fei

it was supposed to be dinner. nothing fancy. just a place you liked, a reservation made two weeks ago, and a text that arrived half an hour too late.

babe, the guys just dropped by unexpectedly. can we move dinner to sunday?

you read it once. then again. no sorry this time. just logistics. like you were another appointment.

your wine was already poured by then. the waitress had just lit the candle at your table when the message came through.

you sat there a little longer than you needed to, staring at the plate of pasta in front of you like it might blink first.

you didn’t cry. didn’t throw your phone across the table or curse his name under your breath. you just asked for the check, signed it without looking, and stepped out into the street like you weren’t sure where else to go.

the bar next door wasn’t unfamiliar. warm lighting, quiet music, a vaguely vintage smell of oak and orange peel. a safe place to disappear for a bit.

somewhere you used to come before things felt like routines.

you sit at the bar and order something stronger than wine. pretend to scroll through your phone while you decide if it’s sadder to go home early or stay and look like you’re waiting for someone.

you’re not even supposed to be talking to anyone. that was the deal you made with yourself the second you sat down at the bar. no rebound flirting, no trying to “salvage the night.” just one drink and then home.

except now there’s this guy two stools over, arguing with the bartender about the jazz playlist like he owns the place.

“you seriously changed it?” he says, mock offended. “after everything we’ve been through?”

the bartender laughs. “you only show up when you get dumped.”

“i was not dumped. it was mutual ghosting.”

“uh-huh. tell that to your sad playlist.”

you try not to stare. try not to smile. but it’s already tugging at the corner of your mouth when he catches your eye.

“don’t judge me,” he says, raising his glass like a toast. “i’m having a deeply personal moment with chet baker.”

you raise your own glass in response. “chet’s been through worse.”

his grin widens. “you know jazz?”

“i know heartbreak.”

“same thing, really.” he shifts one seat closer. doesn’t ask permission.

“he canceled on you?”

you turned toward the voice.

he didn’t smile. just sipped and looked at you like he already knew the answer.

you raised an eyebrow. “what makes you think that?”

“your glass is too full, and you keep looking at the door like you’re giving someone five more minutes.”

you looked down. your hand was resting near your phone.

“he postponed. technically.”

“ah. even worse.” he nodded. “delayed disappointment. classic.”

you tried not to let it affect you.

“you always this nosy with strangers?”

“only the ones who walk in like they’re trying not to be seen.”

“what does that mean?”

he shrugged. “you have the look.”

“what look?”

“like you needed a quiet place to be mad.”

you huffed. not quite a laugh, but not denial either. he leaned slightly closer, just enough for you to smell the whiskey on his breath.

“don’t worry,” he said. “i’m not here to flirt.”

“good.” you replied. “because that would be a waste of time.”

he chuckled. “noted.”

“what’s your name?” he asks.

you hesitate. you shouldn’t. you really shouldn’t. but you tell him.

he nods. repeats it under his breath, like he’s trying it on for size.

“pretty...” he says. “but not soft. just like you.”

you narrow your eyes. “you don’t know anything about me.”

“well, i know that you’re here. alone. wearing a ring.”

your fingers curl slightly on instinct, brushing over the thin gold band. not a wedding ring. just a simple promise.

you wait for the question. the judgement. something. it doesn’t come.

“i’m not married.” you say.

“didn’t say you were.”

“you implied it.”

“to be honest, i’m just curious...” he says, voice low. “he must be a very secure man to leave you alone in a place like this.”

you should be annoyed. but there’s something in his tone... not pushy, not smug. just... present. you let the silence stretch between you. then, like it’s nothing:

“seungcheol.”

he offers it like a passing thought, not something he expects you to keep. you nod once. don’t repeat it.

“you’re still not flirting?” you ask.

he smiles again, slower this time. “if i were, you'd be laughing by now.”

you roll your eyes. but your lips curve with it. he doesn’t try to close the distance. doesn’t ask where your boyfriend is. doesn’t mention the ring again.

instead, he traces the rim of his glass with one finger, thoughtful. then looks at you again.

“you look like you’re about to leave.”

“maybe.”

“shame.”

“why?”

“conversation was just getting interesting.”

you finish your drink in one swallow. stand up. he doesn’t stop you. just watches as you slip your coat back on.

you turn once before walking out and that’s when he moves. reaches for a napkin, scribbles something quickly, and offers it to you with two fingers.

“in case you feel like being seen, next time.”

you glance at the numbers. no name.

“that’s bold.” you say.

“i won’t hold my breath.” he replies, finishing his drink. “but thursdays can be unpredictable.”

you leave the bar lighter than when you walked in and you tell yourself it doesn’t mean anything. you don’t text him that week. or the one after.

but you think about it. more than once.

the days pass. your boyfriend keeps canceling. dinners, movies, weekends. things you used to look forward a little too much to. things that now feel like maybe they were never really for you.

at first, he has good reasons. work’s been hectic. he’s exhausted. something urgent came up. his brother’s in town. he needs a night with the guys. you say okay. every time. you want to be understanding. you really do.

but the excuses start piling.

and the effort? that doesn’t.

he forgets small things. the book you told him you were reading. your big meeting last week. your sister’s birthday dinner. he kisses you without looking up from his phone. asks “what’s wrong?” like he hasn’t already ignored your last three texts.

you try bringing it up. gently. once.

he sighs. tells you you’re being dramatic. says “you know how much i care about you” and somehow it sounds like “can we not do this right now?”

so you stop.

you stop asking when he’ll be free. stop reminding him of your plans. you stop expecting anything at all. you just shrink around it.

you still see him, sometimes. but even when you’re in the same room, you feel like background noise. a fixture in the apartment. a maybe. a later. a rain check with legs.

the silence between you gets heavier. and you keep thinking that maybe it’s just a phase. maybe everyone gets like this eventually.

but then thursday rolls around again. you’re already home this time. a takeout bag still warm on the counter. candles lit in your bedroom like you were trying to make it feel like something. like it meant something. you didn’t even tell him to come over. you just hoped he might.

your phone buzzes.

they want to grab a drink. it’s been months. you understand, right?

nothing more. no i’ll make it up to you. just assumption. expectation. like of course you’ll understand.

you don’t reply. you just sit there for a moment, still. like maybe if you stay still enough, you won’t feel the ache settling in your chest. like maybe it’s your fault for hoping. for waiting.

you blow out the candles. walk to the kitchen. and open the drawer where you keep old receipts, forgotten pens, and a napkin you were absolutely not supposed to keep.

your fingers find it too easily. your thumbs hover over your phone for a long time.

you type. delete. type again.

and then:

you guess you were right about thursdays

the response comes quicker than you expect.

seungcheol didn’t think i’d hear from you but i was hoping

you bite your lip. heart a little too loud.

you i wasn’t gonna text you

seungcheol and yet

a pause.

seungcheol where are you?

your breath catches. your fingers tighten around the phone.

you home. alone.

one minute. then two.

seungcheol do you want company?

you don’t answer right away. you reread the last message. and the one before that. and suddenly the silence of your apartment feels unbearable.

so you type slowly.

you maybe just a drink

seungcheol sure just a drink

you don’t believe him. and maybe that’s why you get up to change.

it’s the same bar. same lights, same low music. same seat at the corner that feels like it’s been holding its breath.

he’s already there when you walk in. same shirt. same chain. same look in his eyes when he sees you. amused, unreadable, like he saw this coming before you did.

you slide onto the stool beside him. he doesn’t say anything at first. just slides a glass in your direction, like it’s habit.

you glance at it, then at him.

“don’t assume i drink the same thing every time.” you say.

he shrugs. “didn’t seem like the night to experiment.”

you take the glass anyway. the first sip burns. he watches you like it doesn’t.

he lifts his drink. “to whatever brought you in.”

you clink, barely. no toast in return.

you talk, eventually. but it stays on the surface. music, cities, random half-stories that make you both smile. he doesn’t ask about your boyfriend. doesn’t say “so, what changed?”

he doesn’t need to.

his knee bumps yours once, then doesn’t move.

his eyes flick to your mouth more than once, and every time they do, your breath feels a little less steady. his thumb runs absently along the rim of his glass, and all you can think about is how it would feel against your skin.

you set your drink down and ask: “why are you so confident? so sure of things?”

his smile is lazy. “it’s not confidence if i’m right.”

you roll your eyes, but the heat in your chest doesn’t fade. you stare at him for a second too long. and maybe it’s the drink. or the week you had. or the way he looks at you like he already knows what you taste like.

but when you say it, your voice doesn’t shake.

“wanna come over?”

he doesn’t blink. doesn’t hesitate.

“just one more drink?” he says, like it’s a joke. like he’d already said yes the second you walked in.

your place is dim. a little messy. the kind of quiet that makes your heartbeat sound louder than it should.

you open a bottle of wine and pour into mismatched glasses, the only ones clean.

he follows without asking. just steps inside like he’s done it before, like he belongs there. doesn’t sit. just stands in the middle of your living room and watches you take a sip, fingers wrapped tight around the glass.

you try not to look nervous. fail completely.

“so…” you start. but don’t finish. because he’s already walking toward you. slow. certain. and suddenly there’s no space left to pretend this is casual.

he takes the glass from your hand and sets it down on the counter without looking. then, like he’s asking something simple:

“come here.”

you don’t think. you just move.

his hands are on your waist before you reach him. his mouth on yours before your next breath. the kiss is slow, not soft. there’s a difference. he doesn’t rush it, doesn’t fumble.

he kisses you like he’s been imagining it in pieces, and now he’s putting them together one by one. his hands slide down your hips, anchoring you. fingers splayed, certain. he pulls back just enough to look at you.

his voice is low, near your jaw:

“you want this or you’re just lonely?”

you meet his eyes.

“does it matter?”

he smiles. dark. “not to me.”

you nod. he doesn’t ask again.

he lifts you easily, like it’s instinct. and starts walking you backward, lips brushing your neck, knuckles grazing skin. your back hits the bed before you realize how far you’ve made it.

he undresses you slowly. not teasing, not showy. just… deliberate. like this part matters. like every layer is something he earned.

he doesn’t ask for permission with every touch. just watches your face, waits for the way your breath catches like that’s all the yes he needs.

when he looks at you bare, he exhales sharp. something between reverence and hunger.

“fuck...” he mutters, more to himself than to you.

his fingers trail lower. measuring. learning. and when his mouth follows, slow at first and then not, you gasp. too hard, too loud.

you reach for his hair. he doesn’t stop. just holds you down, steady, until your thighs are trembling and your breath comes in broken pieces.

when he finally kisses you, you taste yourself on his lips.

his fingers slide between your thighs again, slick and sensitive. you flinch. he hums against your mouth.

“not used to this, huh?”

you try to speak. fail. you can’t even lie. he slides in slow. one long thrust that knocks the air from your lungs.

your mouth falls open. no sound. just pressure. full and overwhelming.

he fucks you deep and steady, one hand gripping your waist, the other braced beside your head.

he doesn’t talk much, but when he does it’s a low string of things you weren’t ready to hear.

“look at me, pretty.”

“is this what you needed?”

you nod, gasping, fingers digging into his arms. he kisses you like he’s claiming you. fucks you like he’s trying to ruin you for anyone else.

and by the time you come again, you’re half-sure he’s already succeeded.

after, he stays. not awkward. not obligated. just… stays. like it never crossed his mind to leave.

you’re half-draped across his chest, legs tangled. neither of you says anything for a long time. his hand moves slow down your back, tracing nothing in particular.

you wonder if this is where the guilt is supposed to kick in. but all you feel is warm. and his breath, steady against your neck.

you close your eyes.

just for a second.

you wake before him. his arm is heavy across your waist. your sheets smell like wine, sweat, and something deeper. something not yours alone anymore.

you don’t move.

when he stirs, you let your breath even out. pretend. he says your name once, then again. softer the second time. you keep still.

you feel the mattress shift as he gets up, the quiet sounds of him dressing. zipper, keys, the door unlatching.

then silence.

you stare at the ceiling, trying to find the feeling you’re supposed to be having.

guilt. shame. regret.

nothing comes.

only the memory of his voice, rough and close: look at me, pretty. you close your eyes again. you don’t want to forget it.

after that, you don’t text him. not that day. not the next. you go back to your life. the one with morning coffee, dry kisses, and half-finished grocery lists.

your boyfriend doesn’t notice anything. he’s busy. distracted. work, gym, group chats, meetings. he falls asleep on the couch half the week.

when he kisses you, it’s soft. detached. like muscle memory. you match the energy. nod at the right times. laugh on cue. you smile when you’re supposed to. and it should feel wrong.

but it doesn’t.

and that’s what starts to eat at you. not the sex. not the lie. just the absence of guilt. the weightless way it all fits together.

you think about seungcheol more than you mean to.

the way he looked at you like you were real. like you were seen. you remember the weight of his body. the voice. the calm kind of control that made your pulse spike.

you don’t delete the messages but you stop replying. and he doesn’t push.

a few texts come in:

seungcheol i know you’re busy just checking in

seungcheol did thursday get boring without me?

then nothing.

you try to feel relieved. you don’t.

the knock on your door comes a week later. friday night. your boyfriend’s out, drinks with coworkers. you expect delivery but when you open the door, it’s him. black hoodie, wind in his hair, one hand in his pocket like he’s holding back everything he wants to say.

you freeze.

“what the fuck?”

“hi, pretty.”

your heart stutters.

“what are you doing here?”

he shrugs. “returning the favor. figured we owed each other a drink.”

you glance behind you, pulse climbing.

“you can’t just show up like this.”

he lifts a brow. “why not? i already know the way.”

“my boyfriend could’ve been here.”

his mouth twitches. “but he’s not.”

you want to slam the door. you don’t.

you step back and he walks in like the place still remembers him. he doesn’t hesitate. just turns to you, hands in his pockets.

“you ghosted me.”

you cross your arms. “i had to. it wasn’t... sustainable.”

he scoffs. “funny. felt pretty natural to me.”

you narrow your eyes. “you’re being an asshole.”

“am i?” he takes a step closer. “or am i the only one telling the truth?”

you hate how steady he is. how your body reacts before your brain decides.

“why are you really here?” you ask, quieter now.

he’s close. not touching you but close enough that your skin feels aware of it.

“i haven’t stopped thinking about you” he says. his hand brushes your arm. “your mouth. your voice. how you sound when you come apart. fuck…” his voice falters, almost like he hates hearing himself say it. “you’re in my head all the time, pretty.”

you should push him away. but instead, you tilt your chin and say,

“you don’t get to call me that.”

he smiles, slow. “you didn’t mind it before.”

you don’t deny it. you don’t say anything at all.

his thumb skims your bottom lip. “want me to leave?” he asks, soft now.

dangerous.

you don’t answer but he knows.

he kisses you like he’s angry at how long it’s been. like restraint was never really on the table. your back hits the wall and his hands are everywhere. under your shirt, gripping your thighs, pulling you closer like he’s afraid you’ll change your mind.

you gasp when he lifts you. legs wrap around his waist without hesitation.

“missed this...” he breathes against your skin. “missed you.”

you’re already breathless.

“you shouldn’t be here.” you whisper.

he laughs. low, amused, a sound that hums against your neck. “but you want me here.” a kiss under your jaw. “don’t you?”

you close your eyes. “fuck.”

he carries you to the couch. lays you down with urgency, like the moment might slip away if he’s not careful.

this time, he’s faster. pulls your shirt off like it doesn't matters how it comes off. you squirm under his gaze.

“don’t look at me like that.” you say.

“like what?”

“like you care.”

he leans in, kisses your sternum. then lower. then lower still.

“maybe i do.” he murmurs. his voice is rough now. “would that be so bad?”

you don’t answer. you can’t.

his hands slide under your waistband. he takes his time. when he kisses your thigh, you say his name once, barely a breath. and he exhales like it undid something in him.

then his mouth is on you. again. he eats you like he’s starving. not for release, for you. like the taste is proof you’re real. your hips jerk and he presses you down, firm.

“stay still.” he murmurs.

“let me.”

you come too fast, too hard. and before you can catch your breath, he’s on you again. mouth, hands, heat, everything.

his belt clinks. your thoughts scatter. he fucks you slow this time. but still deep. sure. like he wants you to remember every second of it tomorrow. you clutch at him. his back, his shoulder, anything.

you don’t say his name again. but you think it. over and over. like a secret. like a prayer.

when he speaks, it’s low. honest. unguarded.

“i can’t stop thinking about you.”

“he doesn’t get to have you like this.”

and then, right before you fall apart again, voice barely a whisper:

“say you’re mine. just for now. say it.”

and you do. because in that moment, you are.

after, you lay on the couch, tangled and silent. his hand is on your waist, thumb brushing lazy circles into your skin. you try not to think about what this means. you try not to look at the time. you try not to imagine your boyfriend walking in.

but none of that happens.

the world is quiet. and seungcheol is warm beside you.

“you okay?” he asks, finally.

you nod. “yeah.” then, after a beat:

“you can’t keep showing up like this.”

he doesn’t flinch. “then don’t make me miss you.”

you laugh. tired. frustrated. “it’s not that simple.”

“it is for me.” he says. “i want you. that’s it.”

you turn away, suddenly overwhelmed. he presses a kiss to your shoulder.

“i’ll go.” he murmurs. “just... tell me if you’re gonna shut me out again.”

you don’t promise anything. but when he gets up to leave, you don’t stop him. you just lie there. quiet. and when the door clicks shut behind him, you already miss him.

it becomes routine faster than you expect. thursdays, mostly. sometimes mondays. you don’t talk about it. you don’t have to. he texts. you show up. sometimes you stay for an hour. sometimes all night.

always at his place now. a quiet apartment on the edge of the city with clean sheets and soft lighting and music that never stops playing.

he never asks questions. never pushes. but he always opens the door like he’s been waiting. and you like that. you like how he looks at you like you’re not cheating.

he still calls you pretty. sometimes in bed. sometimes when you’re just sitting there, drinking his whiskey in one of his hoodies, legs tucked under you like you belong there. you hate how right it feels.

your boyfriend starts to notice. at first, it’s nothing. a passing comment:

“you seem happier lately.”

“you look really good this week.”

and then it builds.

“wanna do something friday? just us?”

“i miss this. you and me.”

you nod. you smile. you let him hold your hand across the dinner table. but your mind is still stuck on the way seungcheol holds your hips when you ride him. the way he says your name with his mouth full of need.

and it gets harder to juggle. you start making excuses.

"i'm working late."

"i told a friend i'd help her move."

"my mom's been calling a lot lately."

and your boyfriend buys it. until he doesn’t.

it happens on a tuesday. you’re in the shower, phone on the bathroom counter, music playing. he walks in, says something about ordering dinner. you shout back, "anything's fine!"

he says okay. you don’t notice the pause. don’t hear the phone buzz under the steam and music. when you walk out, towel wrapped around you, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in hand.

yours.

your heart stops. you freeze in the doorway.

he looks up, eyes unreadable.

“who’s seungcheol?” he asks. it’s not loud. not angry. just quiet. and you feel the floor shift under you.

your mouth opens. closes.

“what?”

he shows you the screen. a single notification:

seungcheol you left your sweater, pretty.

just that. nothing else. but it’s enough.

you step forward, towel clutched tighter.

“he’s just...it’s not like that.”

“so what is it like?” his voice still calm. too calm.

“he’s just a coworker. he calls everyone that. it's... it's just his thing.”

he stares at you. like he’s trying to see through you. you smile, shaky.

“you know i’d never do anything.”

he nods. too fast.

“right.” he says. then stands. “i’ll order something.”

he walks out of the room. doesn’t say another word. and you stand there, dripping, heart racing, stomach twisted, wondering if this was it.

if it’s already falling apart. if you’ve gone too far to come back.

you wipe the steam from the mirror. look at your reflection.

you look good. a little flushed. a little wild. like someone in love.

and that’s the problem.

you shouldn’t have gone to his place that night. but you did.

the city was too loud. your boyfriend too quiet. and the ache in your chest too familiar.

you texted two words:

you you home?

and he replied in under a minute.

seungcheol always for you, pretty

you didn’t even say hi when you walked in. you grabbed him by the collar and kissed him like you were trying to shut yourself up. he let you. hands on your waist. mouth on your throat.

you pulled off his shirt. he pressed you to the wall. clothes hit the floor without ceremony. he fucks you hard this time.

not unkind but intense. like he’s trying to burn his name into your spine. your nails leave red trails on his shoulders. you moan too loud. you don’t care.

when it’s over, you lie there in the dark, chest still heaving. he reaches for his phone on the nightstand, checking something. you sit up.

“cheol...”

he looks over.

you swallow. “you need to stop texting me first.”

he blinks.

“…what?”

“i mean it. don’t reach out unless i text you first. it’s... risky.”

he sits up slowly. you feel the shift in the air.

“risky.” he repeats. “but what we’re doing isn’t?”

“it’s different.”

“it’s not.” he says. then quieter, “but sure. whatever makes you feel better.”

you can feel the weight in his words. you know he’s hurt. you see it in the way he doesn’t look at you as he grabs his shirt. you pretend not to notice. because acknowledging it would make it real.

you stay the night, anyway.

things start to press down on you after that. not like guilt. more like gravity.

being with two people is exhausting. two versions of yourself, two stories to tell, two worlds you’re keeping from colliding.

you’re good at it but you’re tired. and then it gets worse.

you’re out with your boyfriend, some rooftop bar he found online. warm lights, clinking glasses, music low enough for conversation.

he’s holding your hand again. touching your waist like he remembered how.

“i missed this” he says.

you smile. you nod. you lie. you turn your head to avoid the weight of it and that’s when you see him.

two tables away. black shirt. same chain. drink in hand. and a girl beside him.

she’s laughing. touching his arm like she’s done it before. and he’s letting her.

your stomach twists before you can stop it. your pulse stutters. your jaw tightens. jealousy blooms in your throat like something rotten. ugly and hot and sudden. and you have no right to feel it.

you watch them too long.

your boyfriend says something beside you but it’s muffled, far away. like you’re underwater.

you stand before you even think to. legs moving without permission. you walk over like it’s casual, like it’s nothing, like your entire body isn’t vibrating.

“hey” you say, too cheerful.

seungcheol looks up slowly. blinks.

“hi.” he says. voice unreadable.

you gesture vaguely over your shoulder. “my boyfriend’s here. just thought i’d say hi.”

there’s a pause. too long.

you glance at the girl. “and this is…?”

she smiles before he can speak. “i’m jihye, nice to meet you.” she says, light and easy.

seungcheol lifts his glass. “she’s my friend.” he says, dry.

you meet his eyes. there’s something bitter there. but neither of your dates seem to notice.

you turn just in time as your boyfriend joins you.

“babe, this is seungcheol.” you say, hoping your voice doesn’t shake. “the friend i told you about.”

friend. you could choke on it.

your boyfriend nods, polite. they shake hands. the girl stays quiet. just keeps watching you.

you smile too wide. “well. don’t let us interrupt. looks like a great date.”

seungcheol raises an eyebrow. but he says nothing.

you turn around. walk away before your mouth does something reckless.

you don’t look back.

you show up at his door an hour later. no text. no warning. he opens it, surprised. his shirt is off. he looks tired. annoyed.

“what are you doing here?”

“where is she?”

he raises an eyebrow. “she left. why?”

you push past him, walk into his apartment like you live there. he shuts the door behind you, slow.

“you okay?”

you turn, arms crossed.

“were you gonna sleep with her?”

he laughs. dry. “are you serious?”

“answer me.”

“why do you care?” his voice is sharper now. “you’re the one who keeps leaving. you’re the one who goes home to someone else.”

“that’s not the point.”

“then what is?” he steps closer. “you don’t get to be jealous, pretty. not when the only place we exist is this apartment.”

your mouth goes dry. “you were the one who said you didn’t care” you whisper.

he laughs again, but it doesn’t sound like humor. “yeah, well. i lied.”

the silence stretches. you feel it like a bruise. your throat tight. your heart worse.

“so what now?” you ask.

“you tell me...” he says. “you’re the one juggling hearts like glassware.”

you stare at him. and for the first time, you’re not sure which one you’re more afraid of losing.

after that night everything changed between you and seungcheol. the easy back-and-forth, the electric pull that used to crackle in the air whenever you touched. it all shifted.

his messages became sparse, his words clipped, and the warmth you used to find in his eyes was replaced by a quiet distance that made your chest ache.

it was like you were holding onto a ghost, reaching out through the silence but feeling nothing but cold air.

you tried to tell yourself he just needed space, that maybe he was sorting through his own mess. but the silence grew heavier every day. your phone would buzz and you’d hope it was him, but often it wasn’t.

and when you did hear from him, it was just a word, a sentence. never the late-night confessions or teasing you craved.

the gap between you widened, and with every unanswered text, the weight in your chest tightened.

the loneliness started to claw at you, and one night you couldn’t hold it back anymore. you sent the simplest message you could think of:

you can you come over?

seungcheol on my way

when he arrived, the air between you was thick, heavy with things neither of you said. his eyes searched yours, like he was trying to read all the words left unsaid.

you sat close but felt miles apart, the quiet stretching until you couldn’t take it anymore.

“seungcheol, how am i supposed to leave him...” you whispered, voice shaking, “when i don’t even know you? when what we have feels like just this... something physical, something temporary?”

his jaw tightened, and for a moment he said nothing. then, quietly, he said, “you never gave me a chance to be more.”

those words hit you harder than you expected, a sudden crack in your carefully guarded walls. you swallowed, the ache growing deeper.

“you think i wanted it to be like this?” you say, quiet but firm. “living my life like you’re not part of it? but it’s not that simple.”

he stood up, slowly, like your words had pushed him back. “then maybe you shouldn’t have started something you weren’t ready for.”

your breath caught. “i didn’t mean to...”

“but you did.” his voice wasn’t loud, but it cut clean. “we don’t need to have this conversation. not if you’re still choosing someone else.”

you flinched. “i’m not choosing him.”

“you know what? that’s true...” he said, bitter now. “it feels like you’re not choosing anything. not him. not me. just whatever hurts less in the moment.”

you stared at him, suddenly cold. “so what, you’re done?”

he exhaled, eyes fixed on the floor. “i’m not a detour. and i’m not going to keep waiting for you to decide if i’m worth it.”

you didn’t stop him when he walked to the door. you didn’t ask him to stay. you watched the door close.

and this time, the silence answered for you.

you don’t go back to seungcheol. not that night. not the one after.

you don’t text. you don’t call. you just sit with it. the weight of everything, the way your heart aches in places you didn’t even know existed.

you think about the way he looked at you that night. how quiet he went when you said the wrong thing. how badly he wanted to be more, and how little you let him.

it’s around 3 a.m. when it hits you. curled into the far end of the couch, silent, wrapped in a blanket that doesn’t feel like warmth anymore.

you’ve been shrinking. pulling yourself in at the seams, little by little. and maybe that’s what this was always about.

not him. just you.

you ask your boyfriend to come over. he says yes, too quickly. like he’s relieved. like maybe he’s been waiting for this to feel normal again.

he brings wine. you don’t drink it. you sit on opposite ends of the couch, the distance screaming louder than either of you.

you take a deep breath. start slow.

“we need to talk.”

his eyes flick to yours. guarded. calm. you expect confusion. anger. something. but all he does is nod. like he’s already bracing for the hit.

“i’m ending this.” you say. “we’re not working. we haven’t been. and i’ve been lying to you.”

his mouth twitches. not a smile. something smaller.

“you think i didn’t know?”

you blink.

“you think i don’t smell his cologne on your clothes?” his voice doesn’t raise. it sharpens. “you think i don’t see the marks on your body? the ones i didn’t leave?”

your breath catches. he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

“you think i don’t notice when you shower twice before bed? or when you smile at your phone like it’s holding something sacred?”

you stare at him.

“you’re just confused,” he says, like that explains it all. “it’s okay. i’ve been there. i had a thing, once. a girl i couldn’t stop thinking about. but it passed.” he shrugs.

“it always passes. you realize it’s just a phase, a distraction. some affair to escape real life for a while.”

you clench your fists. “this isn’t about him.”

“no.” he says, with a strange, soft certainty. “it’s about us. it’s always been about us. this is us. and deep down, you know that.”

you shake your head. something dark stirs in your chest.

“no, it’s about you being a selfish, inattentive, emotionally lazy piece of shit who didn’t notice i was slipping away until it was convenient to care.” his face shifts, just slightly.

“you want to know the truth?” you whisper. “i didn’t feel guilty. not once. not even the first time.”

he goes still.

“and it wasn’t because i stopped loving you.” you continue, “it’s because somewhere along the way, you stopped deserving to be loved.”

his jaw tightens.

“this was never about him. not really. he was just the first person in a long time who saw me. who wanted me. who listened when i spoke. who looked at me like i was still alive.” you exhale. “so no... i’m not confused. i’m just done.”

silence.

you watch him absorb that. watch him break without breaking. he nods. once. stands up. doesn’t say a word. he walks to the door.

pauses.

“you’ll regret this.” he says, not looking back.

“maybe,” you reply. “but at least i’ll regret it for myself.”

and then he’s gone. you sit there for a long time. longer than you mean to.

you breathe in.

breathe out.

and for the first time in weeks, you feel light. not healed. not free. but closer.

but after that night, you don’t go after seungcheol. again. not because you don’t miss him. not because you don’t replay his voice in your head when everything goes quiet.

you never gave me a chance to be more.

he was right and that’s exactly why you don’t call. because if you went now, after everything, it would feel like he was what’s left.

and he doesn’t deserve to be what’s left. he deserves to be a choice. and you’re not ready to choose anything yet, not even yourself.

the days that follow move slow, like the world is giving you room to breathe.

you spend the first week in silence. not the heavy, guilty kind, just the kind that wraps around your apartment like a fog. you sleep better.

you leave your phone on do not disturb and stop checking it like it holds your pulse. for the first time in months, you feel still.

you go for long walks without a destination. buy fresh flowers. drink your coffee without company and realize how much better it tastes that way.

you say yes to your friends again. not because you’re running away from the quiet, but because you finally have room to enjoy it.

some nights are harder than others. some nights you lie awake and wonder what it would’ve felt like to fall asleep next to seungcheol without consequence. not hiding. not rushing. not lying.

but you don’t text. you don’t open old messages. you let the thought pass through you like wind. and you don’t chase it.

you stop waiting. for him, for anyone. you stop hoping for closure or answers or a version of this story that hurts less.

and somewhere in the middle of that, you start living. your laugh gets louder. your hair gets longer. your presence, bigger. not for someone else, just for you.

and still, sometimes... in a song, in the shape of someone’s shoulders on the street, in the space beside you at a dinner table, he appears.

just for a second. just long enough to make you wonder what could’ve been. and that’s okay.

it's another thursday. not a poetic one. not a repeat. just a thursday where the air feels nice and you don’t want to go home just yet.

you end up at the bar again. not because you need distraction, just because you like it. you like the dim light. the soft hum of conversation. the way no one asks anything of you here.

you order a drink. sit in your usual spot. cross your legs and let your shoulders relax. it’s quiet.

you’re not waiting for anything. and then you see him.

not right away, just out of the corner of your eye. a shift in movement. the sound of a voice that lands like something familiar in your chest.

you look. and there he is.

seungcheol.

same bar. same broad frame. same profile you used to trace with your eyes when you thought he couldn’t feel you watching.

a few seats away, facing slightly away from you, elbow on the bar, fingers drumming absently against a glass that looks mostly untouched.

he’s wearing a black shirt with the sleeves rolled, hair a little longer than before, eyes a little tired. the kind of tired that doesn’t come from lack of sleep but from carrying something too long.

you take him in quietly. he hasn’t seen you yet.

and you don’t look away.

you watch the way he shifts his weight, how his jaw tightens when the bartender asks if he wants another.

he just nods, runs a hand through his hair and exhales. like he’s trying to breathe something out of him.

and then, you move. slowly. like gravity is pulling you toward him.

you sit one stool over. not quite close. not quite far. just enough to be undeniable. he glances at you, casual, instinctive. then does a double take.

you meet his eyes with a soft smile. lift your drink slightly.

“she canceled on you?”

his expression barely changes, but you catch the flicker in his gaze. surprise. then something warmer.

“what makes you think that?” he says. his voice still has that rough edge you remember.

“your glass is too full, and you keep looking at the door like you’re giving someone five more minutes.” you say.

he lets out a quiet laugh, barely a breath. “you always open with that line?”

“only when it works.”

there’s a pause. his eyes flicker down, like he’s trying to process something and you know the moment he notices.

your left hand, resting against the base of your glass. bare. no ring. he doesn’t say anything. doesn’t need to. the acknowledgment sits there between you like a breath held and released.

“what’s your name?” you ask, mirroring that first conversation, letting the words stretch into something gentler now.

he tilts his head slightly, amused. “we’re doing this again?”

“i just like the idea of meeting you properly this time.”

he holds your gaze. “seungcheol.”

you repeat it. like it’s new.

“and you?” he teases, softly.

“still me.”

he hums, eyes crinkling a little at the corners. you set your drink down and shift toward him slightly. your knee almost touches his.

“can i ask you something?” you say.

he nods.

“where did you go to school?”

he looks caught off guard. blinks. “what?”

“like. where did you study? what do you do? what’s your thing, seungcheol?”

he watches you carefully, like he’s waiting for the punchline. but it doesn’t come.

“i studied music.” he says eventually. “switched to sound engineering halfway through. now i do studio work. production, some mixing. freelance stuff.”

you smile. “that sounds like the coolest job i’ve ever heard.”

he shrugs, eyes flicking down to his glass. “pays the bills.”

“do you like it?”

“i do,” he says after a second. “especially when no one’s breathing down my neck about deadlines.”

you nod. and then, before you lose your nerve, you say,

“i want to know you.”

his eyes lift again. sharp. steady.

“for real this time.” you add.

his mouth parts. just slightly. and then he laughs, a real one. full and breathy and stunned.

“what are you doing?” he asks, not defensive, just curious.

“i don’t know...” you say, grinning now. “trying again. starting over. meeting you without the mess.”

his shoulders relax a little. “that’s a new one,” he says. “meeting someone you’ve already—”

“don’t say it.”

he laughs again, quiet and warm.

the conversation moves easily from there. small things, light things.

you talk about terrible dates and strange pets, favorite takeout orders and the music that makes you cry when you least expect it. at one point, he asks if you still sleep with socks on. and you roll your eyes, say you’re reformed now.

he calls you a liar.

it feels easy. not rushed. not performative. just two people in a bar. trying. softly.

the night gets late, but you don’t check the time. the air smells like citrus and leather. the noise around you fades into a low blur. and then he leans slightly closer, elbow brushing yours.

“so...” he murmurs. “you’re not gonna ask me back to your place for a drink?”

you blink at him. not shocked. just careful.

“no.”

his expression stills. not hurt, not angry. just… unreadable. a quiet breath held in his chest.

you wait a second. then say,

“but i was gonna ask if you’re free tomorrow.”

he looks at you. eyes softening.

“i was thinking something stupid. like a picnic or whatever. somewhere public. full daylight. no bedroom in sight.”

he tilts his head. “trying to prove something?”

“trying to... unlearn something.” you say.

he smiles. and it’s a real smile now. slow and easy, like he’s letting it happen without thinking too hard.

“i’d like that.” he says.

“me too.”

the words sit gently between you and he doesn’t say anything for a moment. just looks at you like maybe for the first time, you’re really seeing him. not through the blur of want or the ache of something forbidden, but just… him.

here. now. choosing him, simply because you want to.

you finish your drinks slowly.

there’s no silence to fill. just a kind of quiet you both settle into, like it belongs to you.

he helps you with your jacket before you even think to reach for it. you laugh when his hand brushes your shoulder.

you walk out together. the air outside is cooler now, clean on your skin. the kind of night that hums low, full of things waiting to happen.

he doesn’t reach for your hand. you don’t reach for his.

because this time, there’s no need to rush toward the next thing. no need to blur the lines to feel close. this time, you’re both choosing to build something slowly.

openly. no shadows. no secrets. no scripts to follow.

just the quiet unfolding of something new. something soft, and good, and real.

and as you walk beside him, shoulders barely touching, you feel it settle in your chest:

you don’t know exactly where this is going.

but for the first time, that doesn’t scare you. because it doesn’t feel like an ending. it feels like the part right before everything begins.

“You’re squirmy.” He grumbles, glaring at you in the dark. “No one ever teach you to sit still?”

You stick your tongue out. “No one ever teach you to mind your own business?”

“Hard to mind my business when you’re movin’ all the cushions, doll-“

“Then go sit somewhere else, robot man.”

Bucky’s jaw twitches. “I’m not a robot.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m not-“

“You act like one.” You snap, and Bucky closes his eyes. Like he’s fucking praying.

“I was here first.” He mutters. You don’t balk.

“Congratulations.”

You hold his glare, and Bucky lets out a heavy breath through his nose. He narrows his eyes, tongue flicking over his lips. His full lips. Pretty and chapped, but in the perfect, soft way-

Get a fucking grip.

“There’s a chair over there.” You point across the room, sinking back into the cushions. “Go sit in it, if I’m so squirmy.”

Bucky scowls, and opens his mouth, but whatever jab he’s got for you, you don’t want to hear it. You reach over and unpause the movie—probably another one of Sam’s this is what you gotta catch up on, Barnes suggestions, because there’s no way Bucky picked out the Goonies himself—and fix your glower on the TV screen. You hate this movie. You’re going to watch it all the way through, just to show Bucky that he doesn’t bother you.

You spread your own legs wide, too. If men are allowed to do it, so are you. Bucky grunts as your knee pushes over his thigh, and you smirk at the TV.

It has nothing to do with the thick muscle you can feel under his sweatpants, that you keep your legs like that for the rest of the night. Bucky’s fingers flex a few times, and brush over the inner curve of your knee and the top of your thigh, like he’s thinking about just shoving you away. At one point, you hear him grunt, and look over with mockingly raised brows.

“Everything okay?” You almost simper, and he grunts and nods.

That’s all you get. Bucky fixes his anger on the movie, you win this round, and you get to be close to him without thinking about it.

You’ll think about it later. In the comfort of your own bedroom, you’ll think about it and think about it and think about it all night. You’ll think about it until your wrist hurts. But Bucky doesn’t get to know that.

As far as he needs to be concerned, you never spare him a second thought. It’s all he spares you. And you’re not going to be the pathetic girl who falls for someone who only thinks of her as a buzzing gnat around his head. Who worships the ground of a man who would step on her like a flower into concrete, not because he was seeking to hurt, but just because he didn’t notice you were there at all.

Although Bucky does seem to notice where you are.

The farmer does like to keep track of pests in his crops.

“You skipped the mission briefing.” Bucky grunts in the morning, glaring at you over a cup of coffee.

Something soft in you swells like a prodded bruise. He noticed where you were.

You ignore it in favor of flipping him off.

“I was busy.”

“Too busy for your job?”

“It’s not my job-“

“Your name was on the roster.” Bucky slams the folder down on the table, and your lips twitch.

“Have you been carrying that around all day?”

“That doesn’t matter-“

“Yes, it really does-“

Bucky hisses your name. There’s a fury under his tone, that makes your mouth snap shut. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.

“You need to be there, Steve was talkin’ about safety shit, and if you don’t know it you could get killed-“

“I know how mission briefing work, I’ve been here longer than you have-“

“Really? ‘Cause you don’t act like it-“

“I don’t act like it?” You snort. “Last I checked I’m ranked higher than you, Sargent.” You raise your chin, letting your lips curl. “Which is why I’m allowed to defer missions, and you’re not.”

Bucky blinks, recoiling slightly. “Defer? What, you-“

“I’m skipping.” You shrug, grabbing an apple from the counter. “And if I’m skipping, I don’t need to be at the briefing. But thanks for checking on me, dad.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. You expect him to snap something about experience and you not being responsible enough or needing to care more.

But instead his fists curl and uncurl at his side. His nostrils flare. He grabs the counter, his scowl burning right through you. You take a large bite of your apple, and his gaze darts down. Juice drips down your chin, and you wipe it off with light fingers. That only seems to make him angrier.

“Why’re you skipping.”

You shrug. You should say none of your business. But part of you is childish. A very big, loud part that wants him to react to something you know he isn’t actually going to care about.

“I have a date.”

“A what.” It’s not a full reaction. He’s mostly staring at you like he didn’t understand the word. Maybe they called it something different in the 40s.

“A date?” You roll your eyes, a little meaner than you mean to be. He always bring that out in you, though.

Bucky always brings everything out in you. It’s incredibly annoying.

“You know.” You push mockingly. “Where you go out with someone. And flirt like people, instead of robots.”

“Robots flirt.” Bucky grunts, and you snort.

“Yeah, but they don’t have sex-“

The counter cracks. It’s loud, echoing through the kitchen. You start and twitch, and Bucky blinks at his metal hand, like he’s just as surprised as you are. He looks back to you, shakes his head, and takes a large step back.

“What’s-“

“Steve’s callin’ me.” He mutters, and you blink.

