaze. “I know who you are Bucky.”

The realization that you knew exactly what he was didn’t scare him; it liberated him.He leaned in closer, the scent of rain and old leather completely erasef the sweet vanilla on your skin.

“Good,” he growled. “Then I don't have to pretend anymore.”

“You know what I am,” he stated, his human hand moving from the stone ledge to grip the back of your neck. His fingers were rough, anchoring you in place.“You know what these hands have done. And you still drove up a pitch-black mountain just because I told you to.”

He tilted your head back slightly, forcing your eyes to meet his. His gaze wasn't romantic; it was hungry. It was the look of a predator claiming territory it had been stalking for months. He looked at your mouth, his thumb brushing against your lower lip with just enough pressure to part them. He didn't want a sweet, innocent kiss. He wanted you on your knees, entirely consumed by him, surrendering every piece of yourself to his control. He wanted to ruin you for anyone else.

“Maybe I don't want a softness” you whispered, your voice trembling slightly but holding your ground. “Maybe I wanted exactly this.”

A dangerous silence fell between you. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek. He didn't say another word. He didn't need to. Your answer was the green light the predator inside him had been waiting months for.

With a single, effortless movement, his human hand tightened on your neck and he hauled you up off the stone ledge. He didn't do polite. He marched you backward into the deeper shadows of the observatory, until your lower back hit the cool, metallic frame of his motorcycle.

You submissively started to sink toward the gravel, your knees going weak as your instincts told you to kneel for him. But before your knees could even touch the ground, his metal hand shot out. His vibranium fingers wrapped firmly around your bicep, arresting your descent with effortless strength and pulling you right back up.

“No,” he growled. He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear. “Not tonight. You save that for the next time I command it. Tonight, I want to look into your eyes while I take you.”

He didn't give you a chance to process his words. His flesh-and-blood hand moved down to the hem of your dark slip dress, bunching the soft silk upward in his rough palm. His calloused hand dragged against your bare thigh.

He gripped your hip, lifting you effortlessly and placing you right onto the leather seat of the motorcycle. He stepped his heavy combat boot between your thighs, opening you up and claiming every inch of your space.

“Legs up,” he commanded, his voice dropping into a rough growl.You didn't hesitate. You wrapped your bare legs around his waist, the soft skin of your thighs pressing tightly against the rough canvas of his tactical pants. The position placed you perfectly at eye level with him.

He stepped his heavy combat boots closer, crowding right between your thighs until his massive chest was pressing you back against the handlebars. You were completely trapped between his heavy frame and the cold metal of the bike, your delicate black silk dress bunched up around your waist.

His large human hand slid up your bare thigh, his rough fingers hooking into the delicate elastic of your underwear. He didn't ask for permission. With one deliberate tug, he ripped the lace right down your legs, tossing the ruined fabric onto the gravel below without a second thought.

Your breath caught in your throat at the sudden display of dominance. You were completely exposed to the freezing night air now, shivering against the seat of the motorcycle.

He didn't bother taking off his leather jacket or his tactical gear—he wanted to keep you warm, and honestly, he was too far gone to care about undressing completely. Instead, his human hand moved down to the front of his tactical pants. You watched with wide eyes as his fingers quickly unbuckled his belt and lowered his zipper, aggressively freeing his thick length into the cold air.

“Look at me,” he muttered, his eyes dark with an intensity that made your heart hammer against your ribs. “I want you to remember this.”

He didn't push in yet. Instead, he just pressed his hot length right against you, teasing the entrance while his storm-colored eyes tracked the desperate, shallow breaths escaping your lips.

“Bucky—”

His human hand clenched tighter around your hip, his thumb digging into your skin to anchor you. “Don't call me Bucky.”

You blinked through the darkness, your breath hitching as your hands clutched the rough leather of his jacket. “Then... what do I call you?”

“Soldat,” he growled.

You didn't fully understand what it meant to him, or what dark memories it triggered in his conditioned mind.You swallowed hard, your heart hammering against your ribs as you looked up into his unyielding eyes.

“Soldat...” you whispered softly, the word tasting strange on your tongue.

His eyes blew out completely black with lust, and without another second of hesitation,he drove all the way inside you.

A breathless scream tore from your throat, as the sudden fullness stretched you completely open. Your legs instantly locked tighter around his waist, your boots digging into his lower back as your fingers clawed blindly through his jacket.

He didn't slow down. The rhythm of his hips remained heavy, each deep thrust making the motorcycle shift slightly beneath you. His combat gear and heavy leather rubbed roughly against your bare skin, a constant reminder of his sheer size and power.

“I watched you for months,” he growled against the skin of your throat, his breath scorching hot as he drove into you again. His metal fingers dug firmly into your hip. “I sat in the dark across the street and counted the minutes until you opened the doors.”

A needy gasp escaped your lips, your body clenching tightly around him. Hearing him confess to the unfiltered depth of his stalking didn't scare you—it sent a violent rush of heat straight to your core, making you tighter and completely undone.

“I know,” you cried out breathlessly. “I knew you were there... I saw the edge of your jacket in the pines. And I liked it, Soldat.”

Bucky’s entire body went dead still for a fraction of a second, his chest heaving violently against yours as your words registered in his mind. The realization that his target hadn't been an innocent victim, but an active participant playing the game right back with him, completely shattered the last of his restraint.

“Fucking whore,” he muttered.His grip on your waist turned entirely feral, lifting your hips higher against the leather seat, and he began to drive into you with a relentless pace.

“You liked it?” he growled. He drove deep, bottoming out inside you until you let out a helpless sob. “You liked knowing a killer was tracking your every move? You're a sick little girl.”

The leather seat of the motorcycle creaked beneath you with every ruthless strike.“Look at you now. Completely stretched out on my bike, taking every inch of me.”

“Soldat... please—” you cried out, your legs tightening around his waist, your fingers clawing deep into the leather of his jacket.

“Please what?” he muttered roughly. “You belong to me now. Say it.”

“I'm yours,Soldat” you gasped.

“Damn right you are,” he growled. He pulled back just enough to drive back in with a heavy thud that made your vision spot. “You don't get to come until I tell you to. You hold it in for me, you hear me? You take every single thrust until I'm ready to give it to you.”

Your fingers clawed desperately into the thick leather of his jacket, your bare legs trembling violently where they were locked around his waist.

“I can't... Soldat,” a helpless sob tore from your throat. Your entire body was trembling violently beneath him, as the agonizingly sharp waves of pleasure threatened to pull you under. “You're... you're too deep. It's driving me crazy, please...”

“I told you to wait. I want to watch your eyes roll back when I finally let you break.” His metal hand slid up to cup your jaw, while his flesh hand held your hip perfectly pinned to the leather seat of the bike.

“Tell me what you want,” he commanded roughly, his face dropping down until his forehead rested against yours.“Beg for it.”

“Please, Soldat... please let me come,” you sobbed out. You arched your back against the cold handlebars of the bike, your trembling thighs squeezing his waist as tightly as you could.“I'll do whatever you want... just let me come. Please.”

“Good girl,” he growled, the rough words vibrating straight against your wet lips.He didn't give you another second of warning. His hand slammed hard against your hip, holding you locked flat against the leather seat, while his left hand anchored the back of your neck. He picked up the pace.

The motorcycle creaked violently beneath the sheer force of his movement. You couldn't even breathe, let alone speak, as he ruthlessly drove you over the edge.

“Take it,” he muttered roughly, his face burying into the crook of your neck, his teeth bruising the soft skin over your collarbone. “Come for me now,sweet thing.”

The command was all it took. Your head fell back, a loud scream escaping your lips into the silent night.Hearing you break completely unraveled the Winter Soldier.

He let out a harsh roar—a sound of pure animalistic release—as his own climax hit him. His jaw locked so tight the veins in his neck strained.At the final moment, he shifted, pulling away to ensure the intensity of the encounter reached its conclusion outside of you.

The thick heat of his climax painted the dark silk of your bunched-up dress and the pale skin of your stomach and chest in long surges.He stood there shivering from the sheer force of the release, his chest heaving violently against yours.

The only sound in the ruined observatory was the frantic rhythm of your shared, breathless recovery and the distant, lonely sigh of the pines below.His thumb remained resting against your skin, tracing a slow line over your thigh as if he were trying to process the physical reality of what had just happened.

For a man who had spent decades living as a ghost— who only left blood behind—the sight of his own messy, unmistakable mark of possession on a living person seemed to completely stun him. He looked entirely trapped somewhere between the efficiency of the Soldat and the stunned awakening of a man who hadn't felt this alive in half a century.

His fingers aggressively pulled his tactical pants back up, tucking himself away before his metal hand yanked the zipper shut with a sharp, metallic clack. He reached for his tactical belt, tightening the buckle with a loud snap.Only when he was fully dressed and locked back into his soldier uniform did he look back up at you.

Was it normal to get aroused again just by looking at him? Probably not.

He reached into one of the side pouches of his tactical belt, pulling out a dark military-grade utility cloth.He didn't ask you to move. His large flesh hand gripped your thigh to hold you steady on the leather seat, while his left arm braced against the frame of the bike. He leaned over you again.

The cloth was dry and rough against your sensitized skin. He wiped the cooling smears of his climax from your stomach and chest with firm strokes. He didn't look into your eyes while he did it; his focus was entirely objective, cleaning your skin with the same detached, methodical thoroughness he would use to maintain a weapon after a heavy firefight. His fingers were rough, but he wasn't trying to hurt you—he was just completely devoid of tenderness.

Once your skin was clear, he shoved the cloth back into his pouch. He reached down, grabbing the hem of your bunched-up dark silk dress, and pulled it back down over your thighs with a single, rough yank to cover you up.

“I need my underwear back,” you said.He looked down at the dark gravel between his combat boots, where the delicate, shredded lace was lying ruined in the dirt. He had ripped them off with zero regard for their survival, and they were completely useless now.He didn't bend down to pick them up. Instead, he looked back up at your face, his expression deadpan and entirely unbothered.

“You're not getting them back,” he grunted. He took a single step closer, crowding your space one last time. “I tore them. They're mine now.”

“Take your coat,” he ordered. “The mist is rolling in. You're going back to the city.”

He had taken your underwear, marked your body, and ordered you back to the city with military authority. He was already pulling away, retreating back behind the icy walls of the Soldat.But you weren't ready to let him go yet.

“Can I kiss you?” you whispered into the dark. Bucky went entirely still, his hand freezing on the handle of his motorcycle. In all his decades of programming, nobody had ever asked for his permission to touch him. Nobody had ever looked at his lips—the lips of an assassin—and wanted a kiss.

He leaned down just a fraction of an inch, his hot breath brushing against your lips, teasing you with the very proximity you were begging for. His thumb pressed hard against your bottom lip, deliberately parting them, but he kept his own mouth just out of reach.

“You want a kiss?” he muttered, his voice a low, gravelly warning that rattled down your spine. “You earn it first. Go back to your shop. Sit bare under that dress all night and think about what we did up here. If you're a good girl, maybe next time I'll give you what you want. Now get in your car.”

Inside, Professor Barnes, who has the reputation for being the toughest grader in the department and object of half the campus’ unrequited crushes, looks up from his desk, one brow arched, red pen hovering whatever he had been grading, silver-rimmed glasses perched on his nose and sleeves rolled up to his forearms.

You recognize it immediately, the slightly judgemental expression of someone who was not expecting to have his work interrupted with even as much as a knock; but the moment he notices the expression on your face, your hands still shaking with adrenaline, his own shifts from professional uptightness to something much softer. A soft look you’ve come to know, too, after the two of you began a secret relationship a little over four months ago.

“Sorry,” you say, already stumbling through words. “Sorry, I know I didn’t knock, I just—"

 “Come in. Lock the door.” His voice drops, shifting from Professor Barnes to your James in the space of a few words.

You do just that. Then you stand there, backpack still hanging off one shoulder, hands twisting the strap.

“I’m freaking out about the European History exam,” you start. Professor Barnes shows no signs of being bothered by you immediately firing information his way.

“Sit down first.”

“I can’t sit down, James. I’ve been sitting for the past four hours, trying to—" You drop your bag onto the floor and start pacing the narrow strip of space between his bookshelf and the leather couch pushed against the wall. “I completely bombed it, okay? I know I did. Question three asked about the socioeconomic impacts of the Treaty of Tordesillas. I wrote about trade routes, James. Why did I write about trade routes? That wasn’t the prompt. And then I couldn’t remember some exact years, so I guessed, and I’m pretty sure I guessed about two decades off. If I fail this exam—”

“Please, sit—”

“—my GPA drops, and if my GPA drops, I lose my seminar slot for next semester, and then my entire track is ruined, and I'll end up living in a cardboard box—”

“Love.”

You stop, the way you always stop when he calls you that, like your mind still hasn’t quite learned to process that this man, older, more experienced, with a salt and pepper beard that makes your knees weak, would want to call you love.

James is leaning back in his chair now, arms crossed with muscles straining slightly against the shirt, and watching you with a particular patient expression, despite your serpentining conversation.

“The exam is done. You're spiralling," he tells you, and the second after he is getting up from his chair and stepping into your pacing path. A hand reaches for your wrist and makes you stop in front of him. “Breathe for me?”

“I’m not breathing, I can’t breathe, I have three more finals this week and I feel like my skull is gonna fracture from the pressure,” you whine, but are already leaning into his touch, seeking the warmth of him through your most stressful moments. He lets out a sympathetic sigh, fingers curling firmer around your wrist and pulls you fully to him before he presses a lingering kiss to the top of your head.

“There’s nothing you can do about it now.” And he’s not wrong. You open your mouth, close it, then sigh. Because there is nothing you can do about it now, and that’s somehow better, but also considerably worse. James tips your chin up with two fingers, ocean blue eyes meeting yours from behind his glasses.

“You have barely slept or eaten properly for the past week. I don’t like it. The way you chastise yourself whenever something goes wrong.” His thumb traces your jaw, and some of the tight coil in your chest loosens very much against your will. “Take a seat.” 

“James, I don’t need to—"

“I’m not asking,” he says gently, which makes it incredibly more effective than if he had said it any other way, then nods towards the leather couch. “Sit. You’ve been white-knuckling it for days, give yourself ten minutes.”

You consider it. Not because you want to sit down, not because the exam is finally slipping away from your mind, but because James has shifted into that version of him he only ever lets out when he’s near you, with you, the one that breaks down all your defenses and leaves you bare, although not unsafe. You always feel safe with him.

Slowly, you agree and take a seat on the couch, back slumping against the cushions. Your body recognizes it as home almost immediately, letting the familiarity seep into your bones and making you relax.

James crouches down in front of you and rubs one hand over your right knee.

"Still thinking about it?" he asks.

"...A little."

You sink deeper into the worn leather of the couch, the tension in your shoulders only kind of melting under the weight of his gaze. James remains crouched between your knees for a long moment, large hands taking residence on your thighs, now, thumbs stroking soothing circles through the fabric of your jeans.

“You know I’ve always got you, right? Prettiest girl I’ve ever met. Smartest, too,” he murmurs, voice wrapped in velvet. That does it quickly, for you, and you know he knows it. He showers you in praise every time, because every time your body opens to him like a flower blooming in the sunlight.

Before you can overthink it, you simply nod. There’s a brief moment where you’re sure he whispers something like ‘let me take care of you’, and you do, you let him, the permission being the way your legs gently pry open right in front of him. A shaky exhale, head falling back against the couch. All the agreement he needs.

His long fingers travel upward and make easy work of the button of your pants before peeling them down your legs slowly. James pulls your boots off, then the pants along with them, and he leans forward, mouth pressing a kiss to your left knee. Upward, to the skin of your thigh, a bit to the side, to the inside of your leg. Three days' worth of stubble prickles against you as he moves, and you make a noise, something he sees quickly as desperation, and you know the complaint is futile. When has Professor Barnes ever given you anything quicker than the exact pace he wanted to?

“Relax,” he says against your thigh, then presses his lips to the skin again, an open-mouthed kiss before he bites down so gently you are barely even able to call it a bite. “Didn’t I just say I’ve got you?”

Large hands slide from your thighs to wrap firmly around the backs of your legs, fingers digging in with just enough pressure to tug you forward on the couch, sliding your ass closer to the edge so you’re perfectly positioned for him. That’s when you open your eyes again, just in time to watch him hook his fingers into the waistband of your panties and peel them down slowly, dragging the fabric along your thighs and off your ankles. And he does it all with his eyes on yours, two blue pits making you feel dizzy, but you still don’t look away. You couldn’t if you tried.

Cool air hits your now exposed pussy, making you shiver. James lets out a quiet hum of approval at the sight of you, already glistening with arousal.

“She’s always so beautiful,” a reverent whisper before his large hands wrap around your legs again and lift effortlessly to drape them over his broad shoulders, heels of your feet resting against his back. The new angle tilts your hips up towards his mouth, spreading you open for him completely, and before you can even catch your breath, or take a moment to push down the flush on your skin growing from the vulnerable way you are exposed to him, he leans in and drags his tongue through your folds in a filthy stripe from your entrance to your clit.

A breathy moan tears from your throat, echoing in the quiet office like a confession, and it unravels the last threads of your anxiety as pleasure rises in its place. Then James does it again, a little slower, savoring the taste of you, messy and unhurried, spit mixing with your arousal until your folds are slick and shining. On his knees in front of you, this brilliant man, esteemed professor, becomes nothing more than a servant doing worship at the altar of his Goddess. His broad shoulders carry your legs like an honor he would gladly take forever, and his eyes flutter shut as he presses closer.

He’s incredible at this; you’ve known it from the first time he fell to his knees, right here, in this office, always reading every twitch, every gasp, mouth moving with exquisite skill. Slow and indulgent at first, mostly for himself, drowning in the taste of your slick, before giving way to teasing flicks of the tip of his tongue around your swollen clit only to dip lower again, lapping messily at your entrance where your arousal flows for him.

Wetness coats his silver-streaked beard, glistening on his chin as he buries his face deeper between your thighs. The obscene sounds of his mouth feasting on your fill the room, wet slurping and sucking noises, a slick glide of his tongue, an occasional hungry groan into your cunt that sends sparks flying up your spine, all of it the actions of a man who could be on his knees for hours.

Your hands fly to his hair, gripping the dark strands as your thighs tremble around his head. “James…”

No words come out of his mouth then, none you can understand, anyway; instead, the response comes in the way he sucks your clit between his lips, wet suction making your hips jerk, before he releases it with a lewd pop. One hand claws at your thigh, keeping your legs right in their place, while two thick fingers slide into your welcoming heat, curling against the spongy spot inside you that makes stars explode behind your eyelids. James pumps them slowly, in time with the dance of his tongue over your clit.

Exam long forgotten, the world narrows to nothing but him, the way his blue eyes will sometimes flick up to watch you through fogged glasses, dark with lust and adoration. Only when he needs to take a moment to breathe, a quick one, enough to allow him to keep going for as long as you need him to, does he speak again.

“Goddess,” he whispers teasingly, slowing his fingers as if to get your attention. Your head tilts forward and you watch him through hooded eyes. “Will you cum for your most loyal subject?”

You huff in soft frustration, the sound breaking into another shaky moan as your body refuses to cooperate with your irritation. Because the edge is so close, molten in your belly, and here he is, being a wicked scholar and working you through comedic words.

“James, don’t… fuck, I’m so close, don’t play with me right now…” you manage, trying to reprimand him. But even as you say it, your cunt betrays you completely, clenching hard around his fingers, fluttering and squeezing with need and pulling them deeper as slick coats his hand.

Your favorite Professor gleams with amusement, lips curled into a devastating half-smirk, swollen and shiny. “You like it when I’m funny. You’ve told me before.”

You want to protest, but he curls his fingers again, strokes the perfect spot and dips his head again, sucking your swollen bud with perfect pressure, flicking the tip of his tongue rapidly in a rhythm that makes your vision spark white. For a second, he slips his fingers out and instead fucks you with his tongue, thrusting it inside you, before dragging it back up to torture your clit again while his fingers move back to their rightful place. His free hand grips your thigh harder, holding you open for him as you start to grind against his face, chasing the pleasure.

The combination is merciless. Frustration melts instantly into overwhelming pleasure, and another broken moan rips from your throat as your thighs tighten around his shoulders, heels digging into his back. Every stroke, every suck makes the coil in your belly tighten, pulling you deeper into a sea of sensation where exams and fears cannot reach. His beard scrapes deliciously against your sensitive skin with every movement of his head, and arousal drips down his chin onto the leather couch, but he only presses closer, as if he would gladly drown in you.

And just like that, your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, sudden and blinding. You cry out sharply, back arching off the couch as pleasure tears through every nerve in your body. James moans against your pussy like a man receiving divine absolution, your walls pulsing and fluttering around his fingers, gushing against his mouth. And he drinks down every drop of you until your trembling begins to quiet down, slowly easing his movements before pressing a couple of tender, open-mouthed kisses to your oversensitive pussy and to your inner thighs.

Still, he keeps your legs draped over his shoulders a moment longer, gazing at you through glasses that look slightly uneven with the most loving expression you have ever seen on a man. Breathless and floating, you manage to meet his eyes, and you smile at the sight of your brilliant professor on his knees, face glistening with the evidence of your pleasure.

“You’re trouble,” you whisper, though the words carry no real heat in them. James is busy kissing down your legs, lips reaching softly to every inch of skin, but he smiles in the midst of it.

“Trouble?” he repeats, feigning offense. “My goddess calls me trouble after I’ve knelt here and offered proper tribute? How cruel.”

You let out a breathless laugh that turns into a soft gasp when he nips gently at the crease of your thigh.

“You do know I love you, right? Even when you’re being silly while going down on me.”

That makes him smile wider. “I reckon you love me especially when I’m being silly while going down on you.”

And he’s not wrong at all.

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“Is it big?” Your eyes light up at the idea of baking and cooking in a big kitchen instead of the small barely there kitchen in the old dorm. Kate just zips her lips before popping open the trunk of her car with a press of a button. You all ignore the sound of the motorcycle and other cars pulling into the driveway next door as you fall into easy conversation and start unpacking boxes from trunks. 

“I’m gonna warn you, the inside is a bit of a fixer upper.”

“How?”

“It’s just so boring and plain. Yels is honestly going to have so much fun decora-” Her word turns into a shriek as she backs up from the door instead of opening it. Unknowingly drawing attention from the men next door.

“What’s wrong?” You don’t stop till you see it and then you freeze where you are. There next to the door under the porch lamp is a spider, its long legs working on spinning its web. In reality it’s probably smaller than what you and Kate are seeing it as because your arachnophobia is almost paralyzing and hers is only just a little better. After being frozen in place for a minute you drop the box you’re holding before rushing off the porch.

“Guys, it’s just a spider just squish it.” Wanda says while stopping next to you and not making a move to do it herself.

“Why are we all stopped?” Yelena joins the two of you then after stacking bags on her shoulders and stacking two boxes in her arms. When you look at her like she’s crazy she shrugs. “I don’t want to make a lot of trips.”

“What’s going on over here ladies?” One of your new neighbors makes his way over and you recognize him as Sam Wilson from your school's hockey team and the man dead set on winning Wanda’s heart.

“There’s a spider blocking the damn door.” Kate answers, turning around then to face the four of you. Sam’s mouth forms an O and Wanda turns as she hears a familiar car pull up and park next door.

“Pietro?!” She yells out as a greeting as he starts moving toward his twin. “Get your ass over here and do your brotherly twin duties and kill this spider!” You know for a fact that he was always the designated spider killer in their home growing up because he was even in the old dorm. Even though Yelena and Wanda aren’t afraid of the arachnid like you and Kate they still freaked them out a bit so anytime there was a spider Pietro would have to come over and get it. You all have him on speed dial still from it. 

Before he can speed over there’s a slam from the porch drawing all of your attention to Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes who jumped onto the porch unnoticed and slammed his motorcycle helmet against the porch wall effectively getting rid of the pest there. Your mouth gapes a little at his towering form, you’ve seen him on the ice when you’ve gone to Pietro’s games but being this close to him was something else because he was just so big. Tall and broad and just made of muscles.

“Can we get moving again?” He huffs out stomping back over to the cars parked in their driveway. 

“If you ladies need anything don’t hesitate to come a-knocking.” Sam sends a wink Wanda’s way before rushing over to help unpack cars.

“Can we get moving again?” You deepen your voice to mock Bucky’s grumpy tone, laughing after you speak and moving to the porch to pick your box back up. Pietro doesn’t go straight to helping his roommates and instead makes his way over to his twin to wrap her in a hug.

Kate unlocks the door and leads the way inside and you and Yelena look at each other before going to rush to pick rooms. 

“Guys wait, slow down. I sorta picked everyone's rooms out already.” Kate calls for you guys as you fight to get to the stairs first. How Yelena’s still so fast with carrying so much you’ll never know.

“That’s half the fun in a new house.” Yelena huffs out acting more annoyed than she is. 

“Yeah but as long as you’re living under my roof you’ll follow my rules. Oh I’ve always wanted to say that!” Kate claps with excitement. 

“Well unfortunate news the hockey numbskulls live next door so we have to deal with Pietro and his friends invading our space now.” She makes it sound like she’s unhappy with it but you know she’s thrilled to have Pietro so close by even if it means putting up with Sam’s flirting. 

“Let me show you guys your rooms and give you a tour before we finish getting stuff out of the car.” You follow in line behind Kate up the stairs like ducklings would their mother. “First up, Yelena’s room!” She spreads her hands to show the name tag she made out of construction paper on the first door with Yelena’s name written on it. “It’s not giant or anything but, you get a walk in closet.” She opens up another door once in the room to show off all the room inside. It’s a perfect pick for Yelena since she has the most clothes out of all of you. She places her stuff on the bed before going to check it out. “Every room has a bed, a dresser, and a desk. Anything else we decide we want I’m not above using my allowance to make the house more of a home.” Kate explains motioning towards each piece of furniture.

“Next up Wanda’s room!” Yelena stays back in her room for a minute mapping out the closet as you and Wanda follow Kate out. There’s another piece of construction paper on the door that she motions to again with a flourish before opening the door. “Lots of windows so you can have however many plants you can fit in here. Though obviously you can put them throughout the house too.”

“Oh Kate, this is awesome! I’m gonna get so many different monstera and peperomia.” 

“And now for the showstopper, Y/n here’s your room.” You follow her out of Wanda’s room and to the last bedroom. You smile at your name on construction paper before she opens the door to the biggest room yet. “You have plenty of room to put bookshelves around and the best part is…” She trails off as she opens the door to the attached bathroom. “Tada! Your own personal shower and everything. Figured you’d be doing like all the cooking so you should get the room up here with its own bathroom. Oh! But also there’s this.” She rushes towards the window that faces the back yard and opens it up before opening the screen too. “You can go lay or sit on the roof whenever you want because it's flat and sturdy enough here.”

“Kate you’re the best you know that right?”

“I know. Now let’s recollect everyone and finish the tour.” 

She shows you guys the bathroom for Yelena and Wanda to share that has two sinks and a separate door inside that gives the toilet its own privacy before taking you all downstairs. The living room is to the left of the stairs when you’re coming down and it’s completely empty and the dining room is on the other side with just a round table and four chairs. She explains how Yelena has free reign to decide how to decorate it and that her mom sent her back with a credit card specifically for getting furniture and whatnot, which Yelena took from her hand and pocketed immediately excited to start shopping after getting her stuff inside. Upon actually entering the dining room your mouth drops at the beautiful big kitchen that it opens up to.

“Kate, what the hell?” You run your hands over the finished butcher block top of the island as you take it all in. The kitchen takes up basically the whole back of the house with glass doors that lead out to the patio once the counters end. The counter space is insane and you’ll definitely have enough room to spread out while you bake or cook.

“I know! I told my mom that the only thing we needed other than the four bedrooms was a big kitchen and did she deliver or what?!”

“Go Eleanor!” Wanda cheers, swinging an arm around your shoulder, taking it in with you while Yelena opens a door to a walk-in pantry and then the other door that leads to a laundry room.

“Kate, where's your room?” You ask as you realize there’s not another room on this floor.

“I’m taking the whole basement. It’s finished with its own complete bathroom and I figured I could practice archery down there too. I’m gonna go get the rest of my stuff out of the car.” Wanda turns and follows her out and Yels stops to look at you before following them as if to ask ‘are you coming’.

“Go ahead Yels. I wanna peek in all the cupboards and cabinets first.” She nods and leaves you to it.

Bucky was getting Sam's last box when he looked over and noticed you for the second time that day. You’re swinging a bookbag on and closing the now empty trunk of a car before turning and picking up the duffle bag next to you. He can practically see the gears turning in your head as you stare at the big box on the ground, hands on your hips, bag getting ready to slide down your arms. His feet are moving before he even decides to do anything.

“Oh, thank you!” Your surprised but cheery voice greets him as he picks up the box for you. You expect him to hand it to you but he just gestures with his head for you to lead the way to the house. “Oh!” It’s silent for a couple seconds before you start talking again. “I’m Y/n. You’re Bucky right? You’re on the hockey team with Pietro.” He nods to answer your question. “Thank you for killing the spider earlier and for this. You’re a real knight in shining armor.” You motion towards the box as you walk up the steps of the porch. He nods again, adjusting the box so he can open the door and hold it for you. You’re small compared to him he takes in and realizes as you squeeze past him into the house. 

“I said I would be right out to help you, what are you doing?” Yelena comes around the corner from the dining room to yell at you for getting the rest of your stuff by yourself just to stop short at seeing Bucky with your box in his arms. “Barnes.” They nod to each other in greeting.

“It’s okay Yels, Bucky helped. Thank you again!” You thank him again as Yelena takes the box from his arms and heads straight up the stairs to put it in your room and you rush to follow her waving to him as you do.

Bucky looks at your back like you’re crazy for just leaving him, a stranger, alone in your entryway. He could be anyone or do anything. He shakes his head before leaving, shutting the door behind him and getting back to the lone box in the back of Sam's truck.

“Okay so you want a green kitchen? I can work with that.” Yelena is sitting at the island on her laptop across from you as you knead the bread dough you’ve been working on. She’s been asking you how you want the currently too white kitchen to look and all you’ve really been able to tell her is you want it to be green. “What about this?” She waits to turn her laptop around until you’re done spraying your bowl and you look up as you put the dough in it for its first rise. “Sage green on the cabinets and island but cream colored walls?”

“I like the sage green. You don’t think the cream will be too bland?”

“If it is, I'll paint you flowers or something all over the walls to help fit with your cottage kitchen dream.” Wanda sits next to Yelena in the seat she had originally pulled over for you.

“In that case that’s exactly what I want Yels. The cream and sage green make it happen.” You uncover the first two loaves of bread you started making from their second rise then put them in the preheated oven. “Okay, you get me for thirty minutes, let's find a couch we can collapse on.”

Wanda yells down the basement stairs for Kate before you all go sit on the floor in the living room surrounding Yelena’s laptop.

“Printesa! What did we do to deserve you stopping by?” Pietro opens the door and greets you after you knock. The nerves that were filling your body at not knowing who would answer disappear at the familiar nickname.

“I have gifts!” You hold out the picnic basket in front of you to show it. Pietro can smell the freshly baked bread from the closed basket and quickly ushers you into the house.The set up is similar to your own, their kitchen is smaller though you notice as he leads you straight there.

“What’s going on here?” Sam who was sitting at their table with take out follows the two of you. Bucky looks over from where he was filling his bottle up at the fridge surprised to see you standing in his kitchen.

“I made a thank you present for taking care of the spider yesterday.” And for helping with the box but you don’t say it, you just look at Bucky as you speak and hope it translates. “I don’t really know what hockey players can eat during the season. Are you guys technically in your season? I don’t even know but anyway typically I would make cookies or brownies or something and if it was just Piet I would’ve because he cheats all the time.”

“You’re yapping Printesa.” He only interrupts you because of how you just outed him in front of his teammates. Normally he enjoys listening to you ramble on. He hopes you know that, you do and if you didn’t the look he shoots your way of ‘stop snitching’ would be all you needed to know that’s the only reason he tells you to shut up.

“Right, sorry.” You send a sheepish smile his way and open the basket starting to pull out all of the sandwiches you had made earlier. “Anyway I figured sweet treats were a no go so I made a bunch of sandwiches for you guys. There’s ham and turkey and salami and chicken. Some have lettuce and tomato, others don’t because I don’t know what everyone likes." There's a warmth in Bucky’s chest as he watches you all smiles continue to pile sandwiches on the counter for him and his teammates. Sandwiches you had made just for them trying to make sure there was something for everyone. He’s almost positive he’ll be able to taste the care you put in making them. He steps closer to study you while Sam abandons his food completely to find one he wants to eat. “Oh! And one grilled cheese just for you Piet.” You had the tupperware container that was at the bottom of the basket to the twin next to you and he fist bumps before opening up to eat it while it was still warm. He groans as he takes a bite of it.

“Your bread is always the best!” You can feel your face heat up at the often told compliment still not able to take it. Your ‘thanks’ is quiet not wanting to draw attention to it.

“Wait, did you make the bread?” You nod to answer Sam. “That’s so cool if this is what we get when we kill spiders, come over or call whenever you have one. Buck write down all our numbers for her.” Bucky rolls his eyes at Sam but goes over to the fridge to rip a piece of paper from the notepad magnet anyway.

“Sam, please tell me you’re not leaving food out already. Oh, hello. Steve Rogers.” He holds his hand out for you to shake and sends you one of his famous smiles.

“Hi! Y/n Y/l/n. I brought sandwiches.” You gesture to the piles beaming at him while you do. Your phone vibrates then and you turn back to the basket to pull it out. “Oh, would you look at the time? I gotta get back before Yels picks a bad dining room table.” She could never but you all love to tease and joke that she would without all of you. You collect the basket and wave to the men in the kitchen. “Enjoy boys!” No one pays that much attention as you leave except for Bucky, who realizes that A you’re leaving without the numbers Sam made him write down and B Pietros a dick for not seeing his guest out, but what else was new really.

A hand on your shoulder stops you on your way to the door, the warmth of it seeping into your skin. When you turn around your nose almost bumps into a chest so you quickly take a step back and look up to look at Bucky’s face. Your breath hitches a little at just how much bigger he is than you and you hope he doesn’t notice, he does. He holds out the list of numbers for you to take and you do, not noticing the way that your fingers brush his, he does though.

“I can’t believe I almost left without this privileged information.” You lay it gently in your basket while Bucky examines you like you’re a piece of art which you might as well be. You’re beautiful in the way that sunbeams peaking through clouds or trees are beautiful. He has a momentary vision of you sitting in the secluded field of flowers, one he often visits to be alone, and basking in the warmth of the sunbeams that he so often does. You say bye to him again breaking him out of whatever trance he was just in and turn to keep leaving.

“Thank you. For the food.” His deep hesitant voice stops you in your tracks as you open the door.

“Anytime big guy! I’ll text ya!” You wink at him and then you're gone. Bucky can’t help the small smile that forms on his face before turning and going up to his room to finish getting ready for the gym.

