bucky's doll

Bucky had already delayed in asking Y/N to marry him for so long, he saw no reason to continue now, now that he was sure enough time had passed for her to make a decision she could be sure of.

But new fears had a way of finding him, of sinking their claws into the meat of every worry he’s ever had.

He’s still standing in the open doorway to the apartment, warm breeze at his back, coming summer drifting on the wind.

Bucky’s mother turns away, bustling toward the stove. “It’s about time,” she returns in Romanian, knocking the wooden spoon she picks up against the side of the pot on the stove, preparing to reheat a soup she’d made the day before. “And just when I was getting used to hearing rumors about my uncouth son and his girl.” Winnifred scoffs, “Living together before marriage, what could possibly be worse?”

She chuckles under her breath, amused at the outraged whispers of some of their neighbors.

Bucky swallows, nerves cracking up his spine.

“Ma,” he says quietly, sweeping the cap off his head as he sits down at the kitchen table, screen door clattering shut behind him. “Please.”

“Are you asking for my approval? I’ve been waiting for this since the moment I saw her. She looked at you in that worn coat and with that terribly outgrown haircut and decided that she still loved you-,”

“Ma,” Bucky complains gently before glancing up at her, fist against her hip, wooden spoon waving in the air before her, a warning for him to choose his next words carefully. “I - should I? We seem to get on as we are. She’s as much a part of the family as any of us. Maybe asking her now will…upset the life we have.”

Maybe it would remind her of everything he wasn’t, too.

His mother softens, drops her arm and rounds the table. “Are you worried she will say no?” She touches his shoulder carefully. Still so cautious with him, despite the years between him and the war, despite the changes in him.

But Bucky doesn’t want to admit that that is exactly what he’s afraid of. He glances away, fiddling with the edge of yesterday’s newspaper still spread open on the table.

His mother’s voice is tender when she answers, moving to smooth a hand through his hair. “If there’s one thing I know, its that she will not say no to you. She would not say no to you if you proposed moving to the moon. She wouldn’t say no if you proposed to her with a rubber band.”

Bucky licks his lips and looks up at his mother, “Think so?”

“Yes. I know.” She pats his cheek, smiling.

He nods but doesn’t answer, thinking about how he left Y/N that morning. Golden sunshine on her naked skin, sleepy smile, fingers pressed gently to his bicep, telling him he would be late if he didn’t leave soon.

But god, how he hadn’t wanted to go. He’d wanted to sink back down beside her, worship the sun on her skin. He never had to think with her, he could just simply be. She did not judge him, she understood the things that lived inside his skin and accepted them.

How could he ever think to ask her to marry him? How could he ever think he was worth that? How could he ask her to make yet another sacrifice for him?

He remembers asking her if she would wait, in so many words, as was his way. But, of course, Y/N had known, had known exactly what he meant.

“You gettin’ impatient with me?”

“Never,” she murmurs. “I’ll wait. For you, I will.”

Bucky had not wanted to ask her back then, worried that the memories of him before would influence her decision, worried that she would be agreeing to marry the charming, boyish man she met before he was captured and tortured and injected with something horrible, before he became a Howling Commado and almost died on a train.

Before he lost that part of himself.

His ma has returned to the stove, letting him think.

Bucky still worries, even though in practice they’d practically been a married couple for years, that he’s too much for her, that she deserved better.

He worries that he’s too broken, too poor, too little of everything to be what a good husband should be, to be worth the glittering soul of the woman he loves.

“Will she come for lunch? I was surprised she didn’t come with us this morning. I found another Romanian book I think would help her learn that I wanted to give her.”

Winnifred and Y/N had begun trading books, teaching each other their own language. Y/N more often than not went to church with his mother.

“She had a shift at the hospital,” he murmurs, tracing a whorl in the worn wood of the table, reminding him of that niggling thought always at the back of his mind. He’d never properly be able to provide for her. “That’s just it, ma. I can never give her the life she should have.” Y/N worked long hours, they both did. They scrimped and saved for every little thing. He was still broken on the inside sometimes, the fractured fissures that ran straight through the center of him still showing themselves at the oddest times.

Bucky still dreams of needles in his arm, dank labs, and a table with straps. He dreams of train cars and guns and blood. He dreams of a nurse with dark, serious eyes frowning at him as she dies in a muddy field.