“No, he’s not-“

“Have fun.” Bucky ignores you. His words sound pushed through his teeth. “On your human date.”

Then he’s gone.

And you’re left in the kitchen with your apple and a cracked counter, staring at where he’d vanished through the door. You don’t care about the date.

You just need to know what the fuck that was.

There’s a part of you that feels bad, for the man Natasha set you up with. She’d picked him out specifically because he had a vague resemblance to Bucky—because you’ve never told her your secret, but you didn’t need to, she’s Natasha—but it wasn’t enough.

He didn’t have the underlying accent, or the gleam in his eyes. You made a sharper edged joke, and he just laughed. He didn’t spar. He didn’t push your buttons in a way that made you light up. He just smiled at you all night—wrong smile, too—and then didn’t pay. Bucky would’ve paid.

You have no evidence of that. It’s just a feeling, that comes from how he still opens doors for you, even when you’re at each other’s throats. All polite and handsome and insufferable. You hate him.

And there’s not a single point during the night, where you’re not thinking about him.

“We should do this again.” The Date—you’ve forgotten his name, and it’s certainly not a good time to ask—says at the end of the night.

You’re shivering. Bucky would’ve offered you his jacket. He did once, on a mission in the Andes. You got all cold and he rolled his eyes and muttered that he told you to bring another layer, but still gave you his jacket all the same. This man is just grinning at you after not calling you a cab and saying he wanted to stand outside in the misty, chilly night. He said he wanted fresh air, and now your freezing, and he thinks he’s getting a second date.

At the very least, you feel a little less guilty about only thinking of Bucky and the mission the whole time. He deserved it.

“Sure.” You smile, because even with superstrength, it’s easier to tell a man yes and then vanish than it is to deny them to their face. “Have a good night.”

He tries to hug you. Your phone buzzes, and you duck away to check it.

The mission is over.

Two days early.

Your jaw tightens.

Most people would think that a job being done early is a good thing. That it means the team was just so focused and coordinated that they sped through every single step, and ended in a total victory. But you’ve been on this job too long. Early mission conclusions only ever happen for one reason.

Something went wrong, and they have to come back.

You rush back to the compound with barely a goodnight to the Date. It’s mostly because you forget, in the blur of worry. You’d skimmed the mission files before they left, just to make sure it wasn’t anything too dangerous. Bucky had been mad about you not going with them. Maybe he’d thought they’d need the hands, but it had just looked like a retrieval mission. Old Hydra facility with some data Tony wanted. Nothing too hard.

But they’re back early.

And if someone’s hurt, you could’ve stopped it. You could’ve been there, instead of on that stupid fucking date. Which also means that Bucky was right, and that’s incredibly annoying. He’s going to weild it over your head, and the mocking is going to turn you on more, and you’ll have earned it which isn’t going to help anything at all. 

You get back to the compound, and it’s not in lockdown. There aren’t med staff flooding the grounds or emergency sirens blaring. You go right to the hanger, and find that it’s already been cleared out. The jet isn’t being quarantined.

Maybe they really did just… Finish early.

You’re heading back to your room when you slam right into them.

Steve and Bucky, standing in the middle of the hall, arguing in hushed voices.

“You need to go, Buck-“

“I’m fine-“

“No, you’re not. You can lie to the docs, don’t lie to me-“

“I ain’t lyin’, I’m fine-“

Your too lost in your own head, barely even hearing what they’re saying. You barrel straight into Bucky’s back.

He goes rigid. You stumble a little, and he grabs your upper arm.

His hand is hot.

Not sexy hot—although it’s also that—but literally, physically hot. Almost searing, against your shivering skin. You look up at him, and swallow.

He’s flushed. There’s sweat clinging to his brow, and an exhausted shadow over his features. His eyes are so blown out they’re almost fully black. You blink at him, and his mouth falls open in a ragged pant.

“Hi.” You whisper.

His throat bobs. “You’re back.”

“I- I got the alert.” You glance over to Steve, who’s gone oddly pale. “Did the mission go okay? It was fine that I wasn’t there, right-“

“Yep!” Steve almost shouts, and you blink. “I mean- We were all good. Wish you were there, we all missed you, but- We were fine. Right, Buck?” Steve grabs Bucky’s shoulder. “We were all good.”

Bucky doesn’t look away from you for a single second. He grunts, and his grip tightens on your arm.

“Let go.” Steve mutters, and Bucky shoots him a glare.

He releases you like you burned him, then wipes his hand on his pants. You scowl. He was the one touching you.

“I was gonna.” He grumbles, and Steve sighs.

“I know, but-“ You get a weary look. Like Steve doesn’t want you to hear their conversation. “I think- You know what I think-“

“Steve-“ Bucky cuts himself off with a groan, running a hand over his face.

He still hasn’t looked away from you. Or moved that far out of your proximity.

“I’m fine.” He says, low and under his breath. You’re rooted to the ground under his gaze, unsure what you could even think of to say. “It’s- I’m fine.”

Steve’s lips press in a thin line. Bucky takes a large, jerking step back. Like he’s dragging himself away.

“How was your date?” He grunts.

“Bucky-“

“I’m just askin’ a question.” He snaps, still not sparing Steve a look.

The attention is getting to be too much. Bucky is looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, and it’s making your body almost buzz in anticipation. You want to jump on him and feel those hot hands all over your body. His nostrils flare like he can smell your arousal. If he can, you might jump off a bridge.

You hope he’d catch you, then fuck you until your can’t even walk.

Get a fucking grip.

“Bad.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying to keep your heart from bursting out of your chest. “He sucked.”

And that’s the kind of thing Bucky would usually mock you for. Skipping a mission just for a bad date.

But a low, rumbling growl falls from his chest. His tongue darts over his lips. He takes a half-step forward, and you lean in to the gravity of his stare.

“We have debriefing!” Steve shouts, grabbing the collar of Bucky’s suit. “Bye!”

Before you can even register it, Steve’s dragging Bucky down the hall. You swear you hear another feral noise, and a crash after they turn the corner.

Something had to have happened on the mission. You just have no fucking clue what.

Bucky’s only been acting stranger. You’d pretend it didn’t bother you, if you could get away from it for a single fucking second.

You walk through the compound, and he’s somehow more everywhere than he was before. Around every corner, in the library, on the grounds, even in the control room while you’re going through the mission files.

“What’re you doin’.” He grunts, and you sigh.

You’re not surprised he’s there. It’s the fifth time today that he’s snuck up on you.

“I’m going through the reports on the mission.” You drawl. “Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around?”

Bucky grunts. It seems to be a no. You roll your eyes and go back to poking through the system. It’s hard to pretend that you can’t feel his presence behind you. There’s heat almost rolling from his body, and thick, spicy and musky scent that’s filling the room. It’s making you a little dizzy. It’s all you can do, not to look back at him.

That would be dangerous. He probably still looks feverish and animalistic. You might moan.

You find the files for the mission, and try to open them. Big, read access denied, contact your handler for permission to these files flashes over your screen. Your mouth falls open, and you whip back to glare at Bucky before you can think about it.

Mistake. Just like you’d thought, big mistake.

He looks even worse and better than you thought. He’s wearing just a t-shirt and sweats, and they’re clinging to his sweaty body. His eyes are hooded and his lips are parted. His attention is so wholly fixed on you that it almost makes you fall out of your chair. You almost forget you’re annoyed with him. Every single nerve in your body is alight, and your fingers are itching to comb through his sweaty hair.

You somehow—just barely—fight it.

“Why can’t I access these files.”

Bucky leans over you, his nostrils flaring. If you reach up, you could trace the stubbled line of his jaw. It’s hard to maintain your glare.

“Barnes-“

“You weren’t on the mission.” He mutters. “Not your files to see.”

You scowl. “I can access the files of every other mission I was on-“

“Steve should change that.”

God, you wish he wasn’t so pretty. It would be easier to think about punching him.

“I know something happened out there.” You hiss, sitting up a little taller. “You can’t hide it from me. I’ll figure it out.”

Bucky chuckles. It’s a low, raspy sound that runs through your body, making you shiver.

“Sure, doll. Have fun with that.”

You shoot to your feet, and Bucky lurches back. Another one of those deep, rumbling growls rolls from his chest, and for a second you think he’s going to pounce on you.

And then you blink, and he’s gone. Leaving you with only that hazy smell, and desire rolling through your veins.

You wish that was the extent of it, but it’s barely the start. And it only gets worse.

Bucky doesn’t do his movie nights anymore, which means you get the TV all to yourself. You watch what you want, and try not to look at the spot next to you. Where your body feels like he’s supposed to be. You stretch out your legs, but they ache strangely without his touch. You get more restless without him. Around midnight, you shuffle to the kitchen, hoping one of those soothingherb thingys that Wanda says help with her nightmares will be there.

Instead, you find Bucky. 

He’s drinking a glass of ice, with a little bit of water. He freezes when he sees you, and moves further behind the counter.

You sigh. You’re too tired to fight him.

“Can’t sleep?” You mumble.

He just nods.

You sigh, and walk over the cupboard.

“You want hot chocolate?”

A grunt. Better than silence. You make two mugs, one for you, one for Bucky.

And maybe it’s just that you’re really starting to worry, but you don’t bother pretending to hate him. Your fingers brush when you pass him his mug, and his body seizes like you shocked him, but you just offer a tiny smile.

His mouth falls open. He stares at you like he’s spent years only looking at the muddier reflection of stars in the water, and has finally thought just to tilt his head up. You let out a small, shaking breath. He’s still burning up. You can feel it from your place a foot away. But you don’t dare to push it.

Not when he’s looking at you like this. The way you’d always, secretly and shamefully, dreamed he would.

“I’m watching Star Wars.” You mumble. “You wanna…”

You trail off, and Bucky’s throat bobs.

He nods again. A new tendril of worry blooms, overlapping with the growing tangle of them in your gut. He might not be able to speak.

But he follows you to the living area, and takes his place on the couch. His knee pushes against yours. He’s breathing awfully shallow, but you’re a selfish coward that wants him close, so you don’t mention it.

You barely pay attention to the movie. All you can focus on is Bucky at your side. How he doesn’t even seem to be sparing the TV a glance. He’s not really touching you, save for that place where your thighs are always pushed together, but every time you shift he grabs your knee. You blink at him, and his throat just bobs. He still hasn’t said a word. You’re afraid that when he does, it will break this fragile illusion.

That he wants to be here.

Near you.

He passes out near the end of the movie. His head falls against your shoulder and his body goes limp, almost a blanket over yours. You don’t move, just staring at a lit up, black screen. He looks more peaceful than you’ve ever seen. His fever isn’t breaking, but it does seem to be easing. You run your fingers through his hair, and he makes a low sound like a purr.

Then he takes a deep inhale, right against the crook of your neck, and a different noise leaves him.

It’s almost a moan.

You swallow. Suddenly you need to move. You don’t know what’s going on with him, but this can’t be what he actually wants. To be asleep almost in your arms, purring and moaning. That’s not a part of him you get to have.

But when you try to move, his grip around you tightens.

You feel almost sick.

It takes almost an hour, to roll off the couch without him pulling you back. When you’re free, you still cover him in a blanket and press a hand to his brow. Just to check. You can’t really help it.

His fever is building again.

You wish he would just tell you what was wrong. Even if he thinks you hate him, he can’t think you wouldn’t care enough to help.

When you start to walk away, he moans again. You could swear it sounded a little like your name.

You force yourself to go to bed. You’re not sure if you want him to remember in the morning.

If anything, you just pray he gets better. It’s hard to hide your undying care for him, when he’s in pain. Impossible to ignore how much it bothers you, that he’s hurting. ‘

But it is Bucky.

And he’s never going to make anything that easy.

You walk out of your room in the morning, and he’s right there. Lingering in the hallway, staring at you with those blown-out eyes, working his jaw like he’s trying to bite his own tongue off.

“Hi.” You say lamely.

He stumbles back like you punched him. “You- You’re-“

“Bucky, are you-“

“’M fine.” He says it mostly to himself again. There’s sweat gathering on his brow and bags under his eyes.

You’re not going to tell him, but you’re getting worried. This is the third morning in a row you’ve found him here. The first night you asked if he’d slept there, and he’d scowled and stomped away.

But from the look of him, you don’t think he’s been sleeping at all.

“Do you need something?” You ask. You sound soft, but you can’t help it. The worse he looks, the more your heart tightens. “I can call Steve-“

“Don’t get Steve.” He steps back. The same jerked movement from the first night. It’s the only way he’s been moving around you, lately. “I’m fine.”

You give him a doubtful look. His tongue flicks over his lips. You take a step forward, and he takes another step back. Like you’ve got a polarity field around you. Like he can’t even stand to breathe the same air.

And yet he’s here. Outside your door, and breathing through his mouth like an animal.

“Bucky-“

“Don’t.” He shakes his head, stumbling another step back. “Just- Don’t.”

You swallow, and don’t give chase when he walks away. Jogs away. He yanks himself away, then runs like he thinks you’re going to catch him and drag him back. You won’t.

But you do go right to Steve.

“What happened on the mission.”

Steve flinches, gagging on his sandwich. You’re glaring down at him with your hands on your hips, and you think he knows his little charming smile isn’t going to work on you here. That doesn’t seem to stop him from trying anyway.

“Hey, um- Do you want a cookie-“

“Steven.” You hiss, and he swallows. “What happened.”

Steve winces, avoiding your gaze. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”’

“What do you mean you’re not supposed to tell me-“

“I mean I- I can.” He mutters. “But then Bucky will kill me. And I don’t want Bucky to kill me.”

You scowl. “Tough shit, because guess who’s going to kill you if you don’t tell me?”

Steve sighs. “Is it you?”

“Yep.”

He stares at his sandwich, like it’s somehow going to get him out of this situation. You wait for him to realize it won’t. You have plenty of time.

“I’m really not supposed to tell you-“

“I really don’t care.”

“Well- You will.” Steve looks up with a sad little puppy eyes.

You don’t have the same reservations about punching him in the face, that you have with Bucky. He’s basically asking for it right now.

“Steven, I swear to fucking God-“

“I can’t tell you.” He cuts you off with a shake of his head, and you scoff.

“No, you just won’t tell me-“

“That’s not- I can’t, okay? Please stop asking me to-“

“Why, because Bucky doesn’t want you to?” You leer. “Because last I checked, you’re the Captain. And if Bucky is your friend, you should be telling his teammates he’s in danger so they can help-“

“That’s the problem!” Steve shouts, and you blink. “You- Look, you’re going to want to help, and I can’t let you.”

“You can’t let me help?” You echo, and Steve winces.

“I know how it sounds-“

“Do you? Because what I’m fucking hearing that your best friend is in danger, and you won’t let me fucking help-“

“Why do you even want to help?” Steve fixes you with a pointed look. “All you ever do is complain about Bucky and how he’s annoying you. I would’ve thought you didn’t care.”

You narrow your eyes, and Steve raises his brows. You know what he’s doing. Smug fucking asshole. 

“That won’t work on me.” You grunt, and he shrugs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Steve-“

“But,” he says causally. “If I did, I’d say that’s why I can’t tell you. And you know that.”

You hate it when he speaks in riddles. Like you’re just supposed to read between the lines when your brain is fogged with worry about Bucky.

“I- I don’t-“ You let out a slow breath, looking down to your shoes. Heat is flooding your cheeks. It’s annoying. “It’s not- I’m just- Please.”

Your voice cracks suddenly. You’ve been losing more sleep over this than you’re ever going to tell anyone. You almost feel ill with it—like the worry is an infection, knotting up your stomach and making your heart pick up—but that might just literal exhaustion. Something happened. No one will tell you what. It’s making you feel useless and hopeless and torn up to tiny, useless shreds.

“Bucky.” You say slowly. “Is- He’s not okay. I know he’s not okay.” You force yourself to meet Steve’s gaze. “Just- Lie to me and say he’s fine, and fix it, or tell me and let me help. But I- I can’t just-“

You don’t even know how to finish the sentence. There’s a burning feeling behind your eyes and a lump in your throat. You’re so worried. Worried this is something that’s going to kill him, and you’re going to lose him forever.

And there’s pity, in Steve’s gaze. It’s enough to make him break, his voice softening completely.

“Alright.” He murmurs. “But- You can’t tell him I told you.”

You nod quickly. “I’ll say I just got into the files, or- Something- Please.”

Steve sighs. “Okay. Okay.” He shakes his head. “It was on the mission. Bucky was distracted the whole time, and when we got jumped he wasn’t being controlled with his punches. He swag to hard on an Hydra agent. Knocked them back into some vials, and- Well they burst. All over both of them. We put the agent in containment, but he was displaying worse symptoms. Bucky- I think it’s the serum, or just… Bucky. But he’s been controlling it better.” Steve grimaces. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not still knocked up with stuff.”

You nod slowly. That’s not that bad.

But Steve didn’t want you to know for a reason.

“What are the symptoms?”

Steve won’t meet your gaze. “Fever. Nausea. Hormone flares. Um- Increased… libido.”

Your eyes widen, your mouth falling open. “What.”

“Hydra makes some weird stuff. Tony thinks this was, um- A breeding drug. We don’t know why they were developing it, but- There’s no other name.” Steve’s nose wrinkles. “The agent- His cell is disgusting.”

“But- Bucky-“

“I told you, he says he’s got it under control.” Steve shrugs, but doesn’t really sound like he’s convinced himself. “The agent has been, ah… begging for anyone. Bucky doesn’t have the same liberty with what will help. He says it’s going to pass, and he’ll be fine.”

“And will it?” You breathe. “Pass?”

Steve shrugs. “It did for the agent.”

“Before or after the mating?”

Steve’s silence is an answer. You swear under your breath.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this, Steve? We- We need to get him to someone, this could fucking kill him-“

“I know that!” Steve snaps. “I know that just as well as you do! As he does! But- Jesus.” He shakes his head. “He won’t take anyone. He’ll only- Well- You know.”

“I know? I don’t fucking know, none of you have been telling me shit-“

Steve says your name plainly. You blink.

“What-“

“Nothing. Just- Why do you think he’s been lingering around you?”

You stare at him. He raises his brows, and you swallow.

“Steve-“

“I didn’t say anything-“

“Yes, you did-“

“Nope.”

You press your lips in a tight line. He can’t mean what you think he means. That would be to easy. Too good. “Bucky- He doesn’t- That’s not how he feels about me.”

Please don’t say it is. It’s not fair if you’re lying.

“Funny.” Steve shrugs. “He says the same thing about you.”

This is a bad idea.

Bucky hasn’t left his room in a day. You’d spent all of last night replaying your conversation with Steve, trying to pick it apart for a single reason he didn’t mean what you thought he did. What you hoped he did. What you’d always hoped for, only in the dead of night where no one would ever find out.

But it didn’t matter how you turned or picked at Steve’s words. There was only one conclusion. The beautiful, horrible one that you can’t even fully wrap your head around. It would mean you spent years hating him for no reason. Year thinking about kissing his stupid face, when you could’ve been actually kissing him. If Steve’s right, you’re going to kill Bucky.

After you fix this for him.

If Steve means what you think, you can fix this for him. He just has to let you.

Which is why this is a horrible idea. If Bucky turns you down, you’re going to have to quit your job and change your name and  move to Indonesia.

But if he doesn’t turn you down…

You steel yourself and knock on Bucky’s door. It’s worth the risk, just for him. Always just for him.

“Fuck off, Stevie-“

“I’m not Steve!” You call, and for a second there’s no response. 

Then there’s a muffled banging, and you almost fall forward when Bucky yanks the door open.

He looks even worse than before. And better. And hotter, and oh God, your knees are already weak.

His shirt is gone, and his broad, muscled chest is shining with sweat. His hair flops over his eyes, mussed up and soft looking. He’s breathing through his nose, even as his swollen mouth hangs open. His metal fist is curled against the door, making the wood crack under his fingers. Standing through his sweatpants is the long, proud outline of his cock.

You swallow, your mouth watering. Bucky says your name, and you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a plea or a prayer.

“You shouldn’t be here-“

“Steve said you need me.”

You stare at each other. Bucky’s tongue flicks out, and you chew on your lower lip. This is it. If he turns you down, you’ll walk away and live. A new life, across the world. You’ve never been to Indonesia, but you hear they have good food and community, and you’re sure you’ll be able to fit right in over time, and if you don’t at least Bucky will never find you to make you relive this humiliation, because it’s been almost two full minutes and he hasn’t said anything, so you should probably pull out your phone and start researching Indonesian names-

“Steve shouldn’t have told you anything.” Bucky growls, and you swallow.

“I- I made him.”

He sighs. You could swear his dick twitches. “Of course you did.”

“I was worried about you-“

“You don’t have to be, doll. I’m-“

“If you say I’m fine, I’m going to fucking punch you.”

Bucky scowls. You scowl harder. You have a feeling neither of you are going to back down.

“You’re sick.” You say plainly, and Bucky lets out a sharp exhale through his nose.

“Maybe. But it’s not the kinda sick you can help with-“

“Steve says it’s the kind of sick only I can help with.”

He’s silent again. You risk a tiny step forward, and he takes one back, muttering your name. It’s a warning. A plea.

“Don’t do this.” He mutters, fists balled at his side. “Not outta pity, not for me-“

“It’s not pity.” You stop in his doorway, making your voice soft. “I want to help, Bucky. Let me help.”

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, you- You just- You don’t feel like that for me-“

“You don’t feel like that for me.” You breathe, and Bucky’s body locks up.

“Who says?”

“You’re an ass to me-“

“You’re an ass to me.”

“I don’t mean to be.” You whisper. “I- I don’t- I’m not good at… You know.”

Bucky’s throat bobs. He still doesn’t move.

“Me neither.”

You nod. “But…”

“Yeah.” He swallows. “Yeah. I do.”

You take a deep breath. His whole room is filled with that musky, spicy smell. The heat is almost rolling off his body.

“Please ask me to help.” You don’t bother to hide the desperation in your voice. He needs to know that you mean it. “I- I want to, Bucky, I want you so bad-“

Bucky muffles your pleas, crashing forward and pressing his mouth over yours.

It’s not the soft, loving kiss of your fantasies. It’s rough and desperate, the kiss of a man finally letting his leash snap. He grabs your neck and scrunches his fingers in your hair, dragging a moan from the back of your throat. It turns into a hungry cry, when he pushes his tongue between your lips. Your knees wobble from the bruising force of it. You grab his shirt for balance, scrunching the fabric between your fingers.

Bucky grunts, pressing further over you. One arm drops to wrap around your waist, and the other slide up to cradle the back of your head. The touch his shockingly gentle, for the demanding way he’s almost eating your kisses. You’re standing nowhere near a wall, but he’s caged you all the same. There’s nothing to do but feel the way his cool, metal fingers dig into your hips, and the unrelenting heat of his mouth.

You kiss until your breathing is ragged. He tastes like mint and salt, and it’s a little addictive. Even after you’re light-headed and whimpering, Bucky sucks on your lower lip and takes just a little more. You whimper, gasping for air that he doesn’t seem to need. He tugs on your hair, forcing you to tip your neck back, and he plants open, hungry kisses over every place he can reach.

“You gotta be sure.” He murmurs against your skin. “Tell me you’re sure, doll, ‘cause- I don’t think I can go easy.”

And oh God, isn’t that lovey thought. Bucky not going easy. Combined with his tongue flicking over a pulse point, you almost fall over from the pure thought of it.

But he’s asking real permission. His hold on your hip is getting tighter, and his shoulders are squared and tense. He’s keeping himself from taking what he really wants, until you give him total permission.

You didn’t know you could want him more.

“I- Oh-“ Your eyes flutter, as he nips on sensitive skin under your jaw before kissing away the hurt. “I’m sure, Bucky, I- I don’t want you to go easy.”

For some reason, that only makes him more tense. He takes an uneven breath, pressing his brow against your head and almost pulling you off your feet as he hugs you tighter. You wait, slowly wrapping your arms around him and dragging your nails soothingly over the nape of his neck.

Bucky draws himself back, his expression unreadable as he scans over your face. You offer him a tiny, nervous smile, and he lets out a shaky laugh.

“You- You got no idea, do you?”

Your face falls to a pout. “I have a lot of ideas-“

“No, you don’t.” He drops his brow over yours. “You got no fuckin’ clue, what you do to me.”

And your brain stalls. It gets all gooey and soft, as you just blink up at him. You’re already on unsteady legs. You never thought he’d catch you if you fell, but with the way Bucky’s looking at you right now, you think he’d dive off a cliff to be at your side.

“Bucky…” You breathe, and he drops his forehead against yours. Your noses bump. His gaze darts between your lips and eyes, and you think you might be burning alive.

“You smell so good.” He mutters, before leaning down to press a soft, sweet kiss to your lips. “Taste better than I imagined.”

“You-“ You almost whimper, when he pulls away. “You imagined?”

He chuckles, kissing just your upper lip. You’re already putty under his hands, and you might turn to just a steam of desire if he doesn’t stop kissing you so softly.

“Didn’t you?”

You nod, and Bucky’s lips twitch.

“Bet I imagined more.”

And you doubt that, but Bucky’s kissing you again before you can tell him that you imagined so much it scared you sometimes. The way you were sure that you’d never be able to recover, from an addiction to a drug you’d never even taken.

You’re certainly never going to recover now. Kissing Bucky is even better than you’d let yourself dream about. His lips are just as soft as you thought. Even with the way he’s holding himself back, his touch is possessive. He traces your sides like he’s trying to memorize them, and kisses you the same way.

“Got no idea what I’m gonna do to, either.” He rasps against your lips. “If you let me, doll… You shouldn’t- But-“ He groans, pushing his nose into your cheek, kissing over the slope of your jaw. “Fuck, I want you to.”

You want him to. You want to feel those sloppy, devout kisses everywhere, to get that infernal tongue between your legs. His cock is almost bursting through his sweats, protruding into your thigh. He’d be heavy on your tongue, and split you better than the toys that you’ve used in his place before. The ache in your core throbs from just the idea, and you can feel your heart trying to burst all out of your throat with confession of desire and adoration. But you’re not sure if he’s going to believe them.

“Tell me.” You whisper. “Tell me what you’ve dreamed about doing to me.”

Bucky pulls back, and you worry you’ve stepped on an invisible landmine. That you’re going to be shoved out of the room, the door slammed in your face instead of behind you, locking you out of the room you’ve longer to be in since you met him. Bucky stares at you. You open your mouth to apologize and take it back, but he loves to move faster than your lustdrunk mind can understand.

You squeal as he walks you backward, but not out of the room. He kicks his door shut as you pass it. It slams, right as Bucky pins you between against the wall. He kisses you before you can protest or ask questions, and keeps going until you’re squirming against him and unsure if you should pull him closer or push him away. His kisses wander your cheeks, over your nose and hairline and back down to your ear.

“I wanted you just like this.” He chokes out, and your swallow. He sounds wrecked, and you’re not even kissing anymore. “Wanted you everywhere. Would see you in a meetin’ and think about bending you over the table. You’d get under me on the training mats and I’d wanna get in a headlock between your legs. Bet you taste so good.”

He shudders, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. His dick has shifted to push right near your core, and it’s almost too much pressure, while not being nearly enough.

“Would sit next to you on the plane and think about gettin’ on my knees.” He rasps, beard ticking against your skin. “Worshipping your pussy like it deserves. Makin’ you- Fuck- Call my name-“

Bucky moans, his hips jerking forward. A tiny moan escapes your lips, and Bucky almost whines and does it again. You don’t think he can help it.

“Wanted to stuff your pretty little lips with my cock.” He thrusts again, his whole weight almost collapses over your body. “You’d get all mouthy and I- I jerk off to the idea of puttin’ you over my knee or gettin’ you lying in my bed. I’d- I’d fuck you so nice, doll, I swear I’d be good, but- Fuuuck-“

He’s rutting between your thighs, and seems to forget the story he’s supposed to be telling you in favor of sucking on your neck. You whimper, pushing your hand between your bodies. Not to stop him—never to stop him—but to wrap your fingers around his cock through his sweats.

Bucky moans, his voice breaking with raw, starved relief. You try to pull him back to kiss him, but he just wraps closer around you. He’s almost shaking. You think he’s trying not to fuck your hand.

You can’t have that.

“It’s okay.” You drag your fingers over the line of his cock, and he whimpers against your neck. “I- I’ve thought about it too.”

Bucky slams forward, and you smile at the air.

“Wanted you to shove me down and fuck me stupid. Wanted to ride you until I passed out. I bought a dildo, baby, just to pretend it was you.”

You use your free hand to pet the back of his head, slowly sliding his sweats down to give yourself better access. Bucky’s thick and heavy in your hand. Your fingers don’t even come close to wrapping fully around, and whenever your nails graze his balls, he bucks forward with a strangled moan.

“Wasn’t as big.” You breathe, stroking his dick in long, tight motion. “You’re so big, Bucky, I don’t think it’s gonna fit.”

He grunts, his teeth grazing your neck. “Gonna- Fuck-“

You squeeze him at the base, and he doubles over. He’s almost fully collapsed against you. You want to feel him come apart.

“Gonna make it fit.” He hisses in your ear, and you hum.

“How?”

“Open you up.” He mutters, words slurred like he’s drunk. “Get you all over me, doll- Wanna watch you cum over and over and- God-“

His dick is twitching, and you giggle. He’s working himself up.

“You think this is funny?” He rasps.

You smile, swiping your thumb over the weeping slit of his dick. “A little. You wanna make me cum but you won’t even touch me.”

He makes an annoyed sound, and tries to push off of you. You tug his cock a little harder, and he falls back over with a moan. You giggle again.

“You- You’re a fuckin’ brat-“

“I’m helping you, Barnes.” You whisper in his ear.

He chuckles, and the sound rolls through your body. “Helpin’ me would be sitting on my face- Fuck-“

Bucky’s whole body shakes, when you squeeze him one last time, and his control slip. You pet him through his orgasm, unsure if you want him to notice how you press your legs tighter to try and get more stains of his cum. He pants and groans against your skin, his lips latching back around that one bruise he seems to be obsessed with.

There’s so much cum. Bucky grinds into your fist, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming until your fingers are sticky and drenched. The idea of him doing that inside you is almost a little terrifying. You’ve never wanted anything more.

A choked sound like your name comes out, muffled against your skin. You smile, leaning back to try and meet his gaze.

Bucky seems to need a second. You hope you didn’t already wear him out.

“You okay?” You whisper, and he tenses.

Bucky pulls back, and your pulse picks up into a drum.

Whatever he’d been before, it had been tame compared to this. His jaw is clenched, his attention fixed on you like a predator. His chest heaves, his hands limp at his side. You swallow, feeling a lot smaller than you did a second ago.

You can’t stop yourself from looking down. It only makes things worse.

He’s bigger than he felt. His cum is dripping down his thigh, and it’s barely been a minute, but he’s already getting hard again. You drag your eyes up the expanse of his chest—all flushed skin and muscle—and realize he hasn’t stopped staring at you. You lick your lips. He mimics the movement.

“It won’t fit.” You says again, but your tone has lost all the teasing mockery of before.

And Bucky’s smirk is dangerous. A thrill rushes through you at the sight of it. You’ve gotten exactly what you wanted.

“Gonna make it fit.” He growls.

You yelp, as he grabs your wrist and yanks you forward. You don’t even slam into his chest before he’s lifting you off the ground with another mind numbing kiss. It’s a distraction. You know that. You don’t really care, though, returning it in a second.

Bucky carries you like you’re a doll, your knees bent like some princess and his warmer arm locked around your waist. He leans over, lowering you to the mattress with a shocking care. For a second you’re fully lost in him. The gentle motion of his lips over yours, the way his hands wander and map your body as he settles you into the mattress.

“So soft.” He mutters. “All that bite, doll, but I knew you’d be so fuckin’ soft for me.”

You’d like to protest, and say that you’re not soft. But Bucky’s kisses are making your head spin, and no single, clear word can make it out of the daze. All you manage is a high, long whine.

Bucky chuckles. His hand pushes under your shirt, almost tickling over your sides.

“You like that?” He tease, his knuckles tracing over the underside of your boobs. “You like bein’ my sweet girl?”

You are not sweet. You try to snap that, but it mostly just comes out a feral grumble. You don’t know how he’s the one with a sound mind right now. You’re not under a sex drug.

You’re just under Bucky. Where it’s very, very warm, and sticky, and nice. His cum is dripping over your clothed core and midriff. You shiver as it hits bare skin, and Bucky smirks against your lips.

“Say it and I give you more.” He rasps. “Say you like it.”

And it’s a game. You know that you like it. He does too. But he’s poking and teasing you, trying to get you spar with him. To get you to play.

So you glare at him when he leans back, spreading your legs wider at the same time. You keep your mouth stubbornly shut.

Bucky grins. He traces the curve of your hips with massive hands, his thumb angling to smear his cum over your navel.

“Look at you.” He mocks. “Beggin’ for me and then can’t even admit she likes it.”

You wrinkle your nose, turning up your chin. Bucky smacks your inner thigh, then rubs his metal palm right over your pussy. The sudden sting then harsh pleasure make your hips push off the bed with a cry. Bucky takes his hand away to splay it on your abdomen, shoving you back down.

“You like gettin’ tossed around, too?” He laughs, and heat floods right to your core. “I’ll toss you around, baby. Make you into a nice little cockslut for me, even let you put my in that pretty mouth.”

He grabs your jaw, and you part your lips in a second. Bucky groans, his cock getting impossibly harder.

“Already listen so well.” He mutters, teasing his two forefingers over your mouth. “Just can admit you fuckin’ love it, do you? Can’t be a good girl and tell the truth.”

You narrow your eyes in defiance, and pretend to bite down on his fingers. It’s not a real bite. Just teeth grazing knuckles. But Bucky understands what it means.

Permission to go further.

His eyes gleam. His cock is already leaking with pre-cum.

“Alright, babydoll.” He rubs your thighs, a dangerous smile playing on his lips. “Have it your way.”

In a single second, Bucky rips off your clothing like it’s paper. You barely have time to feel the cold of the air before he’s grabbing your waist, flipping you onto your stomach, and dragging your ass up in the air. You yelp, fisting your hands in the sheets, and try to twist and see where he is.

A dazed part of your brain that doesn’t remember his hands on your hips sees no one behind you, and almost freaks out.

Then the first stroke of Bucky’s tongue hits your pussy, and you collapse fully into the sheets.

“Oh my-“ Your eyes roll back, as he teases the very tip of his tongue around your clit before dragging it through your folds. “Oh my God-“

“Sensitive fuckin’ pussy.” Bucky muses, and you feel the stubble of his cheek pressing against you thigh. “Barely even touching it. Wonder if I-“

 His thumb drags circles just around your clit, and you squeak. He kisses the curve of your ass, going a little fast. You whine trying to drag your own ass in circles to match his motions. You can’t see him. Can’t know if you’re doing well outside of his lips tracing your thigh, and the pleased hums against your skin.

Bucky jerks his thumb suddenly to the side, pushing directly over your clit. You scream, your knees sliding back. Bucky grabs them and pushes them back up, fully exposing your pussy to the air.

“Look at you.” His breath is warm, over that most sensitive spot. “Bet I don’t even need to fuckin’ prep you. You’re so wet, you’d just…”

He makes a deep, rumbling sound, and you almost sob as he drags his tongue right back between your puffed pussy lips. You clench around nothing, his stubbled scraping your clit. Bucky angles his face, letting his tongue flick over your clit. It goes back and forth and back and forth, toying with it before pressing flat. He sucks, hard like a lollipop, and you almost sob into the mattress.

“Sweet.” Bucky whispers, his metal arm wrapping around your legs. “So fuckin’ sweet.”

“Bu- Bucky-“

“Shhh.” He kisses right over your pussy. “Wanna taste, pretty girl. I gotta fuckin’-“ He moans, and the vibration shoots right up your spine. “Gotta taste-“

Bucky presses his face fully into your cunt, and the sound that leaves you almost isn’t human.

He’s good at this. So good at this. It’s a little unfair. Your mouth can’t do anything but hang uselessly open, as Bucky works his jaw against you. He eats you like he’s starved for it. Like he’s a man that wants to drown of an insatiable thirst.

Two hands hold you up in the air, as his tongue plunges ruthlessly in and out of your cunt. You keen, trying to push further back, and the warmer hand wraps up to your spine and shoves your stomach down. It’s a tighter fit like this. Bucky drags his tongue around, and it hits every sensitive area. His beard tickles and scratches, and cold fingers tease your skin.

You get more and more sensitive, with every flick and suck and groan. You’re so wet it’s almost drooling down your legs, mixing with the stains of cum he’d gathered from your midriff and smeared over your legs. The dual heat with his cold hand makes all your nerves stand on end. You pussy clenches again, and Bucky chuckles.

“That’s right.” He mutters, making out with your clit as you gasp for air into the bed. “That’s it, baby, you’re already lettin’ go, aren’t you.”

You whine, and Bucky nips at your ass.

“Aren’t you?”

“Ye- Yes.” You mumble. “’S good, Bucky- So good-“

“I know.” He grunts, pressing his cold, metal thumb down into your clit. “Fuck, baby, I know.”

You whimper, and Bucky starts up on your dripping pussy again. He’s lapping at it, pushing his tongue into your tight hole as he plays with your clit, and white lines your vision.

“I- I’m gonna- Fuck- Bucky-“ You scratch at the sheets. “I’m gonna- Oh God-“

He smacks your clit, spits onto your pussy, and resumes with double the effort. You cry his name, as your orgasm wracks your body. You can feel yourself seizing around him, twitching and writhing in his tight grip as your vision lines with white.

And Bucky doesn’t stop. You’re making a mess all over his face, and he’s rising up, but it’s just pushing you further into the mattress. You whimper, your cunt too sensitive, but he doesn’t even come up for air.

“Shit- Bucky- Oh- Ohhhhh-“

The ache quickly fades into pleasure again. Blinging pleasure that’s just on the wrong side of too much, but pleasure all the same. You squeal, and Bucky just moans against your cunt.

Then you hear it. The slam of his fist against his cock.

He’s jerking off while he eats you out.  He’s fucking himself so hard you can hear it, hear the slap of skin, feel all his little moans and grunts right against your pussy, and the thought sends you right over the edge again.

Bucky moans louder, as you cum on his tongue. Just like before, it seems to make him more and more feral. You have a feeling what lucidity that let him tease you before is gone. He’s eating you out the same way he’s kissed you, with rough lips and a fervor that’s almost animalistic. You’re boneless and whimpering into the sheets, taking it over and over as Bucky just keeps working his mouth against your cunt, and fucking his hand.

Then, suddenly, he’s gone. You whine from the lose, trying to roll over and look at him, but he just shoves you back down with a growl. The sound of his hand is getting faster and faster, and a hot weight drops over your back. Bucky presses his face into your neck, and takes a deep breath. You whimper, and he groans. His hips must be rocking, with how the bed is shaking.

“Smells good.” He rasps. “Gonna- Fuck-“

Bucky snaps back up, and you feel him cum more than you even hear it. Hot ropes spurt over your ass and back, seeping down the back off your thighs and into your pussy. You moan at the sensation, pushing back on trembling hands. There’s always just more of it, until you’re so marked up with him you’re sure you’ll never be able to wash it off.

You don’t want to.

With how Bucky grabs your hips and spreads the stain over your skin, you don’t think he does either.

“Shit.” He breathes out, and you hum in agreement. “Gotta- Flip for me, c’mon-“

Bucky helps you roll over. His touches are gentle again, but the gleam in his eyes hasn’t faded. You blink at him, flat on your back with your legs spread. Bucky traces the lips of your cunt, then slowly pushes two fingers inside you. Fucking his cum back into your tight hole. You mewl, eyes fluttering. Your head tosses back, and Bucky smiles

“Good girl.” He coos.

You try not get all gooey and weak just from the praise. Bucky laughs, and you think you might’ve failed.

“Strangling my fingers, doll.” He teases, pulling them right out.

You whimper. You’re too wet and ready not to take something. It’s really not fair to make you wait.

“I know.” He kisses your brow, voice rough. “Trust me, I fuckin’ know. You just gotta tell me you like it, then-“ His cock drags between your folds, and you keen. “All yours.”

You blink at him, opening your mouth to comply.

But you’re at an advantage.

Bucky’s hard again. His body is wound so tight above you, and his every word is thick. Like it’s an effort to speak. He’s still trying to fight against the drug running through his veins.

You want him to give in.

So you close your mouth, and give him a defiant glare.

Bucky growls again, and there’s no more teasing.

His mouth pushes over yours, and it’s not a loving kiss. It’s rough and quick, stealing your breath in seconds and distracting you as Bucky grabs your knees and shoves them back. You try to chase his lips, when he pulls away, but he shoves you back down with a grunt.

“Wanna be a brat.” He grunts. “Gonna get fucked like a brat.”

You almost beam. Yes, please.

Bucky folds you under him, your knees pressed to your chest and your cum-stained pussy on full display. He doesn’t waste time, tapping the head of his cock against your clit before slamming right inside. You’re so soaked you take it with only a hitched breath, but that doesn’t mean your eyes don’t roll back.