You end up making a group chat, called ‘The Spider Killers’ with the numbers you were given and your household so they can all get each other's numbers and if you guys need one of them you could just message the chat. That way if only one person is home you’re not just going from person to person. Kate is quick to ask if you, her, and Wanda can hang around their house the next couple days because Yelena got painters to agree to come paint rooms in the house on short notice so when the furniture gets delivered no one has to worry about covering them. Which Wanda added before anyone can say anything that even if it’s a no Pietro will still let you all in at the same time that you said you’d cook everyone dinner if it’s a yes. Steve and Sam both agreed, Pietro jokingly said no and for Wanda to check on her twin attachment issues, Bucky didn’t respond. Which you took as him saying yes because surely if he had a problem with it he’d say so. 

Yelena’s going to stay behind at the house to make sure they’re using the right shades of colors she wants and to help where she can. One of her favorite things about decorating and renovating is the hands-on stuff and you love to joke that you’ll see her on her own show one day and she’ll have to introduce you to Chip and Joanna. And while you’d be glad to help everyone knows that inevitably you’d trip and spill a paint can the way you did helping Kate paint the archery range purple. Kate and Wanda just want to let the professionals be the ones to take care of it.

“What do you want, Sam?” Bucky finally answers his phone as he steps off the treadmill from his cool down sprint. This is the third time he’s called after sending a few texts asking where stuff is in the kitchen that Bucky’s been ignoring knowing that everyone else is home.

“Can you pick up pasta sauce on your way back? We need it for dinner.” There’s only what Bucky can describe as chaos in the background with muted yelling and he’s pretty sure the Mario Kart music coming from the tv.

“You couldn’t just text me that?”

“You weren’t answering your texts. And we’re in the middle of a very competitive grand prix so we can’t leave to get it. No, I don't want to hear it! I’m pretty sure you’re using smart steering when we said it wasn’t allowed!” Sam gets distracted with an in person discussion making Bucky grimace as his voice raises in his ear moving the phone away from it as he does.

“Fine, I'll bring back sauce.” He’s not sure if Sam is paying attention or if he hears him at all before hanging up on him.

When he does get home he goes straight to the kitchen without looking in the living room, his headphones thankfully blocking out whatever yelling was going on. He’s had to be around for too many of these things that Sam and Pietro get too into and it’s even worse if they get Joaquin over to play with them. But since he doesn’t hear anything or look in where he would’ve found Wanda trying to distract Sam so Kate could beat him nothing can prepare him for looking up and finding you in the kitchen. He was digging the damn sauce out of his bag and putting it on the counter when he looked up and over to see you looking at him expectantly.

“What?” He asks as he takes his headphones out cringing a little hoping it didn’t come out as rude as it sounded to himself. Your face contorts as if you just realized something mouth forming an ‘oh’ before you’re beaming up at him.

“I was just saying hi big guy. I hope you didn’t drive with those in, that’s dangerous you know. Oh! You brought the pasta sauce, Sam said he was gonna take care of that.” You grab the jar when you notice it turning it around to examine it. Bucky suddenly finds himself hoping he got the correct one and wishing he put a little bit of effort into picking a jar instead of grabbing the first one he recognized.

“Sam taking care of it was bothering me to do it.” His voice is gruff and annoyed but he’s less annoyed about getting the sauce since it was for you.

“Well, thank you. Normally I would make my own sauce but when I’m feeling a little lazy with it I just get a jar.” You whisper the second half of the sentence like it’s a secret only the two of you know.

“What are you doing here?” Your smile falls a bit at his roughly asked question and he has the immediate urge to punch himself in the face, an urge he doesn’t exactly understand.

“Did you not see the texts yesterday? Everyone else okayed us coming over.”

“Muted the chat when it started blowing my phone up at the gym.” Which he only did after saving the numbers he didn’t have and putting the sun emoji next to your name.

“Oh.” It’s the saddest oh he’s ever heard and it makes him immediately start racking his brain to find out how to make it better. “Well we have painters over our place today and tomorrow so we’ve been here to stay out of their way. But if you have a problem with it we can go somewhere else to-”

“It’s fine. Come back tomorrow.” Your smile comes back full force and before you can start thanking him Kate’s calling you into the living room to see how she beat Sam. Bucky’s left alone in the kitchen for a minute before he swings his bag around his shoulder and heads up to his room to empty it out. When he comes back downstairs he heads straight back to the kitchen seeming to know that’s where you would be without even looking.

“Hello again!” Your chipper voice greets him without you turning around from the stove where you’re cooking the beef for the meat sauce part of your spaghetti. “Can you get the pasta out of my tote on the island?” He does as you ask and brings both boxes over to you placing them on the counter next to the stove. He goes looking for a big pot to boil water in next. “Are you gonna help me?” You ask when you notice what he’s doing, eyes on him as he starts to fill the pot up with water. 

“Yeah why not?” He shrugs his answer and he’s rewarded with your beaming smile again, his world gets just a little bit brighter with it. 

“I wish I had my phone on me. We’d have some music while we work then but I left it at the house by accident and I didn't want to get in the way of the painters to go get it.” Bucky doesn’t think about it before he pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens Spotify before holding it out for you.

“Put whatever you want on.” 

“How was your day?” You ask after putting the soundtrack to Howl’s Moving Castle on for background noise wanting to also talk with the grump next to you while you work together.

“Okay.” 

“Come on, give me something more than that.” You tease him. “What did you do all day?”

“You’re nosy aren’t you?” He’s teasing right back and maybe he’s a little flirty with it too. It gets you to laugh and he absolutely relishes in the sound of it, immediately wanting to get you to do it again.

“And you don’t like to talk much huh? That’s okay though I’m known to talk enough for the both of us.”

“I worked and then went to the gym.” He answers your original question after a moment of silence. You light up more than you already were, which Bucky almost can’t believe is possible the same way he’s having a hard time believing that that reaction happened just because he told you something small about himself.

“Where do you work?”

“The rink. It’s nice pay and I can use the ice whenever I want.” It’s where most of the hockey team worked because of being able to go in before and after hours to run drills. That and they’re good at working schedules around practice and games.

“Ooo that’s cool. You know I’m actually the worst at ice skating? Piet tried to teach me once a couple years ago but I got away from him and fell and hit my head real hard on the ice so we weren’t there long.” Bucky fills with anger quickly at the thought of Pietro, or anyone really, letting you fall on the ice. It doesn’t matter if you were far away from him, if you were unsteady on your feet he should have been right next to you. “I’m actually really good at roller skating though, well good as in in comparison to on the ice. It’s probably because the wheels are set up differently because I’m just as bad at roller blading. Honestly I should probably just not be on wheels or blades, it’s safer that way.” You laugh at yourself as you drain the meat and add it to the sauce you had heating up on the stove. The sound relaxes him and he focuses on dumping the noodles in the now boiling water.

There’s a knock at the door then and Sam yells for Bucky to get it because they’re in the middle of a race. He grunts before going to see who’s at the door causing you to chuckle to yourself. The change from seemingly almost normal guy who talks back to grump is incredibly amusing to you. You can hear the muted greetings before someone enters the kitchen behind you.

“Smells good in here.”

“Yels! How’s my kitchen looking?” You hug your friend as she stops next to you.

“It’s not started yet. The living room is done and the dining room has one coat, the second and the kitchen are getting done tomorrow. And then the couch and stuff should be here Thursday.”

“I’m so excited to go back and see how it’s turning out! Kate and Wanda are playing Mario Kart with Sam and Pietro if you want to go get them all. Dinner’s almost done.” She nods and gives you another side hug before heading to get everyone and leaving you to make sure the pasta is fully cooked and draining it.

When everyone is seated with their food in front of them you catch yourself sneaking glances at Bucky to see his reaction to it while also trying to accept Sams and Pietros compliments on it without feeling like your face is gonna catch on fire. Dinner goes by with easy conversation and it’s almost like you’ve all known each other forever. Which is only really true for you, Wanda, and Pietro who you've been friends with since high school. Kate and Yelena quickly joined your close knit friend group freshman year of college and now it would be nice to include Piet’s closest teammates to it.

“Tomorrow we can play Mario Party instead.”

“Tomorrow you’re all going to the gym to get ready for the start of the season.” Bucky interrupts Pietro’s plans and his two teammates immediately begin listing reasons they have to stay back. Sam insists they’re fine and can skip just one more day and Pietro insists they have to be at the house to keep the three of you company. 

“Buck’s right. We’re all gonna hit the gym tomorrow.” Steve says as he enters the room having gotten home from his own shift at the rink when Bucky brought it up.

“But what about the girls?” Sam’s hands spread to motion at the four of you from his spot on the floor since there weren’t enough chairs.

“I’ll stay back. I’m the only one who’s actually been going regularly.” Bucky announces getting up with his empty dish and taking yours on his way to the kitchen.

“This is so unfair.” Sam and Pietro both pout like kids, their heads both hitting the wall as they throw them back with groans causing you to burst out laughing and a smile to show up on Bucky’s face. One he’s glad no one can see as he faces the sink.

The next day after Bucky lets the three of you in he excuses himself so he can finish unpacking, which had been his original plan for the day before he knew you’d all be there. And you, Wanda, and Kate play five hundred with the cards you brought. You keep an eye out the whole time you play in case you spot Bucky coming downstairs so you can ask him if he wants to play too. You wanted to go search him out when he disappeared up the stairs before you had a chance to ask him but didn’t want to invade his space if he didn’t want you to. You guys play a couple rounds before you leave your friends to continue playing to go curl up on the couch with your book. 

“Pietro said they’re bringing pizza home so you don’t have to worry about cooking anything.” Wanda collapses next to you on the couch and you put the sticker you use as a bookmark in between the pages to mark your spot before closing it.

“Did you just leave Kate in there to clean up?”

“Loser had to.” She shrugs and lays her head on your shoulder before you can get up to go help your other friend. “How’s your book?” 

“Good like always.” You’re rereading one of your all time favorites before going back to your to be read pile. “Why are they bringing pizza?”

“Something about them working up an appetite at the gym and not wanting to wait for food. Honestly I’d bet you any money Pietro starts eating it on the way home.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you. He can’t even wait before digging into takeout bags even if we’re ten minutes away from eating.” 

“Are you guys talking about your twin's annoying habit of eating all my fries?” Kate comes in with a mock annoyed expression on her face as she sits next to Wanda. 

“I see you’ve all made yourselves at home.” Bucky says as he comes downstairs to find you all on the couch, your friends watching something on the tv and you back to your book glancing up here and there to watch with them. His words come out with the only emotion behind them being annoyed when he couldn’t be any less. He’s enjoyed hearing your laughter float through the floorboards to be his music while finally unpacking. And he thoroughly enjoys seeing you comfortable in his space especially when you look up and give him a dazzling smile, one that rivals the glimmer of sun on water.

“Hey Bucky! Where have you been hiding all day? You missed all the fun of five hundred.” You fake a pout but it doesn’t stay long enough for Bucky to offer playing now to get you back to smiling. “The guys are bringing home pizza by the way. I think they’re on their way back now.” Bucky knows that they’ve been texting him about what pizza to get and in Pietro’s own words make sure the girls don’t have cards all over the table because they’re digging right in.

“Okay.” You open your mouth to say something else to him but Sams barging into the house yelling about it being dinnertime before you can. Bucky glares at his friend because of it which no one thinks twice about because of how often it happens. 

“Boy am I glad I didn’t take that bet.” When Pietro comes in with a slice of pizza already halfway eaten in his hand you nudge Wanda and the two of you start laughing. He soon joins the three of you in the living room, placing a box of pizza on the coffee table and making you scoot over so he can sit on the other side of you.

“So what are we watching?”

“Put on Step Brothers. Speedball here hasn’t stopped quoting it all day.” Sam says as he comes in to sit on the other couch his plate piled with slices in hand. 

When Yelena comes over later to let you guys know the painting is officially done you’re all in the living room except for Bucky who’s pretending to scroll on his phone in the dining room where he’s actually just watching you and how you throw your head back laughing at the movie.

You’re obsessed with the kitchen and you make sure Yelena knows that as soon as you see it. But the light brown she picked for the living room is going to suit it nicely and the bachelor blue, the name of which you only remember because of Kate making a joke about you all being bachelors, the dining room is doesn’t clash with the colors of the kitchen. Something you were nervous about with how it just opens straight up to it. You had even told Yelena that she could change the colors of the kitchen if it didn’t work but she insisted it would, you should’ve believed her. 

Yels more than anything though was excited to show you all the surprises she had. She had painted all of your rooms, hiding it successfully with her ploy of having all of you sleep in the basement with Kate for a sleepover in the new house the previous night and making sure to save her room for last. Kate got a light purple, her favorite color and it matches her archery uniform. Wanda got a whiter room, so the walls can reflect light better for her plants. And you got a nice shade of what you would just call orangey red but Yelena called red earth, she said it fits with you well and she would’ve given you a yellow room if she didn’t hate all the options she was shown so much. It’s safe to say you’re all as obsessed with your rooms as you are how the kitchen turned out.

The next couple days are hectic and full of chaos as furniture starts getting delivered. The table and chairs for the dining room come first and you’re pretty sure none of you were ready for it to be so big that the delivery men would have to carry it around the house and through the sliding glass door in the back. The lift top coffee table for the living room comes that same day just a little later. The couch and the tv stand don’t come until the next day both at different times and the couch took the delivery men a hot minute to get all inside the house. It was exhausting watching them go back and forth and you were all glad that it was the last furniture delivery until someone decides they need something else.

The minute they were gone and the giant sectional was the way you all wanted it you piled onto it and laid there joking about ‘if only there was a tv’ and ‘why did we get a coffee table if we can’t even reach it’ ‘we should’ve just gotten a bar table to go behind the couch’ and ‘well we still could’. You and Wanda actually fall asleep on the couch that night after being up late reading together and are woken up the next morning by Kate, who starts talking about going shopping after breakfast to get a tv and couch blankets.

Shopping takes you guys the whole day and you were glad that you and Wanda took her car instead of all taking Yels. Kate ends up getting the biggest tv she could find for the living room and insisting that it’s a necessity that there’s one in each of your rooms even though you all agree that that’s a little overkill. She had just said to suck it because she was the one with the money and stuck her tongue out. You’re pretty sure the employee who helped load them into Yelena’s Jeep thought Kate was crazy. 

Yelena picks out probably, definitely, too many different blankets for the couch and a big storage basket to keep the ones not in use. That alone took forever to the point that you and Kate had walked away from her and Wanda and when you came back they were still picking some out. While they did that though you and Kate picked out stuff for the two of your private bathrooms and the shared half bath downstairs. You know better than to try to pick stuff out for Yelena’s and Wanda’s. 

And to finish shopping off Kate tells Wanda to go crazy in a plant nursery. Where she basically pulled a Ron Swanson in Home Depot when an employee came up to ask if she needed any help. Her car ends up being almost overflowing with plants and pots and potting soil while everything else gets shoved into Yelena’s.

The first few days of classes go by without a hitch but also without much excitement. Every class is just going over the syllabus and getting out early. It was nice if not a little redundant. It helps that you share some classes with Wanda, she always helps make the boring days better. Wednesdays and Thursdays you don’t have any with her though after going without knowing anyone in your Wednesday classes you sort of started to dread your Thursday ones, knowing that it was likely to be dull too. That is until you look up from your laptop in your Directed by Women film class at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Bucky! Sam!” You wave to them from your seat in the back of the room as they come in the door to your right. Bucky prevents the smile from forming on his face as he takes you in and immediately goes to sit next to you wanting both to get away from Sam’s rambling about how this class will definitely give him brownie points with Wanda and to get the seat before anyone else can. You laugh as Sam shoves past his friend to get there first, happy to see you as much as you’re happy to see them. And in order to sit next to both of them you move over a chair leaving Bucky with the seat in the corner next to the window. “Did Pietro also convince you guys to take an easy A film class?”

“Yeah.” Bucky answers you not noticing the way your gaze stays on him the whole time he sits and you ask the question as he busies himself with getting his own laptop out.

“So…is it safe to assume that since you’re here that-”

“No Wanda took the Zombie media one with Kate and Yelena. I would’ve too but I love Greta Gerwig and I was curious to see if Twilight would be part of the curriculum.” You look back at the syllabus you pulled up on your screen then. “Honestly though this is a pretty stacked list of films and I’m excited to watch and dig into them.” Sam turns your laptop to face him rather than doing the work of pulling it up on his own. 

“Oh hey Twilight is on here.”

“I know!” You're all excitement as you exclaim it both because your new friends are in the class together and having one of your favorite comfort movies on the list. 

“I don’t know any of these.” Bucky speaks, grumbles really because he didn’t even pick this class he made Sam pick for him. It’s not that he’s mad about it, he’s more than ecstatic to see you in one of his classes, something he’ll never admit to anyone, but he thought Sam would put him in a class with movies he’s seen.

“What?” You turn towards him, the shock clearly written on your face. “How? Have you lived under a rock?”

“Bucky doesn’t watch movies.”

“I watch movies.”

“Yeah, boring long ones.” 

“Just because you and Pietro have the attention spans of flies doesn’t mean The Lord of the Ring movies are boring.” Bucky points at Sam, annoyed that they’re having this argument again.

“Steve doesn’t like them either, he's just too nice to say anything.” Bucky knows Sam is just trying to rile him up; he knows Steve likes them enough to watch them every once in a while.

“None of you have to watch them with me then.” You laugh at the two of them bickering and Bucky almost freezes completely when you turn your gaze to him, eyes shining at him.

“I’d watch them with you big guy. I like Lord of the Rings.”

“Yeah?” He’s almost breathless with the word, something Sam will definitely make fun of him about later.

“Yeah.” It’s then that Bucky smiles at you for the first time and your heart nearly leaps out of your chest because God is it a great smile and you’ve just decided that it’ll be your mission to get him to smile as much as possible from now on. Your teacher starts talking then and you have to forcibly pull your eyes away from the man next to you. That doesn’t stop him from watching you though, enjoying how you light up with excitement at what the curriculum is.

The next time you see Bucky is a couple days later when you’re sitting on the roof outside of your window leaning back on your hands as you watch the stars. You happened to glance over to see him in the window facing you at his desk working on something on his laptop. A smile graces your face and you find a bit of rubble next to you and ping it off of his window to get his attention, something you didn’t actually have to do because he had noticed you immediately when he sat down. And instead of reading an article for class like he was supposed to be doing he was studying how peaceful you look staring up at the sky. He never wished that he shared Steve’s talent for drawing till this moment when he wants to capture it and keep it for himself tucked safely away in a notebook.

When the piece of shingle hits his window he stops pretending to not be looking at you and makes a show of lifting his head away from the screen in front of him and towards you. You send him an enthusiastic wave, getting a quick wave of his hand in return before mouthing ‘wow’ motioning to the sky and then using your hands to show that you’re mind blown at the view. This causes him to let out a chuckle and you find yourself wishing you were able to hear it. His attention goes back to his laptop and you lay back again. When he finds himself getting distracted once more and getting another flash of a scene in his secret field with you laying next to him staring up at the sky that he knows has more stars in it at night than here he decides that this just won’t do if he can’t get any work done. The next night when you go out to the roof the first thing you do is glance over to find that Bucky’s moved his desk.

Tuesday you’re running late for class and in your rush to leave land on your ankle wrong going down the porch steps. It bends under your weight and you curse as you go down because of it. The pain in the moment leaves you to just see white and for a second you don’t feel anything before it hits you full force. Bucky who was getting back from the gym hears your exclamation and he’s over next to you before either of you know it.

“What happened?” His voice is full of worry, something you don’t notice as you grit your teeth at the pain.

“Nothing, just twisted my ankle a bit. I’m good.” Your voice doesn’t hold any of your normal cheery demeanor, it’s cold and dismissive, you don’t even call him big guy in greeting like you usually do, and Bucky can tell that it wasn’t just a bit. You grab onto the railing on the steps and pull yourself up to stand grimacing at the weight on your right foot before adjusting all of it to your left. Bucky notices immediately.

“How about we just sit down?” 

“No, I'm fine, I have to get to class. I’m running late already.”

“Oh no you don’t.” He doesn’t stand up to get in your way until you try walking away, almost falling as you half step on the ankle you just twisted. Your face contorts each time you try to put weight on it trying to sidestep him but failing each time.

“God, move Barnes!” Bucky’s eyes widen at your angry use of his last name before they narrow at you. Your own eyes widen at the look on his face and you can’t move away quick enough to avoid him throwing you over his shoulder just careful enough to not jostle your ankle too much. 

“Where are your keys?” 

“I threw them in a river. Put me down!” You yell at him wiggling around trying to get free so you can keep trying to head to class, which you do realize is a bad decision but you can’t start missing in just the second week. He moves up the steps and stops at the door.

“Stop being a fucking brat.” You freeze at his words and the growl in his voice as he says them, not sure how to feel about finding that as hot as you do. Your frozen state gives him the ability to fish out your keys from your jacket pocket and unlock the door. Before you know it you’re being dumped onto the couch and Bucky has one knee on it next to your feet while he unties your shoes to get them off. He’s gentle while he takes your right shoe off but more forceful with the left one. When his finger tips touch the top of your right sock you shoot up in a sitting position holding your hands out to stop him.

“Woah what are you doing?”

“I need to see how bad it is.”

“I told you I’m fine, it’s fine.” You seeth through clenched teeth annoyed that he won’t just take your word for it and leave you to your own devices. He responds with gentle pressure on your ankle causing you to gasp at the pain that shoots around it like a circle unable to contain it at how sudden it was. He immediately feels bad for causing you pain but he didn’t know any other way to get you to shut up and let him work.

“Yeah, no it’s not. Now will you let me make sure it’s just a sprain.” You huff and cross your arms leaning back letting him slowly, carefully peel your sock off grumbling about how it’s not sprained. He feels around your ankle and rotates it in a few circles analyzing your reactions to it all. “It’s not fractured but I’d say you definitely sprained it.” He stands then placing your foot down gently. “Stay there. Don’t. Move.” He puts emphasis on his words before turning and leaving the house.

Bucky lets out an aggravated sigh when he’s outside before rushing next door so he can grab his laptop and stuff to take care of your ankle hopefully before you decide to not listen to him and start trying to walk on it again. Why you’re being difficult about this he doesn’t know but he’ll make sure you listen to him about this. He knows from watching teammates and hearing about players in other sports just how bad a sprained ankle can be.

You roll your eyes at his demand as soon as the door shuts behind him. You mock him to yourself but listen to his words anyway at least for a little bit. But then you start to get hungry and he never said he was definitely coming back, though that could be heavily implied. You wait another minute listening for any movement on the porch and when there is none you smile and start to scoot your way off the couch before trying, and failing at first, to stand. You’re crossing in front of the entryway when the door opens again and you freeze, turning to look at Bucky’s hulking figure like a deer caught in headlights.

“What are you doing?” He eyes you down as he pauses in the doorway, your book bag that you dropped when you fell on one shoulder and his own bag on the other.

“Getting a snack.”

“Should’ve waited. Stay on your left foot.” He demands after shutting the door and going into the living room to put the bags down next to the couch.

“Stop telling me what to do.” You listen to him though regretting trying to walk to the kitchen.

“I’d be able to if you would’ve listened from the get go. Are you able to get back to the couch?”

“I’m hungry.” You shake your head in defiance and move your foot in a way that you slide closer to the dining room.

“Yeah, I’ll get you something. Can you get back to the couch or do I need to carry you to it again?”

“I’ve got it.” You shuffle slide on one foot for a bit before starting to limp back to the couch. “I wanted my sugar strawberries. They’re in the fridge in the glass container with the red lid. Oh and grab a spoon too.” You go back to the couch settling further in than you were before, your ankle hurting as you use your feet to push yourself into the corner of it. When Bucky comes back in he hands you the container and your spoon before bringing his bag up to rest next to him. He pulls out the bandage and the ice pack he brought over with him when he moves to grab your ankle you pull it back to you cringing as you do so.

“What are you doing now?” 

“Wrapping and icing your sprain.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing which it probably is but you’re not used to people taking care of you like this.

“It’s fine I can do it.” You place the container behind you on the bar table you all did end up getting for behind the couch before holding your hands out. “Give it.”

“Why do you insist on fighting me?” Bucky’s voice is softer than it has ever been and it throws you off. “You’re hurt, just let me take care of you.” Something in his voice, probably the unspoken pleading, has you giving in and moving your ankle into his hold while you focus back on your snack. Bucky wraps the bandage snugly around your ankle before grabbing one of the big couch pillows and propping it up. You jump as the cold from the ice pack seeps through the bandage as soon as he puts it on.

“It’ll need to stay elevated.” He explains as he moves up the couch to sit next to you dragging his bag with him to get his laptop out. “I’ll check on the pack in a bit to take it off and put it in your freezer so you can use it again when it refreezes.” He reaches behind him and then hands you the tv remote that he had grabbed. You take it from him watching as he opens his laptop and pulls up his email without looking at you.

“Are…are you staying?” You ask in a  timid voice after a moment of silence not understanding why he would after you had just been so mean to him when all he was trying to do was help you.

“Yeah. Gotta make sure you don’t try walking on it again out of spite or stubbornness.” He glances at you with a half smile on his face so you know he’s partly joking having sensed a change in your previously hostile demeanor to a more somber one. He goes back to emailing his teachers about missing class. You turn on The Office for something to watch and the two of you are silent again for a bit.

“Thank you.” Your voice is quiet and you’re looking down at your slices of strawberries as you speak. Bucky might not have heard it if he wasn’t right next to you.

“For what?”

“Taking care of me. I’ve never really had anyone do that for me. In my house it was a very like take care of yourself and stay out of the way environment. So I’m sorry about being mean earlier.” A pang goes through Bucky’s heart thinking of you getting hurt and having no one to help you at any age.

“Nah you’re good. Weren’t even that mean, trust me I know mean. Besides you’re in pain we all lash out sometimes when that happens.” You laugh at that and it’s like a weight is lifted from his shoulders, happy to see you smiling again.

“Don’t I know it! You should see this place during shark week since we’re all synced up.” He smiles at you. 

When Bucky’s laptop is put away, the sugar strawberries are tried for the first time, and the ice pack is in the freezer you get him to bring you one of the big blankets and convince him to get under it with you. The two of you fall into easy conversation while you watch The Office and at some point you fall asleep on Bucky’s shoulder. When the girls get back to the house worried about why you weren’t in classes or answering your phone they find the two of you asleep, Bucky's arm wrapped around your shoulder, your head on his chest and the tv still going.

They debate with each other over whether or not they should wake you. Wanda wanting to to find out why you weren’t in class, Kate wanting to let you rest knowing how little you actually sleep, and Yelena getting her phone out to snap a picture to send the group chat. The flash that she forgot she had on causes you to stir as you begin to wake and for Bucky to immediately wake up a little disoriented because he’s not used to falling asleep in the middle of the day. But not moving too much so you can stay comfortable in your position if you don’t wake up. You need your rest and he knows from experience how much being in pain can zap the energy from your body.

“Girls.” He nods in a greeting, his voice hushed.

“Hey Bucky!” Kate exclaims before Wanda shushes her. Bucky glares because of the volume of her voice and you wake up all the way.

“Hey guys. What time is it?” You yawn as you speak and move to sit up straight.

“Close to four.” Yelena answers looking to see if the photo she had taken was ruined by the flash, it wasn’t.

“Oh my god I need to start on dinner. I should’ve put an alarm on or something but I didn’t think I’d pass out.” You move to get up but Bucky uses the arm around your shoulders to keep you back against the couch. Which doesn’t go unnoticed by your friends.

“How come you weren’t in class? Are you already skipping without me?” Wanda mocks being hurt from just the thought of you not skipping with her. 

“Oh!” You pull the blanket up over your feet so they can see your wrapped up ankle that’s still propped up on the couch pillow. “I twisted my ankle a little and Bucky demanded I stay off of it.”

“She sprained it.” He rolls his eyes as you undermine your injury again. “I don’t know how bad it is but I’m sure it’ll swell by the morning.” When he goes home he’ll have to talk to Sam about coming to confirm his thought of it being just a grade one sprain.

“I’m fine. I keep telling you.” It’s your turn to roll your eyes at him. “Wands remember when I rolled my ankle on the stairs the day before our graduation trip? It’s like that.”

“Oh so your ankle is fucked and you’re not fine.” She says remembering how much pain that time had caused you.

“You’ve done this before?” 

“I am too fine.” You ignore Bucky and focus on Wanda. “Remember I was walking around an amusement park two days later?”

“That doesn’t mean you were okay! Pietro and I even tried to get you to let us reschedule the whole trip but you were too stubborn. And your ankle hasn’t been the same since you roll it way more often than you did and there’s that weird clicking thing!”

“What weird clicking thing?”

“Oh do you wanna hear it’s so cool that it does this.” You answer Bucky this time ignoring Wanda as you begin to rotate your left ankle it clicking each rotation. “Sometimes there will be a really big one that hurts for a second.” You keep going and Bucky’s eyes widen as he hurries to stop you from doing it anymore. You flinch as you pull both feet up towards you to prevent him from doing it and Yelena snaps out of looking at her phone.

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“What?!”

“You’re not gonna be able to get up the stairs and Bucky’s right you need to rest it.” Yelena crosses her arms showing that there’s no debating with her but you still try.

“What if Bucky takes me upstairs like he brought me in here?”

“Unless Bucky wants to stay the night to make sure you can get back down here, because I know you won’t stay up there all day tomorrow, then no dice.” You light up and turn towards the man next to you.

“It could be like a sleepover! We can stay up all night and watch movies and gossip and snack.” He just stares at you, not quite sure how to react to your excitement of spending time with him which you take as him about to turn you down. “Please big guy, I just wanna be in my bed.” Your soft and a little sad voice does him in and he starts to get up off the couch. “Where are you going?”

“I didn’t exactly make an overnight bag when I originally came over. But you’re letting Sam take a look at your ankle when I come back.” He turns to go only catching a glimpse of your giant smile at his words.

“So what happened?” Kate asks after Bucky leaves sitting by your feet and bringing them into her lap so she can examine the wrap job on your ankle without you realizing because she knows you’d make a big deal about it if you did.

“I was rushing to my first class because I was running late and landed on my ankle wrong going down the porch steps.”

“When does Barnes come in?” Wanda takes Bucky’s previous spot as Yelena speaks.

“He saw it happen and then threw me over his shoulder like a neanderthal when I kept trying to go to class. And then he wrapped and iced it staying to make sure I didn’t walk around on it which was so unnecessary. He’s got a real attitude problem.”

“No babe, that's you.” Wanda pats your shoulder. “And I’m sure you’re leaving some parts of the story out to make yourself seem better. We know you get mean when something is wrong. We love you even with that though.”

“Well, well, well look who decided to come home. Did you have a nice nap?” Sam teases Bucky as soon as he sees him enter the house.

“How do you know I napped?”

“A little birdie told us.” He shows Bucky the picture of him and you on the couch that Yelena had sent the group text.

“Delete that. You need to come with me when I go back over to the girls place.”

“A, I can't, it's just in the messages now and B, why?” Sam follows his friend up stairs and to his room where he watches him start packing.

“Y/n sprained her ankle want you to make sure it’s not worse than I think it is.”

“Oh shit really?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before leaving to rush over hoping to God it wasn’t worse than Bucky thought. Bucky would’ve followed him, wanting to be there when he checks your ankle out, wanting to make sure he was gentle and doesn’t twist it too far any way to make you grimace the way you’ve been doing, but he has to make sure he doesn’t miss anything he’ll need because he knows he won’t be coming back once he gets you upstairs. But Sam being on his way over puts more of a rush in his movements.

Pietro and Sam show up at the house at the same time, the former only knowing what was wrong because he was getting home as Sam rushed out the door. He muttered a ‘Jesus Christ’ before just beating him to the door not bothering knocking. He remembers the last time you did this just as well as Wanda, how despite how in pain you were you still tried to do everything normally, how the only reason you hadn’t made food like the original plan had been was because he convinced you he had been craving chinese, how Wanda had to distract you while he got all the bags in the car so you wouldn’t insist on helping, and how they kept acting like they needed breaks at the stupid fucking amusement park you insisted on still going to just so they could get you off of the foot that was obviously bothering you. He knows that you’re stubborn and annoying and mean when someone shows the first hint of trying to, in your own words, baby you when they’re just trying to look out for you. He and Wanda have both been on the receiving end of that enough times that they figured out ways to do it secretly. 

“Printesa! Your favorite twin is here!”

“Oh god who told you?” You groan knowing that he only came in the way he did, rushing into the living room his gaze immediately going to you and then down to your ankle before back up, because he found out about your not a big deal injury.

“That you’re a klutz and messed up your good ankle? Sam.” He points his thumb over his shoulder at the man coming in behind him after shutting the door. “I’m feeling like pizza tonight! You guys want some? Great, I'll order it.” You miss the shared look he and Wanda have before he starts to talk and instead brush it off as Pietro just inviting himself over like you’ve been sure would happen from the start.

“Alright I’m gonna have to unwrap your ankle to check it out.” Sam sits next to Kate on the couch and you just nod and look away, biting your tongue instead of fighting him knowing this was Bucky’s one stipulation to him staying. And right now all you want is him close his presence helping you feel better for some reason, and it’s definitely not because of the urge to take care of you rolls off of him in waves or the crush you may or may not have on him.

Bucky enters the house in time to hear you going on to Sam about how your ankle really isn’t that bad. When you let out a yelp that cuts you off mid sentence he’s rushing into the living room. He finds Sam with your ankle in hand and your own hands covering your mouth wide eyed like you were shocked the sound came out of you. Everyone else’s eyes are wide and looking at you.

“What are you doing? I told you to check on her ankle not torture her.”

“I am checking on it, Buck. I didn’t even bend it that far.” Sam defends himself, sensing the energy around his best friend that emerges when he’s tempted to lose his shit on someone. The last thing he wants is for Bucky to hit him the way he's seen him do others.  “It’s not bruised right now and it looks only a little swollen. Keep an eye on it though because I’m sure it’ll balloon up compared to the other one overnight. You were right it looks like a grade one sprain but if it starts to bruise it might be a two.” He looks at you then. “Stay off of it as much as you can for the next two days, keep it wrapped and elevated. Icing it here and there wouldn’t hurt either.” He doesn’t say that if the pain ebbs quicker that you can walk around on it sooner sensing you’re the type to start lying about it that way, but he’ll make sure everyone else knows.

“Two days?!” You whip your head up to look at Bucky. “How trustworthy even is Sam?” The aforementioned man brings a hand to his heart and his face crumbles in a mock heartbreak. “I mean what gives him the right to decide what’s wrong with me?”

“He’s studying physical therapy and helps the nurse with our team during the season.”

“Oh. Still two days seems excessive, give me a night to sleep it off and I’ll be good as new!”