The war had ended years ago, his stint as a prisoner of war several years before that.

And yet, his mind would not let him forget. Made him jump with the roll of thunder, sweat through nightmares of times long past.

How was he supposed to saddle Y/N with that permanently? At least now, if she realized, she could go without fanfare.

Not that he would deny her a divorce, but it would make it so much easier for her to leave if she didn’t have to deal with him at all.

She could escape him so much more easily if they weren’t married.

Would he be trapping her? In a life with a poor husband, with nightmares, with wounds that would never heal?

“What makes you think that Y/N wants an easy life?”

He glances up, his mother ladling warmed soup into two bowls. “What?”

Winnifred turns, sets a bowl of ciorba de burta in front of him, and holds out a spoon as she takes a seat across from him with her own bowl. “James Barnes,” she says, “This is the woman who volunteered to be a nurse in a war, who carried papers to the resistance when she was there, who came home and kept working. Who doesn’t take counsel from anyone except herself. Who was so loyal, she waited and looked for you for months, when by all logic she should have assumed you were dead. Who has now waited years for you to be…well enough to ask her and has demanded nothing of you in return. No promises.”

Bucky looks down and away at that, chastised.

He knows its true, knows how dangerous it can be for a woman, that she’d been taking a great chance with him all these years.

The memory of the outline of her shape behind the frosted glass of the bodega flits back to him, the relief he’d felt when she dove into his arms when he found her again after the war. How well she’s loved him since the moment they met in that field tent during the war.

“She loves you, Bucky. Can’t you see that, darling? She puts up with me and Becca. She’s learning Romanian for no good reason other than to talk to me. She’s learning how to cook our favorite dishes. She comes to church with me more often than not, and even though she doesn’t say it I know she’s not religious. She’s not doing these things for fun, she’s doing them because she loves you. If she was going to change her mind, she would have done it years ago. She wouldn’t have made the decision to choose you at all. I’m so glad she chose you when you were…shot,” her voice trembles and wavers around the word.

Bucky hadn’t known Y/N had told his mother that story, didn’t know they had found enough understood English and Romanian between them to convey that much.

“Don’t make her wait anymore,” Winnifred continues. “Don’t make that brave girl keep soldiering on with the way people talk about her, about the pair of you. You deserve her and she certainly deserves you. She already chose you a long time ago, it’s you she’s been waiting on.”

Bucky swallows against the lump in his throat, against the warmth of the sun at his back. He’s still amazed sometimes, that he got to come home. And he’s suddenly overwhelmed, that he’s sitting in his mother’s kitchen, eating homemade food, talking about marrying a girl that should by all accounts be fed up with him by now.

“Could I have your ring?” He asks, voice thick.

His ma pats his hand, “Of course. Of course you can, my son. If you think it's the right ring for her.”

~

Y/N’s not wearing a shirt when Bucky opens their bedroom door that evening.

He’d toed off his shoes by the front door and crept down the hall on silent feet, catching her at her most natural.

She’s already changed into a pair of his trousers, unbuttoned and cradling the curve of her hips in a way that makes him want to fall to his knees. She’s still wearing her bra, blouse discarded on the armchair in the corner.

As always, somehow, she still looks elegant, even half dressed in men’s clothes, she’s graceful with beauty.

Night has already settled over the city. The curtains and blinds are drawn, only the lamp by his bedside illuminating the room, casting a golden hue against her skin.

She turns from her place standing in front of their dresser where a mirror is propped up, plucking off her earrings, tiny golden hoops that shimmer in her hand. “Hey, sugar,” she smiles at him. “Thought you’d be home well before me.”

“Got ta talkin’ with ma,” he answers, hand on the doorknob, eyes drifting over her shape, at the delicate chain of the necklace he’d gotten her after a year together resting at the hollow of her throat. “Ya know how she can talk.”

“Oh sure,” dark eyes flick over him, lingering on his mouth for a moment before she turns back to the mirror, hip jutting out, all her weight resting on one foot. He feels a fond smile tug at his lips, knows she expected him to cross the room and kiss her, and is annoyed he didn’t. “You Barneses are a chatty bunch. Becca nearly talked my ear off on the phone yesterday.”