He hits right against you pelvis, when he bottoms out. His heavy balls sit on your ass, and the stretch of him is just enough pain to heighten the pleasure. Bucky kisses all over your face as he lets you adjust, but your pussy is greedy. He’d prepared you too well. You’re more than ready within seconds.

“Bu- Bucky-“ You gaps out, and he growls against your neck. “Move.”

If he’d told you to wait, you wouldn’t have been surprised.

But the drug seems to have overtaken him again, and all you get is a noise like a snarl against your throat before Bucky draws almost all the way out, and slams back in.

The air is knocked clean from your lungs. This time, he hit right against your g-spot, and your whole body seizes up. Bucky makes a low, deep noise, and repeats the motion. Again, he drives right into that gooey spot deep inside of you. You clench around him, and he doubles over, rutting deep inside of you.

“The- There-“ You whimper, fingers scrambling in the sheets. “Fuck, baby, right there-“

Bucky grunts an agreement, and starts to fuck you into the mattress. The angle is so deep you’re worried he’s going to permanently rearrange your guts. Every slam of his cock into your makes you see heaven, and Bucky pants over your, his eyes locked onto yours as your face contorts with pleasure.

He’s not even fucking you like a brat. He’s fucking you like a doll. He grabs at your limbs and moves them below him like you’re just a sleeve for his dick, and he needs you into just the right spot. One hand fists in your hair, forcing your neck a little up so you can watching your arousal gleam on his cock every time he pulls out. He moans every time he pushes back in, and you watch your cunt swallow his dick whole. A wet, smacking sound filling the room as he drills into you. He bends you even further to kiss over your neck and breasts, his tongue dragging in rhythm with his dick.

You try to clench around him every time he bottoms out, but your head is sort of empty, and now you’re just a drooling pussy around his massive cock, moaning his name and happily milking every bit of pleasure.

“Oh- Oooooh-“ You mewl, smiling like a cockdrunk idiot at the air. “Buuuucky-“

His mouth presses back over yours, and the kiss is strangely soft. His fucking hasn’t slowed or relented, but there’s a care with how his lips move over yours that makes you feel worshipped.

That’s what he’d said he’d do. Worship you. And you can really feel it here.

Bucky draws back, and the hand that had been fisted in your hair moves to your jaw. He squeezes again. You open for him easily, and his lips twitch.

“Good girl.” He coos, even if the words are tighter than before.

He spits into your mouth. You swallow obediantly, and open again when he squeezes your cheeks. Bucky slams forward with a groan, looking like a man wrecked.

“You fuckin’ like it, don’t you-“

“Love it.” You gasp, unable to even think to deny him again. “Love you, Bucky- Oh- Oh my god-“

Bucky makes a ragged, choked sound, and cums almost without warning. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, as he pumps you full of his release. It feels like even more than before. Like you’re going to burst with how full you are, spurts of it still being forced out as Bucky fucks you through. You’ve never felt so totally claimed, with him all over every inch of your skin. He kisses you and you giggle, dazed and almost high on the feeling.

And he’s not even done.

The period of lucidity between orgasms gets shorter before it gets longer. Bucky’s ability to control himself almost vanishes all together. You get a kiss and broken mumble of your name before you’re being flipped back onto your stomach and fucked from behind. There will be handprints on your ass and thighs in the morning, and the sheets are stained with your drool from how Bucky railed you from behind.

You’re dragged into his lap right after, and he pushes his thumb into your mouth, then ruts up into your gaping cunt. You’re all moans and ditzy smiles by that point. When rolls you back onto your stomach and sits up on his knees, you just take it with moans and giggles and cries of delight.

He hasn’t just ruined you. He’s pulled you apart a million times over, until you’re just a puddle that sings his name.

You don’t even fully realize he’s done, when he kisses pulls out that last time. You whine, and clench around nothing, but expect to get filled right back up.

Then Bucky kisses you, and it’s slow. Savoring and sweet. Romantic. His voice is hoarse, but it’s lost the strained quality. He’s fully teasing again, smiling against your lips.

“So soft.” He coos, rubbing your thoroughly abused pussy with his warm hand.

You writhe, trying to get further and closer at the same time. Bucky chuckles, and kisses the corner of your mouth.

“Jesus, doll. You’d think you were the one that got sex drugged.”

You try to glare at him, but forget why the moment you see his pretty eyes, shining on yours.

They’re blue again.

“You’re back?” You breathe, and Bucky grins.

He ducks down, and presses another quick kiss over your lips.

“I’m back.”

 You’re ordered not to move, while he cleans up. You don’t think you could if you tried. Your body is jelly, everything is sore in the best way, and your head is spinning with too many thoughts of what the fuck happened.

You told Bucky you love him. You told Bucky you love him. You’d never even fully admitted it in your head and he just fucked it right out of you. You said it fast, too fast, he thought you hated him four hours ago and now he must think you’re some kind of freak for just saying you love him.

He makes you drink water and go to the bathroom. Draws you a bath and brings you a snack and changes the sheets. You manage to find the strength to stand out of the tub and dry yourself off, wrapping the towel around your body before shuffling out in the center of his room.

God, he’s so handsome. All tan muscles and scars you want to trace with your tongue. Too bad you fucking blew it, and now you’re never going to get to touch him again-

Bucky turns, and smiles when he sees you. You swallow, bracing for the worst as he crosses the room.

He takes your face between his hands and kisses you. Deep and gentle and maybe he just forgot-

“Love you too.” He says against your lips. “Just- Uh- While we’re saying it.”

Oh.

Or that. That’s nice.

You throw everything you have into kissing him back, but end up tackling him down onto the bed with the sudden surge of strength. Bucky chokes out a laugh in surprise, wrestling you over onto your back with kiss and wandering hands. You giggle, trying to push back, and he nips at the tip of your nose.

Then he pauses, and pulls up with a small, worried frown.

“You’re stayin’ the night, right?”

You almost snort. There’s no getting rid of you now. You’re going to stay forever, and as long as he’ll allow after that.

“Yeah. I’m staying.”

✦End note: this was longer than my college thesis btw. and i. put more effort into it.✦

✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦

✦Buy me a coffee!☕️ (and get early access!)✦

“You’re squirmy.” He grumbles, glaring at you in the dark. “No one ever teach you to sit still?”

You stick your tongue out. “No one ever teach you to mind your own business?”

“Hard to mind my business when you’re movin’ all the cushions, doll-“

“Then go sit somewhere else, robot man.”

Bucky’s jaw twitches. “I’m not a robot.”

“Uh huh.”

“I’m not-“

“You act like one.” You snap, and Bucky closes his eyes. Like he’s fucking praying.

“I was here first.” He mutters. You don’t balk.

“Congratulations.”

You hold his glare, and Bucky lets out a heavy breath through his nose. He narrows his eyes, tongue flicking over his lips. His full lips. Pretty and chapped, but in the perfect, soft way-

Get a fucking grip.

“There’s a chair over there.” You point across the room, sinking back into the cushions. “Go sit in it, if I’m so squirmy.”

Bucky scowls, and opens his mouth, but whatever jab he’s got for you, you don’t want to hear it. You reach over and unpause the movie—probably another one of Sam’s this is what you gotta catch up on, Barnes suggestions, because there’s no way Bucky picked out the Goonies himself—and fix your glower on the TV screen. You hate this movie. You’re going to watch it all the way through, just to show Bucky that he doesn’t bother you.

You spread your own legs wide, too. If men are allowed to do it, so are you. Bucky grunts as your knee pushes over his thigh, and you smirk at the TV.

It has nothing to do with the thick muscle you can feel under his sweatpants, that you keep your legs like that for the rest of the night. Bucky’s fingers flex a few times, and brush over the inner curve of your knee and the top of your thigh, like he’s thinking about just shoving you away. At one point, you hear him grunt, and look over with mockingly raised brows.

“Everything okay?” You almost simper, and he grunts and nods.

That’s all you get. Bucky fixes his anger on the movie, you win this round, and you get to be close to him without thinking about it.

You’ll think about it later. In the comfort of your own bedroom, you’ll think about it and think about it and think about it all night. You’ll think about it until your wrist hurts. But Bucky doesn’t get to know that.

As far as he needs to be concerned, you never spare him a second thought. It’s all he spares you. And you’re not going to be the pathetic girl who falls for someone who only thinks of her as a buzzing gnat around his head. Who worships the ground of a man who would step on her like a flower into concrete, not because he was seeking to hurt, but just because he didn’t notice you were there at all.

Although Bucky does seem to notice where you are.

The farmer does like to keep track of pests in his crops.

“You skipped the mission briefing.” Bucky grunts in the morning, glaring at you over a cup of coffee.

Something soft in you swells like a prodded bruise. He noticed where you were.

You ignore it in favor of flipping him off.

“I was busy.”

“Too busy for your job?”

“It’s not my job-“

“Your name was on the roster.” Bucky slams the folder down on the table, and your lips twitch.

“Have you been carrying that around all day?”

“That doesn’t matter-“

“Yes, it really does-“

Bucky hisses your name. There’s a fury under his tone, that makes your mouth snap shut. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything.

“You need to be there, Steve was talkin’ about safety shit, and if you don’t know it you could get killed-“

“I know how mission briefing work, I’ve been here longer than you have-“

“Really? ‘Cause you don’t act like it-“

“I don’t act like it?” You snort. “Last I checked I’m ranked higher than you, Sargent.” You raise your chin, letting your lips curl. “Which is why I’m allowed to defer missions, and you’re not.”

Bucky blinks, recoiling slightly. “Defer? What, you-“

“I’m skipping.” You shrug, grabbing an apple from the counter. “And if I’m skipping, I don’t need to be at the briefing. But thanks for checking on me, dad.”

Bucky’s eyes narrow. You expect him to snap something about experience and you not being responsible enough or needing to care more.

But instead his fists curl and uncurl at his side. His nostrils flare. He grabs the counter, his scowl burning right through you. You take a large bite of your apple, and his gaze darts down. Juice drips down your chin, and you wipe it off with light fingers. That only seems to make him angrier.

“Why’re you skipping.”

You shrug. You should say none of your business. But part of you is childish. A very big, loud part that wants him to react to something you know he isn’t actually going to care about.

“I have a date.”

“A what.” It’s not a full reaction. He’s mostly staring at you like he didn’t understand the word. Maybe they called it something different in the 40s.

“A date?” You roll your eyes, a little meaner than you mean to be. He always bring that out in you, though.

Bucky always brings everything out in you. It’s incredibly annoying.

“You know.” You push mockingly. “Where you go out with someone. And flirt like people, instead of robots.”

“Robots flirt.” Bucky grunts, and you snort.

“Yeah, but they don’t have sex-“

The counter cracks. It’s loud, echoing through the kitchen. You start and twitch, and Bucky blinks at his metal hand, like he’s just as surprised as you are. He looks back to you, shakes his head, and takes a large step back.

“What’s-“

“Steve’s callin’ me.” He mutters, and you blink.

“No, he’s not-“

“Have fun.” Bucky ignores you. His words sound pushed through his teeth. “On your human date.”

Then he’s gone.

And you’re left in the kitchen with your apple and a cracked counter, staring at where he’d vanished through the door. You don’t care about the date.

You just need to know what the fuck that was.

There’s a part of you that feels bad, for the man Natasha set you up with. She’d picked him out specifically because he had a vague resemblance to Bucky—because you’ve never told her your secret, but you didn’t need to, she’s Natasha—but it wasn’t enough.

He didn’t have the underlying accent, or the gleam in his eyes. You made a sharper edged joke, and he just laughed. He didn’t spar. He didn’t push your buttons in a way that made you light up. He just smiled at you all night—wrong smile, too—and then didn’t pay. Bucky would’ve paid.

You have no evidence of that. It’s just a feeling, that comes from how he still opens doors for you, even when you’re at each other’s throats. All polite and handsome and insufferable. You hate him.

And there’s not a single point during the night, where you’re not thinking about him.

“We should do this again.” The Date—you’ve forgotten his name, and it’s certainly not a good time to ask—says at the end of the night.

You’re shivering. Bucky would’ve offered you his jacket. He did once, on a mission in the Andes. You got all cold and he rolled his eyes and muttered that he told you to bring another layer, but still gave you his jacket all the same. This man is just grinning at you after not calling you a cab and saying he wanted to stand outside in the misty, chilly night. He said he wanted fresh air, and now your freezing, and he thinks he’s getting a second date.

At the very least, you feel a little less guilty about only thinking of Bucky and the mission the whole time. He deserved it.

“Sure.” You smile, because even with superstrength, it’s easier to tell a man yes and then vanish than it is to deny them to their face. “Have a good night.”

He tries to hug you. Your phone buzzes, and you duck away to check it.

The mission is over.

Two days early.

Your jaw tightens.

Most people would think that a job being done early is a good thing. That it means the team was just so focused and coordinated that they sped through every single step, and ended in a total victory. But you’ve been on this job too long. Early mission conclusions only ever happen for one reason.

Something went wrong, and they have to come back.

You rush back to the compound with barely a goodnight to the Date. It’s mostly because you forget, in the blur of worry. You’d skimmed the mission files before they left, just to make sure it wasn’t anything too dangerous. Bucky had been mad about you not going with them. Maybe he’d thought they’d need the hands, but it had just looked like a retrieval mission. Old Hydra facility with some data Tony wanted. Nothing too hard.

But they’re back early.

And if someone’s hurt, you could’ve stopped it. You could’ve been there, instead of on that stupid fucking date. Which also means that Bucky was right, and that’s incredibly annoying. He’s going to weild it over your head, and the mocking is going to turn you on more, and you’ll have earned it which isn’t going to help anything at all. 

You get back to the compound, and it’s not in lockdown. There aren’t med staff flooding the grounds or emergency sirens blaring. You go right to the hanger, and find that it’s already been cleared out. The jet isn’t being quarantined.

Maybe they really did just… Finish early.

You’re heading back to your room when you slam right into them.

Steve and Bucky, standing in the middle of the hall, arguing in hushed voices.

“You need to go, Buck-“

“I’m fine-“

“No, you’re not. You can lie to the docs, don’t lie to me-“

“I ain’t lyin’, I’m fine-“

Your too lost in your own head, barely even hearing what they’re saying. You barrel straight into Bucky’s back.

He goes rigid. You stumble a little, and he grabs your upper arm.

His hand is hot.

Not sexy hot—although it’s also that—but literally, physically hot. Almost searing, against your shivering skin. You look up at him, and swallow.

He’s flushed. There’s sweat clinging to his brow, and an exhausted shadow over his features. His eyes are so blown out they’re almost fully black. You blink at him, and his mouth falls open in a ragged pant.

“Hi.” You whisper.

His throat bobs. “You’re back.”

“I- I got the alert.” You glance over to Steve, who’s gone oddly pale. “Did the mission go okay? It was fine that I wasn’t there, right-“

“Yep!” Steve almost shouts, and you blink. “I mean- We were all good. Wish you were there, we all missed you, but- We were fine. Right, Buck?” Steve grabs Bucky’s shoulder. “We were all good.”

Bucky doesn’t look away from you for a single second. He grunts, and his grip tightens on your arm.

“Let go.” Steve mutters, and Bucky shoots him a glare.

He releases you like you burned him, then wipes his hand on his pants. You scowl. He was the one touching you.

“I was gonna.” He grumbles, and Steve sighs.

“I know, but-“ You get a weary look. Like Steve doesn’t want you to hear their conversation. “I think- You know what I think-“

“Steve-“ Bucky cuts himself off with a groan, running a hand over his face.

He still hasn’t looked away from you. Or moved that far out of your proximity.

“I’m fine.” He says, low and under his breath. You’re rooted to the ground under his gaze, unsure what you could even think of to say. “It’s- I’m fine.”

Steve’s lips press in a thin line. Bucky takes a large, jerking step back. Like he’s dragging himself away.

“How was your date?” He grunts.

“Bucky-“

“I’m just askin’ a question.” He snaps, still not sparing Steve a look.

The attention is getting to be too much. Bucky is looking at you like he wants to eat you alive, and it’s making your body almost buzz in anticipation. You want to jump on him and feel those hot hands all over your body. His nostrils flare like he can smell your arousal. If he can, you might jump off a bridge.

You hope he’d catch you, then fuck you until your can’t even walk.

Get a fucking grip.

“Bad.” You cross your arms over your chest, trying to keep your heart from bursting out of your chest. “He sucked.”

And that’s the kind of thing Bucky would usually mock you for. Skipping a mission just for a bad date.

But a low, rumbling growl falls from his chest. His tongue darts over his lips. He takes a half-step forward, and you lean in to the gravity of his stare.

“We have debriefing!” Steve shouts, grabbing the collar of Bucky’s suit. “Bye!”

Before you can even register it, Steve’s dragging Bucky down the hall. You swear you hear another feral noise, and a crash after they turn the corner.

Something had to have happened on the mission. You just have no fucking clue what.

Bucky’s only been acting stranger. You’d pretend it didn’t bother you, if you could get away from it for a single fucking second.

You walk through the compound, and he’s somehow more everywhere than he was before. Around every corner, in the library, on the grounds, even in the control room while you’re going through the mission files.

“What’re you doin’.” He grunts, and you sigh.

You’re not surprised he’s there. It’s the fifth time today that he’s snuck up on you.

“I’m going through the reports on the mission.” You drawl. “Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around?”

Bucky grunts. It seems to be a no. You roll your eyes and go back to poking through the system. It’s hard to pretend that you can’t feel his presence behind you. There’s heat almost rolling from his body, and thick, spicy and musky scent that’s filling the room. It’s making you a little dizzy. It’s all you can do, not to look back at him.

That would be dangerous. He probably still looks feverish and animalistic. You might moan.

You find the files for the mission, and try to open them. Big, read access denied, contact your handler for permission to these files flashes over your screen. Your mouth falls open, and you whip back to glare at Bucky before you can think about it.

Mistake. Just like you’d thought, big mistake.

He looks even worse and better than you thought. He’s wearing just a t-shirt and sweats, and they’re clinging to his sweaty body. His eyes are hooded and his lips are parted. His attention is so wholly fixed on you that it almost makes you fall out of your chair. You almost forget you’re annoyed with him. Every single nerve in your body is alight, and your fingers are itching to comb through his sweaty hair.

You somehow—just barely—fight it.

“Why can’t I access these files.”

Bucky leans over you, his nostrils flaring. If you reach up, you could trace the stubbled line of his jaw. It’s hard to maintain your glare.

“Barnes-“

“You weren’t on the mission.” He mutters. “Not your files to see.”

You scowl. “I can access the files of every other mission I was on-“

“Steve should change that.”

God, you wish he wasn’t so pretty. It would be easier to think about punching him.

“I know something happened out there.” You hiss, sitting up a little taller. “You can’t hide it from me. I’ll figure it out.”

Bucky chuckles. It’s a low, raspy sound that runs through your body, making you shiver.

“Sure, doll. Have fun with that.”

You shoot to your feet, and Bucky lurches back. Another one of those deep, rumbling growls rolls from his chest, and for a second you think he’s going to pounce on you.

And then you blink, and he’s gone. Leaving you with only that hazy smell, and desire rolling through your veins.

You wish that was the extent of it, but it’s barely the start. And it only gets worse.

Bucky doesn’t do his movie nights anymore, which means you get the TV all to yourself. You watch what you want, and try not to look at the spot next to you. Where your body feels like he’s supposed to be. You stretch out your legs, but they ache strangely without his touch. You get more restless without him. Around midnight, you shuffle to the kitchen, hoping one of those soothingherb thingys that Wanda says help with her nightmares will be there.

Instead, you find Bucky. 

He’s drinking a glass of ice, with a little bit of water. He freezes when he sees you, and moves further behind the counter.

You sigh. You’re too tired to fight him.

“Can’t sleep?” You mumble.

He just nods.

You sigh, and walk over the cupboard.

“You want hot chocolate?”

A grunt. Better than silence. You make two mugs, one for you, one for Bucky.

And maybe it’s just that you’re really starting to worry, but you don’t bother pretending to hate him. Your fingers brush when you pass him his mug, and his body seizes like you shocked him, but you just offer a tiny smile.

His mouth falls open. He stares at you like he’s spent years only looking at the muddier reflection of stars in the water, and has finally thought just to tilt his head up. You let out a small, shaking breath. He’s still burning up. You can feel it from your place a foot away. But you don’t dare to push it.

Not when he’s looking at you like this. The way you’d always, secretly and shamefully, dreamed he would.

“I’m watching Star Wars.” You mumble. “You wanna…”

You trail off, and Bucky’s throat bobs.

He nods again. A new tendril of worry blooms, overlapping with the growing tangle of them in your gut. He might not be able to speak.

But he follows you to the living area, and takes his place on the couch. His knee pushes against yours. He’s breathing awfully shallow, but you’re a selfish coward that wants him close, so you don’t mention it.

You barely pay attention to the movie. All you can focus on is Bucky at your side. How he doesn’t even seem to be sparing the TV a glance. He’s not really touching you, save for that place where your thighs are always pushed together, but every time you shift he grabs your knee. You blink at him, and his throat just bobs. He still hasn’t said a word. You’re afraid that when he does, it will break this fragile illusion.

That he wants to be here.

Near you.

He passes out near the end of the movie. His head falls against your shoulder and his body goes limp, almost a blanket over yours. You don’t move, just staring at a lit up, black screen. He looks more peaceful than you’ve ever seen. His fever isn’t breaking, but it does seem to be easing. You run your fingers through his hair, and he makes a low sound like a purr.

Then he takes a deep inhale, right against the crook of your neck, and a different noise leaves him.

It’s almost a moan.

You swallow. Suddenly you need to move. You don’t know what’s going on with him, but this can’t be what he actually wants. To be asleep almost in your arms, purring and moaning. That’s not a part of him you get to have.

But when you try to move, his grip around you tightens.

You feel almost sick.

It takes almost an hour, to roll off the couch without him pulling you back. When you’re free, you still cover him in a blanket and press a hand to his brow. Just to check. You can’t really help it.

His fever is building again.

You wish he would just tell you what was wrong. Even if he thinks you hate him, he can’t think you wouldn’t care enough to help.

When you start to walk away, he moans again. You could swear it sounded a little like your name.

You force yourself to go to bed. You’re not sure if you want him to remember in the morning.

If anything, you just pray he gets better. It’s hard to hide your undying care for him, when he’s in pain. Impossible to ignore how much it bothers you, that he’s hurting. ‘

But it is Bucky.

And he’s never going to make anything that easy.

You walk out of your room in the morning, and he’s right there. Lingering in the hallway, staring at you with those blown-out eyes, working his jaw like he’s trying to bite his own tongue off.

“Hi.” You say lamely.

He stumbles back like you punched him. “You- You’re-“

“Bucky, are you-“

“’M fine.” He says it mostly to himself again. There’s sweat gathering on his brow and bags under his eyes.

You’re not going to tell him, but you’re getting worried. This is the third morning in a row you’ve found him here. The first night you asked if he’d slept there, and he’d scowled and stomped away.

But from the look of him, you don’t think he’s been sleeping at all.

“Do you need something?” You ask. You sound soft, but you can’t help it. The worse he looks, the more your heart tightens. “I can call Steve-“

“Don’t get Steve.” He steps back. The same jerked movement from the first night. It’s the only way he’s been moving around you, lately. “I’m fine.”

You give him a doubtful look. His tongue flicks over his lips. You take a step forward, and he takes another step back. Like you’ve got a polarity field around you. Like he can’t even stand to breathe the same air.

And yet he’s here. Outside your door, and breathing through his mouth like an animal.

“Bucky-“

“Don’t.” He shakes his head, stumbling another step back. “Just- Don’t.”

You swallow, and don’t give chase when he walks away. Jogs away. He yanks himself away, then runs like he thinks you’re going to catch him and drag him back. You won’t.

But you do go right to Steve.

“What happened on the mission.”

Steve flinches, gagging on his sandwich. You’re glaring down at him with your hands on your hips, and you think he knows his little charming smile isn’t going to work on you here. That doesn’t seem to stop him from trying anyway.

“Hey, um- Do you want a cookie-“

“Steven.” You hiss, and he swallows. “What happened.”

Steve winces, avoiding your gaze. “I’m not supposed to tell you.”’

“What do you mean you’re not supposed to tell me-“

“I mean I- I can.” He mutters. “But then Bucky will kill me. And I don’t want Bucky to kill me.”

You scowl. “Tough shit, because guess who’s going to kill you if you don’t tell me?”

Steve sighs. “Is it you?”

“Yep.”

He stares at his sandwich, like it’s somehow going to get him out of this situation. You wait for him to realize it won’t. You have plenty of time.

“I’m really not supposed to tell you-“

“I really don’t care.”

“Well- You will.” Steve looks up with a sad little puppy eyes.

You don’t have the same reservations about punching him in the face, that you have with Bucky. He’s basically asking for it right now.

“Steven, I swear to fucking God-“

“I can’t tell you.” He cuts you off with a shake of his head, and you scoff.

“No, you just won’t tell me-“

“That’s not- I can’t, okay? Please stop asking me to-“

“Why, because Bucky doesn’t want you to?” You leer. “Because last I checked, you’re the Captain. And if Bucky is your friend, you should be telling his teammates he’s in danger so they can help-“

“That’s the problem!” Steve shouts, and you blink. “You- Look, you’re going to want to help, and I can’t let you.”

“You can’t let me help?” You echo, and Steve winces.

“I know how it sounds-“

“Do you? Because what I’m fucking hearing that your best friend is in danger, and you won’t let me fucking help-“

“Why do you even want to help?” Steve fixes you with a pointed look. “All you ever do is complain about Bucky and how he’s annoying you. I would’ve thought you didn’t care.”

You narrow your eyes, and Steve raises his brows. You know what he’s doing. Smug fucking asshole. 

“That won’t work on me.” You grunt, and he shrugs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Steve-“

“But,” he says causally. “If I did, I’d say that’s why I can’t tell you. And you know that.”

You hate it when he speaks in riddles. Like you’re just supposed to read between the lines when your brain is fogged with worry about Bucky.

“I- I don’t-“ You let out a slow breath, looking down to your shoes. Heat is flooding your cheeks. It’s annoying. “It’s not- I’m just- Please.”

Your voice cracks suddenly. You’ve been losing more sleep over this than you’re ever going to tell anyone. You almost feel ill with it—like the worry is an infection, knotting up your stomach and making your heart pick up—but that might just literal exhaustion. Something happened. No one will tell you what. It’s making you feel useless and hopeless and torn up to tiny, useless shreds.

“Bucky.” You say slowly. “Is- He’s not okay. I know he’s not okay.” You force yourself to meet Steve’s gaze. “Just- Lie to me and say he’s fine, and fix it, or tell me and let me help. But I- I can’t just-“

You don’t even know how to finish the sentence. There’s a burning feeling behind your eyes and a lump in your throat. You’re so worried. Worried this is something that’s going to kill him, and you’re going to lose him forever.

And there’s pity, in Steve’s gaze. It’s enough to make him break, his voice softening completely.

“Alright.” He murmurs. “But- You can’t tell him I told you.”

You nod quickly. “I’ll say I just got into the files, or- Something- Please.”

Steve sighs. “Okay. Okay.” He shakes his head. “It was on the mission. Bucky was distracted the whole time, and when we got jumped he wasn’t being controlled with his punches. He swag to hard on an Hydra agent. Knocked them back into some vials, and- Well they burst. All over both of them. We put the agent in containment, but he was displaying worse symptoms. Bucky- I think it’s the serum, or just… Bucky. But he’s been controlling it better.” Steve grimaces. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not still knocked up with stuff.”

You nod slowly. That’s not that bad.

But Steve didn’t want you to know for a reason.

“What are the symptoms?”

Steve won’t meet your gaze. “Fever. Nausea. Hormone flares. Um- Increased… libido.”

Your eyes widen, your mouth falling open. “What.”

“Hydra makes some weird stuff. Tony thinks this was, um- A breeding drug. We don’t know why they were developing it, but- There’s no other name.” Steve’s nose wrinkles. “The agent- His cell is disgusting.”

“But- Bucky-“

“I told you, he says he’s got it under control.” Steve shrugs, but doesn’t really sound like he’s convinced himself. “The agent has been, ah… begging for anyone. Bucky doesn’t have the same liberty with what will help. He says it’s going to pass, and he’ll be fine.”

“And will it?” You breathe. “Pass?”

Steve shrugs. “It did for the agent.”

“Before or after the mating?”

Steve’s silence is an answer. You swear under your breath.

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this, Steve? We- We need to get him to someone, this could fucking kill him-“

“I know that!” Steve snaps. “I know that just as well as you do! As he does! But- Jesus.” He shakes his head. “He won’t take anyone. He’ll only- Well- You know.”

“I know? I don’t fucking know, none of you have been telling me shit-“

Steve says your name plainly. You blink.

“What-“

“Nothing. Just- Why do you think he’s been lingering around you?”

You stare at him. He raises his brows, and you swallow.

“Steve-“

“I didn’t say anything-“

“Yes, you did-“

“Nope.”

You press your lips in a tight line. He can’t mean what you think he means. That would be to easy. Too good. “Bucky- He doesn’t- That’s not how he feels about me.”

Please don’t say it is. It’s not fair if you’re lying.

“Funny.” Steve shrugs. “He says the same thing about you.”

This is a bad idea.

Bucky hasn’t left his room in a day. You’d spent all of last night replaying your conversation with Steve, trying to pick it apart for a single reason he didn’t mean what you thought he did. What you hoped he did. What you’d always hoped for, only in the dead of night where no one would ever find out.

But it didn’t matter how you turned or picked at Steve’s words. There was only one conclusion. The beautiful, horrible one that you can’t even fully wrap your head around. It would mean you spent years hating him for no reason. Year thinking about kissing his stupid face, when you could’ve been actually kissing him. If Steve’s right, you’re going to kill Bucky.

After you fix this for him.

If Steve means what you think, you can fix this for him. He just has to let you.

Which is why this is a horrible idea. If Bucky turns you down, you’re going to have to quit your job and change your name and  move to Indonesia.

But if he doesn’t turn you down…

You steel yourself and knock on Bucky’s door. It’s worth the risk, just for him. Always just for him.

“Fuck off, Stevie-“

“I’m not Steve!” You call, and for a second there’s no response. 

Then there’s a muffled banging, and you almost fall forward when Bucky yanks the door open.

He looks even worse than before. And better. And hotter, and oh God, your knees are already weak.

His shirt is gone, and his broad, muscled chest is shining with sweat. His hair flops over his eyes, mussed up and soft looking. He’s breathing through his nose, even as his swollen mouth hangs open. His metal fist is curled against the door, making the wood crack under his fingers. Standing through his sweatpants is the long, proud outline of his cock.

You swallow, your mouth watering. Bucky says your name, and you can’t tell if it’s supposed to be a plea or a prayer.

“You shouldn’t be here-“

“Steve said you need me.”

You stare at each other. Bucky’s tongue flicks out, and you chew on your lower lip. This is it. If he turns you down, you’ll walk away and live. A new life, across the world. You’ve never been to Indonesia, but you hear they have good food and community, and you’re sure you’ll be able to fit right in over time, and if you don’t at least Bucky will never find you to make you relive this humiliation, because it’s been almost two full minutes and he hasn’t said anything, so you should probably pull out your phone and start researching Indonesian names-

“Steve shouldn’t have told you anything.” Bucky growls, and you swallow.

“I- I made him.”

He sighs. You could swear his dick twitches. “Of course you did.”

“I was worried about you-“

“You don’t have to be, doll. I’m-“

“If you say I’m fine, I’m going to fucking punch you.”

Bucky scowls. You scowl harder. You have a feeling neither of you are going to back down.

“You’re sick.” You say plainly, and Bucky lets out a sharp exhale through his nose.

“Maybe. But it’s not the kinda sick you can help with-“

“Steve says it’s the kind of sick only I can help with.”

He’s silent again. You risk a tiny step forward, and he takes one back, muttering your name. It’s a warning. A plea.

“Don’t do this.” He mutters, fists balled at his side. “Not outta pity, not for me-“

“It’s not pity.” You stop in his doorway, making your voice soft. “I want to help, Bucky. Let me help.”

He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “No, you- You just- You don’t feel like that for me-“

“You don’t feel like that for me.” You breathe, and Bucky’s body locks up.

“Who says?”

“You’re an ass to me-“

“You’re an ass to me.”

“I don’t mean to be.” You whisper. “I- I don’t- I’m not good at… You know.”

Bucky’s throat bobs. He still doesn’t move.

“Me neither.”

You nod. “But…”

“Yeah.” He swallows. “Yeah. I do.”

You take a deep breath. His whole room is filled with that musky, spicy smell. The heat is almost rolling off his body.

“Please ask me to help.” You don’t bother to hide the desperation in your voice. He needs to know that you mean it. “I- I want to, Bucky, I want you so bad-“

Bucky muffles your pleas, crashing forward and pressing his mouth over yours.

It’s not the soft, loving kiss of your fantasies. It’s rough and desperate, the kiss of a man finally letting his leash snap. He grabs your neck and scrunches his fingers in your hair, dragging a moan from the back of your throat. It turns into a hungry cry, when he pushes his tongue between your lips. Your knees wobble from the bruising force of it. You grab his shirt for balance, scrunching the fabric between your fingers.

Bucky grunts, pressing further over you. One arm drops to wrap around your waist, and the other slide up to cradle the back of your head. The touch his shockingly gentle, for the demanding way he’s almost eating your kisses. You’re standing nowhere near a wall, but he’s caged you all the same. There’s nothing to do but feel the way his cool, metal fingers dig into your hips, and the unrelenting heat of his mouth.

You kiss until your breathing is ragged. He tastes like mint and salt, and it’s a little addictive. Even after you’re light-headed and whimpering, Bucky sucks on your lower lip and takes just a little more. You whimper, gasping for air that he doesn’t seem to need. He tugs on your hair, forcing you to tip your neck back, and he plants open, hungry kisses over every place he can reach.

“You gotta be sure.” He murmurs against your skin. “Tell me you’re sure, doll, ‘cause- I don’t think I can go easy.”

And oh God, isn’t that lovey thought. Bucky not going easy. Combined with his tongue flicking over a pulse point, you almost fall over from the pure thought of it.

But he’s asking real permission. His hold on your hip is getting tighter, and his shoulders are squared and tense. He’s keeping himself from taking what he really wants, until you give him total permission.

You didn’t know you could want him more.

“I- Oh-“ Your eyes flutter, as he nips on sensitive skin under your jaw before kissing away the hurt. “I’m sure, Bucky, I- I don’t want you to go easy.”

For some reason, that only makes him more tense. He takes an uneven breath, pressing his brow against your head and almost pulling you off your feet as he hugs you tighter. You wait, slowly wrapping your arms around him and dragging your nails soothingly over the nape of his neck.

Bucky draws himself back, his expression unreadable as he scans over your face. You offer him a tiny, nervous smile, and he lets out a shaky laugh.

“You- You got no idea, do you?”

Your face falls to a pout. “I have a lot of ideas-“

“No, you don’t.” He drops his brow over yours. “You got no fuckin’ clue, what you do to me.”

And your brain stalls. It gets all gooey and soft, as you just blink up at him. You’re already on unsteady legs. You never thought he’d catch you if you fell, but with the way Bucky’s looking at you right now, you think he’d dive off a cliff to be at your side.

“Bucky…” You breathe, and he drops his forehead against yours. Your noses bump. His gaze darts between your lips and eyes, and you think you might be burning alive.

“You smell so good.” He mutters, before leaning down to press a soft, sweet kiss to your lips. “Taste better than I imagined.”

“You-“ You almost whimper, when he pulls away. “You imagined?”

He chuckles, kissing just your upper lip. You’re already putty under his hands, and you might turn to just a steam of desire if he doesn’t stop kissing you so softly.

“Didn’t you?”

You nod, and Bucky’s lips twitch.

“Bet I imagined more.”

And you doubt that, but Bucky’s kissing you again before you can tell him that you imagined so much it scared you sometimes. The way you were sure that you’d never be able to recover, from an addiction to a drug you’d never even taken.

You’re certainly never going to recover now. Kissing Bucky is even better than you’d let yourself dream about. His lips are just as soft as you thought. Even with the way he’s holding himself back, his touch is possessive. He traces your sides like he’s trying to memorize them, and kisses you the same way.

“Got no idea what I’m gonna do to, either.” He rasps against your lips. “If you let me, doll… You shouldn’t- But-“ He groans, pushing his nose into your cheek, kissing over the slope of your jaw. “Fuck, I want you to.”

You want him to. You want to feel those sloppy, devout kisses everywhere, to get that infernal tongue between your legs. His cock is almost bursting through his sweats, protruding into your thigh. He’d be heavy on your tongue, and split you better than the toys that you’ve used in his place before. The ache in your core throbs from just the idea, and you can feel your heart trying to burst all out of your throat with confession of desire and adoration. But you’re not sure if he’s going to believe them.

“Tell me.” You whisper. “Tell me what you’ve dreamed about doing to me.”

Bucky pulls back, and you worry you’ve stepped on an invisible landmine. That you’re going to be shoved out of the room, the door slammed in your face instead of behind you, locking you out of the room you’ve longer to be in since you met him. Bucky stares at you. You open your mouth to apologize and take it back, but he loves to move faster than your lustdrunk mind can understand.

You squeal as he walks you backward, but not out of the room. He kicks his door shut as you pass it. It slams, right as Bucky pins you between against the wall. He kisses you before you can protest or ask questions, and keeps going until you’re squirming against him and unsure if you should pull him closer or push him away. His kisses wander your cheeks, over your nose and hairline and back down to your ear.

“I wanted you just like this.” He chokes out, and your swallow. He sounds wrecked, and you’re not even kissing anymore. “Wanted you everywhere. Would see you in a meetin’ and think about bending you over the table. You’d get under me on the training mats and I’d wanna get in a headlock between your legs. Bet you taste so good.”

He shudders, pressing his face into the crook of your neck. His dick has shifted to push right near your core, and it’s almost too much pressure, while not being nearly enough.

“Would sit next to you on the plane and think about gettin’ on my knees.” He rasps, beard ticking against your skin. “Worshipping your pussy like it deserves. Makin’ you- Fuck- Call my name-“

Bucky moans, his hips jerking forward. A tiny moan escapes your lips, and Bucky almost whines and does it again. You don’t think he can help it.

“Wanted to stuff your pretty little lips with my cock.” He thrusts again, his whole weight almost collapses over your body. “You’d get all mouthy and I- I jerk off to the idea of puttin’ you over my knee or gettin’ you lying in my bed. I’d- I’d fuck you so nice, doll, I swear I’d be good, but- Fuuuck-“

He’s rutting between your thighs, and seems to forget the story he’s supposed to be telling you in favor of sucking on your neck. You whimper, pushing your hand between your bodies. Not to stop him—never to stop him—but to wrap your fingers around his cock through his sweats.

Bucky moans, his voice breaking with raw, starved relief. You try to pull him back to kiss him, but he just wraps closer around you. He’s almost shaking. You think he’s trying not to fuck your hand.

You can’t have that.

“It’s okay.” You drag your fingers over the line of his cock, and he whimpers against your neck. “I- I’ve thought about it too.”

Bucky slams forward, and you smile at the air.

“Wanted you to shove me down and fuck me stupid. Wanted to ride you until I passed out. I bought a dildo, baby, just to pretend it was you.”

You use your free hand to pet the back of his head, slowly sliding his sweats down to give yourself better access. Bucky’s thick and heavy in your hand. Your fingers don’t even come close to wrapping fully around, and whenever your nails graze his balls, he bucks forward with a strangled moan.

“Wasn’t as big.” You breathe, stroking his dick in long, tight motion. “You’re so big, Bucky, I don’t think it’s gonna fit.”

He grunts, his teeth grazing your neck. “Gonna- Fuck-“

You squeeze him at the base, and he doubles over. He’s almost fully collapsed against you. You want to feel him come apart.

“Gonna make it fit.” He hisses in your ear, and you hum.

“How?”

“Open you up.” He mutters, words slurred like he’s drunk. “Get you all over me, doll- Wanna watch you cum over and over and- God-“

His dick is twitching, and you giggle. He’s working himself up.

“You think this is funny?” He rasps.

You smile, swiping your thumb over the weeping slit of his dick. “A little. You wanna make me cum but you won’t even touch me.”

He makes an annoyed sound, and tries to push off of you. You tug his cock a little harder, and he falls back over with a moan. You giggle again.

“You- You’re a fuckin’ brat-“

“I’m helping you, Barnes.” You whisper in his ear.

He chuckles, and the sound rolls through your body. “Helpin’ me would be sitting on my face- Fuck-“

Bucky’s whole body shakes, when you squeeze him one last time, and his control slip. You pet him through his orgasm, unsure if you want him to notice how you press your legs tighter to try and get more stains of his cum. He pants and groans against your skin, his lips latching back around that one bruise he seems to be obsessed with.