“Sorry, doctor’s orders.” Sam lightly pats your ankle before getting up. “Kate, can you wrap her ankle back up? If I'm late to relieve Steve at the rink he’ll make me do extra cardio in the gym.” Sam leaves then and Kate just gets up and hands the bandage to Bucky seeing the look on his face and recognizing it because it’s one that she sees a decent amount. One that shows the worry for you specifically after an injury whether it’s you cutting yourself in the kitchen or running into corners on furniture and a big bruise forming on your thighs or sides because of it. She’s seen it on Wanda’s and Yelena’s and even Pietro’s enough that even if it’s trying to be disguised she can see it.

“Pizza’s ordered!” Pietro comes back into the living room having hung back even after the pizza was actually ordered so he could ask Sam in hushed voices how bad it was, a conversation Kate and Yelena joined into and one you would’ve heard if you weren’t busy still insisting to Bucky that you were fine. Pietro takes a seat next to Wanda while Kate and Yelena pull the sections of the couch out to make room for the coffee table to fit in front of them. Bucky takes Kate's previous seat pulling your bad ankle into his lap and leaving your other to fall to the ground without the inner sections of the couch being there. 

“You wanna play five hundred?” Yelena asks, sitting on the opposite side of the table knowing that it’ll be a great way to distract you from your ankle. 

“Hell yeah I do!” You shoot up into a better sitting position at her words. Kate shuffles the cards and Pietro digs in the table for a notebook and pen to keep score. 

“I’ll keep score!”

“No you won’t.” Yelena snatches the notebook from his hands. “I’m not having you feed points to Wanda and Y/n again. Bucky can keep score.” She throws the notebook into Bucky’s lap who catches the corner of it before it can hit your ankle.

“How am I supposed to do that?” 

“You’ll just write our names down and after each round we’ll tell you how many points we’re gaining or losing and you’ll keep doing the math until someone reaches five hundred.”

“Pietro can’t be trusted because he adds on points to whatever those two say.” Kate chimes in after you finish explaining it, motioning with her head towards you and Wanda.

“You guys caught me one time!”

“And who knows how often you did it without us realizing!”

“And we had no idea that it was happening.” Wanda says in a way that tells everyone she definitely knew it was happening. Something everyone caught onto with how poorly she acted surprised when Kate and Yelena caught him. Neither of them know that you knew too and that it was your idea to begin with and the twins have yet to rat you out.

A pillow gets thrown at her which she hits straight into Pietro's face causing you to laugh. Bucky smiles at seeing the light come back into you after it being missing since your fall. It’s the smile and companion look on his face as he watches you that has Yelena snapping another picture to send the group chat later. It’s a look that tells her he’s already in deep for you whether he realizes or not and she’ll have to start plotting with Kate as soon as possible.

Kate ends up winning after battling for it with Wanda for a while. The pizza got delivered near the end of the game and sat on the dining room table ignored by everyone but Pietro until the final rounds finished. You all eat while watching the first Harry Potter movie at Wanda’s request. And when the pizza’s gone and the movie’s over Pietro takes the dishes into the kitchen and loads them into the dishwasher before saying his goodbyes. 

You argue with Bucky about how you’ll get upstairs hating that your friends side with him rather than saying you’d be fine to walk upstairs. It’s only when he threatens to throw you over his shoulder again that you give in and agree to hopping on his back. You hug the girls goodnight before begrudgingly letting Bucky help you climb onto the couch and latching onto him. You try to ignore the feel of his big hands looped under your knees to keep you steady and the warmth that seeps through your jeans from them, instead focusing on keeping your grip on his bag that he put in your hands so he could hold onto you and making sure your arms don’t end up choking him while you direct him to your room. Not that you needed to, you all still have your name tags that Kate made up. 

“You care if I use your shower doll?” Bucky asks after depositing you on your bed he had rinsed off in the gym when he was done but has yet to have a proper shower. The pet name slips out without him even noticing but it feels like a whole flight of birds has taken off in your stomach. All you can do is shake your head not thinking about how he can’t see you do it with his back still to you until he turns around giving you an expectant look, hands still rummaging through his bag to get clean clothes out. 

“Oh sorry no go ahead it’s right through that door.” You gesture towards it before bracing your hands on your bed to get ready to stand.

“Can I trust you not to move around while not in eyesight?” 

“I just wanna change while you’re in there and then I promise I’ll be back in bed.” You hold your pinky out and he follows your lead wrapping his bigger one around yours leaning his head down to kiss his hand the same time you do yours. “I can’t believe a big guy like you knows how to properly pinky promise!” You’re giddy with your excitement over seeing the giant man duck down to seal it with a kiss.

“I have a younger sister.” He shrugs before turning and heading into the bathroom, leaving you to adjust to the new information while you change into your pajamas, an old hockey jersey with Pietro’s number on it and sleep shorts. You’re tucked in bed with your current rewatch of The Nanny on when Bucky comes back out in sweats and a short sleeve shirt. It’s the first time his right arm and it’s sleeve of tattoos are on display for you. You can feel yourself staring wanting to know what they are but also ogling the way the shirt hugs his biceps before he breaks you out of your stupor.

“Nice shirt.” He nods his head in your direction as you look over at him where he’s shoving his stuff back in his bag. Your smile widens as you realize it’s an Avengers jersey from last season.

“Thanks! Piet gave it to me for being his number one fan! Of course then Wanda complained and we have matching ones now.” You stand quickly enough to stumble and wince at the same time to turn around and show Bucky the back with Maximoff across your shoulders and the number 73, the twins' birthday, underneath it. 

Before looking at it Bucky rushes over to steady you since your hands worry about holding up the shoulders to give him a better view of it instead of being free to catch yourself. When he does look up he has to ignore the acidic feeling eating away at his stomach at seeing Maximoffs name on your back when he wants it, needs it now that he knows it’s an option, to be his.

“Careful! Jesus it’s like you just have no self preservation instincts.” He changes the topic, hoping to ignore whatever jealousy there is for his teammate being close with you. 

His, big, hands on your hips guide you to sit back down and their warmth sinks in through your shorts and as soon as you’re sat back down you’re covering your legs with the blanket to hide the goosebumps along your flesh and squeeze your thighs together. You find yourself wondering how you’re going to survive the night next to him if this is how your body chooses to react to just the heat of his hands when you know for a fact that you’re a cuddler when you sleep despite trying otherwise. Yelena hates having to share a bed with you during your friend getaways because of it.

“What are you watching?” Bucky’s face scrunches up and his head turns to look at the tv as Fran laughs.

“The Nanny.”

“Why does she sound like that?”

“It’s part of her charm. Sit, I’ll start the show from the beginning since you’ve obviously never seen it.” You pat the bed next to you and grab the remote to go back to the first season before he can even think to argue about it. Not that he would, the excitement in your eyes was enough to sit next to you and be tortured by a nasally voice forever. Bucky finds it to be a trend in his life now to want to keep you happy. 

“As you wish.” He says as he slides in next to you causing you to gasp and look at him.

“Like from The Princess Bride?”

“The what?” Bucky knows what you’re referring to, he loves The Princess Bride. He however doesn’t want you to realize that he had meant it similarly to the way Westly meant it and hopes that you don’t notice his cheeks going pink like he’s sure they are at almost being caught.

“You know what, add it to the watch list. We have to educate you on film Mr. Only watches Lord of The Rings.”

“I don’t only watch Lord of The Rings.” Bucky groans in a joking way before letting out a chuckle and sending butterflies to your stomach. You have to force yourself to look back at the tv so he doesn’t catch you trying to memorize his smile but that doesn’t stop you from watching from your periphery and the smile never quite leaves his face the rest of the time you do.

You fall asleep around a season in after insisting you weren’t tired and you definitely weren’t yawning. Bucky can’t help but to smile at it when he notices you’ve dozed off. As he’s about to get up and use the light of the tv to find a spare blanket to move to sleep on the floor you move so your head rests on his lower chest. At first he freezes not sure what to do, even though the only difference between now and earlier is you’re in bed instead of on a couch, before he decides to just get comfortable. He slowly adjusts so he’s laying flat instead of in his propped up half sitting position making sure he jostles you as little as possible. Once he’s repositioned your head ends up resting closer to where his heart is than his stomach and his left arm stays laid out under your neck and shoulders. When your arm moves to wrap around his waist and pull him closer in your sleep, your body molding into the side of his, no one would be able to wipe the smile off of his face if they tried. Bucky falls asleep soon after arm wrapped around your shoulders and that smile still there.

Bucky wakes up first the next morning at first a little disoriented at the feel of another person in his arms and the smell of your strawberry shampoo surrounding him but once he finds his footing he holds you closer to him burying his nose further into your hair and adjusting his hips so you wouldn’t be able to notice his morning wood. It’s been a while since he’s woken up with anyone in bed with him or even held anyone the way he’s holding you and he makes sure to take the time to relish it because he’s not sure when the next time he’ll experience it again. He doesn’t fight the urge to go back to sleep for once until you start moving in his arms. 

You groan as you start to wake up and turn onto your other side wapping your arm around the object next to you. Which would normally be your pillow or the stuffed dog you’ve had since you were a kid so you freeze when it’s a warm body. As Bucky’s scent invades your senses when your nose gets buried in his chest you slowly open your eyes and turn your head up to look at him. Your eyes go wide when they meet his and you scramble back away from him missing the look of disappointment in his eyes. 

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t even think to warn you about my cuddling habits at night. Oh God you probably think I’m a nut. I bet you were so uncomfortable I’m sorry.” Bucky’s face scrunches up as you begin to ramble and he reaches out to put a hand on your arm to interrupt you.

“Hey, hey! It’s alright. Was I or was I not also cuddling you?” That stops you in your train of thought completely as you take in his words and think about exactly how you had woken up, his arms already wrapped around you before you turned and started cuddling him. A grin overtakes your features in a way that reminds Bucky of when it happens to the Grinch in the animated cartoon and you look back over at him.

“Bucky Barnes, are you a secret cuddler?” There’s a playful accusing tone to your voice as you speak.

“Never been much of one must be just having a cute girl next to me that made it happen.” Your face heats at his words and you can already feel yourself overthinking on if he’s flirting with you or not.

“I have to pee.” You blurt it out fast before rushing out of bed grimacing when your ankle takes on weight but dealing with it as you get to the bathroom as quickly as you can. As soon as the door is shut you lean your back against it and let out a breath of air. You stay against the door internally freaking out about Bucky’s flirting for a minute before deciding to give whatever energy he gives you back and actually going to the bathroom and brushing your teeth. When you leave the bathroom he’s pulling his toothbrush and toothpaste out of his bag.

“It’s all yours.” You point your thumb over your shoulder to the bathroom and hobble your way back to the bed to sit down.

“How’s it feeling today?” His head nods towards your ankle.

“It’s fine, much much better than yesterday.” You’re partially lying, it does hurt less than it did but you had tried to feel it up in the bathroom and you’re pretty sure it swelled up a little bit. He hums in response before going to brush his teeth. When he’s back he goes straight to look at said ankle in question.

“Oh sweetheart.” His voice is soft and it’s almost like it pains him to see your injured ankle the way it is when he unwraps it. There’s a little bit of bruising and it did swell but not as much as either of you were worried it would. “Be honest, how is it feeling?” 

“It does feel better, really. Still hurts but nowhere near as much as it did yesterday. Promise.”

“Okay.” He’s gentle as he wraps it back up, resisting the urge to drop a kiss to it. “Do you want to get dressed before we go downstairs?” 

“Are we gonna be going anywhere today?” 

“Absolutely not.”

“Then no, I'll stay in my pjs all day.”

“Alright, hop on then. And then I’ll make you some breakfast and we can watch more of that show from last night.” He turns around and crouches a little so it’s easier for you to climb onto his back. You grab your phone before wrapping yourself around him.

“Wow breakfast and The Nanny you sure know the way to a girl's heart!” You’re beaming as you rest your chin on his shoulder and his hands go to secure your legs.

“I try.” Bucky chuckles and his hands playfully squeeze your calves before he starts heading downstairs. “What do you wanna eat?”

“Can you make French toast?” He drops you on the couch carefully, still being aware of not jostling your ankle too much. 

“Yeah. I’ll be back with the ice pack for your ankle, get comfortable and get it elevated. I’ll start on breakfast after.”

You wait to actually start the show until he gets back with the food but get it ready between him sticking a pillow under your foot and resting the pack on your ankle and going to make your breakfast. You spend the time he’s cooking to scroll through your phone and text the girls about how you’re doing the chat blowing up when you tell them that Bucky’s cooking for you and that you’re letting him. Since you’ve never been one to let other people cook instead wanting to be the one to take care of it. But this time you don’t exactly have a choice in the matter and, not that you would admit it to anyone, you’re kind of enjoying being taken care of. 

When he comes back with french toast topped with powdered sugar and strawberries you could’ve started drooling. Once you put syrup on it and take a bite you swear up and down to him that it’s the best french toast you’ve ever had. He doesn’t believe you because he’s had your food and knows how good your cooking and baking is. But the way you moan at almost each bite and continue to tell him how good it is almost has him believing you. It also makes it hard to focus on the show you insist he needs to watch because it’s, in your words, a classic. He’s quick to take the dishes away to wash them when you’re both done eating even though you insist you can just do them when he starts to let you move around on your own again.

“Do you have anything you have to do for your classes today that you’re missing?”

“No, my professors just told me to go over the powerpoints they’ll be posting later. Do you?” Checking your emails to see if any of them had responded to your sorry I won’t be in class one was one of the things you had done while he cooked. Bucky nods to answer your question.

“Gotta read a couple articles. So I’ll be right back just gotta go grab my laptop.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.” 

When he comes back you continue watching the show with him glancing up now and then in between paragraphs. He gets completely distracted from his article though when you scoot closer to him and rest your head on his shoulder. You turn your head up towards him when you feel his eyes on you for longer than just a glance.

“What? Oh! Is this okay? Sorry I just sorta seem to want to gravitate towards you. Like your arms metal and I’m a magnet.” You let out a nervous chuckle and before you can move away he’s leaning more into you.

“It’s okay doll. Make yourself comfortable.” You beam up at him then before wrapping your arms around his arm and nuzzling into it. It’s very hard for him to keep focused on the article pulled up in front of him then. Thankfully it was the last one he needed to read and he was more than halfway done with it. When he does finish it he wraps the arm around your shoulder after tossing the closed laptop to the side of the couch allowing you to cuddle into his side.

“You know you’re way less grumpy today than you normally are. You’re all cuddly and smiling and talkative.”

“Must’ve woken up on the right side of the bed.” You duck your head down and bite your lip, faking paying attention to Fran and Maxwell to hide the giddy smile that his words send to your face. 

The day goes by with the two of you cuddled up on the couch watching The Nanny. Bucky makes you a sandwich for lunch just the way you ask for it and even lets you sit in the kitchen with him while he did it to give you some sort of movement. He had hovered the whole time you made your way in and back to the couch ready to catch you if you tripped or swoop in to pick you up if you grimaced a little too much. Thankfully neither option happened. And when Wanda, the first of the girls to get home, comes in she finds the two of you on the couch again much like yesterday and can’t help but smile. Bucky misses the feel of you against him when you straighten up to talk to her as she sits by your feet. Yelena gets home not long after stating that Kate will be back late because she picked up a shift at the cafe and let you know that she’s letting Stan, the owner of the place, know that you won’t be able to work for a bit because of your ankle. Which you had started to argue about before abruptly shutting up when she shot you her no nonsense look knowing it was pointless then.

She joins you all on the couch after grabbing bags of snacks, throwing your favorite flavor of Dot’s pretzels your way and Wanda's oreos into her lap on her way to the other side of the couch with her own hot cheetos in her hands. You all sit there talking to each other, Bucky chiming in here and there but mainly just listening, with the show on in the background and Bucky finds himself enjoying himself amidst it all. It wasn’t boring like when he briefly had a dorm to himself and it isn’t chaos like what he lives with now. It’s the closest he’s felt to living at home with his sister and parents and he sinks in the comfortability of it all like a stone in water. He even doesn’t mind when Pietro shows up and makes everything louder and a little bit more chaotic with changing the show to some comedy and reaching over people to steal some of their snacks. 

By the time Kate gets home Pietro is passed out, head leaned back against the couch and snoring and you’re halfway to following him. Bucky hands your Dots to Wanda as he greets the new addition that just collapsed on the couch next to Yelena complaining about it being a long day. Then he slowly moves you to lean against the corner you’re sitting in before making his way off the couch in the moment hating how big it is the way you all have it set up because of how he has to scooch down it. He bids the girls a goodnight before leaning over and picking you up to take you upstairs. You mumble a bit more asleep than awake before leaning into him, Bucky’s quick to turn around before anyone can see the smile that brings to his face. But it’s just a moment too slow because Yelena does notice it and one of her own appears.

You wake up the next day rolling over and stretching your arm out searching for Bucky’s warmth to find your bed empty and immediately opening your eyes. You find Bucky in gym shorts and shirtless doing pushups on the floor. Your sleepy eyes rake over the tattoos that cover his right arm once more, having an urge to grab it and get him to let you trace them with your fingers.

“Bucky?” Your voice is croaky with sleep as you lean over the bed to look at him more. “What’re you doing? What time is it?”

“Early.” He doesn’t have to look at his phone to know that he had set an alarm to get up at five and maybe only twenty minutes have passed since. “Was supposed to hit the gym this morning but didn’t wanna just leave you.” Your heart picks up at the thought and you go back to laying on the bed completely when he finishes his reps and stands up.

“Oh. You could’ve gone.” He goes to say something but you interrupt. “Or maybe not, I probably would’ve gotten up to look for you. But you can go now big guy, I'll stay here.” Your eyes close and Bucky smiles as he realizes you’re ready to pass out again.

“I’ll be back soon okay?” You nod burrowing into your pillows and blankets some more. “Go back to sleep, doll and I’ll be back before you wake up.” He leans over and drops a kiss to your forehead like it’s second nature for him before he realizes that he’s even doing it. A small smile shows on your lips at it and Bucky straightens up, throws his shirt back on, and grabs his bag before heading out. Yelena nods in greeting when she sees him from her spot in the dining room with her morning tea and tells him about the key hidden outside before he can leave.

After he had been at the gym for a while some of his other teammates show up, each one going to their own area except for Sam and Pietro. They make a beeline straight for him when they spot him doing bench presses. He immediately wishes he had both headphones in knowing they’re about to slow him down when he’s been trying to get done as quickly as he can in order to get back before you wake like he said he would.

“How’s my stubborn Printesa?” Pietro asks.

“Fine.” Bucky huffs out his response not wanting to dignify the question with his dumb pet name for you with an answer. He focuses back on the bar in his hands to ignore that acidic feeling that’s eating away at him again.

“Is she staying off that foot?”

“Yeah.” If Sam hadn't been the one to ask he wouldn’t have answered. 

“Yeah I was over last night, she stayed sat on the couch leaned into Bucky the whole time.”

“Wait, you were over last night? Where was my invite?”

“I have a standing invite because of having a twin on the inside.”

“So in other words you just walked in and made yourself at home?”

“Pretty much.” Pietro shrugs as he and Sam go back and forth and Bucky lets out an annoyed growl as he places the bar back on the brackets.

“Are you two here to workout or just bug me?” He doesn’t give them time to respond before making his way over to the treadmills, digging his headphone case out of his bag to put the second one in so they can’t bother him anymore.

“Will the two of you get to work and stop annoying Buck!” Steve comes in at the end and Bucky sends a thankful nod to his friend, getting one in acknowledgement back.

“Sir yes sir!” Pietro fake salutes before nudging Sam towards the squating area.

Admittedly Bucky doesn’t run as far as he normally does but as the clock ticks closer to seven he gets more anxious to get back to you. While part of it is because he said he’d be back before you wake up and intends to stick by that even though you probably, definitely, didn’t even hear it another part of it is he doesn’t want you to wake up and decide to try to get downstairs on your own. He waves to Steve and Scott on his way out, the latter ecstatically waving in return and causing Steve to laugh while Bucky rolls his eyes at how excited he is all the time. He stops at home before heading back next door wanting to grab clean clothes for the night and drop all of his dirty clothes off. 

He does still make it back before you wake up. You’re hugging a spare pillow to your chest and Bucky smiles at the sight even though he wishes he was there in place of it. He knows he smells of sweat though and instead of changing and rejoining you he heads straight into the bathroom to shower.

When you wake up again the shower’s running and instead of Bucky you’re cuddling with the pillow he must’ve been using with how it smells like him. You stretch starfish style and let out a satisfied groan when your shoulder pops before sitting up in tandem with the water turning off. You don’t pay it any mind though, instead rolling your neck to crack it you freeze though your neck still tilted to the side when you spot Bucky in just a towel in the doorway of the bathroom. You’re both frozen in space eyes wide for a moment before he speaks.

“Left my bag out here.” You can only nod as your eyes take in all of the bare skin that’s revealed to you. You can’t help but marvel at the man in front of you only snapping out of it once the doors shut again. Your face immediately heats up as you realize the way you had just been gaping at him and you fall back into bed pulling a pillow over your face to hide from the embarrassment of it. 

“Y/n? What are you doing?” Bucky asks as he finds you a chuckle falling from his lips at your muffled ‘waiting for death’ in response. He sits next to you leaning over and trying to gently remove the pillow only lifting it an inch before your arms lock it down again. “C’mon dollbaby.” The pet name practically causes you to melt, something that Bucky stores away for later, and allows him to remove the pillow but doesn’t stop your hands from covering your face instead. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m an idiot who just gawked when I should’ve responded to you or looked away at least.” An amused smile takes its proper place on Bucky’s face at your response.

“Does it make it better or worse if I tell you I would’ve done the same thing if roles were reversed?”

“You would’ve?” That gets you to peek through your fingers and look at him.

“Of course I would’ve have you seen yourself? I can barely keep my eyes off of your legs in your sleep shorts!” You laugh more at the way he says it than the words themselves. “There she is.” His voice goes soft as your eyes meet his and his hand goes to caress the side of your face. There’s suddenly suffocating tension in the room and all Bucky wants to do is lean down and kiss you and all you want is for him to do it. But instead he pulls away and stands up putting some distance between the two of you. “You want breakfast again?” He crouches for you to get on his back like the morning before.

“Yeah. What do you normally eat after going to the gym in the morning?” You get up and get on letting him carry you downstairs.

“A giant helping of oatmeal.” He spreads his arms out hoping, praying, to hear you laugh again for his wish to be granted before they go back to making sure you’re secure on his back.

“I think we have some of the apple kind in the pantry. You could make us oatmeal, maybe add some fruits like strawberries or bananas.”

“As you wish.” You want to call him out on it again but he had already said he’d never seen The Princess Bride and Bucky wants to run and hide because you’re sure to catch on to his lie if he keeps saying it.

The two of you have big helpings of oatmeal with Bucky having a bigger portion and finishing what you couldn’t eat and continuing to watch The Nanny. Your day continues like that until you realize you’re both missing your film class. He reassures you that Sam will be taking notes on what they say in class and sharing them with the two of you so you can respond in the discussion post your teacher is gonna post later and that if you want to you two can watch it then. So after lunch, which consists of your favorite takeout, the two of you put on Don’t Worry Darling and you take notes on it as you watch it about how it depicts men’s desire to control and how it critiques society's expectations placed on women so it’ll be easier to answer the discussion post.

“Oh shit is this The Nanny?” Sam asks later when he just walks in.

“Yeah!”

“What, you don’t knock anymore?” You and Bucky respond at the same time you completely unbothered with Sam’s unexpected presence and Bucky completely bothered by it.

“Pietro said he just shows up, I’m gonna just show up. Now move over Buck this shows the best!” He tosses the notebook open to where he took notes during the film class into Bucky’s lap before squeezing in between the two of you despite all the room on the couch.

“You know the show?”

“My sister would watch it all the time so naturally I got into it.”

“You can’t just walk into their place without them knowing you’re showing up.”

“Pietro does it and Y/n doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Oh I don't, we used to leave our doors open randomly when we were still in the dorms and talk to the people who walked past.”

“You’re gonna start locking your door.” He points at you after he has a moment to take in the new information you just told him. “And you go sit on the other side of the couch.” He points at Sam then before pointing over his shoulder to the other couch corner not appreciating the fact that Sam forced his way into his spot next to you.

“Relax Buck, you can sit next to your girl again later. I won’t be here for long.” Bucky grumbles to himself before moving over some more so he’s not pressed up against Sam anymore. He folds his arms across his chest as his friend resituates himself to get comfortable. You don’t notice Sam call you Bucky’s girl and Bucky doesn’t comment on it or how it calms down the unreasonable possessiveness that was just taking him over.

Sam doesn’t leave until after dinner which consists of Mac and cheese and chicken both made by Yelena and the second Harry Potter movie is over, Wanda’s pick. When he does leave Bucky immediately moves back to sit next to you and you’re quick to lean back into his warmth. It doesn’t go unnoticed by Yelena or Kate who share a look with each other but does go unnoticed by Wanda who moves to your other side in between you and the couch corner to show you pictures of the plants she’s thinking of getting to add to the collection around the house. 

“So Bucky, when’s your first game of the season?” Kate asks, drawing his attention from you to the other two girls, one sitting criss-cross and the other with one leg stretched out and the other bent.

“Two weeks, practice starts tomorrow morning.”

“God, that means Piet’s gonna be over all the time to ‘fuel up’.” Wanda groans in mock annoyance and uses finger quotations around what he always says when he shows up after practice.

“Bad news Wanda, I think that means Sam’s gonna be over too.” You all laugh as she lets out an actual groan of annoyance at Yelena’s definitely correct assumption. “I bet it’s safe to assume you will be too Barnes?” She smirks in his direction.

“Why are we all apparently coming here after practices?”

“Because Y/n’s collecting hockey players like pokemon cards with her cooking.”

“I’ve been cooking for Pietro after practices for a while now.” You explain for Bucky when you recognize the confusion still behind his eyes. “You’re all welcome to come with him even though I’ve only really interacted with you three.”

“You’re not gonna be feeding a whole team every couple days.”

“Says you.” You mumble to yourself low enough that Bucky’s the only one who catches it. You get a squeeze of your thigh from him in response.

“Yeah, and I’m right.” He whispers it in your ear sending a shiver down your spine. 

“Fine, just your household then.” You keep the for now part to yourself this time and he nods in agreement knowing there’s no stopping that.

“I have an early shift tomorrow so I should head up for the night.” Yelena says as she gets up. “Wanda you should too otherwise you’re going to be a zombie and affect our tips.” 

“I hate when you’re right.” Wanda reluctantly gets up too before turning to you Bucky and Kate. “Night guys see you tomorrow.”

The three of you aren’t long to follow. You and Kate talk about how you both want to have a craft night soon while Bucky just sits and listens happy to just watch the two of you get excited over the ideas of doing paint nights or clay nights or whatever other crafts you’re both naming. He admittedly stops paying that much attention and instead is focused on watching how your eyes light up and you start to talk with your hands the more excited you get. The second you start to yawn though he’s insisting it’s time for bed and lets you slowly hobble up the stairs on your own this time knowing you’ll have to be able to do it tomorrow while he’s gone.

“When’s your practice tomorrow?” You ask him as the two of you brush your teeth next to each other.

“Early, I’ll probably be gone when you wake up. And then I have a shift at the rink so I won’t be over when Pietro shows up after practice.”

“Are you gonna start staying at your place tomorrow then?” You speak with your toothbrush in your mouth and Bucky nods before leaning down to spit into the sink.

“Yeah, I probably should. How’s your ankle feeling? You think you’ll be okay on it?”

“It feels a lot better. I'll be fine to walk on it tomorrow I think.”

The two of you don’t even try to act like you won’t end up cuddling that night immediately getting comfortable wrapped up in each other's arms once you’re in bed. Neither of you wanting to start sleeping alone again after tonight but knowing that there’s no other option with the excuse of him needing to stay because of your ankle no longer being available once you start walking on it. You had forgotten how nice it was to sleep next to another human being like this since your last relationship and Bucky’s never had anyone to sleep next to where it was as nice as it was sleeping next to you. He had never craved another person's presence quite like how he craves yours. It’s almost painful for him to unwrap himself from you in the morning when he has to go and he drops a kiss on your forehead before leaving longing to be coming back to you after.

The days go by and your ankle slowly goes back to as normal as it can. The only difference is you tend to bend it awkwardly just enough to send a quick zip of pain up it before it’s fine again now. But they also go by with the hockey players next door making themselves at home in your home after each practice. Sam and Pietro are over all the time, Pietro because he’s family and Sam because he’s this close to getting Wanda to say yes to a date, his words. 

Bucky finds any excuse he can to stick close to you. He helps you cook if there’s still anything left to make when they come over or bake if you feel like making a dessert. He sits next to you at the dining table, sickeningly close as Sam teases him with later, and just watches you, studies you really, when you’re not right next to each other. His favorite time to watch you is when you have them over for breakfast and you cook while they sit in the dining room talking with the girls. You move about the kitchen with an elegance you don’t have anywhere else and hum to yourself normally with soft music on in the background. The morning sun shines on you and he’s caught you just basking in it a few times. You’re just utterly and completely beautiful in your element and it always pushes him one step closer in the direction of taking you to his field. 

The Avengers win their first two games of the season and for both all of you show up dressed up to match with the boys, a pact you had all made with Pietro when he started complaining about having to wear suits. And while the four of you don’t get quite as dressed up as the team, Yelena and Kate show up in business casual outfits and you and Wanda dress in what Pietro calls kindergarten professional. Which means fun colors and not a lot of skin showing you both wear your matching overalls once Wanda with a long sleeved red shirt and you with a loose green sweater underneath before you switch to your cute flowery skirts. 

It’s not enough to distract Bucky. Sure his eyes get drawn to you during breaks or when he gets penalties, which has happened less him not wanting to be as violent on the ice now that he knows a sweetheart like you is watching him and not wanting you to see his rough edges even if you may have seen them before. But he takes the game too seriously to let his eyes stray from the puck while he’s actively playing. No matter how much you stick out in the crowd or how the sunshine you emit as you cheer them on could melt the ice. It’s not until the third game of the season that he gets a little bit distracted. You show up in a corset top sundress and a cardigan and Bucky can’t help but keep stealing glances your way, hating that he can’t stop himself from looking at your tits like some kind of school boy. Little does he know he’s not the only one who can’t help but look.

It’s halfway through the game when Bucky lines up in front of Brock Rumlow, Hydra’s known enforcer who they just switched to play right wing instead of left, and the look on his face already has Bucky knowing he’s about to say something to piss him off. 

“That’s some fan you guys got over there Barnes.” He nods his head in your direction. “I’m tempted to get the team to just let you guys score just to watch her jump up and down and cheer.”

“Don’t fucking look at her Rumlow.” Bucky growls out in response not wanting him to even think about you.

The match goes on and Bucky is hyper aware of where Rumlow is the whole time and how he skates by the glass in front of you and Wanda. He suddenly really misses Yelena’s guard dog presence that he knows would deter his attention but her and Kate couldn’t make it this game. It’s not too long before The Avengers score and the crowd goes wild with cheering and when Bucky should be searching out your beaming smile he’s watching Rumlow look your way.

When they get lined up again Brock whistles as he slides into place in front of Bucky.

“That dress really hugs her just right bet it’d look better bunched up around her waist while I-” The ref blows the whistle to start and immediately Bucky’s tossing his stick down and flicking his gloves off with Brock following suit. Bucky doesn’t waste any time grabbing onto him and starting to swing. He sees red as they fight and it doesn't take long before Bucky has Brock knocked out and they’re both going down on the ice. He stays there until the refs come to separate them and once he’s up he heads straight to the penalty box knowing he’s going to get a five minute penalty for fighting on the ice. He’s smirking when he turns back towards the rink enjoying how disoriented Rumlow is as he gets up from the ice.

After the game, that The Avengers had won, you and Wanda wait in the parking lot for the boys. Pietro’s the first one out, the rest of them not far behind him, and he runs over to the two of you as soon as he spots you. The three of you do your regular celebratory group hug before you turn and immediately seek out Bucky to give him a hug. His arms wrap around you and a smile slowly forms on his previously angry looking face. As soon as you’re in his arms thoughts of Brock Rumlow’s leering are out of his head. 

“Wanna go somewhere?” He speaks into your hair and you smile into his chest while you answer.

“With you big guy? Always.”

“Wanda, I'm stealing her.” The two of you separate except for your hands that Bucky had entwined together. 

“Have fun!” Your friend says as she waves to you.

“But what about celebrating?” Pietro asks because you were all supposed to go out for an early dinner.

“Celebrate without us.” Bucky calls back not pausing as he leads you to Sam’s truck that he convinced him to let him borrow with the thought that he’d be able to take your spot in Wanda’s car. He opens the passenger side door and helps you in before rounding his way to the driver's seat. He’s quick to shed the suit jacket and loosen his tie once he’s in the car and you bite your lip and look away before he can glance your way again, hoping he didn’t catch you ogling him because Bucky Barnes looks damn good in a suit but even better when he’s getting out of one.

“So where are we going big guy?” You ask a few minutes into the drive.

‘Somewhere secret.” Bucky’s been speeding trying to get you there as soon as possible while not going so fast that he could get the two of you into an accident. His dreams are about to come true quite literally because all he seems to be able to do at night is dream about you laying with him in the field. 

“Ooo a surprise. I love surprises! I didn’t get a lot of them growing up. Presents were unwrapped if there were any and my family didn’t really do anything out of a schedule. There was one time I thought my parents were going to throw me a surprise party but they had just forgotten my birthday.” Bucky’s grip on the wheel tightens, it seems everything you say about your family is bad and you say it so nonchalantly that he knows it’s just how you were always treated. “So I’ve never had one of those despite how much I’d like one.” Bucky stores that information away for later as he pulls into a parking spot near a trail that leads to the field. 

“Do you bring me out to the middle of nowhere to kill me?” You ask as he helps you out of the truck, his tie now discarded and the sleeves of his button up rolled up while his suit jacket is clutched in his hand. It’s hard for you to tear your eyes away from his forearms but by some miracle you do. 

“No, c’mon.” He chuckles at your joke and grabs your hand again to lead you along the trail. He keeps you close to him under the guise of making sure you don’t trip, which he’s doing that too, but really it’s mainly to have you close. And you’re all too happy to be close to him. Your comfortable conversation goes stagnant as the trail opens up to the clearing and you take in the field of flowers in front of you.

“Wow!” You’re breathless as you take it in and Bucky gives you a moment before pulling you to the spot he normally sits in where it’s mainly just grass. He sits and spreads out the jacket brought with the two of you for you to sit on so you don’t get grass stains on your pretty dress. You slowly sit taking in the sight around you before tuning into a bee on one of the daisies. Bucky leans back on his hands and studies you. He was right, you do make this place even more beautiful. 

“This is so beautiful, Bucky.”

“Ya it is.” He’s looking at you something you don’t know because you’re too busy touching the petals of a pink flower.

“I bet you bring all the girls here.” You tease him as you pluck the flower you’re studying to twirl between your fingers.

“I’ve only ever brought you dollbaby. Steve doesn’t even know about this place.” You turn your head to look at him, your eyes meeting his. You’re shocked to hear it and the way that he’s looking at you combined with the bomb he just dropped your heart feels like it’s just completely overflowing. And before you even know what you’re doing you’re leaning over and placing a kiss on his lips. 