Her eyes are coy when she meets his gaze in the mirror briefly, arm twisting behind her back to unhook the clasp of her bra.

Bucky steps forward then, catches her fingers in his, brushing his hand against the line of her shoulders. “Lemme get that for you, honey,” he says, deftly unfastening the catch.

She leans back into him, silently happy, and tilts her head to the side to look back at him, “Missed ya today, kid.” Her eyes are appreciative as they flick over him, teasing.

As always, he fights the urge to duck his head, to blush against her attention, so open with her affection and appreciation of him. Bucky traces his hands down her arms, goosebumps rising in the wake of his touch, curling his fingers around her wrists briefly.

“Mm,” he murmurs, releasing her hands to tuck his arms around her waist, watching her in the mirror. Y/N slides the bra down her arms and tosses it on the same chair her blouse lies on. “Was wondering if you’d like ta go on a date with me next Saturday? Ya don’t have to work, right?”

She tilts her head to the side and closes her eyes when he presses a kiss behind her ear. Bucky watches her in the mirror, eyes flicking over the long column of her throat, the swell of her chest. “What’s in it for me?”

“I’ll fuck you real good after.”

A rare and unexpected laugh bubbles out of her, eyes flashing open to meet his. “Guess ya didn’t learn anything in church today then,” her voice is low, amused.

“Never. I’m past saving. And I already got someplace to worship.”

“And where’s that?”

Bucky kisses her neck, feels his heartbeat in his bones, and lets his hands drift up to cup her breasts. “Right here honey. I pray to you every night.”

“I do think that falls under blasphemy, Barnes,” she says, serious eyes appraising him, but arches into his touch all the same, covering his hands with hers.

“How was work?” He asks against the curve of her ear, inhaling the scent of rose dabbed on the nape of her neck.

She doesn’t immediately answer, and when Bucky glances up at the mirror he finds that her eyes have fallen closed and that she’s basking in the presence of him like a plant in light. Something inside him softens, and he moves his arms to curl around her hips again, holding her close. “Good,” she says, not opening her eyes. “I went to dinner with Peggy after. Did you get to eat?”

Y/N presses her fingers back into his ribs without turning, like she would be able to feel his lie, like she would be able to feel the food he did not eat.

“Had lunch,” he soothes. “Ma sent some leftovers with me for ya. She sent a book for you too. Romanian folk tales, I think.”

She hums with pleasure at the thought of a new book to devour before refocusing on him, “Lemme cook some dinner for you, honey. Then we can have a drink and smoke.”

“Vodka?”

“What else, kid?” She asks, finally opening her eyes to glance into his.

She pauses when she catches his gaze in the mirror, the serious pull of her brows returning, a frown tilting her mouth. “Somethin’ on your mind, Buck?” He shakes his head but she only narrows her eyes at him. “Mhm,” She turns in his arms, the warm length of her pressed against him. She pinches his chin between her forefinger and thumb, angling his head so she can meet his eyes head on. “Somethin’s going on. What is it?”

“Dunno what you’re talkin’ about, dahlin’.”

Y/N trails her hand down his chest, along the buttons of his shirt before stopping at his belt. “What are you hiding from me, James Barnes?” She sounds just a bit hurt.

They did not hide things from each other, not like this.

His heart gives a painful thump, even though he knows she has no reason to worry.

Bucky catches at her other hand, holding it to his chest. “Leave it alone, honey. You’ll know soon enough. Everything is okay.”

She pulls back, hooking her fingers into the belt loops of trousers. A worried crease pulls at her brow, her lips that serious frown that he loves so well. “Promise me this ain’t something bad, kid,” she says sternly.

Y/N moves her hand to cup his cheek, tilt his head down, demanding of him.

And he wants to melt into her, break down right in that moment and just do it. Just ask her the damn question.

But he doesn’t have the ring.

She presses her palm to the base of neck, forces him to keep his eyes on her.

Bucky loves her so bad in that moment, he wants to sink to his knees, absolved of every crime he’s ever committed, healed of every wrong ever done to him. The possessiveness that radiates from her, reminds him of who exactly he belongs to, makes him feel small in the best way, makes him feel safe.