There’s so much cum. Bucky grinds into your fist, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming until your fingers are sticky and drenched. The idea of him doing that inside you is almost a little terrifying. You’ve never wanted anything more.

A choked sound like your name comes out, muffled against your skin. You smile, leaning back to try and meet his gaze.

Bucky seems to need a second. You hope you didn’t already wear him out.

“You okay?” You whisper, and he tenses.

Bucky pulls back, and your pulse picks up into a drum.

Whatever he’d been before, it had been tame compared to this. His jaw is clenched, his attention fixed on you like a predator. His chest heaves, his hands limp at his side. You swallow, feeling a lot smaller than you did a second ago.

You can’t stop yourself from looking down. It only makes things worse.

He’s bigger than he felt. His cum is dripping down his thigh, and it’s barely been a minute, but he’s already getting hard again. You drag your eyes up the expanse of his chest—all flushed skin and muscle—and realize he hasn’t stopped staring at you. You lick your lips. He mimics the movement.

“It won’t fit.” You says again, but your tone has lost all the teasing mockery of before.

And Bucky’s smirk is dangerous. A thrill rushes through you at the sight of it. You’ve gotten exactly what you wanted.

“Gonna make it fit.” He growls.

You yelp, as he grabs your wrist and yanks you forward. You don’t even slam into his chest before he’s lifting you off the ground with another mind numbing kiss. It’s a distraction. You know that. You don’t really care, though, returning it in a second.

Bucky carries you like you’re a doll, your knees bent like some princess and his warmer arm locked around your waist. He leans over, lowering you to the mattress with a shocking care. For a second you’re fully lost in him. The gentle motion of his lips over yours, the way his hands wander and map your body as he settles you into the mattress.

“So soft.” He mutters. “All that bite, doll, but I knew you’d be so fuckin’ soft for me.”

You’d like to protest, and say that you’re not soft. But Bucky’s kisses are making your head spin, and no single, clear word can make it out of the daze. All you manage is a high, long whine.

Bucky chuckles. His hand pushes under your shirt, almost tickling over your sides.

“You like that?” He tease, his knuckles tracing over the underside of your boobs. “You like bein’ my sweet girl?”

You are not sweet. You try to snap that, but it mostly just comes out a feral grumble. You don’t know how he’s the one with a sound mind right now. You’re not under a sex drug.

You’re just under Bucky. Where it’s very, very warm, and sticky, and nice. His cum is dripping over your clothed core and midriff. You shiver as it hits bare skin, and Bucky smirks against your lips.

“Say it and I give you more.” He rasps. “Say you like it.”

And it’s a game. You know that you like it. He does too. But he’s poking and teasing you, trying to get you spar with him. To get you to play.

So you glare at him when he leans back, spreading your legs wider at the same time. You keep your mouth stubbornly shut.

Bucky grins. He traces the curve of your hips with massive hands, his thumb angling to smear his cum over your navel.

“Look at you.” He mocks. “Beggin’ for me and then can’t even admit she likes it.”

You wrinkle your nose, turning up your chin. Bucky smacks your inner thigh, then rubs his metal palm right over your pussy. The sudden sting then harsh pleasure make your hips push off the bed with a cry. Bucky takes his hand away to splay it on your abdomen, shoving you back down.

“You like gettin’ tossed around, too?” He laughs, and heat floods right to your core. “I’ll toss you around, baby. Make you into a nice little cockslut for me, even let you put my in that pretty mouth.”

He grabs your jaw, and you part your lips in a second. Bucky groans, his cock getting impossibly harder.

“Already listen so well.” He mutters, teasing his two forefingers over your mouth. “Just can admit you fuckin’ love it, do you? Can’t be a good girl and tell the truth.”

You narrow your eyes in defiance, and pretend to bite down on his fingers. It’s not a real bite. Just teeth grazing knuckles. But Bucky understands what it means.

Permission to go further.

His eyes gleam. His cock is already leaking with pre-cum.

“Alright, babydoll.” He rubs your thighs, a dangerous smile playing on his lips. “Have it your way.”

In a single second, Bucky rips off your clothing like it’s paper. You barely have time to feel the cold of the air before he’s grabbing your waist, flipping you onto your stomach, and dragging your ass up in the air. You yelp, fisting your hands in the sheets, and try to twist and see where he is.

A dazed part of your brain that doesn’t remember his hands on your hips sees no one behind you, and almost freaks out.

Then the first stroke of Bucky’s tongue hits your pussy, and you collapse fully into the sheets.

“Oh my-“ Your eyes roll back, as he teases the very tip of his tongue around your clit before dragging it through your folds. “Oh my God-“

“Sensitive fuckin’ pussy.” Bucky muses, and you feel the stubble of his cheek pressing against you thigh. “Barely even touching it. Wonder if I-“

 His thumb drags circles just around your clit, and you squeak. He kisses the curve of your ass, going a little fast. You whine trying to drag your own ass in circles to match his motions. You can’t see him. Can’t know if you’re doing well outside of his lips tracing your thigh, and the pleased hums against your skin.

Bucky jerks his thumb suddenly to the side, pushing directly over your clit. You scream, your knees sliding back. Bucky grabs them and pushes them back up, fully exposing your pussy to the air.

“Look at you.” His breath is warm, over that most sensitive spot. “Bet I don’t even need to fuckin’ prep you. You’re so wet, you’d just…”

He makes a deep, rumbling sound, and you almost sob as he drags his tongue right back between your puffed pussy lips. You clench around nothing, his stubbled scraping your clit. Bucky angles his face, letting his tongue flick over your clit. It goes back and forth and back and forth, toying with it before pressing flat. He sucks, hard like a lollipop, and you almost sob into the mattress.

“Sweet.” Bucky whispers, his metal arm wrapping around your legs. “So fuckin’ sweet.”

“Bu- Bucky-“

“Shhh.” He kisses right over your pussy. “Wanna taste, pretty girl. I gotta fuckin’-“ He moans, and the vibration shoots right up your spine. “Gotta taste-“

Bucky presses his face fully into your cunt, and the sound that leaves you almost isn’t human.

He’s good at this. So good at this. It’s a little unfair. Your mouth can’t do anything but hang uselessly open, as Bucky works his jaw against you. He eats you like he’s starved for it. Like he’s a man that wants to drown of an insatiable thirst.

Two hands hold you up in the air, as his tongue plunges ruthlessly in and out of your cunt. You keen, trying to push further back, and the warmer hand wraps up to your spine and shoves your stomach down. It’s a tighter fit like this. Bucky drags his tongue around, and it hits every sensitive area. His beard tickles and scratches, and cold fingers tease your skin.

You get more and more sensitive, with every flick and suck and groan. You’re so wet it’s almost drooling down your legs, mixing with the stains of cum he’d gathered from your midriff and smeared over your legs. The dual heat with his cold hand makes all your nerves stand on end. You pussy clenches again, and Bucky chuckles.

“That’s right.” He mutters, making out with your clit as you gasp for air into the bed. “That’s it, baby, you’re already lettin’ go, aren’t you.”

You whine, and Bucky nips at your ass.

“Aren’t you?”

“Ye- Yes.” You mumble. “’S good, Bucky- So good-“

“I know.” He grunts, pressing his cold, metal thumb down into your clit. “Fuck, baby, I know.”

You whimper, and Bucky starts up on your dripping pussy again. He’s lapping at it, pushing his tongue into your tight hole as he plays with your clit, and white lines your vision.

“I- I’m gonna- Fuck- Bucky-“ You scratch at the sheets. “I’m gonna- Oh God-“

He smacks your clit, spits onto your pussy, and resumes with double the effort. You cry his name, as your orgasm wracks your body. You can feel yourself seizing around him, twitching and writhing in his tight grip as your vision lines with white.

And Bucky doesn’t stop. You’re making a mess all over his face, and he’s rising up, but it’s just pushing you further into the mattress. You whimper, your cunt too sensitive, but he doesn’t even come up for air.

“Shit- Bucky- Oh- Ohhhhh-“

The ache quickly fades into pleasure again. Blinging pleasure that’s just on the wrong side of too much, but pleasure all the same. You squeal, and Bucky just moans against your cunt.

Then you hear it. The slam of his fist against his cock.

He’s jerking off while he eats you out.  He’s fucking himself so hard you can hear it, hear the slap of skin, feel all his little moans and grunts right against your pussy, and the thought sends you right over the edge again.

Bucky moans louder, as you cum on his tongue. Just like before, it seems to make him more and more feral. You have a feeling what lucidity that let him tease you before is gone. He’s eating you out the same way he’s kissed you, with rough lips and a fervor that’s almost animalistic. You’re boneless and whimpering into the sheets, taking it over and over as Bucky just keeps working his mouth against your cunt, and fucking his hand.

Then, suddenly, he’s gone. You whine from the lose, trying to roll over and look at him, but he just shoves you back down with a growl. The sound of his hand is getting faster and faster, and a hot weight drops over your back. Bucky presses his face into your neck, and takes a deep breath. You whimper, and he groans. His hips must be rocking, with how the bed is shaking.

“Smells good.” He rasps. “Gonna- Fuck-“

Bucky snaps back up, and you feel him cum more than you even hear it. Hot ropes spurt over your ass and back, seeping down the back off your thighs and into your pussy. You moan at the sensation, pushing back on trembling hands. There’s always just more of it, until you’re so marked up with him you’re sure you’ll never be able to wash it off.

You don’t want to.

With how Bucky grabs your hips and spreads the stain over your skin, you don’t think he does either.

“Shit.” He breathes out, and you hum in agreement. “Gotta- Flip for me, c’mon-“

Bucky helps you roll over. His touches are gentle again, but the gleam in his eyes hasn’t faded. You blink at him, flat on your back with your legs spread. Bucky traces the lips of your cunt, then slowly pushes two fingers inside you. Fucking his cum back into your tight hole. You mewl, eyes fluttering. Your head tosses back, and Bucky smiles

“Good girl.” He coos.

You try not get all gooey and weak just from the praise. Bucky laughs, and you think you might’ve failed.

“Strangling my fingers, doll.” He teases, pulling them right out.

You whimper. You’re too wet and ready not to take something. It’s really not fair to make you wait.

“I know.” He kisses your brow, voice rough. “Trust me, I fuckin’ know. You just gotta tell me you like it, then-“ His cock drags between your folds, and you keen. “All yours.”

You blink at him, opening your mouth to comply.

But you’re at an advantage.

Bucky’s hard again. His body is wound so tight above you, and his every word is thick. Like it’s an effort to speak. He’s still trying to fight against the drug running through his veins.

You want him to give in.

So you close your mouth, and give him a defiant glare.

Bucky growls again, and there’s no more teasing.

His mouth pushes over yours, and it’s not a loving kiss. It’s rough and quick, stealing your breath in seconds and distracting you as Bucky grabs your knees and shoves them back. You try to chase his lips, when he pulls away, but he shoves you back down with a grunt.

“Wanna be a brat.” He grunts. “Gonna get fucked like a brat.”

You almost beam. Yes, please.

Bucky folds you under him, your knees pressed to your chest and your cum-stained pussy on full display. He doesn’t waste time, tapping the head of his cock against your clit before slamming right inside. You’re so soaked you take it with only a hitched breath, but that doesn’t mean your eyes don’t roll back.

He hits right against you pelvis, when he bottoms out. His heavy balls sit on your ass, and the stretch of him is just enough pain to heighten the pleasure. Bucky kisses all over your face as he lets you adjust, but your pussy is greedy. He’d prepared you too well. You’re more than ready within seconds.

“Bu- Bucky-“ You gaps out, and he growls against your neck. “Move.”

If he’d told you to wait, you wouldn’t have been surprised.

But the drug seems to have overtaken him again, and all you get is a noise like a snarl against your throat before Bucky draws almost all the way out, and slams back in.

The air is knocked clean from your lungs. This time, he hit right against your g-spot, and your whole body seizes up. Bucky makes a low, deep noise, and repeats the motion. Again, he drives right into that gooey spot deep inside of you. You clench around him, and he doubles over, rutting deep inside of you.

“The- There-“ You whimper, fingers scrambling in the sheets. “Fuck, baby, right there-“

Bucky grunts an agreement, and starts to fuck you into the mattress. The angle is so deep you’re worried he’s going to permanently rearrange your guts. Every slam of his cock into your makes you see heaven, and Bucky pants over your, his eyes locked onto yours as your face contorts with pleasure.

He’s not even fucking you like a brat. He’s fucking you like a doll. He grabs at your limbs and moves them below him like you’re just a sleeve for his dick, and he needs you into just the right spot. One hand fists in your hair, forcing your neck a little up so you can watching your arousal gleam on his cock every time he pulls out. He moans every time he pushes back in, and you watch your cunt swallow his dick whole. A wet, smacking sound filling the room as he drills into you. He bends you even further to kiss over your neck and breasts, his tongue dragging in rhythm with his dick.

You try to clench around him every time he bottoms out, but your head is sort of empty, and now you’re just a drooling pussy around his massive cock, moaning his name and happily milking every bit of pleasure.

“Oh- Oooooh-“ You mewl, smiling like a cockdrunk idiot at the air. “Buuuucky-“

His mouth presses back over yours, and the kiss is strangely soft. His fucking hasn’t slowed or relented, but there’s a care with how his lips move over yours that makes you feel worshipped.

That’s what he’d said he’d do. Worship you. And you can really feel it here.

Bucky draws back, and the hand that had been fisted in your hair moves to your jaw. He squeezes again. You open for him easily, and his lips twitch.

“Good girl.” He coos, even if the words are tighter than before.

He spits into your mouth. You swallow obediantly, and open again when he squeezes your cheeks. Bucky slams forward with a groan, looking like a man wrecked.

“You fuckin’ like it, don’t you-“

“Love it.” You gasp, unable to even think to deny him again. “Love you, Bucky- Oh- Oh my god-“

Bucky makes a ragged, choked sound, and cums almost without warning. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, as he pumps you full of his release. It feels like even more than before. Like you’re going to burst with how full you are, spurts of it still being forced out as Bucky fucks you through. You’ve never felt so totally claimed, with him all over every inch of your skin. He kisses you and you giggle, dazed and almost high on the feeling.

And he’s not even done.

The period of lucidity between orgasms gets shorter before it gets longer. Bucky’s ability to control himself almost vanishes all together. You get a kiss and broken mumble of your name before you’re being flipped back onto your stomach and fucked from behind. There will be handprints on your ass and thighs in the morning, and the sheets are stained with your drool from how Bucky railed you from behind.

You’re dragged into his lap right after, and he pushes his thumb into your mouth, then ruts up into your gaping cunt. You’re all moans and ditzy smiles by that point. When rolls you back onto your stomach and sits up on his knees, you just take it with moans and giggles and cries of delight.

He hasn’t just ruined you. He’s pulled you apart a million times over, until you’re just a puddle that sings his name.

You don’t even fully realize he’s done, when he kisses pulls out that last time. You whine, and clench around nothing, but expect to get filled right back up.

Then Bucky kisses you, and it’s slow. Savoring and sweet. Romantic. His voice is hoarse, but it’s lost the strained quality. He’s fully teasing again, smiling against your lips.

“So soft.” He coos, rubbing your thoroughly abused pussy with his warm hand.

You writhe, trying to get further and closer at the same time. Bucky chuckles, and kisses the corner of your mouth.

“Jesus, doll. You’d think you were the one that got sex drugged.”

You try to glare at him, but forget why the moment you see his pretty eyes, shining on yours.

They’re blue again.

“You’re back?” You breathe, and Bucky grins.

He ducks down, and presses another quick kiss over your lips.

“I’m back.”

 You’re ordered not to move, while he cleans up. You don’t think you could if you tried. Your body is jelly, everything is sore in the best way, and your head is spinning with too many thoughts of what the fuck happened.

You told Bucky you love him. You told Bucky you love him. You’d never even fully admitted it in your head and he just fucked it right out of you. You said it fast, too fast, he thought you hated him four hours ago and now he must think you’re some kind of freak for just saying you love him.

He makes you drink water and go to the bathroom. Draws you a bath and brings you a snack and changes the sheets. You manage to find the strength to stand out of the tub and dry yourself off, wrapping the towel around your body before shuffling out in the center of his room.

God, he’s so handsome. All tan muscles and scars you want to trace with your tongue. Too bad you fucking blew it, and now you’re never going to get to touch him again-

Bucky turns, and smiles when he sees you. You swallow, bracing for the worst as he crosses the room.

He takes your face between his hands and kisses you. Deep and gentle and maybe he just forgot-

“Love you too.” He says against your lips. “Just- Uh- While we’re saying it.”

Oh.

Or that. That’s nice.

You throw everything you have into kissing him back, but end up tackling him down onto the bed with the sudden surge of strength. Bucky chokes out a laugh in surprise, wrestling you over onto your back with kiss and wandering hands. You giggle, trying to push back, and he nips at the tip of your nose.

Then he pauses, and pulls up with a small, worried frown.

“You’re stayin’ the night, right?”

You almost snort. There’s no getting rid of you now. You’re going to stay forever, and as long as he’ll allow after that.

“Yeah. I’m staying.”

✦End note: this was longer than my college thesis btw. and i. put more effort into it.✦

✦If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3✦

✦Buy me a coffee!☕️ (and get early access!)✦

“Are we sure he’s coming?” Nayeon’s voice crackles through your earpiece and you startle, nearly falling backward off your perch on the catwalk of a massive crane. You hear her chuckle and she waves at you from her position on another crane. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Don’t be fooled. The more you get to know her, the more you get to know her tricks, too,” Jihyo adds, barely visible under the cranes from her spot between two containers. 

“They’re both tricky. Let’s leave it at that,” Jeongyeon concludes, and your ears are overrun as the other two adamantly do not leave it at that. You let yourself smile, if only a little bit. The Red Room never allowed you to make friends, much less ones as close as the three ex-Widows that had helped you adjust to the new world. You were still hesitant to call them friends despite how easily they referred to you as one, even going so far as to volunteer themselves to help you capture Choi Seungcheol.

Shit. 

You take a deep breath and refocus your energy on the task at hand. The watch on your hand–an analog one you chose when you politely declined a newfangled digital thing–reads nearly midnight. 

“I’m not sure, honestly. He's…programmed,” you choke on the word like poison, “to return to Casablanca and be retrieved by Hydra handlers after every mission. Even if he's just as unnerved as I was by this new world, his brain will guide him to what it knows, and that's Casablanca.” You hesitate and remember how you were also programmed to do something similar, though your rendezvous point was Jakarta. “This is all a hunch, though, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared of getting put back under if this whole plan fails.” 

“We’d never let that happen,” Jeongyeon promises you. “Plus, the world doesn’t work like that anymore.” You sigh.

“Two years out of a test tube and I still don’t know how the world works,” you frown.

“That’s okay. Just know that no one’s getting put on ice again as long as we’re around.” The sincerity in Jihyo’s voice makes your chest a little lighter. 

“Except maybe Mina, just to see her reaction. I think it'd be funny,” muses Nayeon and you finally crack a smile. However, any smart remark that you could contribute dies in your throat as a flash of silver dashes between two containers a few yards away from Jihyo’s position. Your heart drops like a stone into your stomach. 

He’s here.

“Jihyo, 4 o’clock. Eyes up,” you order, your voice lethally serious. The energy in the entire port seems to shift as you double check your descender secured to the rail of the crane. “Remember, he doesn’t know you and he’s not trained to find out.” He probably doesn’t even know me anymore. “He’ll eliminate adversaries on sight and we’re about to ambush him. Proceed with caution.” 

“Copy,” Jihyo confirms, already slipping through the containers like a shadow.

“I’m in position,” Jeongyeon states and you catch the clinking of a tranquilizing tube being loaded into her rifle. “Get me eyes on him and I’ll wait for your signal.”

“Got it. Nayeon, on my mark.”

“Ready when you are, boss,” she murmurs, dangling off the catwalk like an impatient spider.

“Be careful, all three of you,” you warn. “And as a personal favor, try not to fuck him up too badly. Please?”

“We won’t kill your boyfriend, we promise,” Jeongyeon swears with a teasing lilt in her voice. You swallow thickly and ignore the rising warmth in your face but don't argue.

“Okay. Jihyo, you have permission to engage,” you state and Nayeon is already halfway down her rope by the time you start descending. Warm air rushes past your face as your controlled fall brings you to the ground within seconds. You unclip the descender from your belt and sprint in the direction of Jihyo and Seungcheol. Nayeon throws herself into the fight with a roundhouse that Seungcheol blocks easily with his metal arm, shoving her off and using the momentum to swing at Jihyo, but she’s too quick. Both her and Nayeon play their parts perfectly, keeping Seungcheol distracted enough for you to find an opening to hit him with a syringe of the same tranquilizer in Jeongyeon’s rifle. As the best sharpshooter of her generation in the Red Room, Jeongyeon was the last resort if you, Nayeon, and Jihyo were incapacitated. 

You stalk through the shadows, circling the fight while sweat beads on your forehead and a feverish sensation chokes your body. The monster that the Red Room trained within you was baring its teeth, eager to kill and kill and kill the way you were built to. That carnal, animalistic part of you whispers to throw Jihyo and Nayeon aside and take down Seungcheol yourself, a side effect of the Red Room’s supersoldier serum that only you had survived experimentation with. You were itching to fight him, like some part of your brain recognized him as your true equal and wanted to consume him entirely. Your serum-infected psyche recognized him as your enemy, and you wanted to tear him to shreds. The urge nearly overwhelms you but you fight it down like bile, gripping the syringe tighter and waiting for the other Widows to do their jobs. 

You have a handle on the bloodlust until Jihyo falls down and stays down, and your vision goes scarlet red. 

It’s as if your mind takes a backseat to your body, lunging forward to grab Seungcheol’s metal arm by pure instinct and twisting as hard as you can, the jerking movement making the syringe fall from your other hand. Nayeon is quick to grab it and retreat backward, dragging an unconscious Jihyo away. Your arm trembles with effort, your super strength against his until your muscle gives way and you duck as he swings on you, your leg shooting out like lightning to throw him off-balance. You exchange bruising blows with him and find yourself panting from the effort it’s taking to restrain the side of you that wants to claw out his throat entirely. You’re barely thinking clearly, partially registering that the other Widows are saying something to you but not knowing what they’re trying to convey. Your mind is at war with itself, hellbent on the urge to kill and shaking with the restraint of keeping him alive enough to tranquilize. He’s in full tactical armor, including a dark mask covering the bottom half of his face, so your best bet in subduing him completely is to get the tranquilizer into his neck. You risk a glance over your shoulder and feel a sobering chill run down your back as Nayeon touches Jihyo’s head and gapes at the sticky blood coating her palm. 

With a shudder and a cry that tears itself from your throat, you let the bloodlust take over and all but drag him onto the floor. It's the perfect opening to seize Seungcheol’s metal arm and force it in a direction you know it’s not supposed to go. He thrashes like an animal in a trap, clawing and slamming his fists against your leg that keeps him from escaping, but the pain is nothing but numbness in the face of your single goal of crippling his greatest weapon. He roars in rage but you keep your grip on the metal limb until it wrenches off of him entirely with a sickening crunch. He goes limp and you briefly panic that you killed him until you spot the shallow rise and fall of his chest. You don’t fare much better; your vision is spotty and you feel like you’re watching yourself from a third-person perspective as Nayeon tosses you the syringe. You catch it in one hand and sink it into the side of Seungcheol’s neck, keeping him in your hold until his eyes shut completely. 

You lay there on the floor, heaving and half-dead until Jeongyeon arrives to secure Seungcheol’s restraints. You somehow manage to bring yourself upright as the extraction team arrives, squinting in the blinding headlights of the armored vehicles. Waving off the EMT trying to get you onto a gurney and mumbling something that resembled an apology to Seungcheol is the last thing you remember before you black out entirely. 

—

Madripoor – 1939

You first meet the Winter Soldier two weeks after you’re given the serum.

A modified version of Hydra’s supersoldier formula is what you were told was injected, trading the parts that would give you muscles as large as a gorilla’s for enhanced vision and metabolism. You were meant to be the ultimate weapon of stealth, a knife in the dark slipped into the ribs of the Red Room’s enemies. The scientists succeeded, for the most part–you were the deadliest Widow in the program before the serum and only became more lethal after it. What the scientists didn’t account for were the sudden, overwhelming fevers of bloodlust that possessed you whenever you trained with other prospective serum recipients. The serum whispered to you like a demon, pushing you to use any means necessary to survive…even if it meant your hands were covered in blood by the end of an everyday spar. The Red Room had blurred the lines between creating a soldier and creating a monster, and you were the sole survivor of all consequent experimentations. They called it ‘Project: Arachne,’ but you later took on the moniker solely as your own after the others disappeared.

The monster you had become paled in comparison to the shell of a man that Hydra was puppetting. 

“Where did you find such a creature? Such strength, such rage,” one of your handlers remarks, circling the Winter Soldier as he stands like a statue in the center of the room, a private chamber in the back of a dive bar that reeks of mildew. The air sticks to you like moldy glue, sweat running down your back and threatening to melt off the picture-perfect face of makeup you were required to wear. Once a pirate stronghold, the island nation was now a cesspool of criminal activity, brimming with drug kingpins and mercenary gangs that kept the streets in a constant state of warfare. Madripoor is a chaos you cannot control, a steaming shithole completely opposite of the pristine halls of the Red Room. If you had to choose, it would be the last place you would ever set foot in again. “What a beast you have created!”

“He was a soldier that had fallen off a freight train in the Alps; we found him and made him into something we could use,” the Winter Soldier’s primary handler explains with a smile that looks more like a sneer. “Of course, there were some fixes to account for,” he continues, gesturing to the bionic metal arm on the Soldier’s left side. “Except for this, however, he was a picture perfect specimen.” The sight before you makes your stomach turn. The serum and the Red Room’s experiments had left you with at least some semblance of your own mind, but it seemed like the man in front of you was nothing but a machine activated whenever Hydra needed someone disposed. But without that role? The Soldier was a puppet, his eyes empty and his face blank in a way that nauseated you. 

“You’ve put us miles ahead of our enemies with this creation,” a deep-voiced stockholder that frequented the Red Room booms from behind you. The Soldier remains motionless, the bottom half of his face covered by a dark mask, but you catch his eyes flickering to the source of the voice and narrowing, ever so slightly. His face was blank, but his distrust of those who had brought you here was apparent. 

“You are too kind, really,” a beady-eyed Hydra scientist declares with a humble hand over his heart. You suppress the urge to claw his insect-like eyes from his skull when his attention turns to you, looming over you as you sit perfectly poised on your seat, your legs crossed and back straight like a fucking doll. “But I would like to discuss this beauty. Does she speak?” A clammy hand moves in slow motion to caress your face and you catch his wrist in your fingers, sinking your nails into his flesh not enough to make him bleed, but enough to make him hesitate. 

“This beauty can speak for herself, sir,” you correct with a saccharine smile. Your handlers chuckle at your antics and a firm hand on your shoulder makes you release the Hydra scientist. Your nausea increases tenfold at the touch and you fight the instinct to stiffen, knowing that reacting in such a way would only make your handlers upset. Instead, you turn to the handler behind you with a kind look that falters when you see him looking at the Soldier rather than at you, a sort of sick amusement flashing behind his eyes. 

You turn back to what could be drawing his attention and see the Soldier’s hand resting on his gun. His face is expressionless, but you swear the muscle in his jaw has tightened. He’s staring past you at your handler and his hold on your shoulder, eyes dark as a storm. He makes no move to draw the firearm, yet the mere presence of his hand against it is enough to sour the jovial atmosphere in the room. If he wanted to, this Soldier could have all of you in a puddle of your own blood before you could blink, and the polite conversation tapers into tense silence as those in the room make the same realization. As if testing what the Soldier would do, your handler tightens his hold on your shoulder and you swallow. The Soldier’s, in turn, tightens around his weapon. 

“I believe your soldier is threatening me,” the handler behind you observes lightly. The Soldier’s stare is molten, and if looks alone could kill, your handler would be halfway to Hell already. “It seems he does not appreciate my interactions with Arachne,” he continues, his thumb brushing over your skin in a way that has you sinking your nails into your palms to keep from jerking away. The Soldier’s eyes dart to the imperceptible shake in your hands.

Before you finish blinking, everyone in the room is pointing a gun at each other, and the Soldier’s pistol is aimed straight between the eyes of your handler. You stand on instinct and draw your own gun from its holster on your thigh, leveling the barrel at the Soldier’s forehead. He doesn’t even blink, his gaze remaining past you and your weapon. Your handler’s grip remains and he seems unbothered when he speaks, though the sharp edge of his voice tells you otherwise.

“I thought he was completely erased of morality, doctor,” the handler grits. 

“Perhaps one more round of shock therapy will do him some good, just to kill that last part of him that might remember his life before,” a Hydra scientist chuckles nervously, eyeing the Soldier with unease. A dozen guns or more are pointed at the Soldier like a morbid sort of halo, yet all you can see is the rage burning behind his eyes. Whether he was conscious of it or not, the Soldier was ready to kill your handler for touching you. It makes your heart unwillingly flip.

“‘Perhaps’ is right, doctor,” your handler agrees. “We wouldn’t want our stakeholders questioning the loyalty of their prized weapon.” The handler’s grip on your shoulder finally leaves, and the Soldier returns his gun to its holster. The rest of the room takes a breath, but you still feel air catching in your throat when the Soldier’s eyes meet yours and you recognize your own anger flaming in his dark irises. Your chest aches in a way more painful than any wound you experience during training. Two guards who the Soldier could probably snap in half like toothpicks grab him by the arms and escort him out of the room, leaving you with the Hydra handlers as well as your own. 

Your mouth is moving before your mind can realize what you’re questioning, damning you to several days worth of harsh training as punishment for speaking out of turn.

“What is his name?” You ask, your voice low and guarded. You feel the irritation of your handlers stick into the back of your neck like needles, but you have to know. It feels wrong not to know.

“He is the Winter Soldier, Arachne,” someone answers patronizingly and you shake your head. 

“Before. Who was he?” You turn to the scientist that wanted to caress your face and blink up at him through your eyelashes, putting on the mask of a stupid, innocent girl who asks the wrong questions at the wrong time. Your gamble works and the weak-brained one indulges you.

“‘Choi Seungcheol’ was the name on his dogtags when we found him, but he doesn’t answer to that anymore.” You nod, satisfied, and stare at the closed door where the Winter Soldier had been dragged away. “This won’t be the last time you see him, Arachne. You’ll be working together frequently on missions while Hydra and the Red Room sort out the kinks in the supersoldier serum formula.” I don’t want to work with him, you think to yourself. I don’t want him to have to be whatever it is they want him to be. 

I don’t want him to live like this. Like me. 

“Understood,” is all you reply with. 

—

When Seungcheol dreams, moments pass in and out like sunlight refracting through water. 

At first he’s stepping out of Mingyu’s Chrysler, helping a girl whose name he’d already forgotten hop out after him. It’s before the war, before the guns and the metal arm and you. Mingyu and his latest lady-friend are already hand-in-hand and skipping toward the entrance of the dance hall, leaving Seungcheol with this random girl who he thinks he might have seen at the soda fountain a few times before. Her hand is soft and clammy in his when she grabs it and drags him along too, talking airily about the importance of having a matching headscarf whenever one dons a dancing dress. Ever the gentleman, he nods along and pretends to be interested, even when he feels like a goldfish flopping around in the middle of Times Square. 

When they finally push into the dance hall, Seungcheol finds himself looking for a face in the crowd that he’s not sure belongs in this memory, yet searches for anyway. The music of the big band roars and he’s on the dance floor in a blink, mechanically sorting through awkward movements while the girl in front of him slowly loses her patience. His limbs feel like gelatin and wooden logs at the same time, and his date soon becomes bored of him and latches onto the arm of another boy. Later in this memory, Seungcheol knows the boy will become too handsy with her. Mingyu will have to drag Seungcheol away from killing the guy after the latter slams his fist into the creep’s nose, and Seungcheol will remember it as the first time he felt vindicated in causing someone pain. 

He enters a set of double doors at the back of the hall and finds himself in a different memory. If the thrill of the dance hall is distorted from noise and fluorescent lights, this one is soberingly clear. Same sticky air, same mildew stench, same dark shadows. He’s in Madripoor and his arm is extended, pointing the barrel of his pistol at a shithead Red Room agent that’s been keeping his hand on your shoulder for far too long. Whatever Hydra had done to him had made his body answer to his handlers rather than his own mind, so Seungcheol wasn’t completely sure how he was able to move independently in the first place. Maybe it was muscle memory, maybe it was the way the silent panic in your eyes made his vision go blood red. He didn’t know you, not yet, but his mind snarled around like a caged animal at the idea of someone laying a hand on you. The anger superseded any brainwashing Hydra had done to him, and only fortified itself after the subsequent rounds of shock therapy made in an attempt to rid him completely of his own sense of self. Call it Fate or divine connection, but something deep within Seungcheol’s soul outright rejected the idea of you being harmed. In this dream, he thrashes against the hands that drag him away, screaming for you. When he looks back at you, your handler’s hand returns to your shoulder and he’s slammed with so much white-hot rage that he nearly blacks out.

The memory shifts again, and Seungcheol is falling. Frigid air whips past his face, stinging like knife cuts, yet he’s flailing about in slow motion as the snowy canyons of the Alps envelop him like a casket. Mingyu’s hoarse cries are lost among the sounds of the chugging steam train and the splash of Seungcheol’s body as it collides with an icy river, the same river that keeps him cold enough to stay alive until he’s found by Hydra scouts. His vision blinks in and out of focus, the stark-white blizzard sky being replaced by the dingy hallways of Hydra’s medical facilities, where he’s all but blinded by a huge circle of light as the surgery to remove his left arm commences. He blinks again and he’s lying on cold concrete, having had his ass handed to him by another Winter Soldier candidate. His metal arm creaks as he pushes off the ground, spitting a glob of blood and saliva against the floor before rising to face his opponent again. He’s too slow to dodge the next swing and his head hits the ground hard, his body landing with a defeated thud. 

The world lurches and he feels the sensation of wet earth between his fingertips. He’s tense, waiting for the next trauma-inducing event to begin, but there’s nothing but the setting sun and the endless rows of tulips surrounding him. Amsterdam. He blinks against the fading light and stands. You’re a few feet away in tattered tactical gear covered in blood that isn’t your own, looking out over the fields of flowers with a kind of sadness that makes panic flare in Seungcheol’s chest. Of all the memories Seungcheol was bombarded with when he slept, this was the one he hated the most. 

“They’re gonna put me under soon,” you whisper, your voice raspy like you’d been crying. You watch the horizon like it’s your next adversary. Not only had you slipped away from the Red Room long enough to eradicate nearly every agent under the Winter Soldier program, you’d also brought Seungcheol’s mind back to himself. You had broken a dam in his mind that Hydra had so painstakingly built, allowing the flood of memories and emotions and all the things that made Seungcheol human to come rushing back to him. “They’ll know it was me, and they won’t like what I did to you.” 

“You freed me,” Seungcheol says. He wants to reach out to hold your hand, or at least brush your fingers, but that’s not the way this memory works. He didn’t do it then, so he’s tortured by the inability to do it now. “You broke whatever words they put in my head.”

“I didn’t break the words, I killed the ones who used them,” you croak, frustrated. “Someone else could come along and find that God-forsaken book with the trigger words and take control of you again, and I won’t be there to stop them, and–” A sob tears itself from your throat and he sees the same rage that he adored so much burning in your eyes. You were the only one whose anger could ever come close to matching his own. “They could make you worse because of me, and it would be my fault that they did.” 

“They would have to catch me first,” Seungcheol says with grave seriousness. He knows it’s foolish for him to say, knowing damn well Hydra does capture him and put him in the cryo-tube again until they figure out how to reprogram his mind to do what they wanted him to do. “I won’t let that happen.” He does let that happen, unfortunately, as he’s lured into an abandoned nuclear facility two weeks later under the pretense that you would be there. 

“I wish I knew you under different circumstances,” you scoff bitterly. “Or I wish the Red Room ripped out my brain entirely so it could never learn how to care for you so deeply.” He knows you don’t mean it to cause him pain, but his heart winces all the same. Maybe in another life, you would be the one he’d take dancing. Before the war, before the fall off the train, before everything. It would just be you and him, laughing at Mingyu’s shenanigans and dreaming about a future you didn’t know how to want. 

“Do you really mean that?” When he meets your eyes, the fire behind them has dulled into tired coals. 

“I do. I hope that, in another universe, we’re together…and we’re happy,” you wish, and that’s where Seungcheol’s mind cruelly refuses to play any other memories. You and the tulips fade into darkness, and he succumbs to dreamless sleep. 

—

Avengers Headquarters, Upstate New York – 2025

“That’s about to be the fourth one you break this week, and it’s only Wednesday,” notes a teasing voice from the doorway of the training gym. SLAM! Your wrapped fist completes its arc into the punching bag and, just as Jihyo had predicted, the rope it hangs from gives way, sending the bag flying across the room. You pause, catching cold, dry breaths of air conditioning, before retrieving the downed bag and tossing it into the growing pile in the corner. Only then do you turn to Jihyo, who’s watching you with a clever glint in her eye. 

“You shouldn’t be so far from the med-bay,” you point out and she shrugs. 

“I had a concussion, not a broken spine,” she reasons. “I’m fine.” She looks fine, in most senses of the word, but guilt still weighs on your shoulder for putting her in that situation. You look at her for a few moments, still skeptical, but relent and move to hang a new bag. “Hey, aren’t you gonna ask why I’m here?”

“It better not be to spar with me. You’re supposed to be on bedrest for another three days.”

“Which I think is overkill, but agree to disagree,” she grumbles and you shoot her a look. “It’s been nine days since we captured him and I got knocked around a little bit. If I’m being honest, I’d say you’re faring worse than me.” 

“How so?” 

“For one, you’ve been in this gym more often than your own room, which means your sleep schedule is fucked up.”

“Sometimes I hear Seungkwan’s TV through the walls and it bothers me,” you protest. “I come here because it’s quieter.” Jihyo raises an eyebrow.

“Nayeon caught you pacing outside the containment ward even though Jihoon said you’re allowed to go in.”

“There’s a laundry room across the hall from the entrance. I was waiting for a load to finish,” you protest. The ex-Widow’s frown deepens at your blatant half-lie and she gestures to the many broken punching bags you’d sent flying in the days since recovering from the capture mission. 

“You can look me in the eyes and tell me that is normal?” 

“Stress appears different on everyone, Jihyo,” you conclude too carefreely and something different blinks across her face. The light frustration shifts into a muted sort of sadness, like she was purposefully dialing down her emotions to avoid upsetting you. 

“You haven’t been eating meals with us. Jeongyeon, Nayeon, the rest of the girls. We miss you,” she says quietly and your shoulders slump. You drag your hand down your face.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just,” you inhale, trying to find the words. “I don’t want to burden you all with my baggage. Seungcheol, he’s the last person I would expect to show up from my past, and it hurts. Seeing him like that…it hurt.” Jihyo nods. 

“I get it. I felt the same seeing you in the cryotube on that last raid,” she sympathizes. You chew the inside of your cheek. “We’d heard stories about the Arachne project and how the last surviving participant had disappeared. We couldn’t have imagined we’d find you, but I’m so glad we did.” Jihyo approaches you now, taking your hand and giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay for you to open up to us about how you’re feeling. You don’t have to go it alone anymore.” 

“Since when did the Red Room give empathy classes?” You ask wryly and she chuckles. 

“Since we broke out of their mind-control and started leaning on each other more,” Jihyo replies, nudging you with her shoulder. “We’re the only ones who will get it, you know?”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you,” you say. “I haven’t had the chance to properly–” She cuts you off with a wave of her hand. 

“You don’t need to say all that. It’s just what friends do for each other,” she cuts in and you finally give her a tired smile. “Now, are you finally going to let me tell you why I came over here?”

“It wasn’t just for a motivational speech and to tell me to stop bulldozing the punching bags.” Her chuckle turns into a bark of laughter. 

“That, yes, but I also came bearing news,” she shares with a sparkle in her eye. “Choi Seungcheol is awake.” Your heart stutters. 

“He is?” Jihyo exhales.

“He’s awake, and he’s refusing to cooperate unless he sees you first.” 

—

Casablanca – 1942 

After three years of assignments in collaboration with the Winter Soldier, you’ve done something extraordinary–you’ve helped him recover some semblances of his memories. 

Granted, it’s an ongoing process that brings more backtracking than it does progress. You’re not entirely sure how you did it, but somewhere during the downtime of missions, you began asking him questions just to see if he had the facilities to answer them. To your surprise, he was able to answer you almost immediately, though sometimes his expression twisted like he was trying to wrench the memory out of his brain with his bare hands. Over time, you learned small things like his hometown, his friends, and fractals of his life before becoming the Winter Soldier. Your single-sided questions gradually transformed into full conversations, and your talks helped ease the strain of being the Red Room’s most prized weapon. In another world, you could see yourself being friends with Choi Seungcheol, perhaps even something more. 