“Sorry! I don’t know-” You’re quick to start to pull back, shocked by your actions but you don’t get far before Bucky’s hand is on the back of your neck stopping you from going any farther, he’s positively beaming which you would argue is a better sight than the field you’re in.

“Ain’t nothing to be sorry for.” He pulls your lips back to his knowing that he’s about to be an addict.

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It really seemed like a no-brainer to you when the topic came up at the engagement dinner. Steve and Natasha weren’t trying to kick him out. In fact, it wasn’t even their idea. He was the one who said it made the most sense, that they needed their space and he should find his own. Sam joked that he just didn’t wanna hear the bed banging on the other side of the wall, if they “knew what he meant.” Bucky’s face, and the red on Steve’s cheeks, told you he wasn’t too far off. 

So, when he mentioned to you that he wanted to keep a roommate, you didn’t hesitate to offer that he move into your apartment. After all, Wanda had moved out a year ago when her and Vision found a house on the outskirts of the city. You had the extra room, and you didn’t mind offering him help. You had known him for years throughout college, if only through mutual friends, but you enjoyed his company. He was the type that didn’t expect anything out of you during conversation. It flowed naturally, or if it didn’t then you simply sat in comfortable silence. You had discovered through several discussions that you shared the same taste in literature, and you both preferred the night to the morning. 

You knew living together would be easy, and you were nothing if not capable of adapting. If need be, you’d just work around each other's schedules and respect the other’s space. You had never had any expectations of your roommates, not since you became used to your own capability. If you needed something done, you’d figure out how to do it. Wanda had said several times that she often wasn’t even aware you were around, given your nature to tending to yourself. You understood what she meant, because there was a point in time where you had to force the habit. Your last relationship was happy, you really had no right to complain… it was only that he never wanted to do any favor you asked. Something as simple as taking out the trash could turn into a huge argument about you “suffocating” him. Which was fine, you had found in the recent years that you liked your independence more than reliance on others.

So, when you offered, you assured Bucky that you knew how to pull your weight. You were not simply asking him just because you thought it’d be useful to have a man around. 

You figured you were on the same page when he gave you an easy smile, a teasing scrunch of his nose, and leaned over to say, “Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetheart.” 

Oh, you were wrong.

~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅

It started small, with chivalrous things you hadn’t realized you missed until he did them so easily. There was no show about it, no performance. It wasn’t grand or mind blowing. 

He opened your door. 

The day he moved in, you had been out grocery shopping, getting home right as he finished up. He had gone back outside to park his car. You beat him up the stairs, grocery bags making red indents in the skin of each of your arms. You didn’t mind, until you came to the door and found you couldn’t even reach it. You mumbled several curses while trying to maneuver for your keys and not drop the bags, this was a weekly occurrence after all. 

“Let me,” came that familiar voice from behind you, two hands reaching for the bags on your arms before you had a chance to even respond.

He glanced down at your arms with a frown, looking at you as if disappointed. Then, bags in hand, he reached for his key and opened the door, waiting for you to enter first. You blinked at his steady smile, looking between him and the entrance to the apartment. When you walked in, he followed behind and came to set the bags on the counter. 

“You don’t have to do that,” you stopped him as he began taking things out of the bags, “I’m sure you need to unpack.” 

He simply scrunched his nose as if you were just being silly, “I am capable of both, you know.” 

And you supposed you did know, given his success on the college hockey team. The strength and stamina shared between him and Steve was a highlighting topic among many broadcasting channels. Not that you paid attention, or anything. Still, though it was a helpful gesture, something about it made you uncomfortable enough to stop him again. “It’s just that…” you offered a smile, “I’m kind of crazy about organizing everything.” 

He glanced between your eyes and the fidgeting of your fingers, stepping back with an easy smile and a, “Whatever you say,” before retreating to his room to unpack.

It continued like that, small things that you didn’t know how to feel about. After all, opening the door for others was just polite. It spoke to how introverted you were that it was a novelty. The same applied to carrying heavier objects, or offering to do your laundry when he was already putting in a load. You were baffled to have them returned to you perfectly folded. 

You supposed you were just good friends who enjoyed each other's company, even if his accommodating attitude set you off balance. You enjoyed how he paid attention. Getting to know each other was a simple exchange of observations, where you learned that you mirrored the other often. Except for a few things. 

It was late afternoon on a sunday, you had just stepped out of the shower and thrown on a long shirt and shorts. You stepped out of your room, into the living area where the golden New York sunset seeped through the windows. There was Bucky, haloed by the light, setting a book back on your shelves only to take another off. You stopped and watched as he ran his finger over the spine, then split the pages. His brows drew together, but his lip turned up. 

“What is it?” You spoke up. 

He looked up to you immediately, only his eyes seemed to drag up from your bare legs to your wet hair. That smile grew into a smirk, his tongue darting out over his bottom lip. He took his time, like he always seemed to. Like he didn’t know what it meant to rush. Yet he never left you hanging, “You’ve annotated every book on this shelf.” 

It wasn’t a question, just an observation, lifting the book in his hands as if to prove the point. He was holding Pride and Prejudice. Your eyes widened as you took sight of your neat scribbles in pink ink, taking several steps forward and opening your mouth to respond. 

Only, he beat you to it, eyes flickering back to the page, “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Mr. Darcy described using the word ‘daddy.’” 

Your mouth fell open completely, in fact your jaw might have unhinged itself altogether. The way he read the word aloud with no shame whatsoever? You remembered feeling embarrassed just writing it across the page. 

You forced yourself to stand straighter, crossing your arms and clearing your throat. 

“Well, you obviously haven’t been on booktok very often, then.” You raised your brow, turning the challenge onto him. 

He only took it in stride, leaning a shoulder against the bookshelf and giving you a deliberate once over. “Oh really? You’re telling me there’s an entire community out there for the kinds of things you write in these margins?” He turned his attention back to the flipping pages, muttering more so to himself, “interesting.”

You scoffed, finally reaching out and snatching the book from his hungry eyes, “Oh, give me that!” You turned to place it back where it belonged, next to Emma. “And for your information, no. Not all of them are annotated.” You expecting more teasing from where he stood, still leaned on the shelves. Like he was right where he wanted to be. Only, his smug expression softened into something closer to curiosity. “Yeah, I was wondering about that…” then he reached a corded arm over you, almost caging you between him and the bookshelf. You lowered your eyes immediately, because seriously, he wasn’t even flexing, were his biceps naturally that large? Was that normal? It felt disrespectful to even look. But he brought it back down soon after, holding in his hand the one book you hadn’t touched with a pen. 

When he still didn’t move away, you took it upon yourself, taking a considerable step to the side. He only thumbed through the pages, as if to prove his point, “What’s so different about The Notebook?” 

What couldn’t be more different? You wanted to say. You simply turned your eyes to the shelves, exhaling a dissatisfied breath. “It’s unrealistic.” 

“Unrealistic?” He laughed, pointing to the top shelf, “More than The Chronicles of Narnia?” Which was littered with your takes on favorite moments and quotes. 

You rolled your eyes, “It’s unrealism disguised as realistic.” You shrugged, trying not to sound bitter, “I mean, what kind of man genuinely asks a woman what she wants, and then vows to give her all of it?” 

He didn’t miss a beat, “A good one.” His voice was softer then, and you didn’t like the look in his eyes when you met them again. Like he was reading you now, like you were a puzzle he was slowly piecing together. He looked as if he just found another fitted piece. 

“Yes, well,” you tried to sound unbothered, because you were unbothered. It didn’t matter. It never had. “Sometimes you have to be ‘a good man’ for yourself.” 

The conversation ended there, because you felt exposed under his gaze, and plucked a book before retreating back to your room. The Hobbit this time. 

You hadn’t noticed the book was missing until you walked into the apartment a week later and noticed the unbalanced lean of other books on the shelf. Some had fallen over into the empty spot it had left. Your mouth turned into a frown, but you quickly brushed it off. Maybe he wanted to read it. Maybe he’d feel the same way you did in the end, that it was a pointless kind of fantasy, and you would laugh together about it.  

When it returned to its spot, however, you felt your palms itch immediately. For what reason, you didn’t know. You asked him if he liked it the following morning, and he gave a simple “yeah,” that somehow made you more antsy. He didn’t give anything else but a shrug, before turning the conversation to teasing you about your inability to get a pancake to the perfect temperature without burning it on one side. 

When you were alone in the apartment, you finally groaned in frustration and picked it up. You didn’t know what you expected, because you knew he didn’t so much as highlight his books, and yet… 

You found quotes highlighted in marker to match the cover, small annotations written in black at the edge of the pages. 

“She would tell him what she wanted in her life--her hopes and dreams for the future--and he would listen intently and then promise to make it all come true.” 

“She wanted something else, something different, something more. Passion and romance, perhaps, or maybe quiet conversations in candlelit rooms, or perhaps something as simple as not being second.” (Nicholas Sparks, 2000). 

And off to the side: You deserve all of it. Everything.

You shut the book immediately and put it back, stepping away with a hand over your chest. It was as if you actually heard alarms go off in the back of your brain, red sirens flaring. It was unfair of him to plant any idea of that in your head. You wringed your hands and turned away, not liking the chasm that formed in your chest. The ache it created. Within minutes you had your bag and were out of the apartment, trying to get as far from that bookshelf as possible. 

Then it became… more. He took notice of your work schedule several weeks in, noting when you would usually come home late and when you usually went without dinner as a result. Suddenly, you were coming home to dinner on the table and a Bucky who only smiled and asked about your day. Suddenly, the dishwasher was emptied before you had a chance to get to it. Suddenly, the washer wasn’t making that horrible noise anymore and the volume on your TV didn’t randomly move up and down. But he never mentioned the bookshelf. 

You didn’t let it affect your expectations. He was just being nice, trying to make a good impression. It was sweet. Gentlemanly. You continued your routine as you had before he moved in, only more deliberately. In hindsight, you might not even have noticed yourself doing it. Anything you said you would do, you made sure it got done early. Even if he brushed you off and said he would take out the trash in the morning, you would wake up early and do it, responding innocently when he eyed the new bag in the can. 

You worked hard at your HR internship, then came home and worked some more. You liked the space clean and organized, probably more than you even realized. It’s only that you were used to relying on yourself; not even your maintenance men were helpful–

“What are you doing?” Bucky said from somewhere above you, his tone sounding like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. 

You slid out from under the sink, wrench in hand, “There’s a leak.”

The crease in his brow was obvious, his mouth opened as if you said something offensive, “Didn’t you just get back from work?” 

“Mhm.” You figured you could work and talk, leaning back under the sink. 

“And you didn’t think to–hey!” Before you knew it, a hand was wrapped around your ankle, and you were tugged across the tile until you were no longer laying under the sink. Bucky had knelt down, like getting closer would get his point across, “I’m right here.” 

Yes, yes he was. Right there. Close enough that you could lean up and you’d be sharing the same breath. You could pick the grey out from the blue in his eyes, the hint of something solemn, yet all you did was look at him with a questioning expression.

He sighed, shaking his head, “You’ve been working all day, let me fix the sink.” He held his hand out for the wrench.

You didn’t give it to him, “You’ve been working too.”

“From home,” he said simply, “You have been on your feet–”

“This doesn’t require me to be on my feet.” You motioned to the fact that you were very much on the floor. 

He turned his head away, muttered something that sounded an awful lot like “unbelievable” before taking a deep breath and meeting your eyes again, “Why won’t you let me help?”

You didn’t want to open that topic at the moment, so you decided to hit him with the biggest card you had, “Do you not think I’m capable of fixing the sink?”

The look he gave you told you he was not going to fall for that game, but he only said: “I think you’re incapable of relaxing.” 

You shrugged, “I’ll relax when the sink is fixed.” 

“Or,” the wrench was plucked from your hand when you least expected it, “You go change, get settled, and I will have this fixed in thirty minutes.” 

“Or,” you growled, reaching for the wrench he held high above your head, “you could let me–” you huffed, shifting to reach higher, “just give it–” you didn’t even think before using his shoulder as leverage, and your sentence turned into a squeal as you fell forward. Directly onto him. Your thighs split across his abdomen as you landed, his breath coming out in a rough exhale as he hit the tile. You hadn’t had much time to catch yourself and focus on grabbing the wrench, meaning you fell directly onto his chest. 

You were certainly sharing air now. 

The look on his face was… you didn’t have time to read the look on his face. You scrambled off him so quickly, muttering several “I’m so sorry”s and “oh my god”s because you were splayed completely across him and you felt way more than you should have and–

You only breathed once you got back to the safety of your room, realizing then that you basically just surrendered the battle. Your pride swelled, scolded you for losing focus all because you forgot what it felt like to be pressed up against…

You shook your head, not the time. 

The next morning, you would turn the faucet to find the sink working perfectly. No leak at all. And Bucky wouldn’t mention a thing.

~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅

Somehow, it got worse after that. You noticed the vase on the coffee table, the green one you found thrifting, had a new bouquet every week. Now, when you came home late, he wouldn’t have just made you dinner, but he’d wait to eat his with you. At the table, without a phone in sight. When you went somewhere, found yourself cold halfway through whatever event you were attending, he’d appear with an extra jacket he’d brought, “because you were too stubborn to grab one, doll, even though you always get cold.” It was so… domestic. So unlike the life you had made. 

So much so that at times, you panicked. Wanda and Natasha didn’t understand it, no matter how much you tried to explain it. They told you to lean into it, and you didn’t know how to tell them you couldn’t. You had been pretty certain that you were happy as you were. You enjoyed your alone time, your career, and the community you had made. You didn’t need romance. You had once been told that love was a disease to a woman with ambition, and you had believed it wholeheartedly. 

Now, you weren’t so sure. 

You found yourself conflicted once you realized that no, James Barnes was not going to turn around at some point and resent you for all the helpful things he had done. You weren’t sure when it became such an obvious part of his character. Maybe somewhere between him knocking on the door while you showered to place towels—fresh from the dryer—on your counter and him calling every clinic in town on a Friday night to see who could fit you in when you were sick. 

 “Fuck—“ he threw the phone down on the couch next to your hip. He was crouching in front of you, hand running over his frustrated face. “Every clinic closed at 5.”

You only hummed in acknowledgment, too achy to care. You had been in and out of sleep the entire evening, going between shivering with a fever and breaking into a cold sweat. You only became more aware when you noticed him standing, reaching for his coat, “What are you—“

“We’re going to the ER.” He said as if he wasn’t, in your opinion, half mad. He shrugged on his coat then did a once over for you, turning to your room to presumably grab your shoes. 

“What?” You croaked in the most astonished voice you could muster, sitting up on your elbows, “Buck–no, there’s no reason–” 

He looked over his shoulder at you as if you were the crazy one, motioning to your form spread across the couch, “You’ve been like this all day. You can barely walk, you won’t eat, you’re feverish–”

“Listen to me…” You pushed yourself up slowly, your heart thundering like each movement was equivalent to a mile, “It is just a cold, I’m sorry–” 

He stepped forward then, “Why are you apologizing?” 

“I didn’t mean to take up your day, and I don’t want you to have to spend your evening taking me somewhere or nursing me back to health.” You gave him a kind smile. You appreciated him, so much so that something else was blooming next to that ache in your chest. A sort of… fluttering. But this wasn’t his job, “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you.” 

He was silent for the time it took him to close the remaining space, his expression looking as if you had spoken a different language entirely. He crouched next to you, shaking his head and gently wrapping his hands around your shoulders to help you lay back down, “I don’t have anywhere else to be…” 

“Still, I–” 

“Why do you apologize for existing?” The words seemed to spill out of him, as if he couldn’t quite keep them in. 

“What?” 

“You’re human,” he whispered your name, absentmindedly checking his watch. It was time for medicine again, he reached for the pain reliever and your water. You had to give it to him, he didn’t look the least bit burdened. “It’s natural to need others.”

You took the medicine, laid your head back down, “I’ve taken care of myself this far, I can handle a common cold.” 

He gave you that same look from the engagement party, but this time you read his smile as something akin to pity, or maybe affection? He lifted a hand to slide over your cheek, curling in your hair and smoothing it over your pillow, “I know you have, but now I’m here too.”

It didn’t matter when, just that you knew. This kindness was who he was, only that didn’t make him yours. The sweet words, soft touches, helpful gestures… James Barnes was a good man. Perhaps one of the best you would ever come to know, and that in of itself was more difficult than anything. You couldn’t brush him off as incompetent, or ill-mannered, or drowning in toxic masculinity, which had been so easy when dating up to that point. Only you weren’t dating, he wasn’t yours. 

It became apparent when, a year after moving in, he announced, “I’m thinking of looking for my own space.” 

You were eating takeout on the couch when he said it, curled up on opposite ends of and talking about nothing in particular prior. Then suddenly every nerve in your body lit, your focus zeroing. 

Had you been wrong? Did he think you were taking advantage after all? 

All you could say was, “Oh.” You set your carton down, suddenly not hungry. Suddenly the quiet atmosphere of the room felt as if you were suffocating. 

He seemed to track the movement, as if assessing. His mouth pulled into a frown, “Yeah.” 

You pulled your lips inward, biting down on them as you looked literally anywhere else. Which time had it been? When your laundry was done in the dryer, and you hadn’t noticed because you were knee-deep in paperwork, so he folded all of it for you? You hadn’t known what to think when he handed you a pile of your neatly folded panties with a slight blush across his cheeks. Or was it when he noticed your books were overflowing, so he surprised you on your birthday by building in an entire new section to the shelves? 

The apartment was practically screaming his name at this point, filled to the brim with his actions. The flowers, the late night dinners, the shelves, all of it. If he had been trying to worm his way in, he had done it. 

“It’s just… I saw some listings go up down the street,” he continued, picking at his chow mein, “figured I’d give them a look. Couldn’t hurt, right?” 

Right. 

You forced your throat to clear, planting on a supportive smile. This was your best friend,  moving onto a new chapter of his life, you should be happy. You nodded eagerly, “Yes, that sounds great… um,” you unraveled your legs from below you, “I think I’m ready for bed actually…” 

He furrowed his brows, “Already? We’re not even through the first Scream.” 

You scrambled for words, “It’s been a long day.” 

“Ah, I see,” bless him and his ability to bounce right back, “Natasha said you’re an easy scare, but I never thought–”

You smacked his shoulder, “I am not! You’re the one who was so focused on your book the other day that you jumped at the sound of the doorbell!”

He waved his finger at you, “Not fair! I was reading Stephen King!”

“And what? You were scared the pages were going to jump out at you?” 

His mouth fell open, “Oh, you’re not going anywhere–” 

Bucky jumped up at the same time as you, blocking your exit from the living you. You squealed, trying to get around the coffee table, but fuck him for being a goalkeeper. He follows you around, and you resort to trying to step onto the table for a fast exit, only to find his arms wrapping around you from behind. You screamed, the giggle in your throat making you feel like a schoolgirl with a crush. 

“Got you!” His voice was rough with laughter, and you felt him step back, easily picking you up completely. 

“Oh my god,” you slapped his arm around your waist, “put me down!”

“Nope,” he fell back on the couch, bringing you with him. It was unfair, the way he held you, like your previous conversation never happened. His breath tickled your neck as he promised, “Not until we get through at least the first two movies.” 

You did eventually make it back to your room that night, shutting the door and falling against it. Your hand came up to cover your mouth. You weren’t proud of the sobs that followed shortly after, or that chasm in your chest that now felt as if it had doubled in size. You groaned in frustration, pulling at your roots. 

“There were rules, I had rules…” you pleaded to the ceiling, as if someone would hear you, as you sank to the floor. “I said I wouldn’t change my expectations… that I wouldn’t let it go too far.” 

But at some point… it had. At some point, that fluttering you had felt began to wrap around the discomfort like a balm over your heart. It soothed, forcing your guard down. Letting you dream before you even realized you had been. Thinking about what it would be like to trust someone again. To have… not a man to babysit, but a partner who was equal to you in character and intelligence. You thought the girls who said they wanted a man they could turn their brains off with were naive, stupid even, until you started imagining how easy it would be with him. Not all the time, but like an even exchange. Being able to trust that he had you, just as he would trust that you had him. 

It was becoming increasingly obvious what had happened.

“Damnit.” You sobbed, your forehead dropping to your knees. 

You were upset, but also so angry. So pissed off at yourself for letting this happen. You were smarter than this, stronger than this. They said the most intelligent women didn’t fall for this bullshit, and here you were. 

You let yourself cry quietly for another thirty minutes, then you forced yourself up. Off the floor, away from the door. You got ready for bed, and didn’t let yourself cry again. You had felt this before, and you had overcome this before. Yet, as you laid down, closing your eyes, you had a nagging feeling that one realization wasn’t going to go away. 

You didn’t want to be alone forever, not anymore. 

~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅

Claps rang out around the room, a few people drying tears on the corner of their napkins. Yelena’s maid of honor speech was funny and lighthearted, and yet still made hearts swell as she recounted childhood dramas and memories (or lack of) of late nights in college. She was even biting her lip at the end, trying to hold in a smile as she explained how Natasha never thought she’d find her person, until she met Steve. The cliche lines earned raised glasses, and knocked back champagne. 

It was a gorgeous rehearsal dinner, with a small party. Both families had pitched in on the decorations. The colors were muted, but no less beautiful, with red roses centering each table. Candles lit up the entire room, washing everyone in a romantic, golden light. All of the guests were asked to wear colors while Natasha and Steve sat in white. It was everything Natasha had said was dumb before, and you enjoyed seeing her lean into it. 

You enjoyed all of it, so much that it made that ache in your chest feel the size of a canyon. It was the same ache that had been building for a year, and you hated yourself for it. It was their day, and you wanted it to be perfect. But as you watched Steve pull her in, kiss her cheek, and the tension fall from her shoulders… all you could think was that you wanted that. That softness, that intimacy. Falling into someone and not wondering if they’d catch you. 

But you’d been doing this for so long on your own, you weren’t even sure how to appeal to someone anymore. You weren’t necessarily flirty, or even playful unless you really knew the person. You also rarely found yourself attracted to strangers, so how would you even pick someone? There were too many variables, you wondered how anyone figured it out. 

Bucky rose from the chair next to you a few moments later, after Yelena sat down. You watched him, in his blue suit, go to pick up the mic and smile to the room. He opened with something that made the room laugh, but you found yourself in a daze. There was nothing surprising about him, nor how he was dressed. You had seen him walk out of his room, had driven with him on the way here, had plenty of time to adapt to the way he seemed to take up the entire room, and yet… suddenly it felt as if he was the only one in the room. 

You watched his eyes scan the room, “…Folks, I’m just the best man. I can’t speak for Steve or his feelings but, I believe love isn’t about lust or attraction… and yes, it is about friendship. About finding that woman who you want to share everything with, who you can’t get off your mind. But more importantly,” then his eyes landed on yours and he paused. Like it was just him and you and that wide smile, with eyes that matched his suit jacket. Then he found himself, cleared his throat, “it’s about finding the person you want to take care of for the rest of your life. The person that makes effort feel like a privilege…”

His eyes snapped away as he kept speaking, but you felt like you were about to throw up. This was the only variable. Every missing data point combined into one. Everything you wanted, right here. 

And he would be leaving soon. Soon, you would be coming home to an empty apartment that still felt like him. You would have to move on and rebuild each wall, knowing all it took from him was a single look to knock them down. 

Glasses raised, people cheered, the couple kissed. Bucky found his seat next to yours right as you swallowed a lump in your throat. 

“How’d I do?” He leaned into your space, his arm coming around the back of your chair. 

You managed a small smile, grateful for the steady and supportive tone of your voice, “Perfect, very romantic.” 

Dinner was served, and everyone gathered. It was lovely, every single moment of it. The drunken laughter and kind remarks. Natasha and Steve fawning over each other. Sam teasing everyone in sight. Even Tony stood for a speech towards the end. 

You chastised yourself every time the thought popped into your head: I want this. It wasn’t your day. It wasn’t yours to want. Even when your mind felt like it was racing a million miles a minute and you just wished that you had a soft place to land. A place to rest it all. Instead, you had driven away the one person who had been such a driving force in your life the past year. Now he was leaving too. 

You tried to distract yourself by moving to the other side of the table with the excuse of visiting with Natasha to discuss bridesmaids plans for the next morning. It helped, for a moment. She was so lively about how she wanted everything done, and you were good with lists. Little boxes to check off, that was your area. The wine was a good call too, because two glasses in you were giggling and successfully avoiding glances from down the table. 

It would only last so long though, you supposed, because once dinner was over you were out of options. You hugged every last person, even the family members you didn’t know, taking extra long on your goodbyes. But, finally, you met him back at the door with a tense smile. 

Bucky stood with his hands in his pockets, angling his neck to get a better look at you, “You alright?” 

You nodded, bouncing on your heels, “Yeah, ready to go?” The valet would be bringing the car back soon. 

He only tensed his brows and raised the back of his hand to your cheek, “You sure, you’re flushed?” 

“Oh,” you didn’t mean to flinch away, it was only a reflex, “I probably had too much wine.” Which you were regretting, just now remembering that wine did not get you tipsy in the same way vodka or tequila did. You were tired now, and every thought you had from earlier was rushing back. You turned for the doors, not wanting to continue the conversation and knowing he would follow. The valet had, indeed, brought the car around, and you hopped in the passenger side after thanking them. 

Bucky took the driver's seat, adjusting his arm behind your head to reverse out of the narrow lot. He was mostly quiet, save for when he made sure you were buckled. You held your breath against the swelling emotions, trying to bat away the voices in your head. You felt at war, like the two different sides of yourself wanted very different things. One screamed it’s better this way, while the other responded it doesn’t have to be. Both had valid arguments.

In the five years you had been single, you had made the most progress in your career and financial independence. You knew yourself better, had built a better routine, and had become comfortable without the opinions of others. However, there had also been nights where all you wanted was a pair of arms wrapped around you. There were times you ate dinner, and wished you had someone across from you to talk about your day with. Someone to dance in the kitchen with… or even the more intimate aspects. Someone who took their time with you, learning every inch of your skin without a selfish expectation. Someone who just wanted to be with you. 

That lump in your throat became too much, and you coughed into your elbow, trying to release some of the tension in your chest. You began to feel pins and needles breaking out over your skin, your hands feeling restless and unsure of what to do with themselves. 

You felt his eyes glance over at you before focusing back on the road. You were on a backroad now, the dinner having been out of the city. After several moments of quiet traveling, he finally spoke, “I’m not sure if I told you, you look stunning tonight.” It was a soft compliment, his hand slowly reaching over to squeeze your knee, because of course he knew something was wrong. “This dress is lovely.” 

It was too much, all of it. You couldn’t even remember the last time a man complimented something specific on you. When it was dangled in front of you like this, you found you enjoyed it too much. You felt greedy with the need for more, like you wanted this to be your normal. 

But he was leaving. 

The sob tore from your throat before you could stop it, all of it suddenly becoming too much. You brought a hand to cover your mouth, turning away, but it was already too late. Bucky only squeezed your knee one last time before bringing his hand back to the wheel with a pained sigh. You noticed the car slowing, finding him pulling over to the shoulder. You grunted in disapproval, something like an apology. For causing a scene? For being selfish? For having agreed to this in the first place? All of the above?

Once the car stopped, you heard him unbuckle and turn to you. Then, a hand gently pried the one from your mouth, “Sweetheart? Talk to me.” 

You only hung your head, your teeth clenching around more sobs. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to block everything out. 

He was persistent. He moved your hair behind your ear, trying to get a look at you, “What’s going on,” with a plea of your name he said, “please?” 

You shook your head, “I-I’m sorry, I don’t know–” 

“Don’t apologize,” then he was taking your cheeks in his hands, giving you no choice but to turn to him. He made a pained noise when he saw your tears, his thumbs brushing under your eyes, “Tell me what it is, pretty girl. Tell me, and I’ll fix it.”

That felt like salt on a wound, your breath releasing from your chest broken and cracked. You tried to turn away, but he wouldn’t let you. One hand slid to cup your nape while the other unbuckled you, tugging your knees till you faced him more. It only made you cry harder. 

“You gotta talk to me, I can’t do anything if you don’t tell me.” 

You finally broke with a, “You don’t need to do anything!” 

He wasn’t having it, “Bullshit. You’ve been out of it all night, and now you’re bawling your eyes out. Best believe I’m going to figure out what caused those tears and–” 

“I’m tired!” you emphasized the words, trying to give them more meaning than they had on their own. 

His brows furrowed, “Of what?” 

“Everything! All of it.” You motioned your hands as if that was a good explanation, “I’m so fucking selfish! It’s someone else’s night and all I could think about–all I’ve been thinking about–is how goddamn tired I am of doing everything myself.” 

“You don’t have to,” a hand runs through your hair, smoothing it, almost lulling you. 

“But I can! I was! For a long time! And-and then suddenly…” you trailed off, shrugging your shoulders and finally forcing yourself to look away from him. 

He squeezed your knee again, “Suddenly?” 

You shook your head again, but not necessarily to his question. More so, to the tone of his voice, the earnestness of it. He cared so much, and it was as heartbreaking as it was exhilarating to be the center of his attention. 

It must have been the exhilarated side that quietly answered: “You.” 

“Me?” 

“You!” You repeated with more confidence, “You showed me something different and now you’re leaving and… I don’t know…” You searched for the words, “do you ever get tired of being alone?” 

Your question seemed to send the car into such thick silence that you couldn’t stand to stare out the front dash anymore. Slowly, you turned to look at him. For the first time, he wasn’t looking at you. His eyes were downcast, his mouth hung as if he had no clue what to say. 

Shame spread across your cheeks. You’d really done it this time. In a matter of months, weeks for all you knew, he’d be gone. He wanted to leave, and here you were saying silly things. Embarrassing yourself. This was why you hadn’t dated. 

But that was a lie. You hadn’t dated because you hadn’t felt this in a very long time. If ever.

When Bucky finally did move, it was to shift the car back into gear. His other hand moved back to the steering wheel at the same time that you said, “I’m sorry.”

It was his turn to shake his head, “Just…” his voice was rough, pained, “Just let me take you home. I think… I think you need to see something.” He pulled back onto the highway, careful of the speed limit despite the way his fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel. 

The ride was quiet, save for your sniffles as you tried to quit crying. You had no idea what he meant, no clue what he might want to show you at home that you didn’t already know about. Or maybe it was something else… a lease he’d already signed? His bags packed neatly in his room? Maybe he just wanted out of this car before telling you how tiresome this past year has been for him. Either way, you were determined to pull it together by the time you entered the parking garage. 

And you had, for the most part. To his credit, he didn’t seem the least bit angry getting out of the car. You both walked calmly up the stairs to the apartment, and you waited for him to unlock the door. When you walked inside, however, he did not lead you to his room to show you any documents or boxes. He did not turn and give you a piece of his mind. 

He walked to the bookshelf. 

Your face twisted in confusion as his hands went directly to the spine of the book he was after, not even taking a second to search. Like he knew the exact spot it lived in like the back of his hand. And when he turned, you saw the cover was the same book he had pulled months ago when you had stood against those shelves together. The Notebook. The same book he had annotated for you without a word, that you had put back before even beginning to flip through the pages. 

Now, however, he was thumbing through them himself. When he stopped, three fourths through the book, he opened it fully and turned it to you. His eyes met yours again, the first time since you had spoken in the car, as he handed you the book. You took it without question, looking at him for a few moments before finally turning your eyes to the page. And right there, where highlight draws over lines of Noah confessing to Allie what is loving her has meant to him, is the only annotation written in your favorite pink ink: 

When I read these love stories, about a man who cares for a woman until his dying breath, I only ever think of one person. Love at first sight might not exist, but I have cared for you from the very first moment. Then again at every party, every class, every dinner, and every night in this little apartment. 

Oh. 

You blinked several times, reread the words to the point that he probably thought you were illiterate, but you only wanted to make sure they were real. Then you looked up at him, with his bitten lip and puppy-dog eyes. You mouthed wordlessly for several seconds before landing on a single question, “James–” 

“I was betting on you getting curious when the book was missing,” he shrugged, “I guess I was wrong.”

You shook your head, “You weren’t, I-I did look. I just didn’t get too far because…”

“You got scared.” He understood. 

You finally met his eyes, “You don’t think I’m too much?” 

The exhale he let out was soft and full of pity, yet he still stepped forward. “I think,” he said, “that you have been left alone for far too long,” he gently took the book, setting it on the arm of the couch next to you, “and I am sorry that anyone ever made you think you had to do this alone.” 

You couldn’t breathe, “I—“

“I love you.” His hands cradled your face once again, tilting your head up so he could look at you properly. He was so close, close enough to do whatever he pleased, and yet he still waited. 

Only until you said: “I love you too.” 

Then he was kissing you without reprieve. There was no hesitancy in the way he took your purse from your shoulder, dropped it to the floor, and backed you against the door. You took no time in responding, your mouth matching his kiss or kiss. Your hands lifted to his shoulders, sliding down to fist his shirt in your fingers. It was a consuming sort of kiss, and not just for the fact that you hadn’t kissed someone in years. It was him, and it was overwhelming in the way that it felt right. 

You forced yourself to pull back before you could melt into him, giggling when his lifts tried to follow yours. “I just…” you leaned against the door, looking up at him, “I thought you wanted to leave?” 

His breath was already ragged, and you could practically hear his heart pounding. It didn’t stop him from shaking his head, “No, sweetheart.” The words were breathed against your forehead before his lips dropped to your skin, planting kisses on your forehead before reaching your cheeks, “I never wanted to leave, but being near you and…” his exhale was hungered, full of longing, “and not having you, it’s like torture.”

“I know the feeling…” you replied, voice no more than a whisper. 

The groan he let out was like nothing you had heard from any man before, and then his lips were on yours again. There was nothing held back about it. He fisted your hair and tugged your head back, his tongue sliding along yours when you gasped. You didn’t need him to hold you there, you were more than happy to arch into him, and he knew it. His hands slid down next, over the fabric of your butter yellow dress, brushing your thighs right where the hem ends. He mumbled something against your mouth, but you were too focused on the taste and feel of him. His muscles were both hard and soft all in one, and it was the safest place you had ever been. And as you ran your hands down the definition of his abdomen, you found yourself dizzy with more than just love. 

He pulled away when it was obvious you hadn’t heard him, and only then did you notice his fingers brushing up under your dress. Your breath hitched, fingers flexing against him. He nudged your nose with his, whispering again, “Will you let me?” 

You knew what he was asking without any clarification, because your body was miles ahead. Still, you hesitated. Could you do this? Did you still even know how? What if you messed up? Or couldn’t please him? Or–

Bucky whispered your name, thumb brushing your cheek, “You’re overthinking.” 

“It’s just been a long time for me.” You bit your lip, watching his eyes track the movement.

He nodded like he knew, because of course he knew. “I just want you to relax, okay? Let me take care of you.”

You weren't prepared for how easy it would be to listen to the gentle command, to uncurl your fingers from his shirt and let go of the urgency because he had you. One of his arms wrapped around your waist, the other gripping the back of your thigh as he pulled you up to wrap your legs around him. And then he really was against you, and you gasped once again against his mouth. He smiled as he turned to walk down the hall, undoubtedly knowing that you can feel all of him pressed to you. And judging by your perception of size, "all" was a considerable amount.