But he must stay quiet for far too long, lost in the dark depths of those serious eyes, because her voice cracks when she says, “Bucky? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he says, must comfort her, must make her feel the same safety that he always feels. “Nothin’, sweetheart, I promise. It’s not bad. Lemme do this thing right, okay?”

She blinks, looking confused but soothed. “Okay. I trust you.”

“Thank god for that, dahlin’,” he knocks his forehead against hers, and then kisses her fingers when she traces his mouth. “Promise ya, doll, everything is okay.”

She nods, and he releases her when she tugs away, so she can find a shirt to slip over her head.

Bucky follows the sway of her hips down the hall, to the kitchen where she demands he sit, that she would fry him some eggs and toast.

Cashmere appears, calling out for a dinner that she had yet to receive, pouncing into his lap with a long purr when he sits at the table.

“Complainer,” Y/N accuses, stopping to scratch the cat behind the ears, before she presses the kiss Bucky never gave her to his mouth, touching the line of his jaw.

She’ll say yes, Bucky thinks. She really already has.

~

By the time Saturday rolls around, Bucky is anxious with worry.

He barely sleeps, and can’t relax enough to let Y/N lull the tension out of his bones as she usually does.

Of course, she notices the difference in him, but doesn’t comment on it. Trusting him, as he’d asked, knowing that he would share with her eventually.

Saturday afternoon finds him at the market, purchasing ingredients for dinner, flowers for his lady. An elderly woman helps him pick out the flowers, though he’s well seasoned at the task, having bought her many bouquets over the years.

“‘M askin’ my girl to marry me today,” he tells the woman, wrinkled, lined hands pausing in the tying of the ribbon around the stems of the bunch.

He’s not sure why he tells her, but her mouth pulls into a grin and she says, “Lucky lady.” The woman hands him the bouquet and pats his hands gently. “A handsome man like you? She won’t say no.”

Bucky certainly hopes that will be the case, that everything in Y/N’s life won’t come to a sudden terrible culmination in her mind that makes her turn tail and run.

He checks his pocket obsessively on his way home to make sure the ring is still there, hoping the emerald and gold of the family ring that his mother and Becca had convinced him to use, would be perfect for Y/N.

It's not strictly an engagement ring, but a family ring that had been passed down. His mother insisted he take it.

She’s reading when he makes it back to the apartment, propped up in the open living room window, afternoon sunlight bending around her, pooling on the floor where the cat stretches out, warming the hardwood and haloing her head.

Smoke curls away from her fingertips as she reaches for her cup of coffee, black and bitter, when she notices him.

Her eyes trace over him, before the corner of her mouth twitches. “Hey, kid.” She takes a drag on the cigarette, blows smoke out the window.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he smiles.

She stubs out her smoke and drops the bud before she picks the pencil out of the crease of her book and underlines something, folding the book closed with the pencil to mark her page. “Where are we headin’?”

Bucky winces as she ducks back inside, sliding the window shut behind her, before she brushes nonexistent wrinkles from her floral shirtwaist dress. Her hands are adorned with delicate rings, the ever present gold chain is around her neck. She wears a silk scarf over her hair today, secured at the back of her neck, a few loose pieces of hair framing her face.

He’d told her they would go out for their Saturday date, when a better idea had come to him that morning.

“You look beautiful, doll,” Bucky says, holding out the flowers to her. “But, uh, actually, I thought we could stay in instead. I want to cook for you.”

Her fingers pause, pressing into the cover of her book as she looks at him, butter yellow light tracing along her bare calves. “Sure Buck, we can cook somethin’ together. I think we have-,”

“No,” he interrupts. “I - sorry - I already got it all planned out, sweetheart. I wanna cook for you. Do somethin’ for you.”

Her eyes soften and she crosses the room to him, catlike in her grace, deftly stepping over Cashmere before pressing herself into his arm. “You do things for me all the time, sugar,” she plucks the bouquet from his hand, “Thank you for the flowers.”

Bucky doesn’t answer, heart in his throat, wondering if maybe he should have stuck to his original plan, taken her out to the nice Italian place down the road, dropped to one knee during dinner or the walk after.

But no, that isn’t really their way.

Their way is a quiet one, a personal, secluded one.