Sometimes, he remembered too much. 

That’s when Hydra wiped him and started from scratch. 

“Are you real?” He rasps unexpectedly from beside you on the external catwalk of a shipping warehouse. Question number one. You watch him from the corner of your eye, your focus never wavering from the bustle of a ship making a stop for the night at the port. He asked the same question every time his mind returned to him, even if it was only temporarily, like it was a ritual. He had to make sure you weren’t just a figment of his imagination. 

Seungcheol has been dead silent since you met with him in Budapest, the biggest indicator that Hydra had ‘wiped’ him–that is, they shocked his brain into oblivion until the only thing he could understand was his handlers’ commands. When Seungcheol didn’t talk, it meant that he couldn’t remember what he had to discuss with you, but it didn’t mean it was completely gone; it was just deeper in his psyche, and it was up to him to pull it back out. 

Now it seemed, as you watched the dockworkers begin to unload the ship, he’d returned to you. 

“I’m real,” you say without any noticeable emotion, as stable and neutral as you can manage. 

“Are we in danger?” Question number two. On a few rare occasions, you would spend an entire mission with Winter Soldier-only, completely wiped Seungcheol, only for his true self to appear in a relatively inopportune moment (e.g. getting shot at). He described it to you as being in a dream; he knew what the mission was, where he was located, and the task he had to complete, but it was like watching it from an outside perspective. Only when he registered that you were you did he feel like he was back in control of his body. 

“No, we’re not in danger,” you answer, shaking your head. Your eyes narrow on a large crate with a bright red ‘X’ painted on it. One side of the crate is the size of your entire armspan, yet the item inside was a vial no larger than your pointer finger. You didn’t know much about it beyond that, other than that the Red Room wanted it and you were tasked to grab it. “We will be soon, though. That’s our target.” You nod to the box and Seungcheol’s gaze follows it as it leaves the cargo hold and is moved in the direction of your position. 

“Did–” Question number three. He swallows and you wait for him, finally turning to look as he steadies his breathing. “Did I hurt you?” You shake your head again.

“No, you did not hurt me.” Seungcheol breathes a visible sigh of relief. 

“Okay.” You check your descender and practice the timing one last time in your head–you drop onto the package, Seungcheol covers you as you open the crate and retrieve the vial, then throw a smoke bomb and disappear.

“Ready?” His eyes darken over his face mask.

“Ready.” 

The sensation of falling is familiar as the rope goes taut and you drop from the catwalk. The crate wobbles as you land on top of it, the dockworkers startling with a shout of alarm. As you jump down to open the package, you see their shadows reach for something to use as a weapon, but Seungcheol is already there. He’s the closest thing to a demon you’ll ever see, stalking through the darkness and downing enemies. As he takes down the last of the dockworkers near the crate, you grip the side of the wooden box, channel the strength given to you by the Red Room’s serum, and pull. 

Nothing happens.

You give another strong tug, then another, then another until you realize that the side of the crate isn’t budging. You scowl. The serum had given you strength, but there were also other tradeoffs to increase your speed, agility, and enhance your senses for covert operations. For a moment, you toss around the idea of punching a hole in the crate, then realize that you risked damaging the vial inside. Before you can ask, Seungcheol is already at your side, staring at the unopened crate with you.

“It’s still closed,” he monotones and you fight the urge to roll your eyes.

“I see that,” you grumble. “Not all of us got the serum that gave us biceps the size of milk jugs.” He motions for you to back up. “Don’t you dare punch that shit.” Even under his mask, you can tell he’s staring at you incredulously. 

“What do you take me for, an animal?” Yes. He thinks for a moment and shakes his head. “Don't answer that.” Seungcheol then grips the same spot that you had with his human arm and tugs. The side of the crate gives way as easily as ripping a sheet of paper, and you can’t tell whether to be mad that he got more super strength or mad that you can’t stop staring at his arm. He’d ripped off the side of a wooden crate, and he didn’t even need to use the metal arm. “There you go.”

“My knight in shining armor,” you say dryly, stepping up to observe how the vial was encased. Thankfully, it was only a few layers of anti-shock plexiglass that you remove easily, and soon the vial is safe and sound in your belt. Mission accomplished. “Let’s get out of here. You know the way?” Seungcheol nods.

“Keep close,” he says before ducking into the darkness. 

You follow him through the dim-lit streets and alleys of Casablanca to the bar where you would be retrieved by your handlers. It isn’t too late in the night and there are still a generous amount of patrons around as Seungcheol opens the door to the bar, putting you in a state of unease while you slide onto a barstool. Seungcheol stands beside you in between your stool and the next, leaning against the bar with his metal arm hidden by a glove and his jacket sleeve. He’s removed his dark mask and, to any untrained eye, you look like a pair of unassuming shadows that happen to haunt the bar. 

“You don’t want to sit?” You ask after Seungcheol quietly orders you an Old Fashioned, rye with extra bitters, without you needing to request a drink. He’s positioned himself between your barstool in the next, his back to the counter and his head tilted to look at you while also keeping tabs on the rest of the room. Your voice is soft, barely perceptible in the raucous noise of the bar, but Seungcheol doesn’t need to hear anything else right now. 

“I’ll stand. Easier to be close to you,” he says and you hate the way it makes your heart flip. Affection and love were not something afforded to you, yet you loved to look over the edge of what it would be like to care for Seungcheol freely. “Need anything?”

“Not unless you have a Tiffany bracelet hiding in your pocket,” you say lightly and he does that same huff-laugh again. His eyes are dark but the shadow that typically hangs over them is softened in the yellowed light. 

“Tiffany & Co. That’s in New York, right?” 

“It is. Do you remember New York?” 

“New York from before, or New York now?”

“I rarely ever ask how you remember things now, Seungcheol,” you point out and he nods, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “What do you remember about before?” He’s silent for a few moments and the space between his eyebrows pinches.

“Mingyu liked to pick up girls in the diners. Said paying for a girl’s meal was the way to get her heart,” he recalls slowly and you fight back a snort. 

“He really believed that?”

“Mingyu believed a lot of things,” Seungcheol continues, “and most of them were about how to properly woo a woman.” The bartender returns with your Old Fashioned and Seungcheol only nods to him rather than paying him, a kind of silent agreement that your drink would be on the house. You don’t question it. The rye is cheap and there are a normal amount of bitters, but it’s smooth enough as it runs down your throat. 

“And how do you believe you should properly woo a woman?” You posit, momentarily forgetting who you were and who he was. This was the fine line you walked, indulging that desire to be normal and flirt and want, all these things the Red Room had trained out of you. 

“I don’t remember most of the things,” Seungcheol begins honestly, “but I do know that knowing how she takes her alcohol is a good start.” 

“It’s an excellent start.” You smirk over the rim of your glass and fight the urge to shiver when his gloved hand brushes your lower back. The noise around you dims and you scan his face slowly, cataloging every detail of it. What draws your attention the most are his eyes, always his eyes. There was a rage that burned behind them, but it seemed to temper itself when you were near. You didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t have the words to describe it, only that you liked his rage. It matched your own, and it made you feel seen. “Want a sip?”

“Alcohol doesn’t affect us, Arachne,” Seungcheol reminds you quietly and you wave him off. 

“It’s not about getting drunk. It’s about feeling normal,” you correct. He looks at you curiously.

“And alcohol, it makes you feel normal?”

“As much as I can, considering what we’ve been made into.” You shrug and he carefully takes the glass from your hand, rotating the cup so that his lips make contact at the exact spot where you had taken your sip. Your breath catches. He doesn’t break eye contact even as he takes one, long drink, swallowing like it was water and handing it back to you like he hadn’t just thrown your entire brain into a live volcano. 

“Pretty good,” he murmurs. “Up to your standards?”

“I’ve had better,” you lie. You’ve never had alcohol outside of missions, and even then, you tended to fake drinking to blend in with the crowd. “Drinking with company tends to raise my mood, though.”

“Am I good company?” Your eyes sparkle.

“You’re the only company I want.” Before he can reply, movement in the darker shadows of the bar catch his attention. Half a dozen men in three-piece suits huddle together, murmuring, but their gazes remain on you for a duration that makes Seungcheol’s skin crawl. Their eyes rake hungrily over your body and his vision starts going red, his hands unconsciously clenching into fists. He imagines five different ways he could dispose of each of the men, starting with the one that just licked his lips and seemed to be preparing to approach you. “Why do you look like you’re about to kill everyone in this bar, Seungcheol?” You ask in a low tone, your voice coming much closer to his ear than previously. You’ve leaned even closer to him, the smell of your perfume intoxicating him worse than any alcohol. 

“Assholes at your six,” he snarls. You gently but firmly take his cheek in your hand and pull his face to look at you.

“Why the fuck should I care about them?” His face is inches from yours, but his fiery eyes remain on the group behind you.

“You shouldn’t.” The muscle in his jaw is tense enough to cut diamonds.

“So why do you?” You inquire and Seungcheol’s face burns from something he can’t name as he finally meets your eyes. 

“Because they’re looking at you like they own you. No one owns you,” he seethes, his anger boiling over. Your face remains unchanged except for the slight pinch between your eyebrows. You seem to think on his words for a moment and then nod to yourself, removing your hand from his face and downing the rest of your drink in one swallow. 

“It’s stuffy here. Let’s leave,” you order suddenly and Seungcheol’s anger sobers. “We can wait for the rendezvous outside.”

“Did I say something to upset you?” You smile in a way that doesn’t reach your eyes and lace your fingers in his, tugging him toward the exit.  

“No, you just say things that make me think a little too hard on things I’m not allowed to want.”

—

Avengers Headquarters, Upstate New York – 2025

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you enter his area of the containment ward, but you’re caught off-guard all the same. 

They’ve put him in a dark shirt and pants that stretches over the rippling cords of muscle you, once upon a time, could never stop staring at. Instead of a hospital bed, they’ve transferred him to a fortified metal chair with cuffs as thick as your arm holding his limbs in place. His breathing is ragged when you step into the room and he raises his head to look at you slowly, like he was moving through syrup. When his gaze falls on you, you see sparks of recognition try to come to life in his eyes. 

“It’s you.” You wait just outside of the painted lines on the floor that put him in an imaginary box, remaining just out of reach. You’d been put into the cryotube before he had, so you had no idea what had happened to him in the time between you going under and him going under. What he had become in that time without you was a mystery, and there was a real chance that they had programmed him to kill you on sight. Staying out of his reach was not only for your physical safety, but also to keep you from breaking and succumbing to the urge to touch him for the first time in decades. “I know you.” You just keep staring at him, face blank and still as a statue. Your silence makes him hesitate. “Are you–are you real?” You nod stiffly.

“I’m real.” His muscles flex as he subtly tests the strength of his restraints. You pretend not to notice. “The chair’s just a safety precaution.”

“Are we in danger?” 

“Not if you keep your mind,” you answer truthfully. Panic flashes across his face, like it was truly a possibility he might lose himself again. “I won’t let them take it from you again.” His eyes scan your body, narrowing on the bruises and scars left behind from the fight during his capture. 

“I hurt you,” he croaks. Your heart twists. That’s not the question he’s supposed to ask.

“You were doing what you needed to survive,” you correct gently, stepping over the line on the floor and into his space. Seungcheol stills as you draw nearer until you’re on one knee in front of him, close enough to feel his ragged breath. One wrong move is all it takes for him to headbutt you into the afterlife, yet you feel no shred of fear as you shakily reach for his face. He seeks your touch almost immediately, leaning into your palm with a slump of his shoulders. “You’re with me again, and that’s what matters.” He shakes his head like he thinks you’re a hallucination and you pull away your hand. 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Widows infiltrated and took down the entire Red Room. They found me in the cryotube during a raid two years ago.” Your voice falters. “I’d been asleep since 1944.” 

“You’ve been alone.” The ghost of a wry smile tugs at your mouth. 

“For the most part, though I did have the ones who found me. Three of them helped me find you in Casablanca.” Realization hits Seungcheol like a bucket of cold water. 

“The one who was bleeding, is she–”

“She’s alive. All three of them are, thanks to some well-timed bloodlust on my end that only you have the capabilities of matching,” you state dryly. It’s meant to be reassuring, but you can tell it only makes Seungcheol uneasier. “They hold no grudge against you, nor do I.”

“Maybe you should,” he murmurs. Your face hardens.

“Don’t you dare say that. Don’t you dare think I can hate the one person that understands what I am.” 

“You’re not a what; you’re a person,” he grits and your chest pangs. “You have to believe that. If you don’t, how am I supposed to believe that I’m human too?” 

“That’s not fair to either of us,” you whisper. “I can’t hold you together if I don’t know how to hold myself together first.” 

“You’re pretty damn good at doing it without trying, Arachne,” Seungcheol says softly. “You make me human, even if you don’t see yourself as one.” He holds your gaze a moment longer and lets the tension hang like thick fog, before sighing and sitting up straight. “How long do you think until I can walk around freely?”

“Depends on how well you behave,” you reply, the corner of your mouth tugging upward. “You’ll be let go as soon as the doctors say you’re psychologically sound.”

“As in, I won’t rip out the throats of everyone who breathes in my vicinity,” he deadpans and you nod. “Got it.” 

“I’ll come again in a few hours.” You stand to leave, your legs still slightly sore from the fight during his capture, but Seungcheol rasps your name with a strangled, panicked cry. 

“Wait. Please don’t go. Not yet.” You still, staring down at a man you’ve stood beside–killed beside–as he’s begging you to stay for the sake of his own sanity. “Can you stay a little longer?” 

“Seungcheol, you need rest,” you insist.

“Please. Just for a bit.” You exhale and nod. His shoulders drop in relief.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Yeah, I can stay.”

— 

SECURITY REPORT #080895 | LOCATION - [REDACTED] | TIME - 0200 HOURS

EVENT - BREACH

DESCRIPTION - ROGUE ASSET (ARACHNE)

CASUALTIES - 99

You snap after Hydra wipes Seungcheol’s mind for the eighth time. 

It’d taken him three days for him to even show some semblance of recognizing you, and five more hours of reconnaissance for him to fully remember what you were, who you were. He’d broken out of his trance with a violent thrash, collapsing against the wall with such force that it cracked. You sat on the floor with him, his face in your hands as you forced him to look at you, for what seemed like forever until he finally won over whatever Hydra put in his mind this time. By the time it was over, you were both drenched in sweat and shaking like leaves in the wind. For the first time since you’d known him, the fire in Seungcheol’s eyes was nearly gone, replaced by something broken and tired. 

It made you want to burn the world to the ground. 

He knew what you planned to do, at least some semblance of it; part of you was grateful that he didn’t offer to help you, nor did he try to stop you. You understood each other’s rage, and the only way for you to channel it was to seek vengeance against the only person you cared about. 

Logistically, there was always a period of up to twelve hours after you requested extraction from a mission, enough time for you to track the coordinates Seungcheol had given you and slip into the Winter Soldier Project’s base of operations. You beeline for the security room, dispose of the guards as easily as blinking, and lock every door in the facility before cutting the power completely. The base falls into complete darkness and you bypass turning on the emergency lights. Your eyes, enhanced by the Red Room’s serum that made your night vision akin to a cat’s, adjust immediately and you let the familiar silence of darkness wrap around you like a security blanket. A low siren indicating a security breach echoes against the concrete walls, and you stalk into the void with knives in your hands and your gun locked in its holster. 

You don’t fire a single shot that night. Every soul that you send to the underworld dies by your hands or the blades in them as proof of your rage and to feed the carnal need for blood that roared every time you remember what they did to Seungcheol. The scientists and doctors are easy enough, as are the handlers. The other test subjects that received the serum prove to be a challenge, but they aren’t trained to fight in darkness as well as you are. Their serum also does not make their eyes as strong as yours, so they sacrifice power for accuracy that never lands. In less than an hour, every Hydra agent in the facility is on the floor and your boots are slick with blood. After the last body hits the ground, you breathe in the copper-tasting air. You don’t regret it, not a single kill, and soon enough you’ve nabbed a truck and started on the road for Amsterdam. 

—

Seungcheol is wary of almost everything in this new age, but there are three things he knows for certain. One, that the food he eats for breakfast alone is miles better than whatever he was eating a century ago. Two, that cars of this era can go faster than he could even blink. Three, that you are just as much of an anchor as you were before you said goodbye in that goddamn tulip field. 

“Earth to Seungcheol, hello? Are you reading?” You say with a tilt of your head, lightly tapping his temple with your finger. It’s been a few months since you’d found him in Casablanca and everyday feels more reassuring than the last. In the soft sunlight of the Avengers compound common area, you look almost at peace, a stark contrast to how Seungcheol normally saw you. You’re a completely different person now that the Red Room isn’t breathing down your neck, and it slowly encourages him to bring his guards down as well. His stiff, awkward interactions with the other former Widows has evolved into some interesting conversations that don’t require your patient mediation. It isn’t abnormal for people to see you together like this, you with a computer or a notebook scribbling down whatever your next mission is, and the former Winter Soldier just sitting beside you, like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. 

“I don’t have a book with me, how could I be reading?” He frowns and you smile. The act alone makes his heart trip over itself. 

“It’s just an expression. Instead of reading books, you’re reading signals, like how the space people did when humans went to the moon,” you explain and his confusion deepens.

“Space people as in aliens, or…?”

“The people controlling the spaceship,” you laugh. “The ones making sure it didn’t crash and burn on national television.”

“Right. Television. That’s a thing now.” He scrunches his eyes shut and drags his metal hand down his face, a new Vibranium-reinforced appendage that you’d called in a favor for after Seungcheol began complaining that his old one was creaking. “How’d you do this alone? Adjust to an entirely different world?” You pause, your pencil hovering over the page of your notebook. 

“It was hard at first,” you admit. “But it got easier when I realized that nothing ever really changes, it just evolves. The bones of everything I knew are still there, but they just look different.” An idea lights up in Seungcheol’s mind. 

“Are you able to find information about places on that thing?” He asks, nodding at your laptop. Your face pinches like you’re fighting a laugh and he gives you a pointed look. 

“I didn’t say anything!” You protest with your hands raised in surrender. 

“You didn’t need to. I could hear you laughing at my cluelessness in your head from over here,” he shoots back with no malice. “Can you just–can you look up a restaurant downtown? Darling Diner.” You shrug and your fingers clack against the keyboard. Your eyebrows draw together and you lean closer to the screen, clicking around for an amount of time that makes Seungcheol feel embarrassed that he even asked. “It’s probably dead now, sorry for making you–”

“It’s still open,” you interrupt, surprised. “‘The original Darling Diner, serving New York since 1928.’ Is that the one?” He leans over to you and you turn the screen to face him. The exterior color is changed and the neon sign is in a different font, but the building is the exact same as the one where he and Mingyu used to go after school. 

“Holy shit. That’s the one,” Seungcheol mutters. “I can’t believe it’s still around.” 

“Did you frequent it often?” Seungcheol chuckles.

“Often? Mingyu and I were there every day of the week. All the staff knew us by name, even tried to set us up with their daughters.” An amused glint shines in your eye.

“Oh? Do tell about all the girls you’ve romanced at this diner,” you tease and Seungcheol stutters, his face suddenly hot. He swallows and the silence makes you stifle a snort, another sound that he’s never heard before but would never tire of hearing. “I’m kidding, I promise. You’ve told me all about the times you’ve third-wheeled Mingyu’s dates.”

“Yeah, that jackass always made me take a walk up and down the street when he wanted to give the girls a kiss goodnight,” he reminisces. 

“Jesus, how many girls was he kissing?”

“I lost track after the fifteenth.” He shrugs and you both burst out laughing until your stomachs hurt. When the giggles die down, Seungcheol takes a deep breath and steels his nerves. “Does it…does it say when the diner closes?” You blink and scroll around a bit before nodding.

“1:00 in the morning, every day,” you reply. “Why?”

“Do you have any dinner plans?” Seungcheol asks and you try not to look too excited. 

“I do not.”

“Would you let me take you out to dinner then? I can tell you if the quality is as good as I remember it being.” Your smile is brighter than every star combined. 

“I would love to.” 

A few hours later, you’re tucked into a well-worn leather booth scarfing down a plate of food as large as your head. The sun is giving its final bows and the diner is humming with hushed conversation amidst the soft clatter of pots and pans from the kitchen. Seungcheol has regaled you with at least six new stories about his escapades with Mingyu before they enlisted, and for a minute you let yourself imagine that this was a normal life. You were on a normal date with a normal guy (with a totally normal arm) in a normal diner on a normal night. Normal. How odd. 

“Where’d you go?” He asks as the waitress in a grease-stained apron clears your entree plates from the table. You blink back to the present and try to ignore the way Seungcheol’s arms are flexing under the sleeves of his henley shirt. You offer an apologetic smile. 

“Sorry, I’m not sure. I guess I got too caught up in the moment.” You fidget with a crumpled straw wrapper, if only to not get flustered by Seungcheol’s unwavering attention. “I like this. Being with you.” He nods almost solemnly. 

“I do too.” 

“I’m half-expecting someone to barge in and try to recapture us,” you chuckle dryly, though you’re not entirely kidding. 

“Is that why you keep glancing at the door like we’re still on the run?” Seungcheol gently questions. 

“A habit I can’t shake, unfortunately,” you sigh. “Nayeon calls it ‘the white rabbit’ theory.” 

“Like from that book about the girl who smokes with a caterpillar?” 

“Among other things, yes,” you snort. “It’s essentially a fear that whenever something feels too good, something bad comes along to ruin it. The white rabbit gets you, is what she says. I guess I’m…I’m waiting for the rabbit to come through the door.” Seungcheol is quiet as he digests what you’ve shared with him. Then, slowly as to give you time to pull away, he reaches for your hand. You let him take your fingers in his and run his thumb over your bruised knuckles, an act so delicate that you forget to breathe. The rest of the diner falls away until it’s just you and him in the dingy yellow light, holding on to a moment that isn’t as fragile as you think it is. 

“If the rabbit comes in, I’ll shoot him,” Seungcheol mumbles after a while. You choke on a surprised laugh that falters when you see the grave seriousness etched into his features. “I’m serious.” He thinks back to Amsterdam, to the suppressed panic you were trying to hide from him in that fucking tulip field, and how he let you go without so much as lifting a finger. He could have done more to protect you. He should have done more. “I’ll die before I ever let someone take you away again,” he promises and your eyes start watering unexpectedly. You swallow thickly and nod, not trusting your voice to remain steady. 

The waitress arrives with a single strawberry milkshake like a car horn on a quiet street, making both you and Seungcheol startle and swear colorfully under your breaths. She tosses two more straws onto the table and leaves without another word. You both share a look as you stifle your laughter, the moment effectively ended but not broken. 

“Damn, maybe the real rabbit was our waitress,” you joke and Seungcheol makes a noise from his throat that sounds vaguely like a chuckle. “A little cliché, isn’t it? Sharing a milkshake with two straws?” You unwrap both and stick them on either side of the glass.

“You say cliché, but I remember it as Mingyu’s special closer,” replies Seungcheol. You lean in and take a sip and he does the same, your noses nearly brushing. “Good?”

“Delicious,” you whisper. His eyes dart to the corner of your lips and his thumb wipes your mouth without thinking. You don’t stiffen, but he does halfway through the action, pulling away abruptly like he’d been caught doing something wrong.

“Sorry, you had a…something on your face.” Your eyes are too knowing and he flushes under your gaze. 

“It’s okay, I didn’t mind.” Your voice lowers and you lean forward over the glass again so close that Seungcheol can count the different flecks of color in your eyes. “Though you could also just kiss me next time that happens,” you murmur with a clever smile. “Unless that was also part of the Mingyu Special, in which case I don’t really want to–” 

“I get the point, sweetheart.” Your teasing is cut off by Seungcheol closing the distance and softly placing his lips on yours, like you would explode if he moved too suddenly. He feels you smile against the kiss, though it might’ve been because he was smiling first. You hum and pull away just enough to nudge his nose with yours, the milkshake between you forgotten. “You taste like strawberries,” he grins. 

“Is that okay?”

“More than,” he confirms. “I like kissing you.” He hesitates before speaking again. “I…I like you.” Your joy falters. 

“I’m not the easiest person to be with, Seungcheol,” you remind him uneasily. 

“I don’t need you to be easy,” he murmurs. “I just need you.” 

“And if I prove to be too much trouble?” Seungcheol shakes his head adamantly. 

“You said it yourself. I’m the one who’s made to match you. I’m asking you to let me.” You search his face but find nothing but conviction and raw determination. 

“You’re sure about this? About me?”

“If I wasn’t, you’d have never been able to break me from Hydra’s control,” he says and the tiniest part of you starts to believe him. 

“As long as you don’t let the white rabbit get me,” you caution with a poorly-hidden smile. “Now c’mon, let’s finish this and get out of here. Jihoon’s car isn’t gonna speed itself.” 

—

Casablanca – 2026

“We really should stop meeting like this,” jokes an all-too-familiar voice over your shoulder as you watch the waters of the port shine in the early afternoon sunlight. You push your sunglasses up onto the top of your head and turn to look at Seungcheol as he approaches, looking too good for someone who was just on a flight for over twelve hours. When he’s close enough, you loop your fingers until the belt loops of his pants and tug him to kiss you. You hum in contentment when his hands immediately position themselves on your hips. “Someone’s happy to see me.”

“Mmm, I know you like when I’m clingy,” you reply and he shrugs. 

“I plead the fifth. Sorry I’m late.”

“You’re right on time,” you reassure him. “They’re about to engage.” Seungcheol’s stomach turns uneasily.

“You’re sure they’re okay to take this on their own?” 

“They’ll be fine. They’ve been training together for months. It’s about time they did a mission on their own.” You grab the earpiece case from your pocket and pop one into Seungcheol’s, connecting him into the comms system as the two trainees take their places. “Ant-Man, Spiderman, confirm positions.”

“I am in a position,” replies Seokmin through crackled static. “Not sure if it’s the right one.” Seungcheol gives you a skeptical look and you wave him off. You’re starting to feel relieved that you didn’t assign them a night mission as their first job. “You don’t happen to know where my extra vial of Pym particles are, do you?”

“You won’t need any more than you usually use during training, so just be smart with how you shrink. It’s just like the training simulations,” you explain patiently. Seungcheol has begun pacing back and forth and checking the magazine of his guns. 

“Am I allowed to use web-bombs on this mission?” Hansol inquires and you pinch the bridge of your nose. “Also I’m in position. I have no idea where Seokmin is.” 

“You can use web-bombs sparingly. Be sure to call out when you’re going to use them, since you tend to get Seokmin caught in the crossfire as he’s shrinking and growing.” 

“Wait! If I go gigantic, you’ll be able to find me!” Seokmin proposes with too much enthusiasm. 

“Do not go gigantic, Ant-Man. I repeat, do not go gigantic,” Seungcheol commands. 

“I didn’t know Seungcheol was supervising us too,” mumbles Hansol a little indignantly. “Pressure’s on, I guess.”

“Wow, scary!” Seokmin adds. “The most terrifying Avengers making sure we don’t mess up. I guess I can’t be funny today.”

“No, be funny,” Hansol frowns. “It makes this more fun.”

“Your mission is to identify the contents of a shipping container. Where the fun lies in that, I’m not sure,” Seungcheol states incredulously. He presses a button on the earpiece to mute his microphone and turns to you. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just handle this? We could be in and out in under five minutes.” You shake your head and squeeze his hand. 

“The Winter Soldier and Arachne are here as backup. We don’t need to be scary on this job; we need to be mentors,” you remind him gently. “Trust me, I’m just as nervous for this mission as you are.” 

“I doubt that,” Seungcheol laments and you chuckle. Your smile drops suddenly when five different shipping containers fall over with loud metallic crashes as Seokmin’s Ant-Man suit grows to become as tall as the cranes. Swinging on his arms and throwing web-bombs like no tomorrow is Hansol, and the dockworkers are running about in a state of panic. The targeted container is nowhere in sight, and half of Seokmin’s leg is now in the water. You and Seungcheol share a look and sigh. “Well, shit.” 

“So much for subtlety,” you agree, unhurriedly pulling your batons from their sheaths on your thighs. Seungcheol dons his black mask and pulls the detachable sleeve away from his Vibranium arm. “I could use an Old Fashioned after this.”

“Rye, extra bitters,” he continues. The corner of your mouth turns down when you realize you’ve misplaced a knife on your belt, and Seungcheol is quick to hand you one of his. “Maybe I’ll give it a try today. Seems like a drinking kind of night, if we survive this.”

“This is easily survivable compared to what we’ve done in the past,” you scoff, adding the knife to your array and stretching your neck from side to side. 

“Sorry, I mean the press conference that’s gonna come our way once the press hears that Ant-Man got half his foot stuck in a crane,” corrects Seungcheol and you shrug. 

“Just another day, isn’t it?” You smile at him and he winks at you. 

“Guess so.” He cracks his human knuckles.

“Got my six?”

“You know it.”

“Great,” you grin, pressing one more kiss to his cheek. “Let’s clean up their mess.”

You are curled into a tight ball on the "bed"—that massive, reinforced platform layered with every soft textile and scrap of insulating foam salvaged from the Hail Mary. Every few minutes, a sharp, white-hot wave of pain rolls through your abdomen, a familiar monthly visitor that feels particularly cruel when you’re light-years away from a pharmacy.

Under your shirt, the jagged line of your "Rocky Scar"—the mark left behind when your Eridian friend saved your life—pulses in sympathy-like with the cramps. It’s a reminder of survival, but right now, you just feel like a mess of malfunctioning nerves and a waste of carbon.

A heavy, metallic thump-clack echoes across the floor. You don't have to look up to know it’s Rocky. His five-legged structure is as familiar to you as your own mind. Beside him, the lighter, more melodic tapping of Adrian’s claws follows.

"Question?" Rocky’s synthesizer voice rings out from the nightstand, clear and inquisitive. "Why is Human Y/N still in the insulation pile? The 'sun' has cycled twice. Teaching time is soon. Grace confused. I also confused."

You groan into your pillow, a sound that translates to the Eridians as a low-frequency distress signal. Adrian moves closer, her form rotating with concern. She reaches out a warm, stone-like limb, hovering it just inches from your back.

“Temperature is high,” Adrian’s whistles and clicks are translated by the small device clipped to her harness. “You are leaking heat. Is there a hull breach in your biology? Is human dying!? Please do not die! It would be very inconvenient and sad.”

"I'm not dying, Adrian," you wheeze out, squeezing your eyes shut as another cramp ripples through you. "It’s just... a human thing. My body is resetting. It hurts. A lot."

Ryland wanders in then, looking disheveled, holding a mug of chamomile tea the Eridians replicated. He sees the three of you huddled together and immediately softens. He knows the look in your eyes; he’s seen you power through lab accidents and alien microbes, but he knows this particular brand of misery is one that requires total surrender.

"They're worried about you," Ryland says softly, sitting on the edge of the platform and placing a hand on your shoulder. "Rocky thinks you’re melting because your core temp jumped a degree. I tried to explain human reproductive cycles to him, but he just got offended that your body 'destroys its own systems' once a month. He thinks it’s bad engineering."

“It IS bad engineering!” Rocky interjects, his claws clicking rapidly against the floor. “Why break the internal walls? Just keep the walls! If I built a ship that melted its floor every thirty days, Grace yell at me!”

"He's not wrong," you mutter, pressing your face into Ryland's thigh. "Ryland, tell them I'm okay. I just need to be a potato for about four days."

Adrian tilts her head, her eye focusing on where you are clutching your stomach. “You are in pain. Pain is for when predators bite. There are no predators in the dome. Except maybe the vacuum, but the dome is strong. If you are in pain, we must fix.”

"You can't fix it, Adrian," Ryland says, stroking your hair. "It just has to happen. Heat helps, though."

The word heat seems to trigger something in the Eridian pair. On a planet where the surface temperature could melt lead, "heat" is their specialty. They are technically biological furnaces, their carapaces radiating a steady, dry warmth that far exceeds any electric heating pad.

Rocky steps up onto the platform. The bed groans under his weight, but it’s sturdy. “I am heat, statement.” he declares with a flourish of his limbs. “I very good at being hot. I am the best heater on Erid. Adrian is also a good heater. We will insulate the problem.”

Before you can protest, Rocky moves with surprising gentleness. He doesn't crowd you; instead, he maneuvers his heavy, five-sided body so that he is braced against your back, his warm carapace pressing firmly against your spine. The heat is immediate and intense, sinking through your shirt and into your aching muscles. It’s a dry, deep warmth that seems to vibrate.

Adrian doesn't want to be left out. She climbs onto the other side, tucking her limbs in and resting her front-side near your abdomen, being careful not to put her full weight on you. She feels like a living stone warmed by a desert sun.

Ryland watches them with a look of pure, unadulterated affection, full of care. "I think you've been secured by the Eridian Heating Company," he jokes. He crawls into the middle of the pile, slotting himself behind Rocky so he can still reach over and hold your hand.

"This is... actually amazing," you whisper. The crushing weight of the Eridians combined with their radiating heat acts like a full-body pressure therapy. The sharp stabs in your stomach begin to dull into a heavy, manageable ache.

Then, the sound starts.

It begins as a low-frequency hum, so deep you feel it in your teeth before you hear it. It’s a rhythmic, pulsing vibration coming from both Rocky and Adrian. It isn't the musical whistling of their speech; it’s more primal, a steady thrum-thrum-thrum that echoes the beat of your own heart.

"Are they... purring?" you ask, your eyes fluttering shut as the tension finally drains from your shoulders.

"Yeah," Ryland whispers, his voice thick with sleepiness. "Rocky told me about this once. When they have 'pebbles'—their young—they communal-sleep. They produce a resonance in their carapaces. It’s meant to stabilize the heart rates of the young and keep them calm while they grow. It’s a biological lullaby."

“You are small,” Rocky’s translator chirps, though his voice is lower now, hushed. “You are un-harmonic. You are pebble today. We vibrate buzz pain away. Sleep now, statement. Grace, sleep. You are noisy when worry.”

Ryland chuckles, his fingers interlacing with yours. "Copy that, Rock'. Sleeping now."

The dome is silent save for that incredible, ancient purring. It’s a sound that has existed on Erid for millions of years, a song of protection and kinship. Nestled between the two aliens and the man who traveled across the stars with you, the pain in your body feels insignificant.

You feel the scar on your side—the one that matches the one on Ryland's arm. It feels warm, almost glowing against the heat of Rocky's shell. You aren't just a human in a dome anymore; you are part of their kin, a family that doesn't care about biology or species, only about the fact that one of their own is hurting.

The lavender and apricot light of the artificial sunset fades into a deep, restful indigo. As the Eridian purring synchronizes, your breathing slows. Ryland’s head drops onto your shoulder, his breath hitching in a soft, rhythmic snore. Adrian shifts her weight, her claws making a tiny, comforting tink against the bed frame.

The last thing you feel before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep is the overwhelming sensation of being loved—not just by a man, but by a planet. You are tucked into the safest place in the universe: a cuddle pile at the edge of the galaxy, guarded by two biological furnaces who think you’re a very poorly engineered, but very dear, friend.

Outside, the Eridian winds howl and bash against the glass, but inside, there is only the warmth, the purring, and the steady, unbreakable bond of home.

In fact, your whole body felt that heaviness. Completely dead weight and useless. The most movement you could manage was a twitch of your fingers. Was this what sleep paralysis felt like? You’d never experienced it before but you figured it probably felt an awful lot like this.

When you swallowed, your throat ached- dry and sore- thanks to whatever was shoved down it. 

You managed a whimper, barely audible around the thing in your mouth, and tried to pull your arms up to remove it. They didn’t respond like they were supposed to but you did manage to lift your hand this time. Progress.

Behind the seal of your eyelids, an alternating flashing light of blue and red seared your retinas and a low thrum whirred around you.

You were laying down in a bed of sorts, that much you did know, you could feel the softness of a mattress against your back, but you seemed to be covered in a plastic sheet from your head to your toes.

What was happening?

The loud sound of a zipper followed and you were blasted by the frigid air of a room and bright, bright lights. Squeezing your eyes shut, you wiggled your body some more. You were starting to regain some feeling.

“Body movement detected. What is two plus two?”

A woman’s voice? Except it sounded wrong, too perfect. A computer?

You hummed behind the thing in your mouth.

“Incorrect. What is two plus two?”

You ignored the voice. A whir sounded, followed by a tug on the thing in your throat. The slow drag of the silicone against your esophagus had you gagging, choking around the intrusion. When it fell free, you were racked with violent coughs. For the first time in what felt like ages, you willed your lungs to work on their own without the help of a machine. Chest heavy, choking and still regaining the feeling in your body, you really tried not to spiral. What had happened? Where were you? Who were you?

Your eyes slowly, painfully, began adjusting to the fluorescent lights enough to lift your heavy eyelids.

Shapes were a blur, and all you saw for several seconds was white. After a couple of blinks, a dark blob took form above your head, followed by a web of lines. Tile? A ceiling? It must’ve been. 

“Eye movement detected. What is two plus two?”

Blinking your eyes again, you tried to clear them of the layer of film that coated the surface while a soft tune met your ears. It sort of sounded like a hum, a song maybe but there were no words and no distinct rhythm to it. Some clicking followed. Ever so gradually, your vision cleared.

You could see that what you’d thought was the oddly patterned tile of a ceiling was actually some kind of barrier above you. Clear like glass but held together with some sort of darker adhesive that created a geometric hodgepodge of triangles. Beyond the clear barrier, a normal looking white wall could be seen, along with the source of the annoyingly bright lights. You weren’t focused on the lights or walls for long. 

On the other side of the glass right above where your chest lay, was a pile of… rocks?

Rough in texture, a mixture of browns with teal green spots and some leathery bands. It was unlike any pile of rocks you’d ever seen. But when the rock moved, tilting this way and that, tapping part of itself against the clear barrier in three distinct taps with something that looked an awful lot like a finger, you realized that the pile of rocks was alive.

You tried to scream; tried to back away. Unfortunately, your raw and scratchy throat was barely able to make a squeak and your body remained prone.

The creature stood from where it had apparently been sitting down, revealing 5 rocky appendages attached to a larger rocky body. A stream of musical sounds erupted from it- somewhat whale like and mixed with trills like a bird. It was dancing around, spinning in circles above you and waving its arms in the air. It didn’t have a face, not one that you could see anyway, so you weren’t sure what emotion it was conveying.

You’d been abducted by aliens?! Oh, God… had you been probed? Experimented on? You couldn’t remember. Hopefully you were unconscious for all of it if you were. In fact, you couldn’t remember much of anything- just your name and basic facts about yourself.

Your tormentor seemed to be talking to you; gesturing to you, to itself, to the room. Your chest heaved in fear. What was it going to do to you? Were more of its kind going to rush in and start conducting ruthless experiments? You could barely move, unable to defend yourself or run away. You would be completely at their mercy.

You pleaded for your body to move, barely able to find the strength in your arms to press against the mattress and push your body up. Doing so, you were able to get a good look at yourself. Tubes were everywhere. In you, on you- electrodes covered your major muscle groups and you were wearing some kind of skin colored, translucent plastic body suit.

What?!

The alien moved some more, walking back a step so you could see it better. It held up a hand (?) and held up one finger (?), repeating a two-noted sound. You shook your head and frantically moved your heavy head around to look for an escape route.

“I don’ kn’w wh’ y’re sayin’,” you coughed, your throat painfully dry and scratchy. Your words were barely words. “Wh’r ‘m I? G’ ‘way fr’m me.” You tried to look over the side of the bed to see how far of a fall it would be if you tried to roll off. You sort of felt drunk… or high… maybe both.

The rock seemed to get a little frantic, again holding up a finger and repeating the notes with more urgency this time. Was it telling you to wait? Well, you weren’t about to wait for some alien scientists to come in and cut you open.

Your head was pounding as you moved to sit up properly, vision swimming as blood rushed from your head for the first time in what felt like years. It didn’t help when your forehead knocked against the clear barrier that separated you from the rock with a loud thunk.

The alien made a sound of alarm and pawed at the glass next to your head like it was worried. You groaned and pressed a wavering hand to the clear surface to avoid hitting your head again as you tried to get your legs to respond. They stayed limp and useless.

“C’mon,” you cried, pounding at your thighs with a fist. You felt like you were running out of time. If the alien was trying to get you to stay, that meant it probably notified the others that you were up and trying to flee. It did make you feel a little better that, for whatever reason, the creature stayed on its side of the barrier and didn’t venture into yours.

No time to ponder! Blinking rapidly to get rid of the stars that danced in your vision you moved to grasp your calves and physically lift them over the side of the bed but pounding footsteps rang through the room and you knew it was too late.

Tears sprang to your eyes as you looked in the direction of the sound, waiting for a hoard of aliens to charge at you to tie you back onto the bed. Instead, a single figure ran into the room from the depths of whatever facility you were in. And it was a man.

A normal looking, human man.