He entered his room, kicking the door shut behind him, and brought you to his bed. He kissed you once more before laying you down on the white comforter and leaning back to get a better look at you. Your hair fanned across the bed, your dress riding up your thighs. He smirked down at you, his hands coming up to your thighs.

"Gorgeous," he mumbled, more to himself, and ran his hands down to wrap around your ankles. You squealed as he gave a sudden tug, pulling you to the edge of the bed where your thighs fell on either side of him. Your dress was ridden up to your hips by that point, putting the cotton of your ordinary panties on display.

Not that it seemed to make any difference to him, he was still intent on looking his fill. So much so, you felt yourself start to squirm at the attention, letting out a whine.

He only tutted, shrugging off his suit jacket before his hands went to the buttons of his shirt, "Patience, sweetheart." Then he was shirtless, and you couldn't have formed a remark if you wanted to. He was all definition under soft, tanned skin. When he finally brought himself down, his body covering yours, you did not hesitate to run your hands along his chest and shoulders.

You could have stayed there like that for a long while, just feeling him pressed against you. But Bucky was the one losing patience all of the sudden, with his lips against yours and his hands at the hem of your dress. You moaned when he bit down on your bottom lip, pulling it into his mouth, and he used the moment to drag your dress up your sides and over your head. It had been wired, leaving you without the choice of a bra, not that you regretted it when you heard the groan he let out at the sight of you under him.

Then his mouth was on you, leaving nips along your collarbone before dropping down to your breasts. You cursed in response to the sensation, gasping his name as your fingers flew to his hair.

"Fuck," his lips let go of your nipple just to mumble against your skin, "dreamt of this, having you under me," he sucked a hickey onto your skin, "thought I was an awful man for wanting you at my mercy, but look at you," his hips rolled into yours, you arched and pulled at his hair, "you're loving this."

"Please," you breathed as his mouth closed around the other nipple, sucking it into his mouth.

"Please what, baby?" He trailed kisses down your stomach next, before he dropped off the bed. Next thing you knew, he was kneeling in front of you.

You could only squirm, feeling pinned under him, "I-I don't know..."

He hummed, still so pleased with you, "I know, I know what you need. You just lay there and take it, doll."

The very idea made your insides burn, pleasure licking up your spine as his lips ghosted along the seem of your panties. He kissed over them, completely shameless to the eroticism of his actions. You, on the other hand, were speechless. Your thighs were already close to shaking and he had barely touched you. He knew the effect he had too, if his smirk was any clue. He watched for your reaction as he brought his hands to the sides, slowly bringing them down your legs.

You closed your knees on instinct, but he wasn't having it. He pulled them apart with a warning look at you and placed one thigh over his shoulder, his other hand pinning your knee to the bed. You couldn't take your eyes off his expression though, seeing the hunger in his eyes when they finally fell on you. He exhaled, his voice rough, "look at you," then his thumb was pushing through your folds, dragging down the seem of your cunt. "Already so wet for me. I think I deserve a taste, don't you?"

You gasped, not even thinking when you started nodding, your hips already grinding against his thumb.

He hummed, nipping at the inside of your thigh, "So good f'me." Then he was on you, his tongue dragging from your entrance up to your clit before his mouth sucked hard. It was your turn to cry out a curse, your hips coming off the bed. But he adjusted, an arm wrapping under your thigh and coming back up to hold your hips down. "So sweet," his voice vibrated against you, "can't believe you kept this from me."

"Didn't want to," you whined, words barely coherent, "didn't wanna--"

"Mm," he pulled back, thumb replacing his mouth and working your clit while he watched your reaction. "We're gonna make up for all that lost time, yeah baby?"

You nodded incessantly, muttering pleas as his pointer finger found your entrance.

"Gotta get my pretty girl ready," he mumbled, more so to himself, as he pushed the finger in and found immediate resistance. He wasn't discouraged, though. His mouth found your clit again, laving and sucking until your thighs began to shake. Slowly, you began to relax to the point that he was able to move the finger in and out, curving it into the spot that made you let out a needy whine.

"There she is," he smiled against you, and you thought you might have found heaven. When he used a second finger with his tongue, his arm pulling your hips flush against his mouth, you found yourself repeating words over and over. "Please"s and "I love you"s tumbling out. He talked you through all of it. The second your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your mouth opened with a scream, he was encouraging you with "good girl"s and "give it to me"s and "please, baby"s.

He didn't stop until you were tugging on his hair and trying to pull him back up. When he sat up, he was breathing heavily and his pupils were blown wide. And when he brought himself back onto the bed, you could so clearly see the evidence of his arousal. You bit your lip, hard, and looked up at him with an expression you were sure gave away exactly what you wanted. If it didn't, it didn't really matter, because then you were tugging him down over you.

His mouth met yours again, and you tasted yourself on him. It was consuming, but you didn't let it distract you from moving your hands to the zipper of his slacks. You weren't about to waste any time, and with the way he was grinding against you, he wasn't either. He kicked his pants and boxers down the minute you pushed them past his hips, both of you groaning at the feeling of skin on skin.

He kissed you hard once more, taking a moment to admire you, before leaning up on his forearm. Using his other hand, he brought your leg over his hip. His forehead dropping down to yours, he whispered, "You gonna let me take care of you?"

You could only nod, feeling him adjust and run the head of his cock up through your wetness and against your clit. You could barely see straight.

He smiled, pleased, "Breathe for me, okay? Relax." He waited to watch you obey, pulling in a deep breath and melting against him all over again. Then he pushed against you, the tip of him sinking slowly inside. He took the moment to pinch the nipple of one of your breasts, making you cry out and push against him. It made the pleasure of him thrusting into you sharper, better than you ever remember this being.

He cursed once again, moaning your name against your ear as he pulled out only to sink back in. "So tight. Perfect. And just for me, aren't you?"

You nodded, eyes rolling back as he set a rhythm.

But he grasped your chin, made you look at him, "Say it, tell me you're all mine."

It took you a minute to find your words, too focused on the feeling of him dragging inside you. There was no way it had always been like this, there had to be something different about James Barnes. Him and the way his cock pushed inside you, making stars dance in your vision.

"'m yours, Bucky, all yours. Please--"

"That's right," he pushed harder, his thumb dropping back down to press against your clit, "My perfect girl and her tight cunt, all for me." He dropped his mouth to your breast, sucking and biting down gently, "All for me to take care of."

The words mixed with all of the sensations happening in your body were too much. You felt your legs tighten around him, your hips lifting to meet his, mumbling his name and whining into his neck when you began to press kisses into it.

"Mhm, that feel good, doll?" the room was full of the noises of slapping skin and heavy breathing, "You gonna cum for me?"

You cried out, hands grasping at his back and nails dragging across his skin, "Uh huh, please!"

"Don't gotta beg me, I'll give you anything you want. As long as you keep letting me take care of you." He groaned, his thrusts turning sporadic, "Fuck, and letting me spread those legs and ruin this pussy. Please, baby..."

You felt your body tighten around the pleasure, the buildup from your first orgasm to your second feeling ten times more intense. And being pinned down underneath him while he whispered dirty words and promises of love only added to the pleasure as it hit you. You screamed his name so loud he was forced to put a hand over your mouth so the whole apartment wouldn't hear. He didn't last much longer either, his mumbles turning to whimpers of your name as he thrust through his orgasm.

You were both left with ragged breaths and sweaty skin after, letting out quiet laughs as your kisses turned lazy and sweet rather than rough. He ran his hands up and down your sides as you combed yours through his messy hair.

"Are you okay?" You found yourself asking.

He chuckled, "That's my line." Then he slowly began to pull out, watching your reaction as you winced at the soreness. He brought a hand to your hip, rubbing soothing circles into the skin.

You bit your lip, feeling a hint of that worry seep back in as he gave you a once over, "But... are you?"

He met your eyes again, reading you like a book. You watched as it dawned on him what you meant, and he leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead, swiping your hair from your cheeks. "I'm not sure I could be better," he pulled back, "I love you. I mean it, I'm not going anywhere."

You sighed, any last bits of tension seeping from your muscles, "I love you too."

He smiled, standing and scooping you up into his arms once more. You squealed again, securing your arms around his neck and bringing your lips to his for one last peck. He then buried his nose into your neck, breathing in your scent as he walked towards the bathroom.

"What are we doing?" You rested your head on his shoulder as you let him take you wherever he pleased.

"Taking care of you," he said simply, "You barely ate at dinner. So, I'm gonna get you cleaned up, then we'll eat something."

You hummed, and for once didn't worry about the where, or why, or how of it all. You let him take the lead, knowing he had you. You were safe. You were loved.

~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅★⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ~ ⋆⋅

note: this might have felt a little daydreamy... and that's because it really was just me daydreaming about actually finding a competent man. As a hyper-independent, anxious girly, I won't be putting bets on it. But I sure can dream about Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. :)

you've never really liked highways.

they were far too big and still so small at the same time. they were barren and isolating, almost metaphorical in a way you can't quite name; but even though you find they take more than they give, you find escape in route 66.

it stretches and stretches, a torn grey ribbon pulled tight against the ground, disappearing against the horizon. every mile looks exactly the same as the last. its the same yellow lines and the same broken guardrails, the same low hills and the same signs that promise towns that you never seem to ever reach.

it all feels like a big circle that you can't escape, and from the passenger seat of a stranger's car, it certainly feels endless.

the window is half-open, just enough for the wind to tangle in your hair and carry in the smell of gasoline and dry asphalt. the car hums beneath you, the steady rhythm you've been enduring for the past seven hours constant enough that it almost lulls you into forgetting where you are or WHY you're really doing this at all.

but you remember. you always remember.

the car you sit in is a rented SUV. it smells faintly of sunscreen, beef jerky, and the sour tang of someone who hasn't showered in a couple of days. the glovebox is full of old batteries, a few maps of america, and fast food wrappers. in the front, a cassette tape rattles quietly in the stereo, the sound of bruce springsteen's voice filling the cab, loud enough to be heard, but still quiet enough that nobody has to yell.

there's one person in the drivers seat and two in the back, their voices overlapping like they've been traveling together long enough to finish each other's sentences. you dont know their names yet, and you don't think you'll ever learn them, but you can tell by the way they talk that they met on the road— friends made at rest stops, gas station restrooms, motels with peeling wallpaper, and— like you— on the side of the road.

they'd seen you on the side of the road in missouri with your thumb stuck out and a bag that fit your entire life slung over your shoulder. they'd picked you up with no hesitation with the simple explanation of 'that was us once', and you fit in the passenger seat like it was made for you.

"dude, seriously, stop singin'." the woman in the back groans, her plea directed to the man driving the car. "you're gonna blow our ears out if you keep tryin' to duet springsteen."

the driver scoffs, "come on. you know you love it. admit it."

"you sound like a dying dog. nothing to love about that." the man in the back seat chimes in, his arms crossed against his chest. "put my mixtape in and we'll see what real music is."

the woman in the backseat narrows her eyes. "sorry, but nobody wants to listen to ten hours of duran duran's best hits either."

"oooh, burn!" the driver snorts from the front seat, glancing into the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of his friend's defeated face. "i think that officially made you the least popular person in the car."

you watch them out of the corner of your eye, sometimes finding yourself glancing in the rear-view mirror just to see what they're doing. they're loud and messy and a little corny, but a part of it is comforting. you say nothing and find peace in their noise.

"hey." the man in the back says suddenly, attention diverted towards you now. "is this your first time riding like this? spending hours in the car with people you don't know driving across america?"

you blink a few times before glancing over your shoulder. the attention is a little sudden, and it takes you a moment to gather your thoughts. your thumb brushes against the fabric of your pants, a small and unconscious anchor.

"i only started doing it when i first decided to leave chicago." you tell them, your voice only slightly louder than the hum of the music. "it was more impulsive than anything."

"huh..." the driver tilts his head as he sneaks a glance at you.  "you dont look like someone who just throws themselves out there without a plan."

you shrug, keeping your eyes on the dark streaking asphalt outside. "i didn't think i was that type of person either." you mutter.

the man in the backseat hums in acknowledgment, but then leans forwards again like one question wasn't enough. "why are you on the road? whats the story?"

you hear a slap of flesh against leather, and you can only assume that the woman had hit the man on the arm. "what is this, twenty one questions? let the lady breathe!"

"it's fine." you say quickly, almost hesitantly. "i just... needed to get away from home for a while. packed up what i could and i don't plan on going back there anytime soon."

the man in the back leans back with a thoughtful hum. "yeah, i get that. sometimes moving's better than being stuck."

the driver perks up in his seat, eyes wide like he's forgotten his keys at home. "i forgot to ask, but where were you headed?"

you hesitate. for a moment, you consider lying, and then you consider not saying anything at all. you dont know these people and your answer would do nothing but satiate their thirst for stories of the road; but something about the way the car hums beneath you and the way that the wind tunnels down your sleeve makes it easier than usual to let a small piece of yourself slip.

"i'm going west." you finally say. "california."

the woman smiles like you've given her the perfect answer. "that's the spirit. the road likes it when you don't stop movin'."

you manage a small humourless smile as you turn back to the window. california sits in your mind like a red pin on a map of america. its more of a fantasy than anything solid. you dont have an address or a plan that makes much sense when spoken out loud, and with nothing more than the clothes on your back, your duffel bag, and the certainty that if you keep moving west, something has to change eventually.

and almost like a light in the pitch black darkness, a neon glow flickers up ahead. slicing through the amber orange haze of the sunset, a sign that reads 'HOTEL CALIFORNIA' comes into view, and you find yourself following it even as the car passes, your head turning to watch it disappear into the darkness behind you. the letters shine like a signal, a promise, a miracle like an oasis in the desert, and you would be stupid to ignore it.

your hand braces against the car door as you push yourself up in your seat, your other hand tightening around the strap of your duffel almost instinctively. you turn back to the front of the car, brows knitting together as you lean down and zip open your duffel.

"do you think you could drop me off at that hotel california? the sign said it should be about five miles down the road." you ask.

you reach down and riffle through the unorganised mess in your bag and pull out your wallet. its scuffed from years of use and it pops open the moment you press in the buckle. the cards inside rustle around as you count what cash you have, thumb running over the notes just to make sure it's all there.

the driver glances down at you, his eyes scanning over your alarming amount of money you have. "sick of the car life already, drifter?"

you nod as you shove your wallet back into your duffel, a small smile on your face. "i think i need to stand on solid ground for longer than an hour. my body's forgotten what it feels like to be stationary."

the woman smirks. "that's fair. even the best road warriors need a pit stop sometimes. can't be movin' forever. we can spare five miles for our new friend, can't we?"

the driver nods like it's the easiest question he's ever had to answer. "yes ma'am. hotel california, here we come."

and just like that, the road stops stretching endlessly forwards and instead starts narrowing in on a single glowing sign that promised the hope of a new beginning and a moment to rest your feet on solid ground after what felt like a lifetime of running. at least for tonight, the road can wait.

you clutch your duffel bag straps, letting your eyes linger on the motel as it grows larger by the second. the neon light that stands in the front shines against the darkened sky, spitting orange and teal light across the windshield. and after a few minutes, the indicator starts blinking and the SUV swerves to the left, the vehicle shifting as it pulls into the carpark of the motel.

gravel crunches under the tires, and the hum of the engine drops into a softer sigh, like the car itself is exhaling. a few lonely streetlights cover the area in a soft glow and the motel looms just in front of the car— low, wide, and tired-looking, its paint peeling off of the walls and the roof shingles threatening to fall off of the roof.

you hesitate for a moment before opening the door, like you're waiting for permission you don't need. the night air slips in as soon as it clicks open and you hope out, duffel bag following close behind you and your feet finally touching solid ground. it feels strange after hours of motion, but you find comfort in the smell of dust and warm pavement, like the road has finally let you go.

you turn back, glancing at the people in the car— at their messy hair, at their lopsided smiles, at their clothes that haven't been washed in god knows how long— and you can't help but feel grateful. they didn't have to stop for you or give you a seat in their journey across america, but they did it anyways, and that feels bigger than anything you could possibly say.

your hand grips the side of the door like you're unsure of what to say. finally, you settle on "i really appreciate you guys stopping for me. i'm sorry for just... ditching you for a motel—"

"hey, it's all good. don't let us keep you." the man in the backseat tells you with a sincere smile. "if you need a real bed, then i say go for it. after all, seven hours in a car seat isn't the best for your back or for your mind."

the woman smiles, "just take care of yourself, alright?"

"yeah, and if it's anything like the song, just try not to get stuck in the there forever, alright?" the driver jokes, and you meet him with a weak laugh.

you nod, a smile on your face as you manage a small "thanks for everything" before finally closing the door, and the click of it sounds louder than it should. they drive off with a waving hand out of the window, and now you're all alone in the outskirts of glen rio, texas with nothing but the weight of your life on your shoulders.

the night air is warm and dry, carrying the smell of dirt and the sound of vehicles passing by on route 66. the front office glows dimly through the glass windows, the single LED light flickering like it's considering giving up too. a vending machine on the other end of the motel and the ventilations on the rooftop fight for title of loudest noise in the quiet. a rusted water tower stands neglected on the far side of the property, there are no other cars in the parking lot apart from a beat-up pickup truck parked along two spaces, it's paint sun-bleached and chipped, and you can only assume it belongs to the person at the front desk.

somewhere in the distant, there's a bang. a dog barks and the noise echoes in the desert. the world feels thin out here— stretched wide and empty— and you feel so very small inside of it.

you hesitate for a second, eyes lingering on the motel, before you shift your duffel higher up on your shoulder and head towards the office. the concrete is warm beneath your shoes, still holding the heat from the day, and the closer you get, the louder the hum of the lights becomes— a thin, tired buzz that seeps into your bones.

the door squeals as you tug it open, the rubbing lining along the frame sticking before giving way. cool recycled air washes over you as you step into the office, and the sound of the door shutting cuts through the silence of the room.

the office is small. cramped. a long counter runs along one wall, scratched and worn down by years of borrowed keys and elbows. behind it, a lanky middle aged man wearing glasses sits slouched in a swivel chair, his face half-lit by the glow of his ancient monitor. there's a small radio that sits beside him that plays music from the local radio station, a voice and a guitar that blur into the hum of the lights, and you find it incredibly hard to ignore the smell of lemon air freshener and moist carpet.

the man takes a long moment to really register you and your presence— the bag slung over your shoulder, the dust on your shoes and your clothes, the way you're standing just inside of the doorway like you're not sure whether or not you're meant to be there— and he smiles, dental issues on display for you to see.

"evening." he says eventually, head tilting upwards just slightly like he's trying to take you in, "what can i do for ya?"

"hi—" you step towards the desk, your weight shifting as you lean against the counter. you look at the name on his faded name tag, "trevor. i was wondering if you had any rooms available?"

trevor doesn't answer right away. he just looks at you like you're a pretty thing in the wrong place, and his tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip. his eyes trace over you slowly— your face, your bag, the way your fingers wrap around the straps like you might run— and then he leans back in his chair, hands reaching up to rest on the back of his head.

"yeah." he finally says. "got a few."

you dont like the way he says it.

"okay." you blink. "how much would it be for a week?"

"depends what kinda room you want." trevor makes an odd noise with his mouth as he leans forwards, something like sucking in his teeth and popping his tongue on the roof of his mouth. "you by yourself?"

you hesitate, trying to push down the odd feeling that starts to well in the pit of your stomach, but you nod. "yeah. just me."

his eyes flick over you again, slower this time, and the corner of his mouth lifts into something you'd barely call a smile.

"just you, huh." trevor repeats like he's letting the fact settle. then he sighs and twists in his chair, "alright, give me a sec to pull up the prices."

he turns back to the monitor, fingers moving over the equally as ancient keyboard, and you try to ignore the porn pop-up that he quickly clicks out of and the solitaire match that he's losing. each key he presses fills the silence, loud in the silent office.

click. click. click. then—

blinding headlights sweep through the office, the small room flooding with harsh white light. for a moment, it's so bright that you can't even see a foot in front of you, and you instinctively shield your eyes. when your vision adjusts, you can make out the outline of a massive semi-truck rolling to a stop in the lot, tires crunching into the gravel and engine growling loud enough for you to wonder whether it's meant to be that loud.

it idles near the far end of the motel, headlights still blazing, long shadows cast against the walls. the cab door opens, and you can barely make out the figure of a tall, broad shouldered silhouette stepping out. he pauses for a moment, one hand resting against the cab before he disappears into the darkness of the parking lot.

there's a small, metallic clank, then another, the sound almost hesitant, like he's trying to figure something out or fix something.

but a grating voice brings you out of your head.

"y'know, we don't usually get much foot traffic out here." trevor's lips smack, eyes flicking over to yours in a way that makes your skin crawl. "couple'a hippies and cross country truckers, but nothin' like you."

"who wouldn't want to spend a night in a place like this?" you murmur with a hit of playful sarcasm lacing your voice.

"you don't gotta sugarcoat it, darlin. this place is— and always will be— a shithole." trevor sighs as he rests an elbow on the desk, a cheeky smile growing on his face. "the only thing that makes up for it is the company. if you get lonely and need someone to talk to, i—"

"yeah, i don't think i'll be talking to anyone much tonight." you quickly and bluntly cut him off. you dont really have time to deal with creeps right now.

he chuckles, the noise low and almost wet, like he's amused and disappointed all at once. "we'll see about that, sugar."

trevor goes back to clicking away at his keyboard. you're picking at your nails when you feel the heat on the side of your face cool, and you turn your head to find that the semi truck's headlights are off now. your attention drifts back to the clanking of metal and the tall silhouette that moves around in the dark.

you wonder if you'll see the face that's swallowed by shadow. you wonder if he'll come into the office and save you from the creepy receptionist. you wonder if he'll be equally as creepy and if you'll need to sleep with a weapon in hand.

the squeak of trevor's chair brings you back to reality.

"right. single room's cheapest. one bed, small. got a pull-out sofa if you decide you don't wanna spend the week all alone." trevor drags the word, tongue running along his teeth. "but if you want a bigger bed for your beauty sleep and a bathroom for all of your girly things, then we do have a double."

your brow quirks. "the single room doesn't have a bathroom?"

"nope, so i'm assumin' you're gonna pick the double. it's two-fifty for the week." trevor says, "cash or card, sugar?"

"cash." you reply. "and don't call me sugar."

you ignore the huff trevor lets out. you zip open your bag, riffling through it before pulling out your wallet. you pop it open and pull out exactly two hundred and fifty dollars. you set the cash down on the counter and slide it towards trevor.

trevor's eyes widen just slightly as he does a faint double take. his hand slaps against the counter as he takes the money, counting it. "right on the dot. where'd a lil' thing like you get all this cash?"

"work." you simply reply. a stranger doesn't need to know anything about you or your money, and you're not about to give away more information than needed.

trevor hums. he pops open the register and places the cash into the tray with a small metallic clink. then he turns around in his chair, head cranes towards you like an idea had just popped into his head.

"y'know—" he pauses, brows raising just slightly as he leans closer to you. the closer he gets, the more he smells of tonsil stones and tooth decay, and you swear you can see a thought forming in those bloodshot eyes of his. "if you wanted the room a lil' cheaper, you could come around the desk and show me what that pretty little mouth can do—"

"i'll pay the two-fifty." you cut in, voice firm, eyes meeting his and trying to keep him from crossing the line any further. "and i'll take my key now."

the annoyed groan that leaves the man sends a chill down your spine. trevor reaches under the counter and pulls out a tarnished room key with a small plastic tag. he holds it out for you to grab, but just as you do, he snaps it back like a predator played with cornered prey.

"don't think you can just walk around here with that attitude, lil miss." he mutters, low and rough, head tilted down enough that his eyes bore into yours. "just because you've got a pretty face doesn't mean things always go your way. you pay, but sometimes... you owe."

the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and the pit in your stomach almost comes up as vomit. you narrow your eyes at the sick grin he has on his face, about to tell the asshole to go to hell, but the squeal of rubber lining and metal screeching stops you.

the office door swings open and slams shut, harsh and sudden, and it catches both your and trevor's attention. the two of you turn your heads towards the figure who had just walked in— a tall, broad shouldered man, no doubt the one you'd seen outside working on his truck in the shadows.

with a shaved head, a thick scruffy beard, and a torn denim jacket, the man moves through the room with quiet confidence. there's grit in his posture, his face tired and rugged, with soft lines on his forehead and a shadowed jawline thats strong but worn. he's the type of man you'd see in a movie and be intimidated by, but this man felt different.

the man doesn't smile, nor does he speak. he simply looks between the two of you like he's figuring out what he's just walked in on. before anyone can react, you lean forwards and snatch the room key from trevor's hand. he awkwardly rubs his hands on his oily shirt like he's suddenly uncomfortable.

the receptionist gives you a fake smile as he ushers you away, voice dropping with false charm. "room one, sugar. best room in the house."

you scoff as you walk off, your shoulder just barely clipping the man's arm as you stomp past. the contact is almost nothing— a brush of denim against your sleeve— but it sends a strange shiver up your spine anyways. you push the door open and the night air hits you instantly, a soothing feeling after being trapped in that stuffy office.

as you cross the lot towards the room, you glance back, and through the office window, you see him.

the man stands exactly where you had left him, broad frame filling out the office, half shadowed by the dim yellow lights, his head slightly tilted as he cranes his neck down to watch you. not in the way trevor had watched you. not hungry or leering, but with curiosity, like he's trying to decide something, and you can feel his eyes boring into your back until you reach your door.

the key sticks in the lock for a moment before you twist the doorknob. you shoulder the door open and step inside.

a single double bed sits pressed against the wall, its blankets thick and vaguely floral in pattern, the colours dulled from years of washing. a small nightstand holds an even smaller table lamp on top, a worn bible sitting on the lower shelf. the bathroom light flickers on the far end of the room, and you wonder how long it's been on for. the carpet feels flat and stiff beneath your shoes, and the air smells of moth balls and fruity room spray that feels like it's trying to cover up the scent of something old and damp.

the room is fine. its nothing special, but it's dry, it's quiet, and it has a door that locks. that's about the nicest thing you can say about it.

you drop your duffel bag at the end of the bed and kick off your shoes. you peel your jacket from your arms and throw it over the backrest of the small dinning set chair before sinking down into the mattress. it creaks under your weight, but it holds. exhaustion settles over you all at once, your eyes feeling heavy now that you've stopped moving.

you dont even bother changing. you just lie back, stare at the stained popcorn ceiling, and then let your eyes fall shut.

sleep comes fast— or at least you think it does.

some time later— you're not sure how long— a sound pulls you back to the edge of consciousness. you think it's a door. it softly opens and closes. your eyes stay shut, but your mind sharpens in on the noise. you hear footsteps, slow and heavy, and then the low murmur of movement through the thin wall next to you in room two.

you frown slightly into the pillow as the noise comes to a slow stop. the trucker, you assume. the man with the shaved head and the quiet eyes. the one who had indirectly saved you from the advances of the creepy receptionist.

you roll onto your side, tuck your legs in a little closer, and tell yourself not to think about it. you're safe, you're inside, and you're not on the road anymore. nobody is going to find you.

eventually, the sounds fade and the motel settles into silence, and when sleep takes you, you welcome the old friend gladly.

the next day, you wake up slowly. not with an alarm or a bad dream, but with a sound— a dull, metallic bang.

your eyes crack open, unfocused and strained in the low light. light bleeds in around the edges of the frilly curtains, brighter than you expect. you place a hand against your eyes, and for a moment, you're disorientated and heavy limbed, your body still weighing on the mattress like it's trying to hold onto sleep.

you blink and the sound comes again— metal against metal, constant and loud as it echoes through the empty parking lot— and your brain catches up to your body.

you groan quietly and roll onto your back, staring at the ceiling before pushing yourself upright. your joints ache in a way that comes with too much rest and your head hurts in a way that comes with not enough. you rub a hand over your face and glance at the blinking alarm clock in the bedside table.

it's late. not morning late; afternoon late. you'd slept through most of the day and woken up with a grogginess that makes it feel like you never really slept at all, but you give yourself a little leeway— you'd been awake for a day and a half beforehand and this was your first proper bed in a while.

your stomach gurgles, void of any proper food. you get up, tug on your shoes, shove your room key into your pocket, and step out into the heat.

the day has already settled over the motel, the texas sun bleaching the colour out of everything. it still smells like dust and hot concrete, but now there's a faint smell of gasoline and soldered metal. you impatiently make your way to the vending machine you'd spotted last night, the humming getting louder as you near it.

the semi truck is still there, the hood up now, the massive front tilted forwards like a jaw. the man from last night is crouched besides it, his hands and shirt darkened with grease and dirt as he works. tools are scattered at his feet— wrenches, screwdrivers, things with long handles and odd contraptions— and a dirty rag is thrown over his knee.

he looks different in the daylight— still intimidating, still broad and still quiet, but you can see the tiredness in him. the set of his shoulders as he tightens a bolt, the slow and careful way he moves like he's trying to conserve energy, the way he huffs out a breath whenever he meets a particularly stubborn piece of metal. he pauses, wipes his hands on the rag, then leans back to look at whatever he's working on with a slight frown like it's not cooperating and hasn't been for a while.

the vending machine beeps obnoxiously loud at you.

its only when he turns his head just slightly to spot the source of the noise and he catches your eye that you realise you're staring. you turn back quickly and begin feeding your coins into the vending machine, awkwardly pressing on the first button you can see, and wait for the dull thud of something half edible to drop.

you're almost disappointed in yourself when a bottle of old fanta makes its way through the machine instead of food, but you pull it out anyways. the cap hisses when you pop it open. you take a sip more out of obligation than enjoyment. its warm, flat, and too sweet. you take another sad sip and let your eyes wander around.

there isn't much to look at.

the motel stretches out in a long line, sun bleached doors, curtains drawn in most windows, and outdated signs as far as the eye can see. you skip over trevor's badly parked car and focus more on the heat waves that hover just above the ground, and just beyond that, there's a hum of cars passing by every so often. you're about to turn around and go back to your room, but your eye catches on a pink sign that says 'pool'.

it hangs haphazardly on a light post on the far end of the property, the arrow beneath it pointing to a pathway between two buildings with cracked pavement. the sign is barely illegible, the paint faded and cracked, but curiosity gets the better of you and you follow it.

the path eventually opens up into a small, fenced in area behind the motel, and you find that there actually is a pool— or at least a poor excuse of one. the water inside is cloudy, a dull bluish green with leaves and a few empty plastic water bottles floating on the surface. the tiles that surround the pool are either cracked or gone completely, and just beyond that, a few plastic lounge chairs are stacked awkwardly on top of one another, sun bleached and warped from age.

you step closer to the edge and peer down into the water. its so murky that you can't even see your own reflection. alas, you try to squint through at the glare of the sun, but then you feel someone behind you, your shoulders tensing before you even turn around.

"thing hasn't been used in years."

you turn. trevor stands there, hands on his hips and squinting at the pool like he owns it. you hadn't even heard him sneaking up on you, and the thought of it happening again makes you queasy.

"i figured." you mutter.

you take a small step backwards just as trevor steps forwards, his head craned down towards the pool like this is the first time he's seen it in years. he kicks a pebble and it lands into the water with a thick splashing noise before he turns to you.

"used to be nice though. families'd come during the summer. kids'd scream and they'd barbecue. used to get a lot of action." his eyes flick to yours, "not like that anymore."

you nod even though you don't really care.

trevor smacks his lips. "what are you doin' round back?" he asks, the question a little pointed and slightly accusatory.

you straighten a bit, gesturing vaguely. "just looking."

"at the pool?"

"at whatever was back here." you say, already turning away from him. "i was bored."

you start walking back towards the front of the motel before he can respond, but the scuff of shoes against pavement behind you tells you that he's close behind and that the conversation is far from over.

"i get that. not much to do round here." he says easily like this is completely casual and like he isn't matching your pace too well. "but we got a little kitchen just beside the front office if you wanna heat up or cook your food. microwave, coffee pot, workin' sink, that kinda stuff."

"okay."

"and you can probably tell, but housekeepin' doesn't run regularly anymore," he continues, "so if you need fresh towels or soap or anything, you just gotta swing by the front desk and ring that little bell. i'll sort it out for ya."

"i'll manage."

"independent type, huh?" he chuckles softly, and then— almost like he has a death wish— he reaches out and places his clammy hand on your shoulder like you're just an old pal. "i like that about you, sugar."

your body reacts before your brain does. your shoulder jerks back, pulling away from his touch, and you turn to him with a glare sharp enough to kill.

"don't touch me and don't call me sugar."

trevor blinks, caught off guard. his hand hangs limply in the air for a moment before it dramatically drops back to his side. he scoffs, hand returning to his hips.

"alright, alright—" he says, lips pursing like you've personally offended him. "no need to get snappy with me."

you don't reply. you just turn and walk away.

trevor stalls for a second, hands on his hips like he's deciding whether he should follow you or just let you go. the clanking from earlier has stopped, but you barely notice it through the ringing in your ears and the crunch of gravel underneath your shoes.

"we also got laundry service if you wanna change outta those rags." trevor calls from behind you, hand cupped around his mouth to make himself louder. "maybe get a new shirt on— it doesn't do much for your figure!"

you ignore the jab, keeping your eyes straight ahead as you reach your room. you reach into your pocket for your keys and pull them out, but your hands shake just enough for you to miss the lock on the first try, the key scraping uselessly against the painted wood. you manage to slip the key in, but then—

"everything alright over there?" a low, calm voice calls out from the far end of the lot.

you pause halfway through turning the key. your shoulders tense before you can fully control it, your breath catching just slightly as the words sink in. you've never heard his voice, but there's only three people here and it's not hard to guess who it belongs to. you glance over your shoulder, half expecting him to be speaking to you, only to realise that his eyes aren't on you at all; they're on trevor.

the trucker has gone still beside the hood of his truck. the rag that once rested on his knee is now thrown over his shoulder and his hands rest on his hips as he takes in the scene in front of him. his posture is calm, almost casual as he glares at trevor like he knows exactly what he's looking at.

"all is good, sir." trevor says quickly, with a thin smile and a weak thumbs up, "jus' helpin' a guest get settled."

the trucker doesn't look away. "doesn't sound like it."

the words aren't loud or aggressive. they're calm in the same way that his posture is calm, and somehow that makes them carry more weight than if he'd raised his voice at all.

trevor shifts in his spot. its subtle and barely noticeable, but you see it anyway— in the way his shoulders drops, in the way his cheeks dimple into an awkward smile, in the way his hands flap around like he's searching for the words.