She’s still pressed against him, holding the flowers to her nose, lashes glowing in the rays of sunlight. He presses a finger under chin and tips her head up, nipping a quick kiss to her lips over the blooms.

Y/N touches the corner of his mouth with the tips of her fingers before pulling away, swaying to the kitchen to search for the much used vase for the flowers.

“Since I can’t help you cook, what should I do?” She asks, filling the glass with water at the sink, carefully arranging the flowers once it's filled.

“Just sit there and look pretty, doll face. Keep me company.” He sets the bag of groceries on the counter, flicks on the radio, and takes her hand in his, pulling her away from the vase to twirl around the kitchen.

She eyes him carefully, but doesn’t comment on his mood. Instead, she circles her arms around him, surreptitiously slipping her hands down his back to squeeze his ass.

Bucky laughs, kisses the tip of her nose, and pulls away, “None a tha’ yet, honey.”

“Later?”

“I promise. Now sit down and let me charm you.”

“You charm me everyday, kid,” she answers, plopping down at the table and unfastening some of the buttons at the top of her dress now that she knew they’d be staying at home.

He leans over her, one arm along the back of her chair, the other braced against the table. “You can go change if you want, baby,” he knocks his forehead against hers. “If ya wanna be more comfortable.”

“I dressed proper for a date,” she says, falsely prim. “I’ll stay this way thank you.”

She tilts her head up, chin jutting out.

Bucky presses his palm to the back of her neck, kisses her softly. “Well I do like that I get to see so much more of you here.”

She reaches out, tugs his shirt out of his trousers so she can graze her fingers along his stomach, nails digging into his skin.

“Quit that, dahlin’, or we’ll never get to eat.”

She doesn’t stop, fingers dancing to his belt. “But this is our date.”

“Yes, and I have somethin’ planned.”

“Fine,” she sits back. “I’ll behave for now.”

“Thank you,” he murmurs, despite feeling just a little disappointed that she hadn’t shoved him down and done what she liked with him anyways. Bucky kisses the side of her head and moves back to the counter.

Y/N speaks lowly to Cashmere behind him as she strikes a match, cigarette smoke drifting toward the ceiling. “I know,” she says as the cat meows at her. “Barnes is being strange today, I agree. I wonder if he brought us some wine though?”

He chuckles and without turning says, “Got it here. C’mere and I’ll pour ya some.”

She pads over on bare feet, curls into his side. “‘M I allowed to watch ya at least?”

“Sure.”

Her fingers drift across his back, head pillowing on his shoulder as he hands her a glass of wine.

~

Its been hours, and he still hasn’t managed to ask her.

They’ve moved to the fire escape now, the last dying rays of the sunset fading.

He’d meant to ask her once they were eating.

Then he’d told himself he would do it during dessert. Ice cream he had not planned for, but dug out of the freezer anyways.

Then when they had a shot of after dinner vodka.

Then when they were dancing in the living room to the slow tune on the radio.

And now it was the end of the evening, proper night about to set in and still, the ring was burning a hole in his pocket.

She leans back against the iron railing, absently fidgeting with the gold pendant of her necklace, her glass of wine held in one hand.

Bucky is smoking, watching the light dance across her eyes.

Now.

He should ask her now, while she’s sated with food and wine, relaxed and happy.

The radio is still on inside, another slow song drifting on the air.

Just as he’s about to open his mouth, she yawns and stretches. “Thank you for this, kid,” she murmurs, turning to take his hand in hers. “I think this is our best date yet. And now we don’t gotta go anywhere to fool around. We’re already at home.” She reaches out to him, hooking careful fingers into the collar of his shirt, gaze dark and warm.

Bucky resists the hands pulling him forward, feels the words kept inside him all afternoon and evening bubbling to the surface.

“Y/N,” he whispers, watching the breeze ruffle the sleeve of her dress. She pauses at the desperation clear in his voice. “Honey, will you marry me?”

He doesn’t mean to just come out with it.

There were words he wanted to say, things he wanted to tell her, before he asked.

He doesn’t even have the ring in his hand.

He’d wanted to go down on one knee.

Bucky had wanted to do this one thing so right with her, when everything else about them was backwards and mixed up.