You instantly felt like you recognized him but couldn’t remember how or where. He was tall, wearing a tight t-shirt and what looked like the bottom half of a jumpsuit with the arms tied around his hips. Glasses sat over the bridge of his nose and his hair was damp and wild, like he’d just gotten out of a shower and ran a towel through it. If you weren’t terrified for your life, you would’ve ogled at him.

“You’re awake!” He smiled, a cheesy excited grin that had you momentarily forgetting why you were even scared of him in the first place. He approached your bedside in quick strides and gripped the edge. “I thought you were brain dead in there and the system was malfunctioning thinking you were still alive. I would’ve tried to wake you up earlier but I didn’t want to risk any complications of pulling you out of your coma prematurely so I just held out hope that you were ok in there and-” A disbelieving laugh. “-you were!”

He seemed so happy to see you, this man you maybe knew but didn’t remember. And… a coma? You’d been in a coma? Were you sick or something? Recovering from some horrible injury?

The guy must’ve noticed your racing mind because he nodded like he could read your thoughts. “It’s a lot in the beginning, but I promise your memories will come back with time. I’ll explain everything but I promise you’re safe here… er- I won’t hurt you at least. If that’s what you’re worried about. We can discuss our situation later but for now you need to take it slow and eat something.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, you did feel hungry. And tired. And gross. He seemed trustworthy enough so maybe it would do you well to listen to his advice. You calmed just the tiniest bit and he seemed to notice that too because he suddenly rushed forward to fold you into a hug.

If your legs weren’t useless piles of mush, you would’ve kicked him. But when you felt him sigh, shaky and relieved, you stopped yourself from shoving him away. The way he held you, gripped at the back of your plastic bodysuit and tucked his face against your dewey shoulder, had you wondering how horribly he needed this hug. From how tightly he was doing so, it was probably a lot.

You let him sit there for a while, let him breathe and feel the warmth of your skin under the plastic while you blinked away his hair that poked at your eye. You felt all sorts of awkward but let the stranger do his thing. Wondering how long this hug would last if you didn’t put an end to it yourself, motion caught the corner of your eye.

The alien- you’d completely forgotten about it. Maybe it was a weird trick of your imagination after you’d been asleep for so long and the alien wasn’t real. It was probably some ceiling fan you’d mistaken for a- nope. It was still there. The rock alien, standing close by and, you supposed, watching this long, intimate hug with interest.

Fear kicking back in, you made a sound that sort of resembled a yelp and gripped at the man’s t-shirt. “There’s n’ alien-” you fell into a coughing fit, feeling as the man finally released you to press a comforting hand to your spine. He asked for water- asked a cluster of robot arms that you hadn’t even noticed in your panic, and a pouch was pressed into your palms.

He didn’t seem near as worried as he should be, looking perfectly at ease in the presence of the creature. While he helped you open the pouch and sip water through the straw, he scowled at the alien.

“I told him not to put his tunnels above your bed like a creep but he didn’t want to hear it- he said I wasn’t watching you well enough so he was going to take over. He’s been pretty concerned about you.”

You couldn’t decide what part of his sentence you wanted to mull over.

The man waved his hand at the alien who chirped something and balled one of its claws into a fist. “Sorry, I left the laptop in the control room. Don’t know what you’re saying.”

The alien spun in a circle and sat down again with a thump, looking agitated at the spectacled man’s words, a stream of chords spilling from him. Some that sounded much harsher than others. Your head was truly spinning now.

“I tried to explain what medical comas are but I don’t think he really understands so he’s been pretty diligent at keeping an eye on you when we’re not busy. Rocky’s been watching you sleep to make sure you’re safe. It’s an Eridian thing, I’ll explain it later. He’s been very excited to meet you, by the way- has been ever since he realized there was another human here besides me. He’s interested to see how other humans compare.”

Eridian? Watching you… while you were unconscious? This man talked about this alien, Rocky apparently, like they were best friends. They bickered like best friends. Or an old married couple. You felt like you were going to puke.

“Enough about that, let me go get you some actual clothes. Can you move your legs?”

Right. You were sort of naked. “I-”

“Here, let me help.” The blonde tucked an arm under your knees and helped turn your body so your legs dangled off the edge. Your grip stayed steadfast on his shoulder. When he moved away from you, you didn’t let him go. He paused to look at you in surprise.

“Don’t leave me with…” You didn’t say his name, but you glanced at the thing in the glass tube.

“Oh-” The man blew out a laugh, “Rocky? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He might run your toes over but other than that, he’s harmless. Don’t try to have a private conversation around him though, because he can and will eavesdrop. Give me two seconds, be right back!” 

You had no choice but to let go of his shirt, watching helplessly as he hurried out, but not before turning over his shoulder to yell out, “My name’s Ryland by the way! If you don’t already remember!”

You didn’t.

As the sound of his footsteps faded, you warily turned to look at ‘Rocky’ who’d scooted closer to you again, perching right next to your head. He let out a sound, a coo, and rested a little claw against the barrier. 

Tap tap tap. Then a thumbs down.

You had to give it to the guy, he was kind of cute now that you looked at him with a little less fear. Still cautious but… a little less guarded. And the thumbs down was kind of funny.

Rocky perked up and swayed back and forth with a chirp of definite happiness when you hesitantly gave him three taps back.

Grace and Rocky both relax when the former finally settles in the captain’s seat, getting ready to return to Adrian’s orbit before its gravity claims the Hail Mary. Grace lets go of the gear shift when they finally make it out of the planet’s atmosphere, and all the blaring alarms suddenly stop. He holds his breath, waiting for something to go wrong as he looks around and then back at Rocky.

“Did we do it?” he blurts out.

A shadow zips through space, fast enough that Grace barely registers it at first. He only realizes that it was something when he hears Rocky’s anxious chitters and—

“Blip-E detected.”

“Grace. Grace,” Rocky tries to get his attention before the Mary’s system warning could sink in. “Grace Rocky not alone.”

Before he could respond, the ship shakes violently, alarms blaring once more as they get pulled back into Adrian.

“Why ship moving, question???” 

“THERE’S A HOLE IN IT!”

The astrophage, their fuel, is going to Adrian because of course it is, and with the two bad fuel tanks they eject, the force of the jettison sends them flying back, spinning way too fast. Grace feels as though he’s being squeezed by an invisible force, barely able to process what was going on, let alone move. The ship rattles him and Rocky in every direction but unlike Rocky, he doesn’t have Eridian physiology or a xenonite ball between him and the mismatched panels of the Hail Mary.

He’s pressed up against the window on the side of the cockpit. His vision has always been bad, but there’s no mistaking the shadow seemingly floating outside the ship. With each violent spin, the shadow inches closer. Another unexpected turn of the ship forces him away from the window. Rocky is trying and failing to stabilize himself within his ball.

The lever to activate the centrifugal gravity system is right there, he just needs to… get closer…

BANG.

The ship stops spinning abruptly—his mind registering within the split-second it happens that that shouldn’t be possible—but the force of it leads to Grace hitting his head against the control panel. Rocky’s terrified chitters get louder despite his own condition not being any better. Grace is seeing double of everything, the darkness creeping in from his peripherals. The last thing he feels before it all fades to black is the familiar lightness of zero gravity, while Rocky’s translator echoes glitching words into the cockpit.

“Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger. Stranger—”

──────────────────

It’s cold, but his skin is sticky with sweat. His limbs feel like jell-o, just like the day he woke up on the ship.

The ship. 

He’s on the ship. His name is Ryland Grace. He’s a middle school teacher. He has a doctorate in molecular biology. He’s a crew member of the Hail Mary. His crewmates are dead. Rocky is— Rocky. 

Where is he?

“Eye movement detected. Good morning, Dr. Grace.”

He shoots up, groaning as the pain of getting up too fast catches up to him a few seconds later. His head is pounding.

Someone is by his side in an instant. “Woah, woah, woah, take it easy.”

“No, no, I need to get to Rocky— wait.”

The scream that escapes his mouth is ear-piercing (which is not the first time it’s happened since this whole journey started, embarrassingly enough), and he’s suddenly flailing backwards in an attempt to get away from the stranger on the ship that was only supposed to have him and Rocky on board. He haphazardly throws storage boxes and medical apparatuses to block the stranger from getting closer. They… look shockingly human, and wearing an odd kind of—

“Is that spandex?” he exclaims, his fear ebbing slightly to make way for sheer confusion.

“What?” the stranger’s face contorts into an expression not unlike his own, and they look down at their suit where Grace was looking. It’s blue, paired with a red cape. A red-and-yellow “S” is embossed on their chest. “Oh! No, no, it’s not spandex. At least I don’t think it is?”

A moment passes. His breathing picks up.

“WHAT IS GOING ON? WHO ARE YOU?’ he screams again as the panic swells up in his chest. 

The stranger puts their hands up and backs away, their actions so human that Grace is fully inclined to believe them to be one if it weren’t for the fact that they somehow managed to get onto the Hail Mary.

“I’m from Earth!” they cry out. 

“THEN HOW ARE YOU HERE?” Grace cries out even louder.

“I… flew?”

That stops him in his tracks, a glimmer of hope quelling his panic momentarily. “You have a ship?”

“Uhh...” The stranger’s shoulders fall, crossing their arms sheepishly. Were they embarrassed? “No…”

“WHAT?”

“Please calm down! I’m not trying to hurt you! I want to help!” they try helplessly to convince him. Their words seem to work this time, and he finally slumps against the wall, still breathing heavily in an attempt to level his heart rate. They speak again, “I saw your ship and your friend let me in. I couldn’t understand what he was saying but he led me to you.”

“That’s Rocky! Is he okay? Is he alive?” 

“He’s in bad shape but I carried him back to his, um… actually, I’m not sure what it is. His ball? But he’s alive.”

“Thank god.” He lets out a big sigh of relief, running his hands through his hair. He looks back up at them, rubbing his eyes. He’s still wary of this person, but what choice does he have? He’s never been much of a fighter. The first and last brawl he ever got into was in sixth grade, and he got his butt severely beat. All he can do now is check on his friend and hope that this stranger was telling the truth. “Where is he?”

The stranger visibly relaxes at Grace’s acquiescence. “He’s just in the other room. Do you need help?”

“No—” Grace tries to get up on his own, groaning when his arms don’t cooperate. “Yes. Please.”

They offer him a small smile as they make their way around the blockade of stuff he threw between them, taking his uninjured, outstretched arm and swiftly lifting him to his feet. He lets out a soft yelp of surprise, not expecting them to do it so easily. “You’re, uh… pretty strong.”

“It’s been said before,” they reply awkwardly.

The two of them follow the trail of liquid mercury burning into the ship’s floor. Rocky’s blood. Dread weighs Grace down with every step.

There, at the end of the corridor, is his friend, in bad shape like what the stranger said. More so. The tough, rocky exterior looks like it’s been burned, exposing a silvery interior that, despite being a completely different species, Grace knows is painful. His friend lets out a few weak chitters. Seeing him in this state is like a punch to Grace’s gut.

No, he thinks. It’s worse. 

The wound on his arm stings underneath its bandages, but Grace looks down at it with unimaginable gratitude. The scar it would leave will forever be a reminder of what Rocky had done for him. 

“I’ll watch you sleep, pal…” he tries to comfort Rocky, though his own voice trembles at the weight of the possibility put before him. That his friend might die after saving him. He takes another deep breath. “But, uh, you gotta wake up.” 

The memory of Rocky’s “great words of encouragement” resurfaces in his mind. He gives Rocky’s ball a few taps, hoping that maybe he’ll hear it repeated to him. He doesn’t.

Deflated, he leans against the ball, facing the stranger this time and wiping the tears on his cheeks.

“He let you in?”

“He did,” they answer.

“Why?”

“Your ship was spinning too fast. I stopped it.”

The implications of such a statement take him a moment to calculate in his head. He turns his head to look at them better. “What? With your bare hands?”

“Yes.”

“And you said you’re from Earth?”

The stranger winces. “That’s… only partly true.”

“How are you only partly from Earth?” Grace presses, too tired and too sad to even be afraid anymore. 

They sigh, already knowing how weird they sound. “I’m not human, but I was raised on Earth by a human couple.”

“I’m not even… I’m not even gonna get into that right now,” he groans, closing his eyes again. “Just… don’t lay eggs in me. Or eat me. I just want to save my friend and solve this… fudging… astrophage thing.”

The stranger chews on their lip for a while, debating whether or not to keep going. They settle for a simple question.

“What’s your name?”

Grace opens his eyes again, the question sitting deep in his chest in a way that’s not entirely comfortable. It reminds him of when he first awoke from his coma: weak, confused, scared. Not able to remember anything about himself. He takes a good look at them. In the past ten minutes they’ve known each other, it’s only now that he takes them all in. Apart from the ridiculous suit, they do look human. They sound human. Beyond that, they seem like a nice person, if he could look past the fact that they somehow flew to Adrian with no ship, and stopped Mary from spinning out of control with only brute strength.

But they did seem like a nice person. Far be it from him to deny the company of another human— almost-sorta-kinda human, at least.

“My name is Ryland. Uh, Grace. Ryland Grace. Grace is fine. You?”

They tell him their name, Kent, and it’s one he recognizes as being an Earth name. First name-last name and all. He can’t help the breathless, tired laugh that escapes him when he hears it. 

“What? Why are you laughing?” the stranger asks, their smile mirroring Grace’s.

“I just… sorry, I don’t know what I was expecting. Something like, Bleep-Blorp, I guess. I don’t know, some sounds I can’t pronounce,” he sighs. “Not… that.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” they reply, mildly amused. He doesn’t speak again. Silence engulfs the room. Grace's eyes are still red with tears. The stranger makes no attempt to start another conversation, or even move about the ship. They just keep him company.

A beat.

Grace sucks in a breath. “What do you know about the Petrova line?”

It was just another day.

You were in the lab, suited up, testing materials for space applications. As an aerospace engineer specializing in energy and fuel systems, your work should have felt groundbreaking. It didn’t.

You carefully placed thin samples of aerogel into a vacuum chamber, monitoring their thermal response under cryogenic conditions. Liquid nitrogen cycled through the system, pushing the material to extremes while sensors tracked heat transfer and structural stability. 

On paper, it was fascinating work. In reality, you hated your job.

You have a doctorate in aerospace engineering from a prestigious university. You specialize in energy systems, making you one of the few women in your field. You have connected with impressive names in the aerospace community. NASA practically waved you a job offer fresh out of undergrad. You had spent more hours in research than you had sleeping. The pay was good. Good enough to indulge in your hobbies, but none of it mattered. You were the only woman on your team, constantly undermined, constantly handed the worst tasks, and you were the youngest person in the building by a long shot.

No one took you seriously.

You had taken this job believing you would do something meaningful with your life. Instead, you felt like you were slowly wasting away. You’re ready to go home, heat up leftovers, and cuddle with your cat, Atom. It was 5:00 PM. You were quick to clean up your work space and remove your personal protective equipment.

You packed your bag, ready to leave, when a woman approached you. She was elegant. She is dressed in black, contrasting from her beautiful, red hair.

“Good evening, Doctor,” she said with a soft smile.

Doctor. You hadn’t been addressed like that in a long time.

“My name is Eva Stratt. I’m part of the Petrova Task Force.”

“Hello, Eva,” you replied cautiously. “If you’re looking for the chief engineer or my supervisor, they just left.”

You reached for your keys, but something about her steady gaze made you hesitate.

“I’m actually here for you,” she said, setting a thick stack of papers on the table. It had to have been at least a stack of one hundred pages. You skim over the title and immediately, your eyes widen.

"Bioenergetic Systems for High-Efficiency Energy and Fuel Storage in Spacecraft Propulsion."

Your name sat neatly beneath the title. It was your research thesis that you were profoundly proud of until it became your stack of regrets. It investigated bioinspired energy storage sources that could outperform traditional chemical storage systems used in spacecraft today. It was something you believed in.

You hadn’t thought about that paper in years. Mostly because no one else had believed in it. Not after everything that happened. Not after the fallout with a certain scientist. A scientist that makes your blood boil and heart hurt at the thought of him. .

“I haven’t looked at that in years,” you said carefully. “And I’m not sure if you’re aware, but… it didn’t exactly win awards. If anything, I was ridiculed because of my association with—”

You cut yourself off. Thinking about him still made your chest tighten, anger simmering just beneath the surface.

Eva didn’t react.

“Don’t worry,” she said calmly. “I’m not here to discuss what happened then. I’m here to offer you a new position.”

You let out a small, humorless laugh. New Position? Give up your dream role for some random lady that’s digging up the past. You were blessed to even land this role despite your reputation.

“Unless you can pay me double what I make now or somehow let me save the world from its inevitable doom… I’m going to have to decline.”

Eva held your gaze.

“What if I told you,” she said carefully, “that you could do exactly that?”

You felt something change in your heart for the first time in a long time. You felt hope.

“Okay, so when do I start, and can someone watch my cat?”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

The lab Eva led you into was nothing like yours.

It was cleaner, quieter. Not to mention the tighter security. Every surface gleamed like it had been scrubbed of mistakes. You feel giddy, thinking about all of the new equipment you get to work with.

You stepped inside anyway, and then you saw him.

Ryland Grace stood on the other side of the room, hunched over a workstation, mumbling to himself as he pipettes black matter into petri dishes. He’s focused, unaware of you or Stratt entering the lab. He looked the same. Maybe a little more tired. A little more worn down. Unfortunately, still very handsome.

Your stomach dropped.

No.

You turned immediately, hand already reaching for the door.

“Absolutely not.”

“Doctor—” Eva started.

“No,” you snapped, sharper than you realized. “You didn’t tell me he was here.”

At the sound of your voice, Ryland froze. He recognizes your voice immediately. The power it can command in a room. Slowly, he turned around. For a moment, neither of you spoke.

His eyes widened, like he wasn’t entirely sure you were real.

“...You?” he said quietly.

There it was the same hesitation that had driven you insane years ago.

You let out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Me.”

You moved to leave again, but Eva stepped slightly into your path to prevent you from leaving.

“We need both of you,” she said calmly.

“I don’t need him,” you shot back.

Ryland flinched. Of course he did.

Eva didn’t react. “This project involves a form of extraterrestrial microorganism.”

There it goes. Your interest is piqued. Something groundbreaking, meaningful that can prove you can make a positive impact on this world.

“You specialize in bioenergetic systems,” she continued. “He specializes in the organism itself. Separately, you are useful. Together, you are essential.”

You clenched your jaw. “Can you find someone else?”

“There is no one else.”

Silence stretched between the three of you. Ryland is bouncing in his chair, the anxiety obviously consuming him. 

Behind Eva, Ryland shifted awkwardly, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get there. Typical.

“I thought academia chewed you up and spit you out.,” you muttered, not looking at him.

“It did,” he said, voice small. “I just… kept getting spit back.”

You closed your eyes for a second, irritation flaring.

God, he was still the same. Still self-deprecating. Still unsure. Still—

“I read your paper again,” he added suddenly.

“What?”

“The bioenergetics one,” he said, taking a hesitant step closer. “It was… it was really good. Actually brilliant. I should’ve said that back then.”

The memory hit whether you wanted it to or not. The conference. The room was full of people. Grace, laughing nervously, deflecting, making a joke at the wrong time. You remember. He called someone a waste of carbon. It was true, but your credibility depended on Grace maintaining professionalism. You devoted your life to this research, but you did what any good person would do. You stayed by his side because he wasn’t just your colleague but he was also your friend. Someone who you cared for deeply. Standing beside him as the room turned on both of you.

Your work was dismissed. Your credibility dragged down with his.

Eva didn’t seem to pay too much attention to the tension in the room. If anything, it entertained her.

“The astrophage can store and release energy at efficiencies we do not fully understand,” she said, cutting cleanly through the moment. “Potentially enough to solve a global energy crisis. Or end us, if we fail to understand it.”

You didn’t respond, but you also didn’t leave.

“Okay, I’m staying. Only because I want to save the world.”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

Despite the large size of the lab, you feel very suffocated. It might be because of Ryland’s hovering. For every step you take away from him, he takes two steps closer to you.

“Do you always stand that close,” you mutter, not looking at him, “or is this a special occasion?”

He immediately takes a step back. “Right. Personal space. I remember that. I respect that. Big fan of space, actually professionally and… socially… and actual space is cool…”

You glance at him, unimpressed and a little annoyed. “Good. Stay in it.” You wave your hand at him to move just a bit more. He awkwardly shifts to the side, still watching you work.

“…You look the same,” he blurts. 

Slowly, you turn your head. “What?”

“I panicked,” he admits. “When I look at you, my brain just—” he makes a vague exploding motion with his hands. “—explodes.”

“Hmm… Okay....”

You turn back to the screen, typing away at your findings.

He winces. “Okay, deserved.”

Silence settles for a moment, broken only by the faint hum of equipment.

“So,” he says cautiously, “biomatter that can survive vacuum and extreme radiation. That’s… new since I last saw you.”

“Yeah,” you reply flatly. “Turns out when your reputation gets dragged through the mud, you either quit academia or get better.”

Another stab to Ryland. 

“Right. Still deserved.”

You pull up a thermal output graph, tapping the screen. “Astrophage stores energy at absurd densities. Way beyond anything we’ve modeled. The question is how it regulates release without destabilizing or you know kaboom” You make an explosion using your hands, earning a small smile from Ryland.

Ryland leans in again, but slower, like approaching a wild animal. He’s afraid that in any second, you might take a bite at him.

“It migrates toward radiation,” he says, slipping into science mode. “Like it’s feeding, but it also—uh—self-regulates temperature somehow. I think.” 

“Interesting… because if this thing is even half as efficient as it looks, we’re either looking at the greatest energy breakthrough in history… or something that cooks the planet.” You say, scrolling through the graph. You’re honestly in awe, working with Ryland again. He’s smart, but his issue is he just doesn’t believe himself.

“Optimistic as always,” he mumbles.

“Realistic,” you correct. “Someone has to be.”

He glances at you, hesitant. “You used to believe in things more.”

You stop typing. Slowly, you turn to face him fully now.

“I used to believe in you,” you say. If Ryland listened closely, he would be able to hear the underlying tone of sadness underneath your sharpness. 

He goes still and scratches the back of his head.

“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s… kind of the problem.”

You hold his gaze for a second longer than you should. Then you break it, turning back to the screen. You used to believe in Ryland. Honestly, a part of you still does, but you can’t give him that satisfaction yet. There is something so brilliant about Ryland, you just wish he could see it sometimes. The fact that he doesn’t makes you more annoyed than anything else.  

“Alright,” you say briskly. “If you’re done spiraling, explain this to me.”

You point to another graph. “Why doesn’t it overload?”

He blinks, thrown off by the sudden shift. “Oh—uh—okay, yeah. Good question. We think it converts energy into some kind of—like—temporary mass storage? Or… not mass. Something else. I don’t know yet.”

You stare at him.

“You don’t know,” you state.

“Not in a satisfying, publishable way, no,” he says. “In a ‘I stayed up for 36 hours and this is my best guess’ way? Yes.”

You sigh. “Right.”

“Hey,” he says, a little defensive now, “I’m working with alien space microbes, not a lab manual.”

Your anger starts to bubble, and you can't find a way to contain it. See this is why you were concerned about working with him again.

“Ryland, you know what your problem has always been?,” you shoot back. “You don’t believe in yourself. You have terrible imposter syndrome, and it makes it so hard for people to believe in you when you can’t even believe in yourself.”

You can't believe Strava thinks you two can actually be productive. You can't even listen to Ryland breathe without being a little pissed off. How are you two supposed to get any work done?

“We could have this figured out sooner if you actually took yourself seriously.”

Ryland pauses. He knows you’re right. He has nothing to defend himself over. Then a small, reluctant smile tugs at his mouth.

“…You’re still really mean,” he says nervously.

You feel a tinge of guilt. Maybe you have been too hard on Ryland, but you have to. You have to guard yourself from disappointment. 

“…Not without reason,” you say more quietly, eyes dropping back to the screen. “And not… intentionally.”

He studies you for a moment, like he’s trying to decide whether to push your buttons or let it go.

“When have you ever done anything unintentionally?” he asks.

You huff out a small breath. “Please. I’m extremely intentional.”

You sigh, dropping your head in your hands.

“God, you’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice, “you’re still sitting here.”

You smirked despite yourself. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m here for the alien space bacteria.”

You clear your throat, leaning back in your chair. “You’re lucky the world might be ending,” you add. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be within a ten-mile radius of you.”

Ryland raises his eyebrows, a bit amused. “Wow,” he says. “That’s sweet.”

You roll your eyes, but your lips twitch into a smile. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Too late,” he replies, a little too quickly. Then, softer, “I think I missed this.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Miss what? Me insulting you?”

“…Yeah,” he says, meeting your eyes. “A little.”

“Grace, that’s really weird.”

“I.. I know.”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

“So why do you hate Dr. Grace so much?” Carl asks from his booth while you hover over the microscope, carefully adjusting the focus to look at your little astrophage babies.

The Astrophage glows faintly under the lens. You smile to yourself, imagining they’re all saying Hi Mama. You’ve spent hours stabilizing this batch, coaxing them into reproduction like they’re something delicate instead of potentially world-ending. 

“Okay, Atom… don’t embarrass me,” you murmur, sliding the petri dish back with careful hands.

Carl watches you, amused. “You named it.”

“I name all of them,” you reply, matter-of-fact. “I am their mother, and it keeps me from going crazy in here.”

Carl doesn’t really understand what you mean, and instead just stares at you in confusion.

“I don’t hate him,” you say finally, leaning back against the counter. “I don’t hate anyone.”

Carl raises an eyebrow but doesn’t interrupt.

“Dr. Grace and I go back,” you continue. “Way back.”

You cross your arms, staring at nothing in particular as old memories try to organize themselves into something coherent. Honestly, the more you think about it, the more you’ve realized that you forgot really the main point of why you’re so angry at Ryland. Sure, you have tons of small reasons, but you can’t seem to remember the big why

“We were both working on our PhDs at the same time at the same university. Same building, just a couple of floors apart. Same conferences. Same rooms where everyone was trying to prove they were the smartest person alive.” You huff a quiet laugh.

You push yourself off the counter, pacing slowly.

“I believed in him,” you admit. “Even when his research sounded insane. ‘Life without water’? Most people wrote it off immediately. But he didn’t. He stood by it. He was willing to die on that hill.” You stop, softer now. “And I admired that. A lot.”

You glance back at Carl.

“Especially because I didn’t have that kind of confidence. I was the youngest doctoral candidate in the program. Every room I walked into, I had to prove I deserved to be there.” You shrug slightly. “And then there was him… just existing in his own lane. He fought for what he believed in.”

Carl nods slowly. “So what changed?”

You hesitate because that’s the part that never comes out clean. You’ve been clouded by so much anger in the past that this part gets a little bit fuzzy.

“That conference,” you say finally. “He… said something. To the wrong people. Suddenly, everything tied to him—his work, his collaborators—became a joke. He was really hell bent on his ideas and it got to the point where he was willing to put his reputation on the line.”

Your jaw tightens slightly. “I was one of those collaborators.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Ouch.”

You run a hand through your hair, exhaling.

“I know I come off as bitter. Or like a bitch,” you add bluntly. “But it’s not about hating him. It’s about protecting myself.”

You look back at the incubator, watching the faint glow inside.

“I can’t let Grace make a fool out of me again.”

Carl leans back in his chair, considering that. “So you’re just… petty?”

You shoot him a look. “Wow, Carl. You really woke up and chose violence today.”

You hold your hands up in defense. “Scientists don’t get a lot,” you say after a moment. “Our work is everything. Our reputation is everything. Without that, we’re just… people who spent too many years in school with nothing to show for it.”

You wait a moment, then add more quietly. “And I almost became that. Just some idiot with too much knowledge and nothing to do with it.”

“I mean, look at him,” you continue, trying to lighten your tone again. “He got pushed out so far he ended up teaching middle school science.”

Carl chuckles, but you immediately point at him and shake your head firmly.

“Hey—don’t laugh. That was actually… good for him.”

Carl blinks. “What?”

You sigh.

“Any other egotistical academic would’ve spent years trying to claw their way back into the spotlight. But Ryland…” you shake your head slightly, a small, reluctant smile tugging at your mouth. “He stopped. He found something he actually cared about.”

Carl studies you more closely now. It’s apparent you’ve grown soft in the conversation. Yes, you were driven by anger, but now it’s different.

“It wasn’t about validation anymore,” you continue. “It wasn’t about impressing people who think being the smartest person in the room is a personality trait.”

You glance down at your hands.

“…He was happy, and that’s really cool he found fulfillment there. I can’t even say I was happy before I came here. I hated my job.”

Carl leans forward slightly. “...So what?.. Do you still care about him?”

“I—” you start, then stop, shaking your head like you can physically push the thought back.

“I do,” you admit quietly. “I just try not to.”

Carl doesn’t say anything this time. He listens intently, letting you have your moment with your emotions. It’s clear to him you haven’t spoken about this much. Carl also has a very therapeutic aura to him that makes it easy for people to talk to him.

“After everything that happened,” you continue, voice a little tighter now, “it was hard for me to get taken seriously. My name got tied to his, whether it was fair or not. Interviews went cold. Offers disappeared. People smiled at my face and then questioned me behind closed doors.”

Your fingers tap absently against the counter. Your foot anxiously bounces your knee. You’re trying to find the right words, but maybe there are no right words.

“And the worst part is… I don’t even know if I’m still angry at him for that.”

Carl frowns slightly. “What do you mean?”

You shake your head.

“I mean I remember being angry. I remember being humiliated. I remember telling myself I’d never let him anywhere near my work again.” You let out a small, frustrated laugh. “But why? The exact moment everything broke? It’s… fuzzy.”

You look back at the incubator.

At Atom and all of the other little cultures of astrophage. 

“…All I know is that when I see him,” you say quietly, “I feel like I have to be angry.”

“Because if I’m not—” Your mind begins to trail off.

Carl raises an eyebrow. “If you’re not…?”

You shake your head, cutting yourself off before you can finish the thought.

“…Then I might forgive him,” you say. You start to feel a little bit of regret. A little bit guilty for holding onto this grudge for so long, but you’re scared of disappointment again. Even now you’re scared something might go wrong with Project Hail Mary, and your name will go down with it.

“Have you ever considered a therapist…?” Carl asks. You shake your head and laugh at him.

“Why would I need one if I have you, Carl.”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

A few hours pass, Carl is now long gone, and it’s just you alone in the lab. You’re starting to think you’ve hit the thousands in terms of hours spent in this lab. You could be blindfolded and still be able to perform any procedure. That’s how well you’ve gotten to know the space.

You don’t notice him at first. You’re too focused on your cultures. Atom and the rest of the Astrophage cultures behaving exactly the way they’re supposed to, and now you’re trying to figure out the best material to keep them in that would allow them to survive the journey to space. 

Then you feel it. A slight shift in the room. There is a quiet, hesitant presence you’d recognize anywhere.

You don’t look up.

“…You’re hovering,” you say flatly.

A pause.

“I’m standing,” Ryland Grace replies.

You adjust the microscope slightly. “It feels like hovering.”

Another pause.

“…Okay, yeah. I might be hovering.”

You sigh, leaning back just enough to glance at him.

He looks nervous. Not awkward in his usual way. Not distracted or rambling. Just nervous. You can’t predict what he’s going to say. You can’t predict anything about him actually.

“What do you want, Grace?” you ask.

He shifts his weight slightly, hands fidgeting at his sides before he shoves them into his pockets.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he says.

“That’s new,” you mutter.

“I deserve that,” he admits immediately.

You straighten, crossing your arms. “Okay. Talk.”

He exhales slowly, like he’s been holding that breath for a while.

“I feel like this is a step needed to better our working relationship. I never really gave you what you deserve. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and well, I also spoke to Carl. Carl told me—”

“Okay, so are you going to get to the point or?”

“I’m sorry. I am truly sorry. With everything in my body, I am sorry.”

“Oh…” You bite your tongue from saying anything else. You would hate to say something you will regret. You sit quietly for a second, trying to quiet all the anger in your brain.

Ryland stands close to you, fiddling with his thumbs. He look as though he’s holding his breath until you respond because his face is starting to look a little blue. 

“I thought if I just… removed myself, it would make things better for everyone else,” he continues. “Like distancing myself would somehow undo the damage.” 

“It actually just dug a bigger hole for myself, and I couldn’t get out of it…”

“I know, and I’m sorry about that too. I’m sorry for everything. Embarrassing you and ruining your reputation alongside mine,” he tries his best to keep his voice steady and mind from trailing off.

You look up at Ryland. The guilt is clearly eating him from the inside out.  You take a deep breath in. It’s time to let go. For once, feel something other than mad. 

“...I was angry at you for a long time,” you say finally. “I built my career back up from that mess. I had to become someone who couldn’t be undermined again.”

“I want to fix what I can now.” 

You relax, just a little. You didn’t realize your fists were balled up tight enough to leave imprints of your nails in your palms. 

“I don’t know how to not be angry at you. There is just something about you...,” you admit, more quietly now.

He nods in agreement.

“That’s fair.”

You huff a breath, shaking your head slightly. “You’re making this very difficult.”

“I’m trying not to,” he says.

“…But,” you add reluctantly, “I don’t think I want to keep being this mad forever.” 

“Yeah?” he asks. A wave of relief washes over Ryland. You can finally see the color come back to his cheeks.

You nod slightly.

“Yeah.”

You shift your weight, leaning back against the counter now instead of bracing yourself against it.

“I don’t need some big apology speech,” you add. “I just needed you to… acknowledge it and not pretend it didn’t happen.”

Ryland suddenly sticks his hand out to you. You are a bit confused on why he wants to shake hands on it.

“…What are you doing?” you ask.

“I’m—uh—making it official?” he says, like even he isn’t entirely sure.

You raise an eyebrow. “Official what?”

He hesitates. Then, slowly, his hand shifts. His fingers curl in until only his pinky is extended.

You stare at it.

“…Are you serious right now?”

“A pinky promise is legally binding in at least three middle schools,” he says, completely straight-faced.

You can’t help it. You laugh. What starts out as a few chuckles turns into full body laughs before you can stop it.

“You’re ridiculous,” you say, shaking your head.

“Extremely,” he agrees.

But he doesn’t drop his hand. He just waits. There’s something oddly sincere about it. 

You hook your pinky around his.

“And I pinky promise,” he says, a little quieter now, like the joke has settled into something more real, “I won’t let that happen again.”

Your fingers tighten slightly around his.

“And I promise,” you reply, glancing up at him, “to be less of an ass.”

A small smile spreads across his face.

“What if I were to tell you,” he says, tilting his head slightly, “I didn’t mind it?”

You slowly let go of his finger and pull it back to yourself.

“Grace… that’s still really weird.”

“I.. I know.”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

Weeks have passed since you were assigned to work with Ryland. The hours slipped by unnoticed. At some point, the world outside stopped mattering entirely. It felt like the lab was just a secret place for only you and Ryland.

It might’ve been weeks on working with the astrophage. The clock is ticking, but you and Ryland don’t lose hope. Ryland has seen parts of you, he’s never seen and vice versa. The way you mumble equations and theories when you sleep, or how he sings to himself when he’s deep in focus.

You are leaning over the console, eyes tired but sharp, fingers moving on instinct as the Astrophage model pulsed in front of you. It’s brighter now, steadier.

“Run it again,” you murmured. “With the adjusted input.”

“I am,” Ryland Grace said, voice rough with exhaustion, but there was something else there too. Focus. Awe. “Just—give it a second.”

The curve aligned. Energy in. Energy stored. Energy released. Balanced perfectly.

Your breath caught. “Ryland…”

“I see it,” he said, softer now.

You both leaned in at the same time, shoulders brushing. This time neither of you even noticed. You grab his hand covering the mouse and drag it over to increase the model size. Ryland notices this touch instantly and tries to hide his nerves. He hasn’t been touched in such a long time. 

“It’s stabilizing itself,” you said. “The astrophage is not losing energy randomly. I-It’s regulating it. Like it knows—Holy shit”

Ryland looks at you. Not the screen. Not the data. You.

For a moment, the breakthrough wasn’t the thing that made his chest feel too tight. It was you.

The way your eyes lit up when you were excited. The way your voice beamed when you were thinking through something brilliant. The way you leaned into the problem without hesitation or fear. The way you get a bit snappy and mean when you’re hungry. 

You had always been like this, and he always enjoyed watching it.

You rise out of your chair, stumbling over because you lost sensation in your legs after sitting in a chair for hours. Ryland catches your arm, balancing you. You look into his eyes and smile. A childish grin is on your face, and your eyes look a bit crazed. It might be a delusion from lack of sleep but you’re so excited. Almost instinctively, Ryland nervously hugs you. He’s surprised to feel you hug him back. You couldn’t contain your excitement.

“…We did it,” he said, almost like he needed to remind himself.

You smiled, a real one. Not sharp or guarded. A real genuine smile. One that he hasn’t seen from you in a long time.

“Yeah, but also…,” you said. “...you did.”

His heart stuttered. You realize how you’re holding onto him, and you immediately let go. Ryland wished you didn’t though. It felt right. 

“I just realized something…,” he started, leaning forward slightly like he was about to give a lecture to a room of middle schoolers. “... an easier way to explain all of this.”

You blinked. He's going to try to teach it to you like you're a middle schooler. “Oh no...”

“If I were teaching right now,” he continued, “I would say Astrophage is basically like… a microscopic solar-powered submarine.”

You blinked. “That is not what it is.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“It absorbs energy like sunlight,” he said, counting on his fingers, “it stores it, and then it moves through space using that energy. That’s a submarine. Just… space submarine.”

He gives you a smile and a thumbs up as if this was a bigger revelation than your research, and you just look back with a straight face. 

“A space submarine… that is the most oversimplified explanation I’ve ever heard in my life,” you said, trying to bite back your slight annoyance.

“This is a metaphor, not a peer-reviewed paper.”

You stared at him. You feel a twinge on irritation. Not enough to get you mad, but enough to make your vein pop out of your forehead.

Then he adds, “It’s like if a plant and a battery had a really weird baby.”

You look at him for a beat. He's ridiculous. Truly and utterly ridiculous. Then you burst into a fit of laughter. You’re clutching your stomach and slamming your fist against the table. You might be delirious right now from the lack of sleep, but you just can’t believe him.

"A weird baby…” you repeated, tears collecting in your eyes from laughing so hard. "That's so stupid?"

“I don’t know how I wasn’t fired by the Board of Education,” Ryland shrugs. “I guess it worked on them.”

“You know,” he said after a moment, softer now, “I used to do that all the time. Making things easier to understand.” 

“As much as I make fun of you for being an absolute nerd, I don’t think I can fully make fun of you for being a teacher.”

Ryland is surprised, seeing a glimpse of vulnerability in you. “Wait really?”

“I think it’s cool. I bet the kids loved you. You’re weird. I think kids like that. You make learning less scary for them. There's just something about you.”

“…Yeah?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” you said.

It’s probably five in the morning. You couldn’t see the sky, but your body knew. That strange, internal certainty that the night had nearly given up and the world outside was about to start moving again. 

“I think we both need rest,” you said quietly, finally leaning back from the console.

You turned toward him.

Ryland Grace looked worse than you did. Hair a mess, eyes heavy, and posture slouched like gravity had doubled overnight. But he also looked different. Lighter, somehow. Like something in him had unclenched without him realizing it.

You reach out to him before you fully think it through.

“Hey—” he started.

You took his glasses off his face.

“Don’t worry,” you said quickly, already smiling faintly. “I’m just cleaning them.” You chuckle, waving them around in front of him before taking a cloth out of your pocket to clean it off.

Before you give them back, you take a good look at Ryland. You’ve never realized how handsome he is now. He was always cute in a nerdy kind of way, but now he looks wiser and aged. The soft lines at the corners of his eyes from years of laughing despite everything. The deeper crease in his forehead that didn’t come from age alone, but from constant worry. The slight tension in his jaw.

Your chest feels warm by being so close to Ryland. You step closer, sliding his glasses back onto his face. You take your index finger and push his glasses up his nose. 

He is focused on your movements. If he looks away, he’s worried he’ll miss it. He’ll miss you. Something he didn’t want to lose again.

You leaned in slightly. Letting gravity do the work. Ryland didn’t move away. He just stares at you in awe. If they could, his glasses would fog from the heat in his face. Your chest tightened as you realized he was close enough now that you could feel his breath if you focused.

Close enough that the world outside the lab stopped existing properly.

His voice dropped. “I’m trying not to mess this up.”

“I know,” you whispered.

There was an unmistakable spark that made your stomach flipped and your thoughts briefly stopped making sense. His hand moved slightly on the table. Almost touching you.

You saw it happen like it was happening in slow motion. You slowly lean in, breath heavy. For a second, there was nothing else. The world isn’t ending. There is no mission, or lab, or past mistakes. Just the space closing between you like it had been waiting for this exact moment.

Your eyes fluttered down. He hesitates for a second before closing his. Your lips were hovering over his, only a small push needed to bring you together. It felt like it was about to happen.

Like it should happen. Like it was inevitable.