"everything's fine." he insists with a forced smile. he turns to you and gestures to you like you're supposed to back him up. "isn't that right, lil miss?"

but you don't reply. you twist the key and shoulder the door open, stepping into the room and shutting it behind you. you lean against the door for a second just enough to catch your breath before throwing the fanta bottle onto the bed.

through the thin curtains, the motel parking lot stretches out like a stage. the trucker and trevor are standing in what looks like a stand-off, their bodies still and eyes locked. there's a few words exchanged, but you can barely hear what's being said before trevor flaps his hand once and turns to walk away.

you watch as the trucker shakes his head, and then— just slightly— he tilts his head, and you swear he's looking right at you. your chest tightens and you press yourself a little closer to the wall beside you.

until long, the stranger goes back to working, bending back over the hood of his semi, the metallic clanking noise breaking the tension, and for the first time since you arrived here, you dont feel like you're the first person to realise something is off about this place.

you spend the next three days doing all that you can to bunker down in your motel room and avoid any and all interaction with trevor.

you keep the curtains drawn. you reuse the same towel over and over again just so you don't have to face him. you time your trips to the vending machine with the noises outside of your door. you listen for footsteps, for whistling, for anything that signals his presence before you even think of placing your hand on the door handle.

although it helps, you find that the isolation keeps your mind running rampant with no distraction from it. everything you'd once pushed down floods to the forefront of your mind until they feel like they're echoing— the reason why you'd run from home, the reason why you'd chosen to ditch the travellers, the reason why you're even here at all. its an endless cycle of staring at the roof and spiralling into thoughts that you can't escape from.

and by the third day, your hunger overpowers your caution. the vending machine had stopped offering anything desirable and your stomach has been gnawing at itself for hours by now. later that day just as the sun had set, you find yourself sneaking off to the motel kitchen with the hunger of a man starved, and just like the rest of the motel, you find that it's anything but special.

the fluorescent lights above poorly illuminated the room. the linoleum floor is cracked and sticky with every hesitant step you take. the contact paper on the cupboards is peeling, and they smell of dust and mildew. there's an odd mould stain on the roof in the corner of the kitchen that watches you as you step inside. the refrigerator hums in the corner and the counters are clean apart from a thin layer of dust and— trevor was right— there was a microwave and a coffee pot and a working sink, but theyre so outdated that you aren't even sure whether they function properly.

the first thing you do is inspect the kettle. it's dusty and it's text a little faded, but otherwise useful. you brush the thick layer of dust from the metal and bring it over to the sink, humming softly to yourself as it fills with water. the stove flicks on— surprisingly— with little hesitation, and you waste no time in placing the appliance onto the flames.

you wander towards the kitchen cabinets in hopes of finding something edible. the last proper meal you had was a week ago, and even then, it wasn't much more than something to keep you upright.

most of the shelves are empty or packed with things that have long outlived their usefulness— dusty imploded bean cans, jars of preserves that weren't preserved well, and cardboard boxes full of cereal that were certainly stale by now. your stomach growls anyways as you rifle through the mess, your hand landing on a cup of instant ramen, the kettle whistling as you do so.

the ramen container is slightly dusty and the use-by date had passed a handful of years ago, but it sat like treasure in the palm of your hand. desperate times count for desperate measures, sure, but you really did not want to eat red beans smothered in crystallised strawberry jam anytime soon.

you peel open the foil of the ramen container, empty the sachets, pull the kettle from the stove, and begin filling the container with the boiling water. the faint smell of sauce and dried vegetables mixes with steam, and for a moment, the kitchen feels like its yours; a small refuge in a motel that otherwise reeks of tired paint and decay.

but then the door squeaks open behind you and you freeze, hand hovering over your food as you pray in your mind that it isn't trevor. you tilt your head just enough to glance over your shoulder, and the small breath of relief that leaves you is almost instant.

it's the trucker.

he steps inside the room with the same quiet confidence he's been holding onto ever since he pulled into the lot. he holds a plastic container in one hand and a set of plastic utensils in the other, and for a moment, he takes the time to glance at you. he doesn't say hello or really acknowledge you in any way; he simply moves towards the microwave on the other side of the kitchen like this is his own home and opens the door, sliding in his food, pressing a few buttons, and then leaning back against the counter as he waits, his arms crossing loosely over his chest.

neither of you speak, but you're sure you're both aware of each other. it's a constant battle against your brain to try not to stare at him and watch his every move, not because he's threatening, but because he's unfamiliar— unlike trevor, he's a presence you haven't learnt how to place just yet.

and as you continue trying to make your old ramen soak up the broth, you hear his boots press against the old linoleum as he heads towards the table— the only table in the room— and place his keys and his utensils onto the surface with a soft clink like he hasn't even considered whether or not you might have wanted it. its a small table with only two chairs, but he takes up the space in a way that makes it feel like there's only room for one.

so you stay where you are, hip pressing into the kitchen counter as you stab at your noodles with a fork, watching as the steam lazily curls from the cup, and pretending you're not waiting for him to move.

but he doesn't.

the microwave beeps three times, and the trucker steps forwards and pulls at the handle. the smell of plastic and artificial food spills into the kitchen, and he wastes no time in tearing the plastic seal off and tossing it haphazardly into the trash before setting it down onto the table, pulling a chair out, and sitting down to indulge.

he eats in silence like it's all he knows. his eyes are on his food and his plastic fork scratches at the plastic container, his shoulders loose and his jaw working as he makes quick work of the microwaved slop.

eventually, you turn— just a little, just enough to check whether he's still there. you try not to watch him, but you fail, and thats when your eyes meet his.

he's already looking at you. not in a sharp way, or in a way that feels judgemental, but more like he's observing you. his gaze almost feels the same way as your first night when his semi truck pulled into the motel parking lot and the high beams blinded you, and in a funny way, you almost feel like a deer in headlights.

his gaze flicks from you to the empty chair across from him, then back at you. there's a small shift in his composure— the pause of his jaw as he scavenges for food in his teeth, the scoot of his jean-clad butt in the squeaky metal chair, the cock of his head as he lets out the softest sigh you've ever heard— and then he moves.

he reaches out with his foot and nudges the other chair out by its leg. it scratches against the floor as he pushes it towards you, creating a space where there hadn't been one before. he lifts his chin in a gentle gesture towards it, lip jutting out just slightly.

"i don't bite." he simply says.

you hesitate. your fingers tighten just slightly against the warmth of the cup, your brain running through all the reasons why you shouldn't— all of the ways this could end horribly for you— before you suck in a soft breath, push off of the counter, and move towards the table anyways.

you take the seat across from him. the chair legs shift slightly as you sit, and the sound feels louder than it actually is in the silence of the kitchen. you dont bother tucking in your chair, afraid of invading his space, and the trucker goes back to eating like nothing has changed, his fork stabbing at various vegetables and chunks of artificial meats, eyes on the container in front of him; but not entirely.

every so often, his gaze finds you. he doesn't stare long enough to make it obvious, but his eyes find you frequently enough for you to wonder what he's looking for, and you have to pretend you don't feel it. you believe it's because he's checking on you, like maybe he's trying to figure out what someone like you is doing out in the middle of nowhere.

you shift under the weight of it, not uncomfortable, just hyperaware of it all— of yourself, of him, of the little space there is between you, and of the silence that surrounds you. it's something you didn't necessarily prepare for when you left your room a little while ago.

you continue swirling the noodle around the cup, putting off actually eating them. you dont know whether you should just get it over with and possibly be sick for the rest of the week or if you should just pour it down the sink and live off of stale vending machine chips.

eventually, the table creaks under his arms as the trucker sits back up and sets his fork against the side of his container. you pause at the sudden shift, eyes drifting slowly up to find that he's already looking at you— not in a way that feels invasive or creepy, but thoughtful, like he's trying to piece together the puzzle that is you instead of asking for answers out loud.

"you been on the road long?" he asks like its not even a question he really needs the answer to, but something to fill the silence.

there's a small raise of your brow as you huff out a small breath, the corner of your mouth twitching like you almost find his question funny. you stop stirring your noodles and let the fork sink into the cup.

"not long," you say, head tilting just slightly. "but it feels like it's been forever."

he hums quietly at that like he knows exactly what you're talking about, and you're sure he does. you can see it up close in the lines of his face, in the soft greying of his hair and his stubble, in the freckles surely painted on by the sun through his truck windows, and in the tiredness that sits heavy in his eyes as he nods.

"yeah," he says after a long moment. "roads'll do that to you."

he doesnt say anything after that. he simply shovels food into his mouth, quick but still neat like he hasn't lost interest in eating. a part of you thinks he's only invited you to sit for the company, and you appreciate the gesture for what it is, because you believe you needed it too.

your eyes flick to the dirty curtain-covered window without really meaning to— to where his truck sits out in the parking lot, the hood up more often than not. it sits in the dark, toolbox still on the ground beside it and a half-empty beer bottle laying on the ground next to that.

you decide to ask a question next; something to fill the silence that sits in between the two of you just like he did. 

"is there something wrong with your truck?" you ask, trying to seem casual and actually landing somewhere close to it. "i heard you working on it all day."

there's a second where you think you might've crossed an invisible line— asked something too personal or maybe been a little too demanding in your question. his fork pauses over his food, jaw working as he swallows what remains in his mouth. there's a small pause as he follows your eyes out to his truck before he gives you a half shrug.

"somethin' like that." he sighs like the topic is something that stresses him out. "she runs, but not as good as she used to. somethin' in the hood exploded back in shamrock and i've been tryin' to keep her alive long enough to get where i'm goin'."

you blink. "where are you headed?"

he glances at you, just briefly, like he's deciding whether or not the question is worth answering. the corner of his mouth tugs like he's in on some inside joke you aren't aware of.

"california. america's very own golden state."

his words land heavy as they leave his mouth, and your brain moves before any other part of you does.

california. warm. bright. somewhere that isn't here or home. somewhere thats still so, so far.

three days. that's all you have. three days before the cash you have tucked in your duffel bag grows thin, before trevor gets bolder and meaner and before you inevitably have to leave. you can't stay here and you know that. you dont have a car or a plan. you dont even have a general direction, just a need to keep moving; and suddenly, sitting across from you, is a man who is already doing exactly that.

you hesitate.

you shouldn't ask. you know you shouldn't. this is how people get into trouble— they trust sketchy strangers from dingy motels, follow their impulses, mistake a well-time coincidence as opportunity, and end up on the evening news as a missing person. it's something you know all too well and you're not going to leap into it headfirst.

you're smart and you know it. you'll come up with a plan and you'll stick to it. all you have to do is ration, stick to yourself, and try not to think about how three days is so much closer than you think.

so you keep your mouth shut and simply nod. your eyes fall back down to the neglected cup of ramen in your hands. it's gone lukewarm and a thin film has formed over the broth. the noodles finally suck up the liquid, but they swell into something soft and mushy and vaguely unappetising. you wouldnt even feed this to starving a stray animal.

the man's eyes briefly drop to the cup of ramen that sits in your hands. you stare at it like you dread even thinking about it, and he furrows his brows.

"you gonna eat that, or are you just gonna stare at it until it goes cold?"

"oh, it, uh... i was going to, but..." you grimace like watching the corn pieces swimming around in the soup has suddenly made you loose your appetite. "i'm not even sure if it's still edible."

"here," he motions gently for you to come closer, and you're confused for a moment before he points a finger vaguely at your mug of mediocre noodles. you slide it over and he wastes no time shovelling some of his food into yours. vegetables and meat sink into the soup. the gesture is sweet and you feel your stomach growl at the thought of having actual food for once.

he slides your cup back towards you, and you dare yourself to dip your fork back into the soup, stab at a floating piece of meat, and bring it to your mouth. you chew on it and swallow the bite, the warmth of it settling in your stomach like a small comfort.

"young girl like you has to eat food that hasn't been rottin' in a cabinet for god knows how long." he says, and then continues before you can respond, "trust me. i've been on the road long enough to know what malnutrition looks like."

you shovel another forkful of noodles into your mouth, ignoring the way the soup sloshes around in the cup and certainly sending droplets of the liquid into the air. you shake your head, half-amused and half-unnerved by how closely he seems to be watching you.

"thanks, but i'm not young." you manage between bites.

the low laugh that leaves his mouth catches you off guard.

"well, you definitely aren't old. skin's all plump and clean and you've still got all your teeth." he says, his voice low and almost teasing, eyes still glazing over you in a way that makes your stomach twist. "i've probably got tools in my truck older than you."

the way he says it makes all the noise you hear go silent. suddenly the soup that drips from your chin and the noodle hanging out of your mouth doesn't feel all that casual nor does it feel presentable. he's watching you like you're something he's never seen before, eyes steady and intent, and you're unsure what to do with all of the attention.

you hastily wipe at your mouth with the back of your hand, clear your throat, and sit up a little in your chair. maybe a small part of you wants to prove him wrong— show him that you might be young but you're wise beyond your years— and you try to do so by fixing your posture and looking at least somewhat put together even with a cup of reasonable ramen in your hands.

it doesn't go unnoticed. if anything, it seems to catch his attention more.

his gaze lingers, but not in the way that trevor's did— not with hunger or entitlement— but with intrigue, like he's catching the shift in you and filing it away in his head. there's something softer in his expression now, a faint crease in his brows that you've only noticed just now as if you've just become a little more intriguing than he had first assumed.

he gently nods, curiosity trickling into his face. he leans forwards just slightly, elbows digging into the table. "what's your name?"

and the question hits you off guard even though you know it was inevitable.

for a moment, you consider dodging his question— lying, deflecting, keeping yourself small and unremarkable like you've been doing for days. it's not that you don't want to tell him, it's just that answering feels like you're giving this stranger a piece of yourself— a story, something to hold onto, something from your past that you'd been running from this entire time, and the reason you're here.

you turn your head, eyes flicking to the large crack in the middle of the kitchen's linoleum floor that sits split in two. it feels safer to look at something broken that isn't you. he takes your silence as an answer.

"that's alright. you don't owe me anythin'." he says as he leans back in his chair like he's trying to ease the pressure off of you without making a show of it. "my name's james, but you can call me bucky."

hm. he doesnt look like a james, but he sure as hell looks like a bucky.

you turn back to him with a turned lip. "what's bucky short for?"

"full name's james buchanan barnes. it was just a nickname my pa gave me that stuck." he says easily. then, like he's joking, he adds, "now you've got my full name just incase i try to pull somethin' on ya."

you huff softly, "how do i know you aren't lying about your name? i could come up with about fifty fake names right now, and you wouldnt know any better. criminals lie all the time."

he quirks a brow as he pops open the top of his coke bottle, the bubbles popping at the surface as he lifts it to his lips with a sneaky smile. "guess you just gotta trust me then, sweetheart."

you hum softly in acknowledgment, the faintest smile on your lips, fork scrapping at the bottom of the ramen cup for scraps. the food settles warmly in your stomach, and it reminds you that you're tired— really tired.

you stand, the empty ramen cup in your hand, and awkwardly brush your other hand on your pants before vaguely gesturing to the cracked kitchen door.

"i think i'm gonna head back." you tell him like you're unsure of what you should do. you don't know if he even cares, but it feels like the respectful thing to do.

bucky inhales a breath, the sound low and sharp, and it feels like you might've just pulled him from his thoughts. he reaches up and runs a hand over his head before nodding once. "s'pose that's fair. princess needs her beauty sleep."

you hesitate for a second, but a small smile tugs at the corners of your mouth despite yourself. "night, bucky."

he offers you a smile of his own, head tilting just slightly with a soft nod. "sleep tight, sweetheart."

you turn and push the kitchen door open, slipping into the night. the door creaks shut behind you as you tread through the parking lot, unaware of how long bucky sits there after you're gone, or how long he stares at the empty seat across from him like you might come back.

you've never been a great judge of character— you have the scars and the pain to prove it— but this man didn't seem bad, or at least didn't seem like an axe murderer, and unless you want to walk along the edge of route 66 with your thumb stuck out hoping that another car full of non-murderous travellers picks you up to take you to california, your only other bet is trying to hitch a ride with bucky.

and plus, there are worse ways to get to california than riding shotgun with a trucker who calls you princess and sweetheart.

the next morning doesn't come with any great revelation, and you wake with the same boring nothing. there's no obvious sign, no sudden clarity, no omnipresent voice from the universe telling you what to do. theres only the texas heat seeping through your room windows, pressing in in you like it wants you to stay and rot in your room.

the heat is so prevalent that at midday, you've already had about three showers in the dingy bathroom.

it doesnt help much. the water never gets quite cold, the shower head sprays water in every direction but yours, and the humidity clings to your skin before you even step out of the shower. the towel you'd received when you'd checked in had served you well, but now it smelt of dirty laundry and damp cloth, and no amount of air drying or shaking it out seems to fix that.

you stare at it for a second before deciding you're not desperate enough to use it again.

you get dressed into something that could battle the heat yet leave you covered enough when you inevitably have to face trevor and leave your room with your dirty towel tucked underneath your arm.

the lot shimmers in waves under the sun, radiating the kind of heat that you might think will melt the soles of your shoes.

unsurprisingly, bucky's already out there. his truck's hood is up as per usual, his tools scattered all around the front, and he's leaning over the engine with the focus of someone who's been at this for hours, and you could already tell by the metal-against-metal noises that he'd had been up before you'd even opened your eyes.

and the second you shut your door, the noise pulls him from his work.

his head turns to see the cause, and when he noticed it's you, he straightens like he's trying to get a better look at you. for a moment, the truck seems forgotten, his attention caught on the sight of you leaving your room with your little shorts and your towel tucked under your arm. he doesn't rush to get back to what he's doing, and his gaze lingers instead, taking you in like this is a rare pause he doesn't mind stretching out.

sweat darkens the front of his tank top, clinging to his body in a way that makes it clear that the heat is winning. the thin fabric is stretched across his chest, damp and heavy, tracing every muscle earned through years of labour rather than vanity. his jeans are stained with grease and grime from his work, and what little hair he has on his head sticks to his temple in small soft curls.

his tongue darts out and swipes across his bottom lip almost like he's forgotten you can see him, a reflex born from the heat— or maybe something else entirely.

god, he looks good.

after a long moment, he straightens with a soft exhale, grips the hem, and pulls the tank over his head in an attempt to free himself of the wet fabric. the muscles in his arms flex with every move he makes, glistening under the texan sun, and the light catches the sheen of sweat that forms over every inch of his body. the fabric finally slips free and gets tossed over the hood of the truck, leaving him bare to the heat.

you nearly walk straight into the curb. the toe cap of your shoe bumps against the concrete, jolting you from your wandering thoughts. you only barely manage to catch yourself, the towel sliding slightly from your arm, and bucky knows exactly what's happened.

he tilts his head just slightly, a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth like he knows exactly what's he's doing. his eyes flick briefly to the curb you'd almost stumbled over, then back to you, a mix of amusement and some genuine concern flooding his face.

"you alright, princess?" he calls out, his voice low but carrying easily over the heat-laced lot, and you realise you've been staring like a madman. 

"i'm fine." you awkwardly reply, and he hums.

you break eye contact and pick up the pace towards the front office. sweat prickles along your skin, and the warmth of the sun suddenly feels more invasive than it does comforting. you dont even know if youre sweating because of the heat or because of him. 

you hadn't expected this when he'd sat in front of you in a baggy denim jacket last night in the kitchen. where had he been hiding all of... that? the broad shoulders? that lean muscle? the six pack? it had all been covered by fabric and shadow, and you almost want to drop to your knees and thank mother nature for deciding to work in perfect harmony to reveal bucky like this.

you skid to a stop in front of the front office door. the handle squeals as you push down on it and shoulder the door open, and a cold blast of air hits you— blessed, if a little stale. it smells faintly of mold, the result of a leaky unit, and of vinegar potato chips.

trevor is there slouched in his chair like he hasn't moved since the first time you met him. his eyes flick up as you step inside, and with a lazy smile and lopsided glasses, he turns to face you like he's excited to see you.

"hey, you." he drawls with a hint of surprise in his voice. "thought you'd never come back 'round to see me."

"you said you handle the laundry and all that stuff?" you recount, your voice stiff and to the point. you place your folded towel onto the counter and slide it towards him, the action swift. "i'd like a new towel, please. maybe two."

trevor smiles, a yellow tooth poking out from his lips. "i do do the laundry. i can fix up a towel or two for you, gorgeous. can't have the little princess walking around here with a dirty towel now, can we?"

you don't reply, nor do you give him the pleasure of seeing you smile. the rhetorical question hangs in the air between you, practically gathering dust as it remained unanswered. the nickname doesnt roll off of his tongue nearly as good as it does when it comes from buckys—

oh my god. stop thinking about that man. 

trevor leans back in his chair with his shoulders raised. "c'mon, that was funny. you gotta admit that i'm the best thing about this dump."

"the best thing about this dump is the air conditioning." you quickly retort before crossing your arms against your chest. "how long is this gonna take?"

his grin falters just slightly before twisting into something sharper. "it'll take no time, but it'll cost ya a pretty penny."

something cold settles in your chest. "you said it was FREE."

"boss raised it to ten bucks per piece." trevor stays like it's perfectly reasonable. "but if you wanted to discuss another form of payment, you can always come back after dark and we can see how it goes from there."

your jaw clenches. its one thing to demand ten dollars to wash a singular piece of clothing, but it's another to continuously press down on you with the threat of a good time to see if you'll break.

"i'll figure something out." you grab your towel from the counter and turn towards the door. "thanks anyways."

the word thanks tastes bitter on your tongue, but you don't give him the satisfaction of seeing it. you push open the door, and just before it shuts, you can hear trevor shout out—

"oh come on, sugar! you know you want it!"

the door slams behind you harder than you meant it to.

heat hits you all at once, thick and suffocating as it wraps around you like a punishment. you clutch the towel tighter in your hand as you stomp back out into the parking lot, your pulse ringing in your ears.

metal clanks somewhere to your left, and then stops. you dont look, but you can feel the way the air shifts; the weight of someone's attention.

you risk a glance, and quickly find that bucky's no longer bent over the hood of his truck. he's standing upright now, a hand on his hip and a rag in the other. his expression is unreadable, his lips parted just slightly, his eyes slow and assessing, and whatever he sees on your face makes his grip on his rag tighten.

"you okay?" he asks, breaking the silence like he's testing the ice. his voice is calm like it usually is, but there's something sharper that rests underneath it.

you hesitate. every instinct you've honed over the years tells you to just shrug it off, that this is just another case of a man expecting something, to say its nothing and to keep moving. but you're done holding it in.

you huff, gesturing angrily at the front office where trevor is still sitting like a king. "asshole wanted ten bucks for a new towel. and he keeps—" you pause, the words echoing in your mind, "he keeps making these horrible passes at me and i just—"

you stop yourself and bucky's expression changes almost immediately. its not dramatic, nor is it explosive; it's colder, like something you'd said had rubbed him the wrong way.

you look at him then. "it's fine. i'll figure it out."

he studies you for a moment longer as you stand there soaking up the heat. its silent as his eyes flick from your face to the towel and then back to your face. then he exhaled and reaches into his jean pocket.

"i've got a spare towel in my room that you can take. it's clean." he says as he digs for something before he pulls out a pair of keys with a cheap plastic keychain that you recognise as his room key.

you quickly shake your head, "you don't have to—"

"i wasn't askin'." he tosses his room key to you and you catch it, the metal rattling in your palm. "you can take it."

your jaw tightens as you fidget with the keys. they feel heavy in your hand and still warm from his pocket. "i don't want to owe you anything."

the corner of bucky's mouth lifts just a fraction— not quite a smile, but something softer. "good. wouldnt want you to." then quieter, like he can sense your hesitation and like he doesn't want anyone else to hear it, he adds, "it's just a towel."

you really do want to turn him down, but the heat presses in on all sides and you're sure that if you use your towel one more time, it'd leave you stickier than you'd entered the shower feeling. to top it off, bucky is looking at you like he expects nothing in return.

"...thanks, bucky." you finally say.

he nods once, easy and almost proud of you for accepting his help. "it's folded up on the tv console. you cant miss it."

your fingers curl around the key and you give bucky one last glance before you turn and head towards his room. the walk across feels longer than it should, every step you take heavy with the awareness of bucky's eyes on your back. sweat sticks to your skin and the sun is relentless overhead, but the heat isn't what's bothering you— it's the fact that you're about to walk into the room of a stranger and cross a line you didnt even know you were standing on.

you stop in front of the door, slide the key into the lock, and twist— but it doesn't open. you try again, a little harder this time, but there's still nothing. you glance over your shoulder towards bucky.

"oh, the door sticks." he yells from across the lot. he makes a stranger gesture with his shoulder, "gotta give it a shove."

you hesitate, then brace yourself before shouldering your way into the room. the door pops open with an awkward crack, swinging inward enough for you to slip inside.

the first thing you notice is how lived in it feels. its similar to yours, but it's warmer somehow. the curtains are half drawn, letting in a thin strip of sunlight that cuts across the bed and the worn carpet. the air smells faintly of engine oil and generic dollar store soap— the grit hidden underneath the clean— and something distinctly him, like heat and metal and long hours on the road.

there's very little decoration, but what is there counts. a denim jacket is slung over the small desk chair in the corner and a pair of black jeans sit messily folded on the table, scuffed with red dirt like they've seen more miles than most people. a half empty water bottle sits on the rickety bedside table beside a folded up receipt and an open pocketknife, the blade well-used.

the bed isn't neat, the blankets thrown to the side without much care. an open duffel bag sits on the end of the bag, and you hate how nosy you feel when something in it catches your attention.

you take a few steps forwards until you're able to peek inside, hand brushing against the zipper of the duffel. there's not much; a wallet and folded clothes, a blend of worn and clean fabrics— a flannel, torn blue jeans, crisp white socks— but then something out of place catches your eye.

paper.

it's not loose. it's tucked carefully into a pocket on the inside of the bag. you tell yourself that you're only looking because it's there, and you reach in before you can even think, pulling it out with care. just a glance— that's all.

the edges are worn and it's creased down the middle like it's been folded and unfolded more times than it should've survived, evident by the thin piece of tape that's holding a corner of it together. the colour has faded into something dull, but the frozen memory printed onto the front is anything but.

two men stand in the centre of it, close in a way that feels more personal than anything you'd ever known. you recognise one of the men as bucky— younger, happier, and clean shaven— a bright smile on his face as he stares at the other man. the other man is broad shouldered, his features sharp underneath his stubble, and wearing a smile similar to bucky's, one so wide that it almost looks like world hasn't had the chance to take anything from them yet.

your thumb absentmindedly brushes against the photo where bucky's face is, the finger curling right down the curve of his jaw.

there's no writing on the back, nor is there an explanation. who is this mystery man, a friend? a boyfriend? either way, they look awfully close.

your chest tightens, red hot guilt flaring in your stomach with the awful realisation that this is something extremely personal to bucky and you've probably just crossed hundreds of lines. the open bag seems to stare at you, and for the first time since you stepped foot in the motel room, you've become acutely aware of how much of an invasion of privacy this is.

you look away from the photo like it might burn you, heart thudding as you fold it back up and shove it back into the pocket you found it in. you find the towel folded up on the tv console just as bucky had said— white, clean, and untouched— and you grab it quickly, beelining straight towards the door.

you shut the door behind you and lock it. you cross the lot, quicker this time and with your eyes fixed on bucky like he might see through you if you blink. he's still by the truck, arms deep in the engine system, but he stops what he's doing as soon as he hears your rushed feet heading towards him.

"you find it?" he asks as he steps off of the bumper.

you nod and hand him the key. "yeah. thanks again."

your fingers brush when he takes it— just the briefest touch of his calloused fingers against your soft ones— and he curls it into the palm of his hand, gaze flickering at the clean towel in your hand.

you turn to leave, a half smile on your lip. you're halfway through a step when—

"hey." bucky calls.

you pause and turn back around.

"you busy tonight?" he asks,

"unless you count watching old reruns all night and listening to the rats in the walls, not really." you try to joke, but the humour dies halfway in your throat when you realise it's your reality. "why?"

he shrugs like his suggestion is nothing big. "there's a decent diner about ten miles down the road. thought maybe we could get something in you that isn't shit from a vending machine."

for a split second, you almost say yes immediately. the idea of real food, of leaving this place even if its just for a little while, of just having someone normal to talk to, feels like a god-given grace. but instinct cuts in fast. the logical part of your mind tells you to not get comfortable.

comfortable is how you get stuck. comfortable is how you get hurt.

"yeah, i don't know about that." you gesture vaguely to your room, and then to your empty pocket. "running low on cash."

"don't worry bout it." bucky says almost immediately. "my treat. least i can do after you've kept me company these past few days."

you blink. "we met last night."

then, almost like you'd just told him a joke, a small laugh falls from his mouth, and god, something about it makes you weak in the knees. "maybe, but you sittin' in your room all day staring at me fixin my truck is still better company than listenin' to trevor watchin' cheap cable porn in his office all day."

oh. he noticed that?

you open your mouth but shut it again. there's no point in denying it, and the cheeky grin that sits plastered on bucky's face shows that you can't gaslight your way out of this one.

the texas heat presses in and the motel hums around you, and for once, the idea of staying in your room all night feels worse than the risk of saying yes. you lift your eyes back to him and sigh, the fight leaving your shoulders.

"okay." you say, more to yourself than anyone else, then you nod. "yeah, okay. dinner sounds... dinner sounds nice."

bucky's smile spreads across his face, slow and satisfied like he knew you would accept. "good. i'll knock around seven."

and he does.

the knock comes at 6:58pm, solid knuckles banging against the wood. the sound echoes through your room louder than it needs to, and it sets every nerve in you alight.

you sit up straighter in the edge of your bed, your heart giving a traitorous jump. for a second, you stare at the door like the sound might go away, but it doesn't. there's a soft scuff of boots against concrete on the other side, and then there's a quiet huff of breath, patient and unhurried.

"hey." bucky's voice comes through the door, low and careful, almost like he's giving you an out. "it's me."

you swallow. your hands are clammy and there's a strange heaviness that sits in the pit of your stomach. you can't remember the last time someone knocked on your door for you.

"yeah—" you rub a hand over your face, clearing your throat as you push yourself to your feet. you're too aware of how your clothes fit and how you look. "uh, just... give me a second."

"i'm not goin' anywhere."

you smooth your hands over your shirt, eyes glazing over your reflection in the small hanging mirror, and then you look down at yourself. you're presentable enough. with one final breath, you cross the room and open the door.

the creak of the door catches bucky's attention. he's standing there with his hands shoved into his jean pockets, his boots scuffed and his hair a little wet like he's washed up since the last time you saw him. there's something pleasant about the way he smells— like sandalwood and leather and him, a welcome change from the stale mix of dusty carpet and mouldy insulation.

he looks good. he looks handsome.

"ready?" he asks, and you cant ignore the way his eyes travel down the length of your body like he's taking you in for the first time instead of the girl he's seen coming and going all week. "let's get some food in you."

it isn't scrutinising, but it's thorough enough for warmth to creep up your neck, to make you suddenly aware of where your hands are, how you're standing, how close he feels in the narrow doorway. you haven't felt this way since— never mind.

your brows knit as you glance past him and towards the lot. "wait, are we taking your truck? i thought it was fucked up."

bucky's face relaxes as he turns over to glance over his shoulder, then back at you. "she's fucked, but she can still drive."

"i hope so." you murmur as you lock your door and slide the keys into your pocket. you hear bucky chuckle.

as you walk beside bucky, you manage to sneak a glance at him. he's relaxed, his shoulders loose and his steps casual. he carries himself with the confidence of a man who does this all the time— talking to strangers and helping them out, letting himself form connections that inevitably lead nowhere— meanwhile your pulse is throbbing throughout your body, struggling to differentiate the difference between the first date jitters you feel and your fight or flight response kicking in.

you force yourself to suck in a deep breath. bucky is nice. he's done nothing but help you., and even if he weren't, you aren't helpless. you know how to run and you know how to fight. you've done it before and you'd do it again. the thought settles the restless anxiety in your chest, and that gives you enough clarity as you near the truck.

the first thing you realise is how big the truck is. from afar, it looks just like every other semi you've seen in your life. up close, it's rusted metal and worn paint, scratches and dents adorning the length of it, and it towers over you like a skyscraper.

bucky reaches up and over and pulls open the door. "might be a bit of a climb. you think you can get up there yourself?"

"i think i'll be fine." you quickly reply, already stepping forwards.

you reach up and grab a hold of the support handle and plant your foot on the step, and you immediately realise you have no idea what you're doing. something about the layout of the truck is strange in a way that makes your brain short circuit for a long moment. the step is higher than expect, the handle a little too far back, your arms criss crossed and your leg is suspended for a moment as you try to figure out where to go next.

its not graceful at all.

you drop to the ground in defeat. before you can try and embarrass yourself again, bucky's hands are there, firm and warm on your waist, steadying you without being rough.

"'s alright, princess," he murmurs. "i've gotcha."

he lifts you like you weigh nothing. your hands instinctively brace against his shoulders, solid beneath your palms, and you can feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of his shirt. for a second, all you can feel is his hands. you're painfully aware of how close his face is to your stomach— to that area— and you feel a little breathless as he hoists you up and sets you down into the passenger seat like you belong there.

you look down at him with a tight lipped smile, "sorry."

"don't be." he says gently as he gives you a small pat on the side of your thigh, already stepping back with a small smile and his hand on the door. "truck's old. not exactly built for somethin' little like you."

you blink as he shuts the door for you and circles the truck before clicking open his own door and climbing in with ease. the cab feels smaller when he settles into his seat, filled with the low rumble of the starting engine and bucky's scent.

he glances over as you as he pulls his door shut. he glances over at you, eyes flicking downwards. "seatbelt." he reminds you, and you quickly buckle in. he nods once when it clicks, satisfied.

bucky clicks some switches and tugs at some levers, and the truck lurches forwards with a load groan. gravel crunches under the tires as bucky reverses the truck with ease, manoeuvring the huge vehicle out of the small lot. the headlights sweep across the cracked paint of the motel, illuminating the stretch of route 66 that it sits on.

it feels strange— being here on the road again, moving again after a stagnant period— like your body remembers the rhythm of the road even if your body hasn't quite caught up.

for a few miles, neither of you speaks. the radio hums softly between stations, bucky skipping until it lands on something that vaguely resembles dire straits before he finally leans back, one hand on the wheel and the other resting along the sill of the window, the glass cracked open just enough for wind to funnel into the cab.

you watch the world go by through the windshield. there's desert scrub, flickering neon motel lights, the occasional passing set of headlights that fly past before you even really notice them. it's peaceful in a way you hadn't really expected.

"so," bucky breaks the silence without turning to look at you, his voice just slightly louder than the hum of the radio and the growl of the truck. "california."

your head turns towards him before you can really control it. "california." you echo, the word sitting strange and heavy on your tongue despite it being the goal you'd been trying to reach for so long.

theres another small pause before bucky hums.

"what's so special about california? job? family?" he turns and glances at you for half a second, throat bobbing once before he turns back to the road. "or did you just throw a dart at a map and decide it was good enough?"

a small laugh slips from your mouth before you can stop it— soft, surprised, one that almost catches you off guard— but it fades into something you'd barely call a smile. you glance down at your shorts, fingers picking at the fabric, and although bucky doesn't look over, you get the feeling that he's listening in a lot closer now.