He tugs away from her hastily, scrabbling in the pocket of his trousers for the ring, which, come to think of it, isn’t even in a box.

The ring emerges and he shoves it at her, holds it out, where it catches the last rays of the sun before it sinks behind the building across the street. Blue shadows creep over them.

Y/N is staring at him, mouth rounded in surprise, before her eyes blink down to the ring, emerald and gold.

“Oh,” she whispers.

And that’s all she says.

Bucky panics, feels every biting worry swim up the back of his throat. No, she would say yes. He’d believed that she would, and she would.

“Sorry for springing this on you, doll. I had so much I wanted to say to you. I was going to take you ta that Italian place and get down on one knee in the middle of dinner and then I realized that I would hate that and you’d hate it even more.”

He swallows and tries not to panic, tries to keep his voice even and steady. Y/N slowly reaches out and lies a hand against his thigh, curling her fingers into his pant leg. She leans forward to look at the ring, like she’s afraid to touch it. “And then I kept tryin’ ta ask ya all afternoon and it just never came out. But I’m askin’ now. And I guess all I have ta really say is that I love you. And that I’m sorry it took me this long to ask you.”

She meets his eyes then, scooting closer to him on the fire escape until her legs are folded over his lap. “Ask me again please.”

Relief floods through him.

She’s going to say yes.

Bucky reaches out with his other hand, touches her cheek carefully.

“Will you marry me, Y/N?”

“Yeah, kid, I’ll marry you.” She reaches up, cupping his face between her palms to kiss him hard, slipping forward onto her knees to press close to him, and Bucky has to tilt his head up to follow her lips, her tongue urgently prodding into his mouth. “I’ve been ready to marry you since the moment I - you stupid man, yes. Of course I’ll marry you.”

Bucky wraps an arm around her waist and tugs her tight against him. “Thank god for that, sweetheart,” he smiles, relief making him loose with warmth. “Want your ring or not?”

She pulls back just enough to be able to proffer up her hand, watching intently as Bucky slips the ring into place.

Somehow, it fits her perfectly.

“It was a ring ma’s mother gave her. Not her engagement ring but a family one.”

“Did you ask your ma about marrying me?”

“‘Course. Shoulda heard her berate me for even bringin’ it up.”

She holds her hand out, admiring the ring. “Let’s get married tomorrow.”

“Ah, c’mon now hon. Steve’ll cry if he doesn’t get to stand up at my wedding. Ma and Bex’ll kill both of us if we do it without them. You’ll want your folks there too.”

“Just me and you. We can have a proper wedding some other time-,”

Bucky presses a hand to her back, soothes his fingers down her spine. “I promise I won’t make you wait so long to get married, honey. Please let me enjoy the fact that you said yes.”

“Were you worried I wouldn’t?”

“Worried ya’d turn down a wreck like me? No. ‘Course not,” he tries to joke.

She peers into his eyes, a delicate frown tugging at her lips, before she suddenly pulls away, gathering up the wine glasses, the clasp of cigarettes and lighter, before dropping through the window.

Bucky curses, following swiftly, heart in his throat, clattering the window shut behind him so the evening chill doesn't creep in before he closes the blinds.

But when he turns, he finds the love of his life already circling her arms around him, shoving him down on the couch, fingers on the curve of his jaw.

Not upset, not running away, just luring him in where they wouldn’t be seen.

Normally, she would already have her hand down the front of his trousers. But tonight, she just presses her full weight into him and kisses him like he’s her last dying breath, possessive, demanding hands sliding up his chest, pressing into his biceps. Careful and needful and claiming all at once.

“I love you, kid. Don’t ever doubt me.”

“‘S not so much you as me that I doubt sweetheart,” Bucky tugs up her skirt, presses his hands against the bare backs of her thighs. “Thought maybe it would make you realize how permanent this is to me. Make you realize you deserve better.”

“I deserve exactly you. It's never not been permanent to me, honey. I was always goin’ to be right here. I deserve you and you deserve me, kid, I promise that’s always been true.”

Bucky watches her prop her elbows on his chest, admiring the ring on her finger, like she didn’t just tell him something earth shattering. “Feels really right. Like it’s always been there.”

“Was. You just couldn’t see it.”

She doesn’t look at him as she asks quietly, “Could you?”