Reality snapping back in. Both of you stopped instantly, breath catching at the same time. Ryland pulls away quickly.

“I think this is the first time you…”

You made a move on Ryland?

“...didn’t make fun of me for five whole minutes.” Ryland says with a small smile. You shake your head and give him a small push on the shoulder.

“Well, if you’re going to sit there smug, I am going to go to sleep.” You walk towards the door, stretching your arms.

“Hey.”

You waited at the doorway. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t know what I’m apologizing for really. I’m just sorry.”

You look at him for a long moment and give him a small smile. You didn’t realize how sensitive Ryland is to your emotions since your pinky promise, and you’ve realized you need to do a better job at letting him know you’re not upset anymore.

“It’s okay, Ryland. You don't need to apologize,” you stop for a moment, looking at him sincerely, “Don’t lose sleep over it.”

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

There is no better way to celebrate a breakthrough like a “We are sending you off to die” party. It sounds grim in theory, but the camaraderie masks the underlying feeling of dread on the ship.

“Hey, Ryland.”

“Y-Yes,” he says, a little too quickly, eyes flicking to your hand as you hold it out to him.

“Come dance with me.”

That makes his brain short-circuit. You want to dance with him? 

Around you, the crew is still celebrating. The room is filled with laughter, clinking glasses, and crew members singing karaoke. The mission is far from over, but for tonight, everyone is taking a moment to celebrate as they prepare to send people off to save the world.

You feel the stare of other crew members as you grab Ryland’s hands. You don’t care. You tug him gently before he has time to overthink it.

“I—wait—” Ryland Grace starts, but he’s already on his feet, slightly off balance as he follows you.

“Wow,” you say, glancing down at his hands once you’ve got him in front of you. “You’re really sweaty.”

“I’m nervous,” he blurts out immediately. “Last time I danced was—uh—when I chaperoned Homecoming, and I definitely stepped on someone’s feet, and they yelled, and I—”

“Ryland.”

He stops.

You press your finger against his lips. “Shhh.”

His mouth stays closed. He nods once like you’ve given him very serious instructions.

“Just follow my lead,” you say.

Ryland is stiff under your touch, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t want to mess it up. His shoulders are tight, legs are locked, and his hands are hovering like he’s afraid of doing something wrong just by existing near you. His eyes are focused on your feet, making sure he doesn't step on your toes.

“You can put your hands on my waist. I won’t bite,” you joke, guiding his hands to your waist.

The sound of Stratt singing fills the space around you. She’s soft, melodic while singing The Sign of the Times. The song is a bit ironic. It’s like she understands the value of pretending, for a moment, that things can be normal. 

You rest your head on his chest, humming the song to yourself. Ryland finally relaxes. You’re not going anywhere, and it causes him to finally give into the moment. He gains the confidence to give you a spin, and you laugh as he twirls you over and over again. He actually doesn’t know when to stop.

You balance yourself on him, getting a bit dizzy. You look into his deep, blue eyes and laugh to see how perplexed he is in this happy moment. You lean your head close to his, getting on your toes to see him eye to eye. Your forehead is resting on his.

His hands tensed at your waist, like his body didn’t know whether to pull you closer or freeze completely. 

You closed the last bit of space between you two, capturing his lips with yours. The kiss is soft and intentional. You’re spilling all of the emotions you’ve built up for him at this moment. Ryland melts. He pulls you closer, hands practically squeezing your waist. 

He pulls away just for a moment to catch his breath. Ryland is running hot, face flushed. You laugh, just happy to be in this moment with him.

“…You’re really warm,” he murmurs against your lips, like it’s an observation he didn’t mean to say out loud.

You let out a quiet laugh. “That’s usually how humans work.”

“...And you’re soft.”

“Okay, let’s get back to dancing.”

You steal another kiss from Ryland. A kiss that seals just how much you've grown to care for him.

━━━━ ✦ ━━━━ 

Red strobes washed through the corridor windows. People were running. There are too many voices at once. People yelling. People crying. Somewhere outside the reinforced glass, the Astrophage containment field had failed. First, there was a boom of light. Then there was an explosion, smoke clouds swallowing everything nearby the site. It was too bright, too real, too final. Even through reinforced observation panels, the shockwave rippled through structures like the building itself had flinched.

You don’t move. Only the sick drop in your stomach when you realized how close the testing bay was.

One thought was frantic enough to overshadow any other thought in your head.

Ryland.

Ryland Grace

You were already running before your brain caught up.

You pushed through a cluster of officials, barely hearing them protest, barely feeling the impact of your own body moving too fast. The air still smelled faintly of burned insulation when you reached the inner corridor. 

You run outside the building. You see Ryland. A little unsteady, hair disheveled, face pale like he’d seen the same flash you had and understood it differently.  You grabbed him hard enough that he stumbled back a step, caught off guard completely. He softens, immediately wrapping his arms around your neck. He buries his nose in your hair, smelling traces of smoke buried in your scalp.

“I thought you were in it,” you said, voice breaking before you could stop it. “I saw the blast and I— I thought—”

“I’m here,” he said quickly, softer now. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

His fingers moved through your hair—slow, grounding, like he was trying to convince your body before your mind could catch up.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured.

“I’m fine,” you lied immediately.

He gave a quiet, humorless breath. “No, you’re not.”

You didn’t argue this time.

Eva Stratt’s presence felt like it arrived before she even spoke. She felt like the grim reaper in this moment, sending a dreadful message to you.

“The Astrophage containment failure has escalated,” she said flatly. No emotion. Only consequence. “We have lost personnel. We are adjusting mission parameters immediately.”

Your grip on Ryland tightened without meaning to.

“What does that mean?” you asked.

It meant what you already feared.

Eva didn’t soften it.

“It means Project Hail Mary proceeds under revised crew selection.”

Silence hit like pressure.

Then Ryland’s shoulders shifted slightly just enough for you to feel it.

Confusion first. Then realization. She wants you both on the ship. She wants you and Ryland to complete the mission.

“Whatever you are asking me to do, Strava, I am only willing to do it with my two feet on this Earth.”

"What happened to you wanting to save the world?"

"That was before..." you trail off, looking at Ryland. He's biting his lip. Unsure of what Eva is asking for.

Ryland tries his best to calm your fears, but he’s also afraid. He doesn’t know what is going to happen or what this means, but he’s just as scared. 

“Hey,” Ryland said, already half-turned toward the building, like he was being pulled in two directions at once. “I’ll talk to Strava in private. I’ll figure this out, but I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay,” you replied automatically.

He hesitated for half a beat longer than necessary, like he wanted to say something else but couldn’t find the right shape for it.

Then he started to go.

“Ryland,” you called out.

He stopped immediately.

You didn’t realize how tightly you were holding your breath until that moment.

Ryland Grace turned back to you, brows slightly raised. “Yeah?”

You opened your mouth, and there it was.

Right there. On the tip of your tongue. I love you.

Your throat tightened again, and the courage that had surged up a second ago cracked under its own weight.

You swallowed it down.

“…Just be careful,” you finished instead.

He gave you a look. He was hoping you would say more. He knew there was more sitting behind your words, like he always did, but he didn’t push it.

“Always am,” Ryland Grace said, and then he was gone down the corridor.

You stood there long after his footsteps faded.

You stand there feeling deeply guilty because selfishly, you wanted neither goodbye nor separation nor rockets and sealed doors and missions that sounded like sacrifice dressed up as science. You just wanted five more minutes where nothing was about to end. This is a once in a lifetime experience, yet you couldn’t imagine being so far in a void of nothing. Being an astronaut wasn't in the job description.

You stepped outside, needing air to cool you down. There was nothing you could do inside. Nothing to fix. Nothing to calculate your way out of.

Just waiting. Just thinking too much. Just the sick, slow realization that this might be the end for you. For the end of you and Ryland. The two of you haven't spoken about that fateful night, but there's a quiet and understood affection you both have for one another. Something special that only the two of you can acknowledge.

A few hours must have passed of you just standing outside. You’re trapped in your head, nothing else concerning you. Then you hear it. Shouting and footsteps. You look up and see someone being chased after by dozens of personnel. Ryland…?

“What the fuck?” you shouted before your brain caught up, already moving.

He turned his head mid-run. He sees you. His face changes instantly, and he waves for you to not come over.

“No—go! Leave!” he yelled.

“What?” you shouted back, breaking into a sprint. You see Ryland get pinned to the ground. You pick up the pace, running faster than you’ve ever had in the past.

“No—!” you screamed, already pushing through the cluster of bodies on top of Ryland.

You barely made it two steps before hands grabbed you. They’re strong and commanding.

“Hey—let go!” you snapped, struggling immediately.

“Doctor, stand down—”

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

You twisted, tried to break free, but more hands caught you. The hands are pulling you down just like they’d done to him. You feel someone heavy keeping you on the ground.

You turn your head, looking at Ryland who is also struggling on the ground. You reach out to him, trying to grab his hand. 

Ryland on the ground, fighting even while pinned. He sees your hand and tries to reach out. You are merely fingertips apart, but nothing can close the gap.

“Stop—!” he shouted, but it was already overpowered by orders being barked at him. “Hey, don’t—don’t touch her—!” 

Then something sharp pressed against your arm. It causes a surge throughout your arm.

You jerked violently. “What are you—?” 

The world begins to blur. You fought it. Harder than you should’ve been able to, but your limbs were already losing the argument with chemistry. Your blood boils. You’re angry. That is all you can feel as your body fights back in vain. Through the haze, you saw him again. Ryland. You’re still angry. That’s all you can feel. 

He had to have known.

“D-Did y-you know…” you tried to say, eyes barely staying open.

His expression shifted. He’s panicked.

“I didn’t—” he started, but you couldn’t hear the rest.

The last thing you see clearly is him still fighting to get to you. You take one last deep breath before your vision goes black.

He sees a universe he doesn’t belong to. White tile. Mismatched mugs. A corkboard jammed with faded Polaroids and clipped recipes and flyers for neighborhood block parties. A toddler holding a croissant bigger than his head. An old man in a Yankees cap laughing with the barista. Dawn pulling its pale gold everywhere, and the smell of cinnamon filling the room like a promise.

And then there’s you.

You’re not at the front. You’re a blur through the little window that looks into the kitchen—the window that turns ovens and racks and flour-dusted countertops into a stage. From here he can only make out movement: a floral dress swishing as you pass, a messy curl escaping a bun loosely skewered with two pencils, your hand dragging the back of your wrist over your cheek to leave a smear of flour like a stripe of war paint. He catches flashes—glints off the edges of big square glasses, the flash of your grin at someone offscreen. He can’t hear you, but he knows you laugh easily. He knows you hum when you move. He knows you are soft around the edges but fast at the center, precise and relentless the way good bakers are relentless.

He’s not wrong often. It makes him slow down when he is.

“Morning,” the barista says as the bell chimes and Bucky steps inside like a mistake he means to keep making.

Bucky nods, sliding sunglasses up to his hair. The barista—Freddie, if he’s reading the little enamel name tag right—blinks. A flicker of recognition. Everyone in Brooklyn knows him, but knowing him and serving him coffee are different sports. Bucky spares Freddie the performance, gives him a smile that shows teeth but not threat. “House coffee. And a cinnamon roll.”

Freddie fumbles the paper cup, then recovers with a nervous laugh. “We, uh, sell out of those pretty fast. She, um—” Freddie tips his chin toward the kitchen window. “She makes them only on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

“It’s Friday,” Bucky says.

“It is,” Freddie admits, like gravity has become optional this morning.

Bucky leans on the counter while the coffee drips and lets himself watch the little rectangle where you live. You move like you’re conducting a secret orchestra—doughs and timers and trays and steam all obeying a rhythm that belongs to you. The world outside this door runs on what Bucky says; the world in there runs on what you measure and fold and insist upon.

He takes the paper bag, the coffee. He pays in cash and leaves too much, because this is what he knows how to do: make the world a little softer in the places that brighten his day. He does not ask for a second cinnamon roll or for your name. He’s learned that if you press too soon, you get fingerprints.

He eats the cinnamon roll in the back of the car, tearing off a corner while it’s still warm. The icing melts on his tongue. Cinnamon hits like a memory he didn’t know he had—a Sunday morning that belongs to nobody else in the car, some other life where the news doesn’t matter and neither do rival families and the only thing a man has to fear is not getting the last piece.

“Jesus,” he says to nobody. “That’s… christ.”

“What do we think?” Sam asks from up in the driver’s seat, indicating the bakery in the rearview.

Bucky chews, lets a smile creep loose. “We think I’m buying a building if anyone looks at it wrong.”

Sam huffs. “Protecting small businesses now. Real Robin Hood arc.”

Bucky licks icing off his thumb, eyes still on the blue door as the car glides away from the curb. “Not small business,” he says. “This is religion.”

He goes back Tuesday. And Friday. And then a day that is neither. He finds excuses to pass by. He stands in line behind nurses and teachers and the man who sells newspapers on the corner and four teenagers with dance bags and a woman in scrubs whose daughter calls the pastries “breakfast moons.” The bell chimes. The chalkboard evolves as if it has moods. The Polaroids multiply.

Freddie learns his order. A cinnamon roll on roll days. A chocolate babka when the sign says it’s a babka sort of morning. A coffee that is never quite the same because you switch beans depending on what’s good that week, and Bucky learns he likes surprises on your terms. He doesn’t look like a man who likes surprises, but that’s because most of his have been bullets.

He doesn’t talk to you.

You don’t come out to the front much, and when you do, it’s brief: a tray of scones, a word in Freddie’s ear, flour in the shape of a moon on your knuckle. The first time you pass him, you smell like butter and apples and heat. He looks without looking. You glance up and—with the smallest smile, almost private—keep going. The embroidery on your apron says apple in tiny letters next to a stitched apple, which is legitimately ridiculous and breaks something open in his chest.

He keeps his distance because he can. Because he knows he shouldn’t want anything he can’t protect. Because something about the idea of touching you feels like pressing a thumb to icing before it’s ready.

Then one morning he decides he’s done being patient.

It’s not impatience, not really. It’s strategy. He knows the shape of a day like yours. Bakers rise when the city still dreams and scrape flour into the sky to summon dawn. He gets out of bed before the streetlights dim, suits up—charcoal, crisp, a tie in a shade of blue that could cut a man—and heads to the bakery while even the cabs are yawning.

The sky is barely thinking about light when he gets there. The chalkboard is still inside, tucked against a stack of milk crates. The blue door is unlocked. He steps through the quiet where the bell doesn’t chime yet, where the air is colder because the ovens haven’t bothered to make the day warm.

In the back, you grunt.

Bucky can’t help the smile. It slides out easy.

He follows the sound up the narrow stairs toward the kitchen. When he reaches the top, he pauses. There’s no need to observe and catalog—he’s not here for intel. He’s here for the square of you: one foot braced against the wheel of a cart, both hands wrapped around a bag of flour you are dragging like a bull down a hallway.

It’s a fifty-pound sack. He knows because he’s carried them before, back when life was simpler and everything he needed to survive weighed what it weighed and not what it meant. You’ve got it by the neck, hips set, shoulders engaged, one pencil skewering your bun at an angle that should be illegal.

“Need a hand?” he asks, because he cannot help himself and because being useful is one of the things that makes him feel human.

You don’t startle. The smirk arrives before your eyes. You give the flour one last, victorious heave onto the cart, then plant your palms on your hips and look up at him over the rim of your glasses.

“Finally decided to quit gawking and say hello to me?”

Bucky laughs. He laughs like the flour bag knocked the wind out of him. “Caught,” he says, spreading his hands like a magician admitting the trick was always simple. “Name’s Bucky.”

“I know,” you say, amused, like this is the riddle everyone in Brooklyn knows the answer to. You stick out your flour-dusted hand. “I’m the girl with the cinnamon rolls.”

He takes your hand. It disappears in his, small and warm and rough where the dough gets into a baker’s life and stays. “That your government name?”

You roll your eyes, but your smile reaches the corners. You give your name and wait a beat, enjoying his reaction. He tries not to give you one and fails. You grin, proud. “My grandmother named me. The apron is not a bit.”

“It suits you,” he says, and for a second it’s quiet except for the ticking of the cooling oven and your breathing and his.

You nod at his suit. “You look like you could lift flour one-handed,” you observe. “But you also look like you’ve never been allowed to do something as normal as that in public.”

He likes that you don’t ask what he does. He likes that you see it anyway. He likes that you give him a way to be helpful that isn’t about sending men to the hospital. “Let me be of use,” he says, softer than he means to.

“We’ll see,” you say, but you push the cart toward him, and he steers like a man who has finally been given something worth doing.

You let him carry things. That’s how you let him in. Not with questions, not with gossip, not with the way Freddie stumbles and calls him sir sometimes. You let him in with tasks. Trays to the proofing box. Eggs from the walk-in. A pan of caramel he has to keep an eye on while you shape dough into spirals like galaxies.

He tries to flirt once. You don’t let him have it easy.

“You flirting or interviewing?” you ask, not looking up from the roll you’re coaxing into being.

He watches your hands, the way your fingers coax, fold, insist. “I can do both.”

“Men who think they can do both,” you say, “usually can’t do either.” You flick him a look that would ruin a weaker man. “But you can carry flour. So I suppose we’ll see.”

He’s not used to having to try. It isn’t about the money or the reputation or the way his name unclenches rooms. It’s about how, in his world, the straightest line between two points is a statement. He likes that here the line is a process, a proof, a wait. He likes that you will not take his word for anything. He likes that you call him out without cruelty, like you’re already sure he can climb to meet you and you are calmly waiting to watch him do it.

He asks you to dinner like a gentleman. You say no like a scientist. Not yet. Not until you’ve watched his hands enough mornings to know he can do delicate things without breaking them. Not until you’ve seen the way he tips Freddie and says good morning to the old man in the Yankees cap and holds the door for the high schoolers with dance bags who worship you for your free day-old cookies after a show. Not until you’ve asked him, quiet and direct, what he does, and he has answered without spin.

“I run things,” he says, because he will not lie to you. “I make sure the right people eat and the wrong people don’t get to take what isn’t theirs. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and things I am. I don’t pretend I’m a good man. But I try to be decent to the people who make this place better.”

You weigh that, and you weigh him. “I know who you are, Bucky Barnes,” you say, and he hears what you don’t say: I also know who I am.

He gives you outs, because nothing matters if you don’t get to choose it. He tells you where the exits are and how his life will not always be this calm and that sometimes a line will be drawn that he cannot let you cross. He tells you he will never bring violence to your door, and he tells you the truth, which is that sometimes violence comes whether you invite it or not.

You meet him once outside the bakery, because you decide to. A late walk home, your apron traded for a cardigan, your hair still up with a pencil jammed through it like a wand. He offers you a car. You laugh and say you need your feet on the sidewalk to know what the weather is tomorrow. He tells you he can predict it by the way the pigeons hunch. You tell him that’s ridiculous and he is delighted you told him so.

It goes slow. It goes careful. It goes like building a laminated dough—fold, rest, fold again—until there are layers, and they hold.

Then the morning comes when the opposing family decides to make a point.

You know the shape of threat instantly. It changes the air. The bell over your door rings the same way, but everything after is wrong. Two men who don’t belong to morning. Jackets too heavy for the weather. Hands empty but not soft. Freddie looks at you and you look at the stairs that go to the kitchen and you don’t have time to shape fear into anything but motion.

They don’t come for cash. They come for calm. They come to show that calm belongs to them.

“Cute place,” one says, leaning like the wall should be grateful. He carries the kind of lazy grin that men practice in mirrors when they love the sound of their own power. “Word is the king of Brooklyn likes his coffee here. Be a shame if anything happened to the crown’s favorite cup.”

Your hand is on the edge of the counter. It stays there. Freddie breathes like a fish at the surface.

You’re not stupid. You know what this is. You also know who you are. You straighten your apron. You meet the man’s eyes over your glasses, and your voice is steady. “We’re open for coffee and baked goods,” you say. “If you want either, get in line like everybody else.”

He laughs and reaches—casual as cruelty—for the chalkboard sign. He takes it by the top, puts his thumb right on “be kind,” and tips it until it splinters. It makes a sound like a bird hitting a window. Freddie flinches. You don’t.

“Oops,” he says.

Bucky pushes the door open before the chalk dust settles. The bell doesn’t chime. It clangs.

It’s not that he always knows when he’s needed. It’s that his mornings know when he’s wanted. He thinks of you in a hundred small ways all day long; the day he doesn’t is the day he doesn’t want to be the man he is. Today he was already on the corner when he heard something in the silence. Today he was already angry at something he couldn’t name. Today he is a storm in a suit.

The men know him. Everyone does. Their posture changes without their permission. Bucky doesn’t look at them first. He looks at you. He checks you for breaks with his eyes. You are whole and you are furious.

“Honey,” he says, and the pet name in his mouth is both prayer and trigger. “You all right?”

Your chin tips. “Someone broke my ‘be kind.’”

Bucky’s gaze drops to the sign. He takes in the chalk dust like snow in July. He looks up at the man who did it. The room goes quiet in that way you hear in old churches and on battlefields before the trumpet.

“You got one chance to step outside and apologize to the lady,” Bucky says, with the human generosity of a man who can afford to be merciful.

The man pretends to consider it, glances at his partner like he wants to make a joke to keep his face. He doesn’t get to finish. Bucky’s hand hits the counter like a gavel. The part of the counter under his palm does not move; everything else rearranges around the fact that Bucky Barnes is here now.

Outside. A moment later. The street still hasn’t chosen a temperature. Bucky stands on the sidewalk beneath the flower boxes. The two men are suddenly smaller without the door behind them. It’s always like that—men who are brave when they think the world will hold them up, not realizing the world is just other people’s hands.

Bucky doesn’t shout. He does something worse. He speaks in a voice made of old brick and the years he fought to make this neighborhood safe for things like cinnamon.

“You ever step foot in there again without a wallet and a smile,” he says, “you won’t walk out. You won’t crawl out. There won’t be enough of you left to carry out.”

The man with the lazy grin loses it. The other one looks like he wants to apologize and doesn’t know how. Bucky steps closer. The blue door is behind him. He knows without looking that you’re there, just inside, breathing and furious and steady as a recipe.

“Now,” he says. “Apologize.”

They do. It’s sloppy and quick and they think it means they’ve won something because they kept their teeth. Bucky lets them think whatever they want as long as they do it far away and never, ever near your chalkboard again. He waits until they turn the corner. He waits another second, because patience makes the point sharper. Then he goes back inside and picks up the broken piece of “be kind” and sets it carefully on the counter like a thing that deserves mourning.

Freddie wipes his face with a towel that was meant for cups. You come around the counter and stand in front of Bucky like you’re measuring him for something he hasn’t earned yet.

He wants to touch you. He wants to promise you twenty different safety plans and fifty different ways in and out and a wall of men between this bakery and every sorrow. He does none of those things. He looks at the broken sign he can’t unbreak and then at the person who made the sign matter in the first place and says, “I’m sorry.”

You blink. For a second your anger wavers, surprised to be met by something softer than fury. “You didn’t do it,” you say.

“I brought it into your orbit,” he says. “My life is—” He tries to find the word that isn’t an apology and isn’t an excuse. “Loud. I don’t want my noise to drown out your mornings.”

Your hand lifts without your permission. It puts flour on the lapel of his suit. The gesture is so maddeningly tender he can barely stand up in it.

“My mornings,” you say, “are mine. And I’m not breakable glass, Bucky. I know who you are. I also know that you stood outside my door and told two men to apologize to ‘the lady.’” Your mouth quirks. “I liked the ring of that. Felt old-fashioned in a way that doesn’t talk over me.”

He breathes. It feels like he hasn’t since he walked in. “Let me fix the sign,” he says, because it’s something a man can do with his hands when his heart is trying to crawl toward someone else’s.

“You can commission me a new one,” you say. “From the girl who paints the murals on Myrtle. She’s saving up for art school and uses quality chalk.”

He smiles. “Done.”

Freddie lets out a breath like a wounded balloon and wanders off to pull espresso for a woman who walked in during the spectacle and immediately decided to stay because she has a front-row seat to the good telenovela today. The room’s temperature shifts back toward morning.

After that, there’s no pretending the line between your world and his isn’t tied in a bow.

You still take it slow, but slow changes shape. You leave the door of your kitchen unlocked when he comes before dawn. He touches the backs of your wrists when you’re shaping rolls, a question he waits for you to answer with a press back. He tastes things off spoons you hold to his mouth. He never takes without being offered. He looks at you like he is memorizing instructions he intends to follow for the rest of his life.

You go to dinner with him one night and the city pretends not to stare. Even pretending, it stares. Bucky is carved out of angles and money in shirts that look like they were invented for the bones of his shoulders. You are all soft edges and unruly curls and a cardigan with two buttons you repaired yourself yesterday with a length of red thread. He wants to drape you in the things he can buy; he also wants you exactly like this forever.

He does both.

The first time he slides a small velvet box across your bakery table, you open it to find diamond earrings like dew. They are not subtle. They are not quiet. They are the sort of jewelry that has its own opinions.

“Bucky,” you say softly, the syllables bright with surprise and something he wants to live in. “They look like sugar when it catches the light.”

“Wear them when you bake,” he says, meaning it and not meaning it. He wants the idea of it—a secret only he knows, that under the flour and the aprons you are wearing stars. “Or don’t. Wear them when you feel like letting the room know who you are.”

“Soft girl with knives,” you say lightly, and he grins like a man who has just been given a map.

He buys you glasses that are designer because he learns that sometimes the difference between good glasses and best glasses is a headache and he has sworn—quietly, to himself and anyone who will listen—that you will not have headaches in his house if he can help it. He orders cardigans from a woman in Italy who knits like she’s writing poetry, soft as clouds but cut to your shape, with tiny embroidered apples near the hem. You are not a doll. You are not a kept thing. You are a queen who lets him gift you armor made of softness, and he loves that you accept what is given without surrendering what is yours.

He watches the neighborhood watch you. Brooklyn is a nosy auntie who keeps her judgments in the spice cabinet with the bay leaves and the clove. She notices the new girl on Barnes’ arm. She notices that you still take out the trash yourself and that Bucky doesn’t stop you—he takes it from your hand and walks with you and doesn’t make a thing of it. She notices that you go to Sunday dinner at the old man in the Yankees cap’s place because his granddaughter is turning three and loves your lemon cookies. She notices the way Bucky stands at the edge of the party like a hedge: ornamental, dangerous, smelling dismissively of money—but the hedges at this house have fairy lights thrown over them and children hanging from them and a baker in a floral dress stealing olives off his plate.

The opposing family notices, too. They notice more quietly now. The apology that Bucky wrung from those men landed like a message in a bottle: the contents were private, but the existence of it washed up on every shore. You get looks, but they are respectful ones. You get a few muttered comments about what you’re doing with a man like him and you answer them by selling their wives cinnamon rolls that make them close their eyes at the first bite and say oh, honey.

Bucky does not hide his life from you. He will never make you ask for the parts of him that could hurt you. He tells you where he goes when he disappears; he tells you what it cost to clear a corner for the bodega owner who lets kids run tabs. He tells you about the first time he realized fear could be a tool and the last time he used it when he didn’t have to. He hands you the pieces and stands there like a man ready to be assembled into someone better.

You don’t flinch. You don’t glamorize. You take it the way you take flour: as something that can make bread or a mess depending on how you measure.

“Do you want to be king of Brooklyn forever?” you ask one night, and he looks at you like you’ve asked him for the ocean and he’d never thought it could be carried in a glass.

“I want,” he says slowly, “to sit at your kitchen table when we’re old and argue about whether or not to put raisins in the bread like it’s the central moral question of our lives.”

You smile. “It is,” you say gravely, and he falls a little more in love with the way you keep your kingdom.

The morning you show up to the warehouse—your first time coming to him instead of the other way around—everything shifts.

One of his men calls. Not the way they call when the world is ending. The way they call when the world is changing. “Boss,” the voice says, which Bucky doesn’t allow in your presence because he prefers your name for him, but you’re not here, and this is work. “There’s movement on the south side. Might be nothing. Might be chatter about the bakery.”

The bakery. Your bakery.

He makes the call before he’s fully aware he’s making it. “Lock the doors,” he says. “Clear the block of anyone who doesn’t live there. Nobody sets foot near her unless they’re buying scones.”

It turns out to be nothing more than talk, the kind of talk men do when they want to hear themselves sound like the old days. But you don’t find out until later. What you do find out is that you don’t want hours where you don’t know where he is. You don’t like the weight of maybe on your chest. You are strong as sugar glass baked the right way, and you hate the thought of anyone testing whether you’re brittle.

So you show up at the warehouse with a paper bag of still-warm rolls and a jaw set like a verdict. His men try very hard not to let their smiles show. You put the bag on Bucky’s desk. You look him over the way he looks you over after a long morning with the ovens: counting breath, skin tone, the way he holds his shoulders like he’s wearing other people’s worries.

“Hi,” you say. Your voice is steady and not made of chalk at all. “I realized I wanted to be where you were.”

Something in his thorax—something he has never had a name for because there was never a reason to find one—goes quiet and bright. He stands, comes around the desk. His hand hesitates over your waist in that old way of his, careful like you’re a set of instructions that matter. You solve it by stepping into him.

He kisses you like he’s been thinking about this since the first time he saw you turn dough into spirals. You kiss him back like you have pans in the oven and time for one more thing because that’s life: something to tend, something to taste, something to burn if you forget it. He laughs against your mouth when you nip his lower lip like a woman who has been watching him try to behave himself in her kitchen for weeks and has decided mercy is for people with less imagination.

He says your name when he lifts his head, a little wrecked, a little reverent. He touches the pencil in your hair like it’s a knife. “You sure?”

You don’t answer with words. You unbutton the top two buttons of his shirt like you’re checking the bake, like you know exactly what you’re doing to the room. He groans like a door falling off its hinges. The men outside politely pretend they are not alive.

After that, nobody in Brooklyn pretends not to stare. They do it fondly, like they do when a new baby appears on a stoop and immediately belongs to the block. You on Bucky’s arm is not a spectacle so much as a weather pattern. You appear at parties in dresses that would be precious on anyone else but on you are a dare. He appears beside you in shirts that fit like decisions. He puts diamonds in your ears and you wear them to knead dough because you like the way they feel when the oven door opens and the heat catches the light. He gifts you glasses that don’t pinch the bridge of your nose and you use them to glare at him over the tops when he tries to lick icing off a cake before it’s set. He sends your measurements to Italy without asking for permission because he knows what you like: sweaters that feel like a hand on your back. He commissions a new chalkboard from the mural girl on Myrtle, and it’s a small painting of a cinnamon roll with a crown tilted goofily on it, and underneath, in perfect script: be kind or be gone.

He brings you into rooms that are not built for softness and watches you take them without apology. The boys—his boys, men who belong to him by choice and luck and the gravity of needing a place to belong—learn quickly that you are not to be crossed in small ways any more than large. You give them cookies and you give them a look when they track oil onto your clean floor. You bring a loaf of bread to a sit-down and slice it with a knife you keep in your bag like a secret and push the plate toward the other side. The man across the table takes a piece, chews, and looks up like he’s just remembered what human tastes like.

“Your girl can bake,” he says, forced to respect the thing he wanted to dismiss.

“My girl can do anything,” Bucky says, and anyone who doesn’t take the hint never will.

You still go home with flour under your nails. You still sing in the kitchen under your breath when you are moving the way you are built to move. You also have a man who waits for you leaning in your doorframe like a problem you don’t mind leaving unsolved. He kisses the flour stripe off your cheekbone. He steals a piece of the crust and moans like you planned it. He fills your quiet rooms with body and presence and the kind of care that doesn’t make noise. On nights when he’s late, he still texts you a photo of whatever sandwich someone shoved in his hand with the caption: not as good as yours.

On mornings when you wake before him because you don’t know how to sleep after four a.m., you stand at the window and watch Brooklyn open its eyes. You return to the bed because he reaches for you in his sleep and because you are not stone; you are heat. You tuck your cold feet between his calves and he grumbles, awake enough to recognize you, and tugs you closer.

“Be kind,” you murmur into his chest, because it’s funny, because it’s yours.

“Be mine,” he answers, not thinking about how words become vows when said at sunup.

You hit your stride as a pair the day an elderly woman stops you on the street and says, “I’ve seen you two walking. You look like trouble and home.”

You laugh. Bucky smiles that careful, shy smile that only peeled itself out of hiding with you, and the woman pats your arm and goes on, and you stand in that afternoon for a long time like the street decided its axis should be here.

When fall comes, you knit him a scarf—your first attempt since college, uneven and too long. He wears it like it was cast by an Italian from mythology. When winter comes, he makes sure every sidewalk on your block gets salted before dawn. When spring comes, you plant basil in the window boxes and a tiny secret pepper that will wake up the tomato soup, and he stands beside you, sleeves rolled, looking like the kind of man whose hands could both plant and uproot a city.

One night, months into a life that feels both inevitable and brand new, you find him at the bakery after close. He’s at a corner table with a ledger because he keeps old habits to ground the new ones. You sit down across from him and set a small box between you.

“Raisins,” you say.

He narrows his eyes. “This is a trap.”

You open the box. Inside are two small cinnamon rolls—perfect spirals, iced with restraint, studded with something jewel-bright. You pluck one out, tear a piece, and feed it to him like you feed him answers. He chews. His brow furrows. He considers. You watch like you’re waiting for the weather.

“Cranberries,” he says, finally, respectful. “Not raisins.”

You nod. “No raisins in my house,” you say, mock-severe.

He swallows, licks icing off his thumb in a way that is not polite and makes you consider closing early. “Your house,” he repeats, and looks around at the tile, the ovens cooling, the chalkboard that now says: cinnamon rolls tomorrow, be kind today. “Our house,” he corrects gently, and is not surprised that you do not flinch.

The news cycles start to include small mentions of you like someone has added vanilla to the batter. “Barnes seen at charity gala with mystery baker.” “Neighborhood favorite gets anonymous donation for new ovens.” “Rival family cancels noisy tasting menu after sudden wave of food poisoning—unrelated, says health department.” People talk. People stare. People order cinnamon rolls and coffee and tell their friends that the king of Brooklyn is in love with the girl who wears pencils in her hair.

You don’t stop being soft around the edges. He doesn’t stop being sharp. You are not each other’s opposites so much as each other’s explanations. Steel and sugar. Knife and frosting. Crown and apron. The world can be hard and bright and dangerous. The world can be warm and messy and good. The world can be both, and you can live right at the seam.

The morning the mural girl delivers your new chalkboard, Bucky helps her carry it in. She beams at the sight of her art in the place where cinnamon smells like a decision. You hang it together, you and Bucky, his hand steady on the bottom right corner, yours on the top left, the two of you aligning the world one small level at a time.

“Straight?” he asks.

“Straight enough,” you say, because perfection is for meringue and patience is for dough, and life is for all the ways something can be beautiful even when it tilts.

He looks at it, the crowned cinnamon roll, the command in script. Then he looks at you, hair in a bun stabbed through with two pencils like twin exclamation points, flour on your knuckles, diamonds winking in your ears because you put them in today just to watch his face when you turn your head.

“Doll,” he says, voice rough and sweet at once.

“Bucky,” you answer, and the day starts again like it always does: with cinnamon, with coffee, with a man who used to live by the sword and now lives by something softer he learns to hold without crushing.

The bell chimes. The neighborhood arrives. A little girl points at the crowned roll and giggles. Freddie calls out an order like he’s leading a chorus line. The ovens breathe. Outside, Brooklyn makes its noise, all the rivets and heartbeats and history. Inside, your worlds stitch like dough folded over butter, layer on layer on layer, until what you’ve built is flaky and impossible and strong enough to stand.

Bucky leans down when nobody is looking and kisses the corner of your mouth. “To be kind,” he murmurs.

“To be gone, if not,” you say, matching him, smirking into his kiss like a woman who will not ever be anything except exactly what she is.

He loves it. He loves you. He keeps coming back.

Not just for the cinnamon roll. But he thinks about it nearly every morning. And when he sinks his teeth into it, icing sweet and dough warm, your laugh somewhere in the back, your hand on his sleeve because you need to pass, it hits him again like it always does:

Seraphina—clever as a blade and twice as polished, the sort who can make a compliment sound like a promise.

Daphne—pretty and effortless, all dimples and flirtation, built for ballrooms like a swan is built for lakes.

Imogen—sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed, always the first to notice a weakness and the last to forgive one.

Cordelia—youngest, sweet-faced, eager, still soft enough to be shaped by the rest of them.

And then you.

Your father calls you “quiet” as though it is a virtue he might one day learn to tolerate. Your sisters call you “bookish” as though it is a disease. Your mother calls you nothing at all, most days, which is somehow worse—because it implies you are not a thing worth naming.

You’ve tried, in the ways a daughter tries.

You’ve worn the colors your mother prefers—pale pinks and creams that make you feel like a faded flower pressed between pages. You’ve practiced smiling until your cheeks ache. You’ve learned to curtsy without wobbling, to speak only when spoken to, to laugh on cue at jokes you do not find funny.

But there is no practice for being overlooked. No lesson for becoming small enough to stop disappointing the people who expect you to be someone else.

So you do the one thing you’ve always been able to do: you retreat to what does not ask you to perform.

You read.

In books, no one tells you that you are too much or not enough. No one sighs when you speak. No one looks past you to find the glittering thing behind.

Tonight, however, there will be no library to hide in.

Tonight, Arabella is hosting her first grand ball in London—her first as Viscountess Harrowgate, her first as the sister who has succeeded where your mother once feared daughters could fail. Her invitation came like a command sealed with lace: You will attend. All of you. The entire family. The ton must see us.

Your mother has clung to that final line like it is scripture.

“The ton must see us,” she repeats now, adjusting the line of your gloves with pinching fingers. “We must make an impression.”

“We always do,” Seraphina murmurs behind her fan, not quite hiding her smile.

“Precisely,” your mother says, and then her eyes flick to you like a draft sneaking under a door. “And you, my dear—please do try to look… pleasant.”

You swallow the first reply that rises in your throat. What does pleasant look like? Like Daphne? Like Arabella? Like someone worth watching?

Instead, you nod. Because you’ve learned that arguing only makes them look at you longer.

Imogen leans in as the maid pins a ribbon at your back. “Do not frighten away Arabella’s guests by talking about your dreadful poetry.”

“I don’t write poetry,” you say softly.

“You read it,” Imogen answers, as though that is equally offensive. “Which is nearly as bad.”

Cordelia, perched on the edge of the chaise like a bird too young to know the cage is real, tilts her head. “I like when she reads to me.”

Imogen’s gaze cuts. “That is because you are still a child.”

Cordelia’s mouth tightens. She looks down at her slippers.

Something in your chest twists—not dramatic, not sharp. Just a small ache you’ve learned to tuck away with the rest of the quiet hurts. You reach for Cordelia’s hand under the fold of your skirt, giving it a brief squeeze. She squeezes back, grateful, as though you’ve offered her a rescue rope.

Your mother misses the exchange entirely. “Remember,” she says, “you are not to wander. You are not to disappear into some corner like a—” She inhales, restrains herself, finishes with forced calm. “Like an unsociable girl.”

Seraphina’s eyes glint. “Like herself, Mama means.”

Daphne laughs, sweet and light.

Arabella, already dressed and luminous, pauses at the door. Her gaze lands on you. For a heartbeat, something softer lives there—under her pride, under her practiced hostess smile.

“Be kind,” she says to your sisters, quietly, but not quietly enough.

Imogen rolls her eyes. Seraphina’s smile turns sharper, but she says nothing. Your mother pretends she did not hear. Arabella hesitates, as if she might say something else—to you, perhaps—and then the moment passes. She is swept away by the crush of responsibility, the weight of her new title, the desperate need to appear perfect.

And you follow, as you always do.

The Harrowgate townhouse is a blaze of candlelight and expectation.

The entry hall smells of beeswax and perfume. Footmen take cloaks and names and secrets alike. The ballroom itself gleams—polished floors reflecting chandeliers like captured constellations. Everywhere there is silk and laughter and the soft shock of jewels catching light.

Your sisters bloom in it. Arabella floats through the room like she was born to move people where she wants them. Seraphina collects admirers as if it is sport. Daphne is surrounded before the first set ends, three gentlemen vying for her attention with the earnestness of men who have never been told no. Imogen stands near your mother, issuing judgments under her breath like a magistrate.

You stand where you are placed—near a pillar, close enough to be seen, far enough to be forgotten. Your mother’s hand presses briefly to your shoulder as she passes, a reminder that you are an accessory to her ambitions, not a person within them.

“Do not slouch,” she murmurs.

You straighten.

A waltz begins. Couples spin, skirts flaring like petals caught in wind. You watch the patterns because they are safe—numbers and music, steps and symmetry. It is easier to observe the world than to risk being noticed by it.

Your gaze drifts without meaning—past laughing mouths, past gloved hands, past the bright faces of girls who have practiced wanting what they are told to want.

And then you see him.

He is not bright.

He is not easy.