"i don't know." you admit. "i just needed to get the fuck out of chicago."

bucky nods once, slow and understanding. "that's fair. not always good to stay in one place forever."

he doesnt ask you to explain, nor does he pry. he simply adjusts his grip on the wheel and shifts in his seat before he adds, almost absentmindedly, "a lotta people end up on the road for that reason."

"hmm." you softly nod. then your head lulls to the side just slightly, enough that you can gesture to the back of the truck that rumbles behind you. "what about you? what've you got back there in the trailer?"

bucky glances over at you for just a second, his brows furrowed like you'd just recounted a complex math equation. "who taught you that?"

"taught me what?" you ask, "trailer?"

"yeah." bucky's lips curl into a soft smile, and you can see the small crinkle of his eyes in the rear view mirror. "usually pretty girls like you just refer to the back— or they just call it the truck. you knew what you were talking about, and that's not usually something you just know unless you've picked it up from someone."

you ignore the pretty part of the sentence, and instead try to put on a teasing grin. "do you talk to a lot of pretty girls?"

and then, almost like he can sense the playfulness in your tone bucky turns his head just enough for you to catch the smirk that sits on his lips. "only the ones who can tell the different between a cab and a trailer."

your chest flutters in a way that unconsciously makes a smile grow on your face, warmth creeping up your neck until bucky finally turns away from you and back to the road. there's something in the curve of his jaw, in the blue of his eyes, in the quiet confidence he drives, in the faint rush of his scent carried by the wind— it's confusing, but also exciting. you can't help the pull of curiosity or the way your mind lingers on the idea of him for longer than you should.

but something horrible tugs at your heart. it's something familiar, something you've know for so many years, something that's made its home in your body; guilt.

"my, uh..." you scratch the side of your neck, pausing just momentarily to pull your eyes away from the side of bucky's face. "my boyfriend built semis. he taught me all about the parts and the frames and stuff to try and get me into the business to help out but—" a small, self conscious shrug follows. "not a lot of it stuck."

"boyfriend?" bucky asks. "and where's he?"

"far away, i hope." you say. there's a tightness in your chest, and you reach up to fidget with the necklace that hangs around your neck. "he's actually the reason why i left chicago."

you're looking out of your window now, but you can feel the burn of bucky's eyes on the back of your head as he turns to look at you for a moment.

"he an asshole?" he asks, half joking, but his tone is soft and patient like he already knows the answer.

"you could say that." you reply with a soft laugh, a little tight lipped and a little sad, but relieved that he isn't prying for more, and for the first time in days, it feels okay to leave it out in the open and mostly unspoken.

the road ahead stretches into flat darkness. the radio hums quietly. the truck rumbles as it rolls over rocks and asphalt. ahead, a bright pair of headlights glow bright. it's peaceful.

"garden gnomes."

your brows furrow. you turn your head towards bucky, who's eyes are set on the road. you're sure you'd misheard him. "what?"

he glances at you, then back at the road, his voice low like he's confessing a classified secret. "in the back. it's garden gnomes."

you blink, a bubble of a laugh slipping free before you can stop it. "you're hauling gnomes across the country? is that a joke?"

"sounds funny, but apparently those little bastards are worth more than both you and i and this truck." he says, dead serious, but there's a small twitch of a smile on his face. "rich people have nothin' better to spend their money on."

you snort again, laughter bubbling from your chest and breaking the heaviness that had settled there. bucky smiles at the sound— small, satisfied, toothy— like that was exactly the reaction he had hoped for. you press a hand against your mouth to try and suppress your laughter, but it barely works.

"hey— they're gettin' a nicer trip than most people do." he half-heartedly adds with a grin. "they're drivin' with the best trucker in america. not everybody can say that."

"the best trucker in america and the most humble."

"don't start, missy." bucky warns you, but the amusement on his face gives him away. "you're apart of the lucky few who can call themselves a passenger of mine."

you scoff, "whatever you say, buck."

the nickname slips out before you can stop it, and for half a second, you wonder if you've crossed a line. but you watch how bucky's eyes linger on you and the way his knuckles flex against the wheel, turning white just ever so slightly as his grip tightens. there's a slight tick in his jaw before his tongue darts out and swipes across his bottom lip.

a neon light catches your eye. it's bright against the dark of the sky, the singular word DINER illuminated in bright pink and faint blues. it's a simple sign, but it gets the work done. a small building comes into view, small and unassuming yet warm and homey, like it's just waiting for people to stumble in for a feed.

"that must be it." bucky mutters as he squints through the windscreen. he pulls at a few things, and the truck rolls to a slow as you near the building.

"good." you murmur. "i'm starving."

bucky slows the truck, turning off of the highway steering wide and pulling the truck to the far end of the lot where the truck won't block anyone in (even though there's only three or four cars in the lot).

"she's too big to squeeze in there." he adds as he pulls the brakes and shuts the engine off. the rumbling stops, and suddenly it's quiet again. "hope you don't mind the walk."

"it's fine." you tell him as you unbuckle your seatbelt. you click open the door and push it open, almost falling out at the weight of it. you glance down to the step, and then towards the trucker. "uh, bucky... would you be able to—"

before you can finish, bucky's door swings open, the cab groaning at the shift of weight. "i've got it." he says, voice calm but amused before he hopes out and shuts the door behind him.

you watch the top of his head as he circles the front of the truck, and he appears at your door. he reaches a hand out before you can even think about trying to hop down yourself.

"here." he says as you take his hand, the other arm extended just in case you slip.

you let him guide you down, one hand in his and the other on his shoulder. you hop down knowing that bucky would catch you if you fell without hesitation. the gravel crunches beneath your boots when you touch the ground and your hands slip from bucky's.

he takes the time to give you a small smile like it was nothing, and the two of you head towards the diner. the evening air carries the scent of grease and coffee and something faintly like him, and you're not sure if you're smelling him because he's so close or if its because

bucky steps ahead of you to push the door open for you, and the bell overhead dings and echos through the diner. the first thing you notice as you step inside is the clatter of dishes in the kitchen and the soft buzz of the coffee machine on the counter.

although clean and well-kept, the diner looks like it hasn't been updated in decades. the checkered vinyl floor is worn in some places from years of customers, the metal trim around the counter and the stools shine in the bright led light, and the red leather of the booths fray and tear at the corners. there are dozens— if not hundreds— of framed black and white photos on the wall of passing customers, food, and the employees, and next to those are various old school records hung haphazardly.

a few customers are scattered around the diner, all invested in their own world, and don't dream it's over by crowded house plays faintly from the jukebox in the corner, filling the space with music where otherwise would be ambient diner noise. a bell dings and your eyes dart to the kitchen where a chef passes the waitress a plate full of fries and a cheeseburger. the sight makes your stomach growl despite the vending machine snacks you'd had earlier that day.

bucky seems to catch onto your hunger and is quick to place a hand on your lower back and usher you towards an empty booth in the emptier half of the diner. the leather creaks as you both slide in, your hands instantly grabbing for the menu and flipping it open.

the first thing you look at— almost instinctively— are the prices.

"it's a bit expensive for a highway diner." you think out loud as you scan the menu, your thumbnail in between your teeth.

"get whatever you want." bucky says as he watches you. you catch him looking, and through your lashes, you watch his expression soften. "i don't like keeping a bunch of cash on me anyways."

you feel bad, but he's offering. you look down at the menu again, thumb playing with the frayed corner. after a minute, you ask, "so... what are you getting? the BLT looks good."

he shrugs lightly as he leans back against the booth. he gives you a small smile as he shakes his head. "i had somethin' back at the motel."

before you can reply, a waitress appears at the side of your booth. she's older, grey streaks in her brown hair and her eyes kimd but tired. her hair is pulled into a loose bun, and a red apron is tied around her waist. she reaches for her notepad and her pen, and then she smiles.

"evenin'." she greets. "what can i get for you folks?"

you sit up straight and smile, menu in hand. "hi. could i get one classic cheeseburger with fries? and two cokes, please."

the waitress nods and jots down your order on the notepad. you put the menu down thinking you're done, but then you look at bucky, and find that he's already looking at you. you blink at each other before an idea pops into your head.

"actually, sorry, could you make that two cheeseburgers?"

the look at bucky gives you makes you grin.

"of course, sweetheart. so two cheeseburgers with fries?" the waitress recounts, and you nod feeling a little victorious. "alright, it'll be out in no time."

"thank you." you smile.

the waitress leaves, and you lean back in the booth like you hadn't done anything. there's a moment of silence where you're smiling at bucky and he's staring back at you with a perplexed look.

"what was that?" bucky asks after a moment. his brows are raised, and the look on his face turns into amusement.

"what was what?" you reply, feigning innocence.

"that." he gestures vaguely to you. "the— you know... the cheeseburger thing."

you lean forwards. "i'm not gonna sit here and eat a burger while you stare at me, bucky. if we're doing this, we're gonna eat fries and drink out cokes together."

bucky scoffs and shakes his head. "anyone ever told you you don't play fair?"

"once or twice." you grin.

and just like the waitress had said, your cheeseburgers were out in now time. she slides the plates in front of you with practised ease, and you dive in without hesitation.

the bun is soft, the cheese is melted just enough that is droops off of the patty, and the fries are the perfect amount of crispy. you take a bite, one that makes you sigh in relief, and you dont even bother to eat politely. you scarf down half of your burger before bucky's even touched his.

he shoves a fry into his mouth as he watches you chew. "should i be worried you're gonna steal mine too?"

you swallow. "if you dont eat it fast enough, then maybe."

he huffs a laugh through his nose and shakes his head before he finally leans forwards and takes a proper bite of his burger.

the two of you keep eating, but your eyes drift back to bucky every so often. there's something about him that you just can't look away from— the way he holds his burger, the way he chews, the way his eyes watch the other customers behind you, the way his shoulders relax now that he's finally eating— but then, uninvited, your mind slips back to the photo in his duffel bag.

the worn edges. the fading colour. the way bucky looked. the man beside him. everything about it pulls at something in you.

you finish your burger and slow down. you wipe at your mouth with a tissue, your stomach full as you lean back to digest. you watch him for a moment longer before you tilt your head just slightly, reaching for a fry as if to imitate cluelessness.

"what did you do before all of... this?" you start, aiming for casual but landing somewhere more questioning. "the hauling, i mean. the travelling and all that stuff. did you always do this, or was there... someone who got you into it?"

its subtle— something in the way your words trail off, in the way your eyes search his for an answer— and bucky clocks it immediately.

his jaw pauses mid-chew. his eyes flick between yours like he's replaying what you asked word-for-word. he swallows his food, and he squints just slightly.

"you snooped in my bag, didn't you?"

your shoulders tense. for a moment, you think about denying it or telling him that he's crazy, but you respect him too much to lie.

"i swear i didn't mean to. it was just... open, and i just—" you blink, huffing out a small breath. "i'm sorry."

bucky doesn't say anything for a moment. he takes another bite of his burger and continues chewing on his food while you stress the fuck out. you sort of just stare at him as he places his burger back down and takes a breath.

"'s fine. not much in there for you to take anyways." he says as he leans back. he crosses his arms against his chest, eyes flicking towards you. "i'm guessing you wanna know who he is."

"only if you want to tell me." you tell him.

a beat passes. then bucky exhales through his nose, the corner of his mouth twitching like he's decided on something.

"alright. i'll tell you about sam—" his gaze sharpens just a bit, more intent now. "but you have to tell me more about your boyfriend."

the proposition sits in front of you heavier than you'd expected. your stomach twists, not with fear, but with the awareness that agreeing means opening a door you've been keeping shut.

but your curiosity— or maybe your resilience, that stubborn part of you that refuses to let your past dictate every choice you make— overcomes your fear.

"okay." you nod. "fine."

bucky leans back in the booth, hands reaching out to rest on the table. his fingers drum slightly on the table, his eyes unfocused for a second like he's replaying a memory in his mind.

"the man in the photo... his name is sam." he begins. "we were... friends. real good friends. we had a truck together once— an old thing, nothin' fancy, but we'd spent hours tinkerin' with it, fixin' whatever broke. sometimes we'd race the damn thing down the road just for somethin' to do. felt like we could do anything' back then."

his lips twitch, not quite into a smile, but into something fleeting. you watch as it passes on his face, brief but visible.

"where's sam now?" you ask softly.

bucky exhales. "i don't know. one day, we got into an argument about... everything and nothing, really. it was stupid. and then we just... went in different directions." he speaks slow like he's trying to remember, or maybe he's trying not to feel. there's something underneath, like he's choosing to trust you even if it costs him a second of discomfort.

"do you ever think of going back? of ever talking to him again?"

"all the time. not a day passes where i wish i could just... call him up and tell him i'm sorry." bucky admits. "i've done a lot of things wrong in my life, but not fixin' that... not tryin' to make it right... it sticks with me."

he pauses, fingers stilling on the table. "no matter what i do or where i go, a part of me stays back there— with him."

its said plainly, but there's something in the way that his jaw works that shows he's already said a lot more than he usually allows himself to. the memory isn't old or something fleeting he thinks about every so often. the memory of sam is still very much alive in bucky, and he carries it with him mile after mile.

bucky reaches over and grabs his coke. he brings the straw to his lips, takes a long sip, and sets it down with a sigh. he crosses his arms again, and his eyes flick back to you, steady now.

"that's all i've got. your turn."

you nod once, then again, like the motion might knock you out of the daze you'd pulled yourself into. there's a small inhale through your nose,

"right. okay, um— where do i start..." you think out loud, eyes focused on the condensation of your glass like it might give you an answer.

"i guess it started back in high school. i didnt have many friends or talked to anyone, so the moment a guy started paying attention to me, i guess i didn't know any better." you swallow, eyes unfocused now. "he was older. he knew how to talk, and he was confident, and i fell head over heels. it felt like it was the first time anyone had ever actually seen me."

"but then we moved in together, and it got bad. he hurt me— a lot." the laugh that leaves your mouth is more uncomfortable than anything humorous. your finger traces the edge of your plate just to try to ground yourself. "he knew how to do it in a way that made sure i'd always somehow come running back to him."

your voice wobbles on the last word, and thats when bucky moves.

its not abrupt or enough to startle you, and you barely even look up. he just leans forwards, forearms resting on the table now, like he's making sure you know he's there and that you don't have to do this alone. his jaw tightens, not angry at you, but in anger at the man who left scars you dont name.

"i didnt realise that the attention started turning into control." "you admit softly. "or how easy it is to mistake the control for love when you don't know any better. i don't know. sometimes i wish i could just... shove it all into a box and throw it from a moving car... and then go to bed and sleep for once."

"but would you be able to rest?" bucky asks.

"no." you shake your head. "no, i don't think i would."

you can hear a small sigh slip from his mouth, and you almost feel pathetic. you hated being pitied, and this was prime pity territory.

but then bucky reaches forwards to hold your shaking hand, his grip warm and steady. his thumb presses against your knuckles, grounding, like he knows exactly how close you're coming to slipping.

a part of you still shivers at the vulnerability you display— at being seen like this— but the tired part, the honest part, of you doesn't mind the contact if bucky is the one pitying you.

"sweetheart, people like that... they're good at makin' it feel like you're the problem. like you're the one who keeps messin' up. but that doesn't mean you were weak or stupid. it means you were young and you were lonely, and someone cruel decided to take advantage of that." his thumb presses into your skin just slightly. "you got out."

you look up for the first time since you started talking. your waterline burns with unshed tears, and there's a quiver in your lip despite your best attempts to keep it steady.

"i did something bad, bucky. i did something really bad."

he doesn't interrupt. he doesnt tense nor does he pull away. his hands stay exactly where they are in yours, his thumb stilling. his eyes search yours, waiting, giving you the space to speak.

"i shot him."

the words hang heavy in the air between you, whispered but still deafening, and for a second you think the world might come crashing down on you. you prepare for bucky to rip his hands away from you, to spit in your face, and leave you here to rot— but it never comes.

if anything, his grip on your hands tightens. bucky exhales through his nose. he's not shocked. he's not angry with you either— he could never be angry at you. his jaw tightens, and you watch as his thoughts pass in his eyes. his thumb resumes the small circular motion on your knuckles like he's trying to calm you down.

"okay." he says quietly, like he's afraid he might shatter something more fragile than you, like anything louder that leaves him might break you. "okay. thats okay."

his hands never leave yours, but you watch his face change like he's distanced himself from you.

"did you mean to?" he asks gently, not prying nor accusing, just trying to understand what happened. and before you can spiral into whatever answer you're forming, he adds, still soft, "you don't gotta justify yourself to me. i just wanna know what you're feelin' right now."

you pull away from his touch. it almost feels like too much. you retreat into yourself, hands holding yourself just for another sense of safety, but even then, you dont feel safe in your own skin. your fingers press into your sides just to remember that you're there and that you exist outside of the memory and the guilt and the fear.

"i don't know. i was just scared, and he was— he was yelling, and it was so loud. and i shot him, and i was— god, i don't even know if he's alive." you spit out all at once. you turn to bucky, "please don't be scared of me—"

"i'm not scared of you, princess."

bucky says it immediately— no pause, no hesitation— like there was never another option. his voice doesn't rise in anger or soften in pity, and he never once looks away from you.

"you were scared and you did what you needed to survive." he adds quietly. "nobody can blame you for that."

and for the first time since you've said it out loud, the word shot doesn't echo as violently in your mind as it once did. its still there, but it isn't screaming at you anymore.

you nod because its all you feel you can do. you wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand, embarrassed by the wetness, the vulnerability, the rawness you feel after admitting it for the first time.

"how about we get this packed up, and we'll head back." bucky suggests like he's offering you an out.

"yeah." you blink and nod, "okay."

and that's exactly what you do. you leave the diner in silence, and you drive back to the motel in the same silence. bucky helps you down from the truck, and he hands you the entire bag of food with the soft assurance that he 'isn't hungry', bidding you a good night at your room door.

in the shower, you stand under the running water until your skin prickles and your fingers prune, letting the water run over your body for what seems like hours, and when you get out of the shower, you lay in bed half under the covers staring at the ceiling and tracing the cracks and bumps for what feels like even longer.

your body is exhausted, but your mind won't follow. every time you blink, it's there again; the yelling, the smell of sweat and metal, how loud is was. god, it was so loud.

you see it in fragments. the way his face had changed, the split second wgere you realised this was going to happen whether you wanted it to or not, the recoil, the ringing in your ears, the sound of him collapsing, and the blood.

you suck in a breath and sharply turn your head to the side.

the alarm clock glows an ugly red. 3:04am. you reach over and click on the table lamp, and before you can overthink it, you swing your legs over the bed and pad over to the dresser where your duffel sits, half open and slumped against the wood.

you kneel in front of it and unzip it the rest of the way. you begin sifting through your belongings, your fingers clumsy but determined as you dig through scraps of your life that you've shoved together without much care.

and then your hand brushes against something heavy and metallic. you reach in and grab the gun by the barrel, pulling it out and watching as the metal glows under the lamp light before you pull it into your lap. a shotgun. it looks smaller there, stripped of context and fear, but your hands still remember the weight of it. your body itches like it's bracing for something you know has already happened.

you stare at it for a long time— the stupid, ugly thing that changed everything.

it'd been the thing you shoved into your boyfriends face when he'd threatened to keep you locked up in that cramped apartment of his. it'd been the reason he'd let you go, and the thing that saved your life; but simultaneously, it'd also been the thing that'd ruined you.

you decide to be rid of it.

one second you're sitting on the carpet with the shotgun on your lap, and the next, you're pulling on a spare hoodie and stepping out of your room, completely barefoot and all sense of rationality thrown out of the window. you dont even lock your room door.

you cross the small space between your room and bucky's. you knock once, twice, and then once more for good measure, knuckles stinging as soon as they make contact with the wood.

there's a pause. there's a shift. then the door opens.

the door creaks open, and from the dark, bucky emerges. the first thing that you notice is that he's shirtless, and the first thing he notices is that you're carrying a shotgun.

"what's wrong?" is the first thing he says. his voice is still gravely with sleep or something close to sleep, and you almost feel bad for dragging him into your drama again. he doesnt sound scared or in fear for his own life, but you can hear the concern laced in the question. "is that—"

"i want to get rid of it." your hands tighten around the barrel of the gun.

bucky doesn't ask why. he just nods once and steps back inside of his room to tug on a shirt and grab his keys.

the truck eats the miles quickly, the headlights carving a thin path through the dust and the scrub of the texas desert. the land opens up the further out you go, and the two of you drive until you can't see anything but the darkness. bucky pulls off of the road where the tires fade into the sand and kills the engine.

the land bucky helps you down onto is bare in a way that only places with nothing to witness can be. you cant see much further than a couple of feet ahead of you, and the silence is almost deafening. nobody is driving past on route 66 at this time, and nobody is there to watch you hide the weapon.

you hold the gun while bucky holds the shovel and a flashlight.

you dont know how far out you walk. the ground shifts under your bare feet, toes digging into the cooling sand and small stones, but you keep going until the heavy metal in your hands starts feeling heavier than your body can hold. when you glance over your shoulder, you can barely see the moonlight silhouette of the truck in the distance.

in front of you, bucky slows, his flashlight scanning the area out of habit, then he nods.

"here should be good." he says quietly, turning back to you just to check on you. "doubt anyone every comes out this far."

you don't reply. you simply nod, the action small, fingers curling tighter around the barrel and the handle. your throat feels thick, your words lodged there with nowhere to go, and maybe it's better that way. you dont know what you'd say even if you tried.

bucky holds the flashlight out for you to grab, and you take it and shine it at the ground. the light cuts a pale circle onto the sand, and your brows furrow when bucky presses the tip of the shovel into the ground, tasting the density.

"maybe i should do it." you interrupt, the words coming out thin, like you're testing out the question more than asking it.

he doesnt even look at you. "i've got it."

but you still feel so guilty. he doesnt even know your name and he here is on the border between new mexico and texas buring evidence for you.

"it's my gun, bucky." your grip tightens around the flashlight, the muzzle of the gun scratching against the ground. there's a quiet guilt and responsibility in it, a quiet belief that this is something you have to carry alone. "you don't have to do this for me—"

bucky sighs as he finally pauses to look at you. he pulls his hands from the handle of the shovel and folds them on top of each other on the handle, his eyes soft and unyielding like he's already made up his mind and he's just waiting for you to catch up.

"you already asked me to bring you out here, sweetheart. i'm not lettin' you do this on your own anymore." bucky says, quieter but no less sure, and his eyes never leave your face. "you've done enough survivin' by yourself. let me do this for you."

you hesitate for half a second longer like you might still argue, but the fight drains out of you instead. the way he's looking at you feels like he's willingly shouldering the weight with you— or maybe for you.

you nod once. "okay."

bucky gives you a short nod back like your compliance is all he needs before he turns to the shovel again. he drives the shovel down, the metal biting into the ground with a dull clang. he pulls the shovel from the ground before slamming it back down again, harder and stiffer this time like he knows exactly how much force to use and when.

you keep the flashlight trained on the growing divot, the beam wobbling just slightly whenever the shovel meets the ground. after a while of staring at bucky, you swallow, your voice low.

"do you think i could go to jail for this?" you ask him. the question had been running rampant in your mind ever since you'd left y the apartment in chicago.

bucky pauses mid-scoop for a second, head tilting upwards towards you. the raise of his brows and the small huffed out laugh he gives you makes the question you just ask feel stupid— and in retrospect, it probably was.

"people go to jail for less serious shit than shooting your ex-boyfriend, princess." he says, not unkind, just honest. he turns back to the ground and stabs into the sand. "if that asshole's still alive and he gives the cops a story about how you left guns a-blazin', you could be set up for attempted murder."

"oh." you mutter as you fight the urge to roll your eyes. "thanks bucky. that really helps. super comforting."

he huffs quietly. "you asked."

you kick at a mound of sand like it had personally wronged you, and it's only then that you realise you're completely barefoot. you're not sure when that happened.

"well—" you pause, flashlight dipping just slightly, "yeah, i asked, but hearing it that way instead of a simple yes or no or maybe just freaks me out."

"sorry." bucky exhales through his nose. "not much point in worryin' about it now. thinkin' that far ahead'll eat at you, and it sounds like it already has been."

"whatever." you grumble. "i at least wanna get to california before i get thrown in a cell to rot."

bucky glances at you. "and you will."

bucky finished digging the hole with a finally jab of his shovel, sand piling up around it in a large mound. he steps back and nods towards it, giving the the go-ahead without saying it out loud. you lean down and place the gun inside, pushing it down as far as it can go, the metal scratching against the sand as it sinks inside. when you stand back up, you cross your arms over your chest.

the weapon you'd used to maim someone now looked so small. stripped of its power and its noise. just a cold, ugly thing sitting in a hole in the ground.

for a long while, the two of you just stare at the gun. there's not much to look at, but there's something about it that just feels different now. it doesn't look like fear or adrenaline anymore. it just looks out of place, almost wrong, like it never belonged in your hands in the first place.

bucky breaks the silence first, his question a little too casual for the context behind it. "was it a good shot at least?"

you turn your head just slightly to look at him, and he does the same. he watches you as you search for the answer, a soft sigh falling from your mouth.

"i got him right in the shoulder." you bluntly reply, your voice quiet even in the silence of the desert. "he was bleeding a lot, though. almost thought his arm was going to fall off."

bucky hums once, his face unreadable, then he steps forwards and starts pushing the gathered sand back into the hole. you watch as the ground swallows the gun, and inadvertently swallows up everything else you'd brought with you— the dread, the panic, the buzzing tension you'd felt for so long.

but you feel a lot better now. of course you still have the topic of being homeless and being arrested on your mind, but at least you aren't carrying around the immediate weight of that cold metal in your hands. the gun is gone, and you can rest a little easier now.

you stand there for a moment longer as bucky finishes up, kicking the sand around so it looks a little less messed with. then, almost wordlessly, the two of you walk back to the truck.

he opens the truck door for you, helps you in, and then he circles around the front and gets in his seat. the engine growls as it comes to life and the headlights blink on like the sun on a bleak morning, and with a few pressed buttons and pulled levers, bucky is pulling the truck back onto the road and back towards the motel.

the road is steady underneath the wheels, and for the first time in a while, you feel a little lighter. neither of you really speak at first. the desert stretches onwards, and your eyes glance to the small analogue clock on the dashboard— 4:17am.

and it's almost like bucky can sense the exhaustion that laces your bones. he glances at you, his own eyes tired although his mind is anything but. "you think you're gonna sleep much tonight?"

you shrug, staring out of the windscreen. "i'll try. there's still a lot on my mind."

your thoughts drift, unbidden and unruly— memories of your boyfriend, the way things had been once and how they are now, and the tension you felt in your body when you left home— but the thought of your him somehow brings you back to trucks, and the thought of trucks and sleep brings you back to the thought of the sleeper cab of a semi truck.

a little impulsively, you twist in your seat and pull at the curtain that sits behind you and you peek inside. the little bed sits neatly against the wall, the blankets neatly made and the singular pillow slightly askew at the head of the bed. it's nothing inherently interesting, but it's something that's always confused you.

bucky glances at you in the rear view mirror, "what are you lookin' for back there?"

"just looking at the bed. i've never seen one in real life." you casually reply, "is it comfy back there? mattress looks thin."

bucky half shrugs, his eyes ahead on the road. "it gets the job done, but its not as good as the real thing."

you pull the curtain back just a little further. it's hard to see in the dark, the shadows making it hard to see any object in real detail, but you can make out the pillows and the blankets, a small shelf with a basket full of miscellaneous items— a couple of batteries, a bottle of painkillers, an empty water bottle, and a couple of magazines. you cant read the words, but even in the dark, you can make out the shape of a... is that a lady wearing a playboy bunny costume?

you turn back to bucky and find that he's already watching you through the rear view mirror like a hawk. his brows are slightly furrowed, his eyes dark and steady, but theres a small, sly tilt of his lips.

"are those... playboy magazines?" you almost laugh, glancing at bucky with your brows raised and a cheeky grin. you tease, "those get the job done too?"

theres a moment where bucky sucks on his teeth and glances at you over his shoulder, and you think you should've probably kept your mouth shut— but then he smirks.

"like i said—" bucky lets the corners of his mouth curl, his voice low as he replies. "not as good as the real thing."

oh.

you blink. you blink again. you blink so much that you think you might actually start crying, or throw up, or do something equally humiliating. heat crawls up the length of your neck, settling in your cheeks. what the hell do you reply to that?

"right." you manage, pushing it out a little too quickly. you slide the curtain shut and turn back in your seat, tugging at your seatbelt to get it adjusted right. "yeah. that— that makes sense."

you clear your throat, forcing yourself to stare forwards at the dark stretch of highway instead of paying any attention to bucky. you can feel him glancing at the side of your face, lingering whenever you feel particularly flustered, and you can hear the soft chuckle he makes at your reaction that he doesn't even try to hide.

it settles somewhere low in your stomach, warm and aggravating and far too effective for how little he's actually doing.

god, that image is gonna be burnt in your mind forever.

the motel sign flickers back into view not long after, and the breath of relief that leaves you is almost instant. the neon lights buzz as bucky pulls into the parking lot, headlights beaming over the building before he kills the engine and opens the doors. you follow, and he circles the front and he helps you down from the truck just like he usually does, your hands on his shoulders while his wrap around your waist. it lasts for only a second, but it lingers on your skin all the same.

you walk side by side towards your rooms, the ground luke-warm under your feet and the air cooler now that the night has deepened. it's quiet now in the way most empty places are— no noises or other people for miles, just the two of you sliding your keys into the locks and pushing open your doors.

and when you're about to step foot into your dark room, that's when bucky clears his throat. you pause, poking your head out of the doorframe.

"hey. i'm, uh..." he pauses, voice slower than usual. "i'm sorry about earlier. in the truck. i didnt mean to make things weird."

you blink before the conversation floods your mind. you take a step back out of the door and put on your best attempt of trying to act nonchalant before swallowing down the butterflies that come with the memory.

"there's nothing to be sorry about. its a normal human function and we're both adults." you reply with a casual smile, but you're not sure if you're actually convincing anyone. "right?"

bucky doesn't answer right away. he just sort of looks at you like he's thinking about something that he hasn't decided how to say yet, his jaw clenching once as if he decides against saying anything at all.

"right." he watches you for a second longer, unreadable eyes falling to the dip of your neck, his gaze tracing your collarbone before he looks up again. he gives you a small nod, "get some sleep, okay?"

"i'll try. thanks again for tonight. i really do appreciate it." you pause with a small, faint smile, then quieter, you add, "goodnight, bucky."

"goodnight, princess." bucky replies, his voice soft and steady, carrying enough warmth to make your chest tighten.

and then you're both retreating into your own rooms, doors closing and keys clicking, the thin motel walls swallowing whatever else might've been said.

you don't bother turning on the lights. you pad towards the bed, feet brushing against the carpet to get rid of the sand that sticks to your toes, drop keys onto the tiny table and crawl into bed like sleep might take pity on you if you lie down fast enough.

minutes pass. you glance at the clock. 4:56am. its only been thirty minutes, but it feels like you've been in bed for hours. you lie there on your back half under the covers, your eyes tracing the cracks and divots in the ceiling like they might lead somewhere else, trying to will your brain to shut up, but it doesn't.

the magazines. the sleeper. the idea of bucky

you had meant what you said earlier about how it is a normal human function and that you're both adults and can joke about this sort of stuff all the time and it shouldn't matter, but the mere thought of bucky getting himself off makes you feel like a pervert.

you roll onto your side with a frustrated huff, pulling the blankets tighter over your body as if it might smother the thoughts that plague you, but you have no such luck.

not as good as the real thing.

your brain is cruel enough to supply you images you definitely don't want— bucky alone in the sleeper cab in low light and the magazine crinkling awkwardly in his hands. his pants pool just above his knees, his hand gliding down his stomach, brushing past his happy trail and the waistband of his underwear, the rough palm of his hand wrapping around the base of his cock, the slow looseness of his jaw as it falls open with every tentative stroke—

oh god. you squeeze your eyes shut, heat blooming under your skin, mortified by how fast your own brain betrayed you. you try to push the thought away before it can fully form, like distance is something you can try to manufacture in your head, but it's difficult.

"jesus," you mutter into the empty room.

this is ridiculous. you're exhausted. you're emotionally wrecked. you're traumatised. you should be asleep, and thats all you want to do; so why do you feel so wet? it's pathetic, really, getting wet over the thought of a handsome stranger after he made one joke, but now you're never going to be able to sleep when the heat between your legs feels inescapable.

your hand— almost like it senses your desperation— trails down the length of your stomach and slides past the band of your underwear, fingers dipping through your folds, and the ragged breath that leaves you is almost shameful.

you slide a finger into your weepy entrance, the rhythm you set is slow, the pads of your fingers brushing against your insides at the same pace you imagine bucky would touch you. you can't stop imagining it's his fingers instead of your own.

"bucky." you whine breathlessly into the air as you glide in another finger, the stretch almost delicious.

you pump in and out of your cunt until youre panting into the side of your pillow, until your hips move on their own, until you feel that familiar heat growing deep in your stomach.

then you catch it. cedarwood. musk. his scent. your shirt still smells like him from all those miles you spent sitting in his truck, and the small whimper that leaves your mouth at the smell brings you closer to the edge.

"faster— god, please." you beg, brows furrowing and mouth falling slack as you speed up the assault on your pussy.

you continue until you feel that tight ball of heat finally in your stomach snap. you barely have time to shove your face into your pillow before a borderline pornographic moan rips from your throat, breath hot into the cotton as you grind into your hand.

you pull your shirt over your nose, inhaling bucky's scent with every breath you take, and you find that sleep washes over you easier that night.

the morning light seeps into your room in thin and warm stripes through the curtains, landing across your legs and the crumbled up sheets. you wake slowly— not startled or filled with dread, just rising with a sense of awareness of things of you'd been too overwhelmed with to notice before.

your body feels lighter than it has in a while, rested in a way that almost surprises you. you're not sure if it's because you'd buried one of your biggest worries under four feet of sand or if it was because of your late night self-love session. either way, it was a win for you.

you sit up in the bed, sleep still fuzzy in your eyes, and you look over at the alarm clock— 2:34pm. you'd slept for a while.

then you hear it. the low rumble of a truck outside. it's definitely bucky's— because who else would pull over into this fuckass motel— but it sounds different, almost steadier, not rattling like it had been the last few times you'd heard it. it idles smoothly and confidently, like it finally wants to be running.

you kick the sheets off, pad across the room, shove your feet into your shoes with half-assed effort, and push the door open without bothering to check yourself in the mirror.

the afternoon suns shoots down at you from the sky, rays burning against your skin as you step outside, door closing behind you as you make yourself towards the scene.

bucky is at his usual spot near the hood, shoulders bend and back hunched over the engine, a dirty rag thrown over his shoulder and his grey tank dark in places, spotted with sweat and oil stains, clinging to his body in a way that makes it very hard for you not to notice how broad he is.

but you try to ignore those thoughts and the fact that you'd fucked yourself to the thought of him last night. you perk up, hands folding in front of you as you put on an award winning smile.