He stands at the far edge of the room near the shadowed archway that leads into the adjoining salon, as if the ballroom’s light is something he tolerates rather than enjoys. His hair is dark, brushed back with minimal care. His posture is too still—soldier-still, as though his body has learned to be ready even in peace.

The first thing people notice is his arm.

Even from here, you see the metallic gleam beneath the cuff of his sleeve when he shifts, the unnatural line where polished steel meets fabric. A murmur ripples through a nearby cluster of ladies; fans lift like shields. A gentleman leans in to whisper something that makes a woman’s eyes widen in fascinated horror.

The Duke of Barnes, someone says, and the name travels like a spark.

Duke.

War-torn.

Scarred.

A man made of stories the ton tells itself to feel thrillingly safe.

You should look away. It is what everyone else is doing—staring and then pretending not to, as though curiosity is indecent and empathy impossible.

But you don’t.

Not because you are brave, but because you know what it is to be watched like an oddity. You know what it is to be the thing people discuss behind fans and laughter.

As if he feels the weight of your attention, he turns his head.

His eyes find you across the room.

They are not the cold eyes of rumor. They are a blue-gray that holds storms and fatigue and something else—something older than the ballroom, older than polite society.

His gaze catches, and for one awful, breathless moment, you think you have done something wrong. That your staring has made you rude, that you are about to be exposed as the quiet girl who forgets the rules.

Then his expression shifts—not into a smile, not quite. Into recognition.

As if he has spotted another person standing at the edges, surviving rather than performing.

You look away first, because you always do. Because it is safer to become invisible.

But the heat of his gaze lingers like candle-warmth on your skin.

You last exactly twenty minutes before you need air.

It isn’t the crowd, not really. It’s the sense of being pressed into place—of existing as a piece on someone else’s board. You slip out when your mother is distracted by a conversation about dowries and Dorsetshire estates, and when your sisters are consumed by admirers.

The corridor outside the ballroom is cooler, dimmer. The noise becomes distant, as if you’ve stepped underwater. You move as quietly as you can, past a row of portraits in gilded frames—Harrowgate ancestors who look down at you with bored superiority.

A door stands slightly ajar at the end of the hall, light spilling from within. You recognize the room by its scent before you see it: paper, leather, dust warmed by lamps.

A library.

Your heart loosens, just a little, the way it does when you step into someplace that does not demand you shine.

You push the door open, slip inside, and close it softly behind you.

The room is lined with shelves, the kind that reach toward the ceiling like devotion. There are chairs by the fireplace, a writing desk, a scattering of volumes left open as if someone abandoned them mid-thought. A lamp glows on a side table, throwing warm light over a stack of books.

You move toward them as if drawn by gravity.

Your fingers brush a spine—Milton, then Rousseau, then a worn copy of Persuasion that makes your chest ache, though you are not sure why. You pick it up, almost reverently, flipping to a page at random.

“You’re hiding.”

The voice comes from behind you—low, roughened by disuse, as though he doesn’t speak often unless he must.

You freeze.

Slowly, you turn.

He stands near the doorway, half in shadow. The Duke of Barnes. Bucky Barnes, if the murmurs were accurate—though no one says “Bucky” in ballrooms. They say “Your Grace,” and they say it with a tremble.

He has removed his gloves. One hand is bare, strong, human. The other—metal, articulated in a way that is both beautiful and unsettling, fingers of steel catching lamplight.

He looks at you not like a creature to be studied, but like a person caught doing something familiar.

“I could say the same of you,” you manage, and it surprises you—how easily the words come.

His mouth tilts at one corner, nearly a smile. “I wasn’t subtle.”

“No,” you agree, and then you flush because it sounds like judgment.

He doesn’t seem offended. If anything, he looks… relieved. Like you have named the truth and spared him the performance of denying it.

“You shouldn’t be in here alone,” he says after a moment. “People talk.”

You glance at the book in your hand. “People talk no matter where I stand.”

He studies you as if the sentence has struck something in him. “That so?”

You shrug, a small movement. “My sisters are the sort people notice. I am… not.”

His gaze lowers briefly to the pages, then back to your face. “You came here for the books.”

“Yes.”

“And not,” he adds, almost cautiously, “because you were hoping to catch someone’s attention.”

The question is strange—almost too direct for polite society. But you realize he is not teasing. He is… checking. As if he has been hunted by expectations and wants to know whether you are another trap.

“No,” you say, honest. “I came because it is quiet.”

His shoulders drop a fraction, the tension easing. “Good.”

You blink. “Good?”

“Quiet’s… rare.” His eyes flick to the door, as though he expects it to burst open with laughter and judgment. “And I’ve had enough of rooms full of people pretending not to stare.”

The words are careful, controlled, but beneath them you hear exhaustion. Something in you softens in recognition. Not pity—pity is a kind of distance. This is something else. Understanding, perhaps.

You find yourself speaking before you can stop. “Does it hurt?”

His gaze snaps back to you, sharp.

You almost apologize immediately. You almost retreat into silence, mortified at your own boldness.

But he doesn’t lash out. He doesn’t sneer.

He looks down at his arm, the metal gleaming where the lamplight catches the joints. His fingers flex once, slow. “Sometimes,” he admits. “Not like it did at first. But… there are things a body remembers.”

You swallow. “I’m sorry.”

He lifts his eyes again. “Don’t be. You didn’t do it.”

It is a simple sentence, but it lands heavy. Like a door opening into a room you’ve never dared enter.

You shift the book in your hands. “You fought in the war,” you say, not a question.

He nods once. “And I came home less… whole than I left.”

There’s no self-pity in it. Just fact.

You gesture helplessly to the library around you. “They talk as if you are a monster.”

His expression hardens, just a little. “They talk as if I’m entertainment.”

Anger rises in you—a slow burn, unfamiliar. You are used to swallowing hurt, not holding it.

“It’s cruel,” you say, and your voice is firmer than you expect.

Something flickers across his face—surprise, and then something warmer, softer. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “It is.”

You look down at the book, at the lines of ink that have survived centuries because they mattered to someone. “I don’t think you’re a monster,” you say, and the honesty in it makes your throat tight. “I think you’re… tired.”

His breath catches, subtle enough that you might have missed it if you weren’t watching him the way you watch stories unfold.

“Tired,” he repeats, as though he is tasting the word. “No one’s called me that.”

“What do they call you?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

His jaw tightens. “Scarred. Ruined. Dangerous. Tragic.” A humorless exhale. “As if those are the only things a man can be.”

You meet his gaze, steady now because something in you refuses to flinch. “They’re wrong.”

His eyes hold yours for a long moment. The air between you feels charged—not with scandal, but with something strangely intimate: the shared relief of dropping masks.

“You got a name, Miss…?” he prompts gently.

You hesitate. Not because you don’t know it, but because names, in your family, feel like expectations. Labels people use to decide what you are worth.

But his voice is not demanding. It is offering.

You give it. Quietly.

He nods as though it matters. As though he will remember it when the room grows loud again.

“I’m James,” he says, and then, as if he knows how stiff it sounds, he adds, “Most call me Bucky, when they’re brave enough to forget I’m a duke.”

You almost smile. “Bucky.”

The sound of it feels like stepping off a polished floor onto grass. Real.

He watches your mouth when you say it, and something in his expression softens into something you’ve never been the object of before: interest without agenda.

“You like books,” he says, gesturing to the one in your hands.

“I like stories,” you correct quietly. “I like… the way they tell the truth without making you perform it.”

His gaze drops again to the book. “Read to me,” he says, then pauses as if he cannot believe he asked. “If you want. I mean. You don’t have to.”

You should be nervous. You should be thinking about propriety, about how your mother would faint if she found you alone in a library with a duke whose reputation has frightened half of Mayfair.

But the room is warm and quiet and safe in a way the ballroom isn’t, and his eyes look at you like you are not a disappointment.

So you sit.

You choose a chair by the lamp, hands trembling only slightly as you open the book. He takes the other chair—not too close, not too far, positioned like someone who has learned to give women space. His metal hand rests on the armrest, glinting. His human hand folds loosely over his knee.

You begin to read.

At first, your voice is soft. Then it steadies. Then it finds rhythm—words like familiar footsteps. You feel him listening, truly listening, in a way most people do not. His gaze stays on the pages, on your hands, on your face. He does not interrupt. He does not tease. He does not try to impress you with his own cleverness.

He simply lets you exist.

When you reach the end of a passage, you look up without thinking.

He is watching you as if you are the most interesting thing in the room.

“What?” you ask, flustered.

He blinks, as if caught. “You look… different in here.”

“Different?”

“Like you belong to yourself.” His voice is quiet, almost reverent, and something in your chest aches with the sweetness of it. “In there—” his eyes flick toward the ballroom “—you were trying to disappear.”

You swallow. “It’s easier.”

He leans forward slightly, the movement careful, controlled. “Don’t,” he says, and the word is so gentle it almost hurts. “Not for them.”

Your throat tightens. No one has ever told you not to vanish.

Before you can answer, the door opens.

Light spills in. Laughter. A familiar voice, bright and sharp.

“There you are,” Seraphina says, stepping into the library as if she owns it. Her gaze darts to you, then to the duke, and her smile changes—becoming polished, predatory. “Oh.”

Behind her, your mother appears, like a storm finally finding the house it means to break.

You stand so fast the book nearly slips from your hands. “Mama—”

Your mother’s eyes lock on Bucky’s arm first, and you watch the reflexive flicker of distaste cross her face before she smothers it with forced courtesy.

“Your Grace,” she says, dipping into a shallow curtsy that contains more calculation than respect. “I did not realize you would be… joining us in private.”

Bucky stands, too. Taller than you realized. Broader. His expression closes like a door.

“Lady Ashford,” he says evenly.

Seraphina fans herself, eyes gleaming. “How extraordinary. I didn’t know you were acquainted.”

You open your mouth, but your mother speaks over you. “My daughter has a habit of wandering,” she says lightly, as though you are a child who strays from the nursemaid. “I was just reminding her of proper conduct.”

Bucky’s gaze shifts to you, and in it you see a question: Are you alright?

You nod, barely.

Your mother continues, oblivious to anything but appearances. “Of course, Miss Ashford is not… accustomed to such company. She spends most of her days with books rather than people.”

The insult is wrapped in silk, but it is still an insult. Your cheeks burn.

Bucky’s metal fingers flex once, the soft click of joints in the quiet room.

“She reads well,” he says, voice calm. “Better than most I’ve heard.”

Seraphina’s eyes narrow, quickly masked by delight. “How charming. I didn’t realize Your Grace enjoyed being read to.”

Bucky’s gaze is flat. “I enjoy honesty,” he answers.

Imogen’s voice drifts from the doorway now—she must have followed. “And what honesty is there in a girl hiding in a library?”

Your mother’s eyes flash. “Imogen.”

Imogen shrugs, unrepentant. “It’s true. She cannot even survive one ball without fleeing.”

You want to disappear. You want the floor to open and swallow you whole.

But then Bucky looks at you again, and in that look is something steady—like a hand offered in the dark.

“She didn’t flee,” he says. His voice is still controlled, but there is iron beneath it. “She stepped away from the noise. There’s a difference.”

Your mother’s smile grows tighter. “A young lady’s duty is to be seen.”

Bucky’s gaze sharpens. “And a young lady is also a person.”

The room goes very still.

Your mother’s nostrils flare slightly, scandal barely held back. “Your Grace,” she says, warning threaded through the title, “I do not believe you understand—”

“I understand,” he interrupts quietly, and the quiet is worse than shouting. “I understand what it is to be treated as a thing rather than a human being.”

Your mother’s composure wavers for the first time. She recovers quickly, smoothing her skirts. “Come,” she says to you, voice clipped. “You will return to the ballroom.”

Your feet feel rooted.

Bucky’s gaze holds yours. He does not command you. He does not rescue you without permission.

But he stays.

So you take a breath you did not know you were capable of taking, and you nod at your mother.

“Of course,” you say, because it is not yet the moment to fight.

But as you pass Bucky, leaving the library, you feel something brush your hand.

Metal, cool and careful.

Not grasping. Not claiming.

Just… there.

A touch as light as a bookmark between pages.

Your breath catches.

His voice follows you, low enough that only you hear it. “Don’t disappear,” he murmurs. “Not entirely.”

You step back into the ballroom with your pulse racing like you’ve done something wildly improper—like you’ve done something dangerously brave.

After that night, the ton begins to talk in earnest.

They always talked about Bucky Barnes—about the tragedy of him, the horror and fascination, the rumors of how he lost his arm (a cannon, a blade, a French trap, a punishment). They talked about how he returned from war as if he carried winter in his bones.

But now, they talk about you too.

Because the Duke of Barnes calls.

He leaves his card at the Ashford residence the very next morning.

Your mother holds it between her fingers as if it might stain her. “This is highly irregular,” she says.

Seraphina’s eyes gleam. “It’s highly interesting.”

Daphne gasps, delighted. “A duke!”

Imogen sneers. “A scarred duke.”

Cordelia watches you quietly, worry and wonder tangled in her gaze.

Your father clears his throat, uncomfortable. “He is… wealthy.”

Your mother’s mouth tightens. “And damaged.”

Your stomach twists. “Mama—”

“I will not have you throw yourself at a man simply because he paid you a moment of attention,” she snaps, and the words hit harder than they should, because some part of you fears she is right. “You are not suited to the role of duchess. You would embarrass us.”

You go cold all over. “He wasn’t— I didn’t—”

Seraphina’s smile is syrupy. “Perhaps he only called because he enjoys being pitied.”

Bile rises in your throat. “I don’t pity him.”

Imogen tilts her head. “Then what do you feel?”

You don’t answer, because you cannot. Not without exposing yourself.

Not without admitting that one quiet hour in a library made you feel seen in a way you have been craving your whole life.

Your mother presses the calling card to the table as though pinning down an insect. “You will not be alone with him,” she declares. “You will not encourage him.”

“And if he asks to dance with you again?” Daphne asks, bright-eyed.

Your mother’s gaze flicks to Daphne, then Seraphina, calculating. “If he wishes to court an Ashford, he may court properly.”

Seraphina straightens, hopeful.

Your mother glances at you, and the disappointment sharpens. “But it will not be you.”

The room goes silent.

Your father does not contradict her.

Your sisters do not protest.

Only Cordelia looks stricken, like she has just witnessed a cruelty she cannot yet name.

You swallow the hurt until it tastes like blood. “Of course,” you whisper.

You excuse yourself before anyone can see you crack.

You take refuge where you always do—in a book.

But now, every page feels haunted by the memory of a voice at your side, listening. Of eyes watching you as if you mattered.

Days pass. Then another calling card arrives. Then another.

He does not stop.

Your mother refuses him twice before she can no longer do so without causing commentary, and commentary is the only thing she fears more than scandal.

So Bucky Barnes is invited for tea.

Your mother arranges the drawing room like a battlefield.

Daphne and Seraphina sit poised like flowers. Imogen sits like a judge. Cordelia hovers close to you, a quiet anchor. Your mother sits at the center, spine rigid, smile sharp.

You sit where you are told.

And then he enters.

In daylight, he looks even more out of place in your world—dark clothes, severe lines, a presence that fills the room without trying. His metal arm is covered by his coat sleeve, but you can see the shape of it beneath the fabric.

Your mother rises, all polite stiffness. “Your Grace.”

He bows, controlled. “Lady Ashford. Miss Ashford.” His gaze flicks over your sisters—and then finds you, and settles like something warm on your skin. “Miss Ashford,” he says again, softer, as if the second time is for you alone.

Your breath catches.

Tea is poured. Questions are asked—the kind meant to assess rather than understand.

“How is your estate?” your mother asks, as though she might find rot beneath the wealth.

“Managed,” Bucky answers, polite, clipped.

“And your health?” Seraphina asks, voice sugared. “You must have suffered terribly.”

His gaze is flat. “I recovered.”

Imogen’s eyes narrow. “Can you dance with that arm?”

The room freezes.

Your cheeks flame. “Imogen—”

Bucky’s metal fingers tap once against his teacup saucer, a soft clink. His expression doesn’t change. “I can,” he says simply.

Daphne leans forward, eager. “And do you plan to marry, Your Grace?”

Your mother sends her a warning look that says: Let him speak when spoken to, but the question is already out, and your sisters watch with hungry curiosity.

Bucky’s gaze drifts, slow, to you.

“I plan,” he says carefully, “to marry someone who doesn’t look at me like a spectacle.”

Seraphina’s smile falters.

Your mother’s eyes sharpen. “And where might you find such a woman?”

Bucky’s eyes do not leave you. “I’ve already met her.”

The air goes thin.

Your heart stutters. Surely he cannot mean— Surely—

Your mother laughs, brittle. “Your Grace, you scarcely know my daughters.”

“I know enough,” he replies, and there is quiet authority in it. “I know which one listens instead of performs. I know which one doesn’t flinch at my arm. I know which one reads like she’s speaking the truth.”

Your mother’s face tightens. “Miss Ashford is not—”

“Not what?” he cuts in softly, and it is the softness that makes it dangerous. “Not charming enough? Not loud enough? Not a proper ornament for your ambitions?”

Your mother’s mouth opens, shocked.

Cordelia’s hand finds yours under the cushion. She squeezes, hard.

You stare at Bucky, stunned. No man has ever spoken on your behalf. No one has ever put words to what you endure.

And yet terror coils in your stomach too, because his honesty could ruin you.

Your mother straightens, forcing control back into her spine. “Your Grace,” she says coldly, “you are not welcome to make sport of my family.”

“I’m not making sport,” he says. “I’m asking permission to court her.”

The word her lands like thunder.

Your sisters stare.

Seraphina’s cheeks flush with fury. Daphne looks bewildered. Imogen looks offended, as though he has insulted the entire concept of taste.

Your mother turns her gaze to you.

It is the same gaze that has weighed you and found you lacking all your life, but now it holds something new: fear. Fear that you might step out of your place.

“You will not,” she says quietly, as if she can command your choice by sheer will.

Bucky’s eyes are on you again, steady. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t pressure.

He waits.

For the first time in your life, a room full of people is waiting to see what you will do.

Your throat tightens. Your pulse pounds.

You think of the library—of quiet, of warmth, of being spoken to like you are not a disappointment.

You think of your mother’s words: You would embarrass us.

And then you realize something terrifying.

Perhaps you are done trying not to.

You swallow. “I would like,” you say, voice shaking but real, “to be courted.”

Your mother’s breath hitches, a sound like outrage.

Bucky’s expression softens—not into triumph, but into something that looks like relief.

“As you wish,” he murmurs.

Courting Bucky Barnes is not like courting any other gentleman.

He does not bombard you with flattery. He does not bring you bouquets that smell like a stranger’s effort. He does not linger too close, smile too wide, speak too loudly.

He brings you books.

The first time he arrives with one, your mother nearly chokes on her own indignation.

“A gift already,” she snaps. “Your Grace, this is—”

“A book,” he says, calm. “Not a diamond.”

“It is still an impropriety.”

He glances at you, eyes quiet. “Does she think it is?”

Your mother’s gaze darts to you, warning.

You take the book with careful hands, as if it is precious. “No,” you say softly. “I think it is… thoughtful.”

Bucky’s mouth twitches. “Good.”

He visits, properly chaperoned, though he treats your mother’s hovering like bad weather—present, irritating, not something worth surrendering to. Sometimes the chaperone is Arabella when she can manage it, her presence a small mercy. Sometimes it is Cordelia, who tags along like a determined little guardian, refusing to let your mother poison every moment.

Bucky speaks to you as if the room is not full of observers.

He asks what you like. What you think. What makes you laugh when no one is watching. He listens when you answer, even when your voice is quiet.

At first, you don’t know how to do it—how to exist without shrinking. You catch yourself softening your opinions, hiding your enthusiasm, stopping sentences before they become too much.

And every time you do, he notices.

“You don’t have to edit yourself for me,” he says one afternoon, when you pause mid-thought about a novel’s heroine.

Your cheeks heat. “I’m not—”

“You are,” he says gently. “I know that look. It’s the same one I wore when people asked me what the war was like and expected me to say something that made them feel brave for listening.”

You swallow. “What was it like?” you ask quietly.

His gaze drops to his tea. “Loud,” he says after a moment. “And cold. And… lonely, even with men beside you.”

Your chest tightens. “And now?”

He lifts his eyes. “Now it’s loud in a different way. People stare and whisper and decide what I am without asking.”

You shift, then, without thinking, you let your fingers brush the cuff of his sleeve where the metal begins beneath. Not grasping. Not claiming. Just touching the fabric, a question.

He goes very still.

Then, slowly, carefully, he moves his arm so the metal hand rests on the table between you.

The room is quiet. Even your mother, across the way, has paused—watching with something like horrified fascination.

Bucky’s eyes stay on yours. “You can,” he says, voice low. “If you want.”

Your breath catches.

You reach out.

Your fingertips meet cool steel.

It is not monstrous. It is not obscene. It is simply… part of him. And in the precision of its design, the careful way it responds when he flexes his fingers beneath your touch, you see something you didn’t expect.

Survival.

A body refusing to be ended.

A man refusing to be reduced to what he lost.

You don’t know why tears prick your eyes. You blink them back quickly, embarrassed.

Bucky’s gaze softens. “Hey,” he murmurs, as if the word is a comfort. “Don’t cry for me.”

“I’m not,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I’m… angry for you.”

His throat works as he swallows. “No one’s ever been angry for me,” he admits, so quietly it feels like a secret.

Your fingers curl slightly around his metal ones—not tight, not possessive, just steady.

“I am,” you say. “And I think… I think you deserve better than their whispers.”

His eyes go bright for a moment, and you realize he is fighting something too—something sharp and painful and hopeful.

“So do you,” he says.

It is not the ton that tries to tear you apart first.

It is your family.

It begins with little cruelties. Imogen “accidentally” misplaces your gloves before an outing. Seraphina makes comments about your “strange taste” in men. Daphne, though less malicious, sighs and says, “But imagine the gowns you could have if you married someone… normal.”

Your mother grows colder by the day. She critiques your appearance like she is searching for flaws to justify her disapproval.

“Your hair is too plain.”

“Your laugh is too quiet.”

“Do not look at him like that. You’ll encourage him.”

One night, after Bucky leaves, your mother corners you in the corridor.

“You think this is romance,” she says, voice harsh. “You think you’ve found some poetic tragedy to live in. But men like that do not make good husbands.”

“Men like what?” you ask, quiet but steady.

“Broken men,” she spits.

Your chest aches. “He isn’t broken.”

“He is,” she insists, and her eyes flash with something ugly. “And he will break you too.”

You stare at her in the dim hallway, the candlelight making her face look older, harder. “You don’t know him,” you say.

“And you do?” she scoffs. “Because he listened to you read a book? Because he made you feel special for once?” Her voice sharpens. “You are vulnerable, and he sees it.”

Your throat tightens. “He sees me,” you correct, and your voice shakes on the truth. “No one else bothers.”

For a heartbeat, your mother looks struck—as if you’ve slapped her without touching her.

Then her face closes. “You are my daughter,” she says, as if it is ownership. “And you will not disgrace this family.”

You feel the familiar pull—the urge to shrink, to apologize, to become the obedient shadow again.

But the memory of Bucky’s steady gaze, his gentle don’t disappear, holds you upright.

“I’m not trying to disgrace you,” you say softly. “I’m trying to live.”

Her eyes narrow. “Then live quietly. Live properly.”

You swallow. “I have done that my entire life,” you whisper. “And it has never been enough for you.”

She inhales sharply, as though she might retort.

But footsteps echo from the entry hall—Bucky returning, perhaps forgotten something, or Arabella calling for you.

Your mother’s face hardens. “We will speak of this again.”

And she leaves you standing in the corridor, shaking.

The next ball you attend is not yours.

It is Seraphina’s—a smaller gathering, hosted by a friend who has a ballroom and a mother with ambitions just as sharp as Lady Ashford’s. Your mother insists you go, insisting that if Bucky intends to court you, he must show the ton he can tolerate society.

“He must prove himself,” she says, and you know she means: He must prove he is worth the risk of having you attached to him.

Bucky arrives late.

When he enters, the room shifts. Conversations stutter. Eyes turn. Whispers bloom like rot.

You stand near a wall with Cordelia, who clings to your hand as if she can feel the danger.

“There he is,” Cordelia whispers.

You look.

Bucky’s gaze finds you immediately, steady as ever. He crosses the room with controlled steps, ignoring the way people part like he is dangerous water.

When he reaches you, he bows. “Miss Ashford.”

Your mother appears at your shoulder like a hawk. “Your Grace.”

He doesn’t flinch at her chill. His attention returns to you. “Would you grant me this dance?”

A hush seems to fall around you—not because people are polite, but because they are eager to witness either romance or disaster.

Your mother’s fingers dig into your arm. “You must consider—”

“I have,” you say, and you step forward.

Bucky’s metal hand extends, palm up, not as a command but as an invitation.

You place your gloved hand in it.

His grip is careful, steady, warm through fabric despite the steel.

He leads you to the floor, and as you take your position, you feel the ton’s gaze like needles.

The music begins.

Bucky moves with surprising grace. The metal arm does not hinder him; it simply exists, as natural to him as breathing. His other hand rests at your back, firm but gentle, guiding you through the steps.

“You alright?” he murmurs, close enough that only you hear.

You swallow. “They’re staring.”

“I know,” he says softly. “Look at me.”

You do.

And the ballroom blurs.

Because his eyes are on you like you are not a spectacle, not a scandal, not a disappointment—just a person worth holding.

“Good,” he murmurs, as if praising bravery you don’t feel.

Halfway through the dance, you hear it—a sharp, cruel whisper from the edge of the floor.

“She must be desperate.”

Another: “No one else would have her.”

Your chest tightens. Your steps falter.

Bucky’s hold steadies you instantly, his hand at your back firming. “Hey,” he murmurs.

You blink rapidly, fighting tears. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, humiliated. “I shouldn’t—”

“Don’t apologize,” he says, and there is steel beneath the gentleness now. “Not for existing.”

You swallow hard. “They’re right,” you whisper, the old poison rising. “No one else would—”

His eyes sharpen, and for the first time you see anger in him—not wild, not violent. Controlled, purposeful.

“They’re not right,” he says quietly. “And if you ever repeat their cruelty to yourself again, I’ll have to spend the rest of my life proving you wrong.”

Your breath catches. “The rest of your—”

His gaze holds yours. “If you’ll let me.”

The music swells, and you realize the room has quieted again—not because of the dance, but because Bucky Barnes has tilted his head toward you as if speaking something intimate.

Your mother is watching from the sidelines, pale with fury.

Seraphina’s lips are pressed into a thin line.

Imogen looks disgusted.

Daphne looks conflicted.

Cordelia looks like she might burst into tears from sheer hope.

And you—

You feel like you are standing at the edge of a cliff you’ve been afraid to approach your whole life.

Bucky finishes the dance and does not let go of your hand when the music ends.

Instead, he turns to face the room.

The ton leans in, hungry.

He bows to you first, respectful.

Then he turns his gaze—cold, calm—toward your mother.

“Lady Ashford,” he says, voice carrying just enough. “May I speak with you.”

Your mother’s smile is rigid. “Now?”

“Now,” he says.

Whispers erupt.

He doesn’t wait for her to approve. He leads her—not by force, but by presence—toward a quieter corner, where Arabella has drifted close as a shield, and where your father hovers, uncomfortable but attentive.

You stand with Cordelia, your heart hammering, watching as Bucky speaks with your parents like a man who has decided he will no longer be treated as entertainment.

You cannot hear every word, but you see your mother’s expression change—anger, outrage, then something like calculation as she realizes the room is watching her now.

You see your father’s shoulders sag as if relieved someone else is bearing the weight of decision.

Then Bucky turns.

He walks back to you, the ballroom parting again, but this time the parting feels like acknowledgment rather than avoidance.

He stops in front of you.

“You told me once,” he says quietly, “that people talk no matter where you stand.”

Your throat tightens. “Yes.”

He nods. “Then stand with me.”

The simplicity of it steals your breath.

He turns, facing your parents, facing the room, facing the world that has tried to shape you into silence.

And then, in the most proper voice he can manage while still being utterly himself, he says:

“I intend to marry Miss Ashford, if she will have me.”

The room erupts.

Your mother makes a sound—half gasp, half protest.

Seraphina’s face goes red.

Imogen looks as if she might faint from outrage.

Daphne’s mouth falls open.

Cordelia clutches your hand so hard it hurts.

Arabella’s eyes shine with something like pride.

Bucky turns back to you, and suddenly none of the noise matters, because he is looking at you like your answer is the only thing in the world.

He doesn’t assume. He doesn’t claim. He asks—with his eyes, with his steady presence, with the gentleness in his voice.

“Will you?” he murmurs.

Your throat feels tight enough to choke you.

You think of your mother’s disappointment, your father’s silence, your sisters’ cruelty.

You think of the library, the lamp glow, the way Bucky listened like your words mattered.

You think of the metal hand that held yours like it was precious.

And you realize, with a clarity that makes you almost dizzy, that love is not loud.

Love is not a performance.

Love is someone seeing you in the quiet and choosing you anyway.

You take a breath.

Then you step forward.

“Yes,” you say, voice trembling but sure. “I will.”

Bucky’s eyes close for a brief second, as if the relief is too much to hold. When he opens them, they shine.

He bows over your hand—not for the room, not for propriety, but as if he is honoring you.

When his lips touch your knuckles through your glove, it feels like a promise sealed in warmth.

The engagement is a storm.

Your mother attempts to salvage control by insisting on conditions: timelines, announcements, guest lists. She speaks about scandal as though it is a living thing stalking your family.

Bucky listens, polite, unmoved.

He gives her the respect due to her position, and none of the power she thinks she holds.

Your sisters fluctuate between outrage and fascination. Seraphina makes pointed remarks about your “luck,” as if love is a lottery you cheated to win. Imogen predicts misery with the satisfaction of someone who wants to be right more than she wants you happy. Daphne, after one private conversation where she cannot quite meet your eyes, murmurs, “I didn’t know you could be… chosen,” and you realize she never believed you could be either.

Only Cordelia is unabashedly delighted. She slips into your room at night and whispers, “He looks at you like you’re his whole world,” as if that is the greatest magic she has ever seen.

And Arabella—Arabella pulls you aside a week before the wedding and presses your hands between hers.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.

Your throat tightens. “For what?”

“For not noticing sooner,” she admits, eyes glossy. “For letting Mama and the others make you feel small.” She swallows. “I was so busy trying to be perfect that I didn’t see what it cost you.”

You blink, stunned. “Arabella…”

She shakes her head. “He sees you,” she says, and the words are soft, aching. “And I’m glad. I’m glad you found someone who does.”

You hug her, careful, and she clings back as if she’s been holding guilt for years.

On your wedding day, the world is still loud.

There are guests and whispers and eyes that try to measure you.

But when you stand at the front of the church and Bucky turns to face you, the noise recedes.

He looks nervous, you realize. Not about the ton, not about judgment.

About you.

About doing this right.

As if marrying you is something sacred, something he cannot afford to mishandle.

His metal hand trembles slightly when he reaches for yours.

You take it anyway.

You do not flinch.

You do not hide.

And when the vows are spoken, when you say I do, it feels less like stepping into a role and more like stepping into yourself.

Later, when the reception swirls with music and conversation, you find a moment of escape—not into a library this time, but into a quiet side room with a window cracked open to cool air.

Bucky follows you, as if drawn by instinct.

He closes the door behind him gently, then leans against it like he’s guarding you from the world.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

You smile, small. “I should be asking you that.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Fair.”

You drift toward him. Close enough to see the faint scars along his jaw, the lines of weariness that have nothing to do with age and everything to do with memory.

“You look…” You search for the word.

He tilts his head. “Like what?”

“Like you can breathe,” you whisper.

His gaze softens. “Yeah,” he admits. “Because you’re here.”

Your chest tightens with something sweet and painful.

You lift your hand, slowly, giving him time to pull away if he needs.

He doesn’t.

Your fingers brush his cheek, and his eyes close briefly at the touch, like it’s a kindness he still doesn’t fully trust.

“You know,” you whisper, “they’ll still talk.”

He opens his eyes, looking at you like you are a truth he chose on purpose. “Let them,” he says, voice steady. “They can spend their lives whispering. We’ll spend ours living.”

You swallow, emotion thick in your throat. “I don’t know how to be… loud.”

His mouth tilts, gentle. “Then don’t be.” He lifts his metal hand, slow, careful, and cups the side of your face with it—cool at first, then warming where it meets your skin. “I didn’t fall in love with loud.”

Your breath catches. “You—”

“I did,” he says simply, as if it is not a confession but a fact. “In that library, when you read like you weren’t afraid to exist. I’ve been done for ever since.”

A laugh escapes you, soft and disbelieving. “That’s not how courtship works.”

“It is for me,” he murmurs.

He leans in, giving you every chance to turn away.

You don’t.

His kiss is gentle. Not hungry, not demanding. Just warm and sure, like a hand finding yours in the dark. Like a promise kept in quiet.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours for a moment.

“You don’t have to disappear anymore,” he whispers.

You close your eyes, breathing him in—the scent of clean linen and winter air and something steady.

“I won’t,” you promise, and for the first time in your life, the promise feels possible.

Outside the door, the world still spins with music and gossip and expectation.

But here, in the small quiet, you are not an odd one out.

You are chosen.

And in Bucky Barnes’s careful hands, you find a love that does not ask you to be anything but yourself.

Gazing up at the stars glittering through the gently falling snow, you lean your head against Lars’s shoulder wish a quiet sigh. ‘I don’t know how I’ll make it back.’

‘It is magical out here at night, isn’t it?’ Lars breathes with a soft giggle.

‘It really is,’ you squeeze his gloved hand lightly with yours, ‘but I actually meant the walk back. My legs are frozen and kind of tired.’

There’s a pause then; you feel Lars tense. You think that maybe he’s unsure how to help you, and you know how that upsets him, but then he takes a deep inhale of frosty air and blurts, ‘I can carry you back if you want!’ squeezing his eyes tight shut.

The thought of being so close, safe in his arms, floods your cheeks with heat. ‘Oh… oh, Lars I couldn’t possibly-'

‘It’s okay,’ he reassures you, breath steadying and eyes blinking open to gaze down at you instead of up at the moon. ‘I don’t mind, and besides, I’m really good at it.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ he shrugs, ‘I used to carry Bianca a lot when she didn’t have her wheelchair. She always used to tell me that she loved how strong I am.’

You watch Lars’s cheeks flush with colour, too as he averts is gaze.

‘Alright,’ you agree casually. ‘I would love to see how strong you are.’

All the breath leaves Lars’s body at that, and you feel almost guilty for a moment, but you do so love it when he blushes. You’ve already noticed how strong he is, of course — you’ve watched him chop firewood enough times to know.

Lars turns on the spot and holds his arms out behind himself. You have to bite your lips together to keep from letting out a whine as you mount his back. Even through all the layers, he’s soft and thick and strong and sturdy. If he wasn’t holding you to him so tightly, you might swoon.

‘The stars look even more beautiful from here,’ you whisper, hot against the exposed part of his ear, and a shiver runs through his whole body.

As you finally approach the warm lights of the house and his garage apartment, he carefully sets you down, slips off his woolly hat and unfastens the front of his coat.

‘May I?’

He holds his arms out in front of him this time, and smiles at you as you tilt your head, curious. It’s a handsome smile, lips curling up slightly more at one side, genuine and warm. It’s almost hypnotising. And the next thing you know, Lars is carrying you bridal style into his apartment.

Once you’re back on the ground, and Lars has shed his coat and the little blanket from around his neck, he smiles at you again, with an extra twinkle in his eye.

His bail out attempt had been going well. The two of you met up near the center of the estate completely unharmed with over a dozen bodies dropped. Six was planning the best escape route, his head turned for a split second, when another guard appeared out of nowhere and fired off the first shot. You had just enough time to throw yourself in front of him and you did it without hesitation. 

You heard Six return the gunfire immediately as a searing bolt of pain radiated from your shoulder. The momentum from jumping in front of him and the force of the bullet caused you to lose your footing. Your other shoulder slammed into the cold tiles seconds before the side of your head followed, the impact causing your gun to slip from your hand. You let out a groan as pain shot through the other half of your body. It took a few blinks to clear your blurry vision as you fumbled around for your weapon instinctively.

And that’s how you got here. With Six knelt beside you, the palm of his gloved hand pressed tightly against your wound. 

Six merely shook his head at your reminder, knowing that continuing to argue would only waste precious time. It didn’t matter that he had heard the click of the enemy’s gun as he rounded the corner to your position and that he probably would’ve shot the guy first if you hadn’t thrown yourself at him. 

“Alright, we’ve gotta move. We’ll fix you up back at the safe house.” He ordered, wrapping a muscular arm around your waist to haul you back up to your feet. 

Six dropped his hold on you the second you were standing upright and you secretly missed the feeling as he began leading the way out of the estate. You fought through the pain that coursed through you, breathing in and out deeply with every step. It was a raw, grinding agony with every miniscule shift of your arm and you knew that the bullet was still buried deep in your shoulder. But there was no time to deal with it now. You kept your left arm tucked tightly against your torso, your right arm slightly extended as you carried your gun, prepared to fire at any moment. 

With Six’s guidance, it didn’t take long for you to escape the building. Now, you just had to make it out the same way that you came– by vaulting yourselves over the fence. There was a getaway car parked about half a mile away, hidden in some brush. Your shoulder throbbed at just the thought of climbing back over the fence and you fought back a grimace. This wasn’t going to be fun. But honestly, what part of your job was? 

Taking a moment to pause behind some trees and shrubbery, Six cast a glance towards you and then to your planned exit. “You good?” 

“I’ll survive.” You responded with a huff, keeping your eyes peeled for any other guards roaming the property. Your shirt was completely soaked with blood at this point and you needed to get something tied around it soon to help stop the bleeding. However, the first priority was getting the hell out of here. 

You realized that you must’ve killed the majority of the guards on the compound when you didn’t spot anyone nearby. Well, not anyone alive at least. Six had dropped the two that were manning the closed gates and four others on his way into the estate. Their bodies were scattered around the yard. 

Satisfied that the coast was clear, you two made a run for it. 

At that exact moment, two headlights came speeding down the drive and crashed straight through the metal gates. 

“Shit,” you both cursed and dove for cover as two men hopped out of the SUV and released rapid fire.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to hide behind except for shrubbery. As you returned fire, you felt another bullet sink into your skin. This time, it was your upper thigh. The burning hot pain caused your knee to give out and you collapsed to the ground for the second time with a cry. 

Your final shot hit its mark, though, as did Six’s. Both men and the driver were now just as dead as the others. 

Six cursed once again as he realized you were down, closing the gap between you. “Seriously?” He questioned, his tone somewhere between exasperation and worry.  

“Yeah, I must’ve pissed somebody off upstairs or something.” You muttered through gritted teeth jokingly, or as well as you could muster it. 

The new wound just barely lessened the pain you felt from your shoulder, but now you were losing twice the amount of blood. 

Six took off his belt in record time and wrapped it around your upper thigh, pulling it as tight as he could. You’d been hit closer to your outer thigh, which meant it shouldn’t have nicked your major artery. That was good news, at least. 

“We’re literal assassins. I’d say that ship sailed a long time ago.” He deadpanned. 

His response caused the corner of your mouth to upturn ever so slightly as you breathed out a short laugh. 

“Come on, let’s get out of here before you get shot for a third time.”  

You didn’t have time to try and stand on your own before Six’s arms slid beneath you. It took longer than you liked to realize that he was lifting you up into his arms. You’d been partnered with Six for, coincidentally, six months so far and this was new.  

A noise of surprise slipped from you before you could stop it, but you wrapped your arms around his neck instinctively. 

You took advantage of being so close to Six and finally noticed that he had been hit in the face with the butt of a gun, as dried blood streaked down from his temple. He was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and although you knew he could feel you staring at him, his eyes never met yours. They remained alert, scanning your surroundings as he made a quick get away through the gate that had just been blown open. 

It was only about a ten minute walk to where your getaway car had been parked, but you were sure that Six hadn’t planned on having to carry you to it. 

About half way there, you could tell that his breathing was becoming labored. His adrenaline was probably beginning to subside, making the task of carrying you more difficult. He was incredibly strong, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard work to carry someone. Especially after a mission. It made you feel bad, even as your own adrenaline wore off, making your wounds ache and the blood loss made your head feel fuzzy. 

“I can walk the rest of the way.” You offered after a moment, your guilt finally eating away at you. It wasn’t his fault that you got shot twice. Sure, you might’ve saved him from the first bullet, but the second was all you. You should’ve been better than that. 

Your words brought Six’s attention towards you for the first time since he picked you up. A tingle ran down your spine as his blue eyes met yours.

“No, I can carry you.” He stated firmly, before the corner of his lips curled up into the faintest smirk. 

“I just thought you’d be lighter without all of that blood.” 

Any ounce of guilt faded the second his teasing words reached your ears, a look of annoyance crossing your features as you scoffed. “You’re such an ass.”