"morning." you greet, your voice still a little scratchy from sleep but still light.

bucky is quick to cock his head to the side, and when he sees it's you, he straightens, hands still leaning against the metal of the vehicle, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as the truck continues to purr under his palms.

"mornin'." he says back, low and easy like it's the easiest thing in the world. his eyes flick over you once— almost habitual— before  finally settling on your face. "you look happy."

you grin. "i feel happy. she sounds better than she has all week. did you figure out what was wrong?"

bucky groans as he leans back up, pulling at the rag on his shoulders and wiping off his hands, eyes focused on the newly fixed engine. "yup. figured it out about an hour or two ago. somethin' wrong with the fuel line, but i managed to fix it up. i think she'll be ready for the road tomorrow morning.

he gives the metal of the truck a light tap as you nod before his attention drifts back to you. this time, his eyes dont just flick over you once; they take their time, slow and analysing, like he's reading something you're trying not to show.

his gaze lingers at your face, on your posture, on the way you hold yourself in an unwittingly protective stance in response to his peering eyes. his mouth curls into a smirk, almost amused.

he nods towards you, "how'd you sleep?" he asks, voice even, but now there's something in the way he speaks that makes you wonder if he knows.

"it was fine." you meekly reply with a pathetic smile.

bucky hums under his breath in acknowledgment. his eyes stay on yours, unreadable in nature but not unkind. after a second, he exhaled and rolls his shoulders back like he's trying to release the tension that weaves through his muscles.

"hey, you still got the leftovers from the dinner?" he asks.

you blow out a huff of air through your mouth as you glance back towards your room. "i think so. i can heat it up if you're hungry."

"yeah." he says easily. "that's be great."

so that's exactly what you do— after all, it's the least you could do for bucky after he'd practically sidelined his own mission just for you. you head back to your room, pull out the leftovers, head over to the kitchen.

you pop the lid off of the leftovers and slide it over to the microwave, but when you press the button, but there isn't a beep nor is there any numbers on display. you press it again, harder this time like it might flicker to life, but it doesn't. the microwave sits there dead and useless, smelling faintly of popcorn and disappointment.

"great." you murmur.

after a moment, you snap the lid back onto the container. there's only one other option, and you already dread it— trevor.

you enter the office, the air conditioning hitting you square in the face the moment you open the door. you step forwards and ring the cheap desk bell on the counter, and the back room door opens by the second ding. trevor steps out, glasses askew, a few strands of his dirty blonde hair sticking up in strange directions, and a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth like it's part of his uniform.

you don't bother with pleasantries and are quick to get to the point. "the microwave in the kitchen is broken. is there any way you could fix it or maybe heat this up for me?"

trevor squints at you, unimpressed. "i'm not doin' no favours for you after the attitude you've been givin' me ever since you stepped foot onto the property."

"it's not for me." you tip your head towards the window. "it's for him."

both of you glance towards the parking lot. bucky's by the truck, still working, still sweating, still leaning over the hood in a way that makes his muscles look extra toned in the sun and his body look carved out of heat and hard work. you feel your heart thump against your ribs and trevor lets out a pathetic huff, but you're sure you and trevor both look away for different reasons.

he sucks on his teeth as he looks you up and down once because he holds his hand out and makes a gesture for you to hand it over. "i got one in the back. it'll be a minute."

you hand it over with a shit-eating grin. "i can wait."

trevor murmurs something under his breath as he disappears behind the back door. a few seconds later, the microwave kicks on— a loud, rattling sound that you can hear even through the shut door.

you tap your fingers against the counter, eyes wandering around the offie. there's a popping noise that catches your attention, and you find yourself looking out of the window and watching bucky again.

he wipes his hands on his rag and tosses it back onto his shoulder, unaware of your eyes on him and focused enough that his tongue sticks out against his lower lip in concentration. there's something unusually calming about watching him work like this, like the world is simple under the hood of a truck.

"... authorities are still searching for the suspect responsible for the shooting of a man in central chicago last week.

your fingers curl at the edge of the counter? your eyes darting towards the small red radio in the corner of the room. you lean over and turn the volume knob until you can hear the words clearly over the microwave.

"witnesses describe her as..."

your blood runs cold.

the description never seems to end. your hair colour and texture, your eye colour, your skin colour, your height, your build, your type of clothing. everything is listed. it feels like everything about you is being peeled open and dissected live on air for millions to hear.

"... authorities urge anyone with information on the whereabouts of this individual to come forward..."

you turn to the back room door.

you're not sure if trevor can even hear the broadcast, but you hope that he set the timer for longer than a minute. the microwave whirs loudly behind the door, drowning out the radio, and you go silent as if the broadcaster could hear you if you spoke, like any sound you make would make them aware of where you are.

and then it ends. just like that, the radio clicks, replaced by cherry country music that spills back into the room as if nothing had ever happened. you don't realise how tight you'd been holding the counter until you hwar the beep of the microwave from behind the door, and trevor pushes it open with his foot soon after, the steaming container in his hands.

you swallow your fear as trevor slides the leftovers across the counter towards you, forcing your hands to uncurl from around the table.

"it's hot—" he starts, but your hands wrap around the container anyways and you pull it from him.

you turn and shoulder the door open with little care.

"not like i wanted a thank you or anythin'." trevor shouts behind you as you practically shut the door on his face.

the heat seeps through the container and into your palms as you cross the lot towards bucky. he straightens when he sees you, lips already curling into a smile and his mouth parting like he's about to say something.

"what were you doin' in th—"

you lean down and place the leftovers on the top of his toolbox, catching his wrist and pulling him to the side of the truck all without missing a single step. the shade from the truck's body swallows you both, and you almost bucky's quick to steady you, brows knitting as his free hand comes up almost instinctively to hold you by the upper arm.

his brows furrow at the worry in your face. "woah, what's goin' on?"

"we have to go. we have to leave today or tonight, okay? like right now." you rush out in a singular breath. it almost feels like everything from chicago had come back to bite you in the ass.

"hey— slow down." he says, another arms reaching out to hold you steady by your shoulders. he lowers his head slightly, looking at you through his eye lashes. "what happened, sweetheart?"

your lip quivers, and bucky reaches up to cup your face in one of his hands. his thumb presses firmly into the skin on your cheekbone, and the touch is reassuring enough for you to speak.

"in the office, they were talking about what happened— what i did. they started listing all these things about me. my hair, my eyes, my— just everything."

something ticks in bucky's jaw. he glances past you towards the office for half a second, his expression almost unreadable. his shoulders square like he's bracing himself for a hit he'd been expected but still hated taking.

the hand that cups your cheek falls back to your shoulder. "did they say anythin' about a location?" bucky asks, eyes boring into yours.

you shake your head. "no. it just said that there's a suspect, said my full name, and described exactly how i look." "

"and did he hear anythin'?" he asks again.

"no, he was—" you shake your head, glancing over your shoulder towards the office where you can see the top of trevor's head. "he was in the back room with the door closed and the microwave was way too loud."

bucky exhales long and slow, like he's trying to come up with both a plan and a promise at the same time. it doesnt help that you're watching him like he's the only thing keeping you afloat.

his hands fall from your shoulders and rest on his hips.

"alright," he says at last. "we're okay for now."

your chest tightens. "but bucky—"

"hey." his voice softens, his eyes the calm of the storm in the hurricane of emotions you feel. "if they knew where you were, they wouldn't be broadcastin' it all over the radio. this place'd be locked down and you wouldn't be talkin' to me right now. we're fine."

you nod, hesitant, but you're sure he means it.

"and even if they were here, i wouldn't go done without a fight." he adds, trying to cheer you up. "i've had my fair share of encounters with the law."

the mental image is ridiculous enough to shake a bit of the nerves out of you. you let out a soft scoff, eyes rolling just slightly as some of the tension actually manages to bleed away.

"i'm serious, princess." bucky defends himself, brows raised in complete seriousness even though you can hear the tinge of dry humour in his tone. "i fought the cops before and i'll do it again if i have to. just say the word and i'm goin' in there, fists swingin'."

"you can't fight the cops, bucky." you tell him.

"fine. maybe not, but look... how about you just—" he exhales through his nose, the humour escaping from his voice. he gestures vaguely to the toolbox you'd set the food down on. "sit down while i work, have somethin' to eat, and then we'll figure out a plan."

you nod, the last of the tension seeping out ouf you as you finally let yourself believe him. you both turn, bucky's hand falling to your back to direct you to the large toolbox, the metal still warm from the sun. you grab the food and sit down, appetite slow but present, while bucky turns back to the truck, his hands disappearing back into the engine.

you watch him while you eat. the way his shoulder flex, the occasional mutter of something irrelevant under his breath, the pause he takes every so often to think, his jaw set and his eyes focused. its ordinary— almost domestic— and somehow that normalcy steadies you a lot more than any reassurance could.

every so often, bucky glances over just to make sure you're still there with him, and you always are.

as you continue to eat, you realise you'd practically consumed the entirety of the leftovers. all that's left is a quarter of a cheeseburger and a couple of fries, and you feel a little guilty for taking what was meant to be bucky's food.

"are you going to eat anything?" you ask.

bucky pokes his head out from the hood. "no, i'm good. have what you can and i'll have whatever's left over."

you furrow your brows at the slight smile he has sitting on his face, and then it slowly dawns on you. he never really wanted the food— not for himself, anyway. he just wanted to make sure you ate.

you glance down at what's left, then back up at him. without a word, you extend the container out to him, eyebrows lifting just enough to make your point.

bucky pauses. he looks at the food, then at you.

"bossy." he mutters, but there's no real malice in it.

he reaches out and takes what remains of the cheeseburger and takes a bite out of it like he hasn't eaten all day. then another, and another, and the burger is gone in seconds.

you can't help the smile the spreads across your face.

bucky wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, gives you a quick, almost sheepish look, because he clears his throat and goes back to fixing the fuel line like nothing had happened.

you stay right there, sunlight warm on your skin, the truck humming beside you, bucky working hard, and for now, you decide this is enough.

night comes gently.

the texas heat bleeds out of the day, replaced by silence and the occasional cricket chirp, the low buzz of the motel sign outside ringing softly in your ears as you shuffle around the belongings in your duffel bag, reorganising the mess and ensuring you have everything you left with.

you have less than a day left here. in the morning, you'd have to leave. you dont know how you'll get there, but you've mustered up enough courage to ask bucky if you could hitch a ride to california. after all, you'd basically spent the past three days spilling your deepest darkest secrets to him; you aren't just going to leave him now.

you're in your room in the partial darkness, body enveloped in the shadows while the far corner of the room is covered in light from the table lamp. the curtains stir slightly in the breeze of the rattling air conditioning, and its so quiet that you can almost hear the electricity running through the walls.

you pause mid-movement, fingers brushing against something small and cold at the bottom of your bag. you reach in and pull it out.

a locket.

it's small. easy to forget. you'd ripped it off the moment you'd gotten on a bus to st louis and thrown it into your bag hoping it'd get lost and you'd never see it again.

you turn the locket over in your palm, the snapped chain curling around your fingers as you inspect the scratched piece of jewellery. it doesn't open, at least not anymore. the hinge bent inwards and snapped the last time you'd forced it closed, and you're almost grateful for your harsh treatment of the metal. you dont even try to open it. you already know what's in there: a picture of you and your boyfriend, one where you're forcing a  smile and he isn't bothering to even try to look happy. 

for a moment, you just stand there. the weight of it heavy against your skin in the same way it'd been heavy around your neck when you still cared for it. then you cross the room and drop it into the trash. it makes a soft, dull thud at it hits the bottom, and you barely flinch as the engraved flowers stare back up at you.

it's gone now, and although a version of you from the past wouldve mourned the cheap locket, the version of you now feels better without it weighing you down.

then comes a knock at the door. it's soft but firm, and you know who it is before you even look over your shoulder. you wipe your hands out of habit as if the locket was filth and cross the room, the lock clicking and the handle squeaking as you open the door.

bucky is standing there. he looks cleaner than he did when the two of you said goodnight a few hours ago, and truth be told, you're not sure why he's here. he's wearing a clean white shirt and a pair of jeans he probably thinks are comfortable but are covered in splashes of paint and dark spots of dried enamel. the shitty LED light that glows overhead bathes him in a glow that almost makes him look angelic, and you almost have to do a double take.

"hey." he says.

you blink. "hey."

the two of you stand there for a moment. bucky rocks on his heels with his hands in his back pockets and your fingers drum against the back of your door, both of you waiting for the other to say something.

"uh," you clear your throat. "did you... need something?"

his brows raise just slightly like you'd pulled him out of a thought, then he shakes his head once, "no, i just... wanted to check in. make sure you were okay."

something soft blooms in your chest at his words, and a part of you is glad that you shot your boyfriend. that asshole wouldnt have bothered to check on you, and he certainly wouldn't have asked if you were okay. if anything, he would've been the reason you were feeling like complete shit.

"you can—" you hesitate, door creaking open a little more as you step to the side, "you can come in. if you want. i could use the company."

"yeah." he nods. "okay."

you step back as he steps inside, his once confident footsteps falling just short of awkward as he steps into your room. you close the door behind him, the lock clicking shut, pushing the night out and sealing the two of you into the silence of your room.

bucky glances around the room, and the poor guy looks like he's never been in a woman's room before. his gaze falls on your shoes messily discarded by the door, then towards the bed and it's mess, and then it lands on your duffel bag. clothes are still thrown everywhere, and he looks like he might combust at the sight of so much... woman.

you smile softly as you walk back over to your bag, glancing over your shoulder just to glance at him. "you can sit down if you want to, bucky. you're not gonna get cooties or anything."

"...right." he mutters with another nod, and yet he hesitates anyways and decides to sit on the edge of your bed, his thigh just barely brushing against the side of your duffel bag, and he glances down at it before looking back at you. "reorganising?"

you huff out a small, tired breath as you go back to digging in your bag. "just trying to see what i brought. it all happened so fast that i forgot how fast i packed up my shit and left."

you pull out a hoodie and hold it up to the light. the logo of one of your favourite bands stares back at you, you haven't worn it in ages because your boyfriend insisted that you listen to 'girlier' bands, and you being naive and compliant, you listened. the small frown that grows on your face doesn't go unnoticed by bucky.

"you should put it on." he suggests, leaning back on the bed with his palms pressed firmly into the mattress.

you "i'm not even sure if it fits—" "then you should see if it does. no harm in tryin'." he's quick to interrupt.

you blink at him, but he just cocks his head like he wants you to do just as he said. you hesitate, fingers tightening over the worn fabric, then you huff out a breath and tug it over your head.

its a little oversized, but it fits better than you expect it to. the sleeves fall just past your wrists and the hem brushes against your thighs, the fabric warm against your skin, finally yours again in a way it hasn't been in a long time.

you glance down at yourself, then at bucky. "happy?"

"very." he says, a grin pulling easy at his mouth as he tilts his head. he jokes, "suits you. i don't think you should ever take it off."

you roll your eyes at him, already reaching for the hem of the hoodie. "very funny, buck." you say dryly. "it's a million degrees outside. i'd die if i kept it on forever."

you grab the bottom of the hoodie, pulling it upwards to pull it off, the action slow and barely thought through. the cotton slides back over your stomach, the cool air brushing against your skin as it takes your shirt up with it for a couple of inches.

and bucky's eyes drop without meaning to— for a long, gruelling second— just long enough for him to catch the tiniest sliver of black lace peeking out of the waistband of your shorts, the fabric digging into the plush of your hips.

it's practically nothing— barely there— but it's enough.

"shit." he mutters under his breath, the word barely audible but still loud enough for you to catch it as you pull the hoodie over your head.

but just as quick as it had appeared, it vanishes as your shirt falls back down the length of your stomach. his eyes linger for a second longer before flicking back up to your face, hair messy from the hoodie.

"hmm?" you hum as you toss the hoodie somewhere on the bag, brow raised just slightly as you ask him about what he said. "did you say something?"

bucky blinks before he quickly shakes his head, tongue running over his teeth as an involuntary way to distract himself. he sits back up and readjusts himself, digging his elbows into his knees to try and hide the growing tent in his pants, but the faintest amount of tension in his posture has you furrowing your brows.

"nothin' important." he mutters, but there's a tightness in the way he says it. "it was, uh... nothin'."

you brush it off. you lean back into your bag, sifting through clothes and belongings before deciding that you've had enough. you lean over and grab a shirt and shove it back into the bag, not bothering to fold it.

bucky watches you for a second, completely silent. you can feel the weight of his eyes on you as you move, and you try your best to not pay him any attention. finally, he clears his throat.

"your... boyfriend," bucky starts, the title cold and a little accusatory on his tongue, but there's something in his tone that's more careful than it is angry. "you always talk about how he wasn't good to you. talks all big, but inside, he's really just an asshole with a tiny dick."

you sigh, just shy of a laugh. "sounds just like him."

your words come out flat, but there's a crack underneath them that gives you away. you hadn't meant to sound hurt— you tried not to— but the ache sneaks through anyways.

bucky. notices. of course he does. before you can turn back to your things, he reaches out and catches your wrist, his fingers closely gently around your skin, stopping you mid-motion.

"sit." he tells you.

and pathetically enough, you do exactly as he asks. his demands dont fall onto you in the same way your boyfriends did. bucky's are softer and rooted in certainty rather than control, and you're not sure if you could ever disobey him.

you sit on the edge of the bed beside him, your hand settling in your lap while bucky holds the other. your heart thuds against your ribs as your eyes flick between his, never quite brave enough to stay there for long enough. you exhale a small breath, eyes trailing down the curve of his throat, tracing over the bump of his adams apple, and settling on the hollow at the base of his neck where you can see the soft thump of his pulse beating underneath his skin.

bucky swallows when he notices. his thumb just barely shifts against your knuckles, like he's trying to ground himself more than you are.

but god, he smells so good. it's unfair how something so subtle can make your thoughts slow and your pulse speed up. you don't want to think about it, you just want more of it. you almost want to slip his shirt off of him and wear it so the scent lingers even when he moves away.

you want to sit a little closer. you want the bed to be smaller. you want any excuse just for him to touch you more, for him to stop holding onto your hand and touch you in all of the places you'd imagined him touching the night before.

bucky's head dips, eyes focused on where his hand begins to trail down to your fingers, the rough skin on his hands ghosting over your soft knuckles like he's memorising every single joint and every swirl embedded in your skin.

"did he ever pay attention to the little things?" he asks quietly. his thumb brushes gently over your ring finger, pressing into the skin where an expensive ring would sit if he had his way. "like how pretty your hands are. how careful you are with them."

your breath hitches as his hand trails back up your arm, the tips of his fingers climbing up until they're pressed firmly on the skin just under your shirt sleeve, warm and intrusive in all of the right ways.

"or how when you're nervous, there's a little hitch in your breath like you forget how to breathe." his thumb shifts, feeling it happen again as he presses into the plump skin. his eyes lift to yours then, searching your face for something you'd never say out loud. "he ever notice that?"

you whisper, "bucky, what are you talking about—"

"your boyfriend never... took care of you, did he?" the question is innocent, but there's something deeper hidden in the words. this isn't idle curiosity, this is something that wants to claim.

"what do you—" you swallow, your mouth suddenly thick with saliva that makes the words stick half out. "what do you mean?"

bucky doesn't answer immediately. his eyes drop back to where his hand is held against your arm, his other hand sliding slowly up the side of your thigh until he has a firm grip on you. his thumb traces tiny circles into the skin, and he can feel the slight quiver you try to hide so hard.

"never made you feel good? never made you cum?" he murmurs, lips parting just enough for his tongue to dart out and wet his lips. then a small smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. "you probably got off better last night than he ever did for all those years."

and just as head observed, your breath hitches ahain, catching in your throat at his words. god, you thought you were quiet. fuck this stupid motel and fuck its stupid thin walls and fuck bucky. fuck him and his stupid deep voice and his stupidly big hands that make you shiver under his touch.

you blink. "you... heard that?"

he shifts in his spot, moving further onto the bed so he can face you completely. his hand moves from your arm and slides up the side of your neck. his hand cups your jaw, thumb digging into the dip of the bone as he tilts your head, eyes glazing over the soft skin and imagining how pretty it'd looked all bitten and bruised.

"the walls are thin. i heard everything, sweetheart." bucky admits, his voice so low and his lips so close to yours that arousal starts pooling low in your stomach. "your breathing when you touched yourself through your panties... that gasp when you finally dipped your fingers into your needy pussy. could practically hear every time you pumped yourself full of those pretty fingers."

the hand that rests on your thigh slides a little higher, just enough that his thumb digs into your inner thigh, dangerously close to where you need him the most.

"bucky." you almost whimper.

"heard you say my name too, just like that. almost burst through the door right then and there." he continues, his voice low and even, but you watch as his brows knit together softly as his thumb digs into your inner thigh. "but no. had to settle for my hand instead and imagine it was yours."

you lean into his hand, the warmth and the roughness of his skin something you'd been craving for far too long.

"tell me." he whispers, close enough that you can feel his breath against your lips. "tell me you want me to stop and i will."

you shake your head. "i don't want you to stop—"

and he doesnt wait any longer. bucky leans in fast, almost crashing into you as he pushes you back onto the bed. his lips find yours, demanding and insistent, and your chest tightens as soon as you meet him halfway, caught off guard with how much heat he's radiating. there's no teasing or testing, just the urgency of him needing to close the space between the two of you.

his tongue parts your lips in a quick and desperate action, pressing against yours like all he wants to do is taste you.

his knee slips up until it presses against your clothed cunt, the denim of his jeans rubbing against the soft cotton of your shorts. you pant into his mouth and he swallows them with ease, pressing his leg harder against you as you press down onto him.

the hand that rests on your throat trails down until he has a firm grip around your neck, pressing gently into the skin. his other hand digs into your hip, dragging your hips against his thigh until you leave a spot of your own arousal on the fabric of your shorts. you grind down on his knee, trying to find friction where you need it the most. your hands rest on his sides, and you barely have time to break away for a breath before he's swallowing your words. 

"buck." you manage to whine.

a low groan leaves his mouth, his hands leaving your hips despite the small hesitant 'no' that leaves your lips.

"i like when you call me that." he murmurs before his lips are back on yours, his voice thick with something heavy and almost inhumane— a need to be close, a need to be in you.

his hands trail away from your hip, rough fingertips dipping inside of your shirt and dragging along the soft skin of your stomach, reaching higher and higher until he hits the band of your bra. you reach down and pull the hem of your shirt up until it bunches just below your neck, putting your bra on full display for him.

bucky pulls away from the kiss, his lips all bitten and coated in saliva. almost impatiently, he slides a hand under your back and lifts you up, hand fumbling with the clasp of your bra before it clicks open with a satisfying pop. they spill out as bucky pulls the confining fabric away.

"fuck." he groans, "such pretty tits."

his head dips down before he can even really think, dragging his tongue across the flesh of your breast, lapping up any of the salty sweat that'd gathered in the valley of your chest, his other hand massaging what he can't abuse with his mouth. and when he takes one of your nipples into his mouth, the sound wet and loud in the quiet of your room, you arch into his touch. your hips rut against the air trying to find friction— any friction— but he moves his leg the moment he feels you press against him.

"no, please—"

he detaches from your nipple with a wet pop, a string of saliva connecting his lips to the bruised skin. he pushes himself up onto his knees and eagerly tugs his shirt off, throwing it onto the ground beside the bed. he glows in the dim light, catching the dips of his shoulders and his chest, highlighting all the soft scars and burns from his work, and all of the muscle that he'd gained over the years of hard work. it's nothing you haven't seen before, but you're not complaining either.

he tugs at the waistband of your shorts, sliding them off, and you lift your hips to give him easier access. he slides them down the length of your legs and off of the tip of your toes before he discards them just as he did with his shirt, and the site that greets him steals his breath.

you're wearing possibly the laciest panties he's ever seen. there's almost no opaque fabric, thin lace barely covering anything. its more of a thong than actual underwear. his thumb runs along the edge of your panties, tracing the lace like it's a physical manifestation of everything you need and want.

"did you wear these for me?" he asks.

he sounds so sweet— so sure— that he's the reason you're wearing them, and if you entire body wasn't already warm with desire, you're sure it was burning from embarrassment.

"no, they were—" you swallow, almost embarrassed as the truth slips out of your mouth. "they were my only clean pair."

he hums softly, a small smile playing at his face as he lets out the smallest amused huff. "cute."

you smile, and he leans down to press a warm kiss to your lips. you chase his mouth when he pulls away, but let out a soft gasp when he presses a kiss to your cheek, then another onto your jaw. he presses one onto your neck, kisses your collarbone, and continues downwards until his lips find the delicate lining of your panties.

he hooks a hand under your knee and gingerly places it into his shoulder, his hands wrapping around your waist so he can pull you closer to his face. you hold your breath, waiting for what you think is going to happen to happen. your boyfriend could never get this part right.

and then he does it. bucky presses a chaste kiss to the fabric of your panties, lips pressing into the fabric with a delicious pressure. his tongue darts out of his mouth as he licks a long, slow strip across your clothed pussy, soaking what little fabric there is covering you with his saliva and your slick.

you bite down on your hand and he groans at the taste, eyes flicking from your face to the soaked fabric. he reaches forwards, hooking a finger around it and tugging it to the side, and you instinctively clench at the knowledge that you're practically laid out for him and on full display. he's so close that you can feel his breath fanning over your cunt, and you don't think you'd trade this feeling for anything in the world.

he leans in and presses a kiss to your inner thigh before he licks a slow wet stripe from the bottom of your leaking pussy right to your clit.

you let out a moan, biting down on your finger until it burns, but he reaches up and pulls your hand from your mouth. he interlocks his fingers with yours and places your hands firmly against your hips.

"don't be shy, baby." he murmurs into your cunt, not bothering to come up to make sure you can hear it. "wanna hear every noise you make."

he leans in again and laps at what he can, his nose nudging against your swollen clit every time he tries to stick his tongue further into you. you're not sure if you're the one grinding down on his face or if he's doing it himself, but his tongue pokes through your entrance and you find yourself hooking your other leg over his shoulder and holding him there, and bucky gladly accepts his fate.

his tongue plunges in and out of you, pulling away ever so often to suck on the soft skin of your folds. the ball of heat in your stomach in your stomach is so close to snapping and bucky can tell. he lets go of your hand and slides two thick fingers inside of you, pushing until he brushes up against the spongy spot that makes you curl into his touch, and you can't help but slide your fingers through his hair and tugging at the salt and pepper strands.

he continues the rhythm until your legs are clamping around his head and he tastes the sweetness that leaks from your heat.

"fuck—" you cry, your brain fuzzy and your body hot with arousal, "bucky, i'm gonna—"

but just as you're about to spill all over his face, he pulls away. you gasp, your legs instinctively try to tighten around his head to pull him closer, but bucky's stronger. he pries your legs open like it comes naturally to him and rises until he's on his knees.

and then he reaches for his belt buckle. the noise is startling, but it also brings a flurry of butterflies through you. the band of his underwear peeks from his jeans and you can't help but stare up at him as he pulls his belt from his jeans. his eyes bore into yours as he undoes his jeans and slides them down like he knows he's torturing you.

bucky's thumbs slide under the waistband of his underwear and he slides them down, his cock springing out and hits his stomach, the head all flushed and leaking and begging to stretch you open.

his eagerness is barely hidden in the way his hands are back on you, calloused palms running up your sides and cupping your breasts. the blunt tip of his cock presses against your entrance, sliding past your folds and resting there as he leans down for another messy kiss, but you stop him.

"wait, bucky—" you whisper against his lips, hands flat against his chest. you push him away with little resistance. you can feel his breath against your face, and the worry on his face sends a pang of guilt through you.

"am i hurtin' you?" he murmurs with furrowed brows.

youre quick to shake your head. "no, i'm okay, i just... you still don't know my name. you still don't know my name and we're about to—"

bucky's hand slides up from your breast and cups your cheek, his thumb running against your bottom lip. "you don't have to tell me it if you don't want to, princess."

your head shakes the slightest bit, "but if we're gonna do this, i want to tell you."

so you do. your name falls from your lips like a secret you're whispering to him in the dark, and bucky repeats it back to you with such reverence that you've never experienced before, and you find that you never want him to stop saying it.

you lean forwards and kiss him. the kiss is slower than the others you'd shared, and bucky groans into your mouth as he finally pushes into you. the stretch burns, but your hips push against him despite the pain because he feels just like safety.

his cock drags against your soft walls, every second feeling like pure heaven. every sound that slips from your lips is swallowed by bucky and echoed back into your mouth, a chorus of moans and heavy breathes that never seems to end.

he bottoms out with a low groan before he grinds against you like he can't get enough of how you feel, but before you can beg for him to start moving, he pulls out and rams back into you. a yelp jumps out of you, but you try to hold it back.

"be loud, sweetheart. i wanna hear those pretty moans."

"trevor's still— fuck— trevor's still here."

a breathy scoff spills from bucky's mouth, and the shit eating grin that he wears on his face tells you he couldn't care less. "let him hear. the only time that lowlife's gonna get any action is when he hears how good i fuck you."

then bucky's thrusts get harder and sloppier. his chest presses against yours with a welcomed weight, dragging out all of the pathetic bodies you'd been trying to hold back, and your nails dig into the rough skin of his back to try and make them stop. you're embarrassed. your eyes fall shut in a daze, but a growl stops you.

"no, look at me." bucky huffs out, hands coming to grab you by the jaw and redirect your eyes. his thumb digs into your cheek. "look at me, princess. want you to see who's fuckin' you better than that pathetic boyfriend of yours ever could."

and god, you can't do anything but obey. you practically fall limp in his arms as he looks into your eyes and fucks you, every thrust bringing you closer and closer to where bucky wants you. he's brushing against your walls and pressing into spots that you didn't know where there and dragging noises out of you that you didn't know you could make. your name falls from bucky's mouth like he's a sinner begging for forgiveness, like he's been promised that your name is all he needs to be pure again.

all you feel is warm. bucky's skin as your nails carve your presence into his back, your insides as he fucks you better than your stupid boyfriend ever could, your heart as you pull yourself closer to him with every bit of your being— everything is so perfect.

the noise the fills the dingy motel room is wet and filthy, the stickiness between you building, and with a few final thrusts, you cum with a loud moan, and bucky follows soon after, his head tucked into your neck as he fucks his seed into you with a groan.

you're trembling, every small movement wringing out the aftershocks of your orgasm. bucky pulls his head out of your neck and places a chaste kiss to the soft skin below your ear.

"took me so good, baby. just perfect for me," he murmurs.

bucky pulls out of you with a soft breath. his thumb swipes at the liquid that leaks from your weeping cunt before he brings it to his mouth without a second thought, his lips closing around the digit with a soft hum. his thumb pops out of his mouth and he lays beside you, quick to make sure you're tucked into his side, your body pressed against his perfectly like you'd both been shaped from the same mould. your head falls to his chest, a soft tired sigh escaping you.

a while passes. there's no noise coming from the outside world anymore— no cars or trucks, no planes overheard, no game show playing on full volume coming from trevor's office. you're not sure how long it's been quite for, but you know for a fact that the only thing that could've been heard for miles was your moans.

the bedside table lamp buzzes. bucky's heart beats steadily in his chest. there's the faint call of a coyote, and then another, and then silence. it's the kind of quiet that only happens when you're sure everything will be already.

but of course, nothing stays perfect forever. doubt creeps into your mind like a parasite and feasts on the security you feel. bucky is a stranger and you are just another girl. who's to say he won't just abandon you at this motel and leave you for another sketchy trucker to pick up?

"bucky?" you whisper into the silence, unsure if he's awake or if he's simply staring off into space just as you are. your fingers run through the wispy hair on his chest as you try to anchor yourself, but the wave in your tone gives you away.

"hmm?" he hums, his head tilting just slightly towards you.

"can i ask you something?"

"of course, sweetheart."

"this is probably too much to ask, and you can say no if you want." you hesitate. "but can i come with you? to california, at least. and you don't have to say yes, because i know it's sort of your thing to travel alone and everything, but—"

"i was just inside of you, sweetheart. i don't do that with just anybody. thought it was already a given that i'd be takin' you."

you shrug. "you might've changed your mind."

there's a soft silence until bucky shifts. his hand slides up the back of your next and his fingers glide through your hair. you prop your chin up until you're looking straight at him, eyes flicking between his as you await his answer.

"i'd take you around the world if you asked me to." he says.

your breath falls short, replaced by a smile that makes its way onto your face before you can stop it. "thank you, bucky."

"'course." bucky meets you with a similar smile. "now get some sleep. we've got a long drive ahead of us."

morning arrives faster than you'd like. the truck is packed, your duffel bag sitting snugly on the floor of the passenger seat, and the engine rumbles steadily outside in the texan sun. the familiar sputtering and mechanical sounds that had plagued it for days before was finally gone, and you couldn't wait to get the fuck out of this place.

"checking out." you announce as you place both yours and bucky's room keys onto the counter. the metal clatters against the counter, echoing in the silence of the office.

trevor looks up from the magazine in his lap and stops chewing on his piece of strawberry gum, eyebrows lifting from the keys to you, then towards bucky, who stands behind you with his arms crossed.

"hm." trevor sniffs. he eyes the two of you like you'd dropped a suspicious package right in front of him before he puts his magazine down and stands up. "didn't think you'd get your truck fixed. thought you two were never gonna leave."

"tempting." bucky replies dryly.

"right. you're all set. safe travels, sir." trevor grabs the keys from the counter and holds them in his hands for a second before he nods towards you. "you too, sugar."

the word spills from his mouth like he knows it'll be the last time he can piss you off before you disappear into the desert like all of the other visitors. you want to walk away— it's the responsible thing to do— but you're already on the run, so what's the harm?

you pull your fist back and slam it directly into trevor's face. a loud crack fills the office as he yells, his hands flying to his fac to figure out what damage you'd done. red seeps through his bony fingers and curses spill from his mouth, the man too preoccupied with his broken nose to notice that you and bucky are already leaving.

the last thing you hear is "you fuckin' bitch! you'll pay for—" before the office door shuts. his yelling is drowned out by the glass, and even if you could understand what he was yelling, you really couldn't care less.

bucky steps forwards with a smug smile. he reaches up and opens the truck door for you, a hand extended. "you feel better?"

"a little." you sigh, your hand in his as he helps you climb up the steps and hop into the passenger seat. "would've been better if i knocked out a few of his teeth."

"i could go back in there and bring back a few of 'em." bucky suggests with a grin, though you're not entirely convinced he's joking.

you shake your head, "nah, he can keep them. i'm sure i'm not the first person to hit him and i definitely won't be the last. they'll need something to aim for."

bucky sucks in a sharp breath with a playful shake of his head. "i think spending time with lil old me turned you into a monster."

you roll your eyes. "i shot my boyfriend, fled my homestate, and ran from the cops, bucky. i was a monster before you even pulled into this parking lot."

he hums, "touché."

the passenger door shuts behind you. bucky circles the truck and hops into his seat. the truck rolls forward, tires squealing as the vehicle veers into the road and takes off, and for the first time in a while, you finally know where you're going. your final destination? california.