platonicaaxe

You were not stupid. You knew exactly what this was.

It was 1961. They had just ordered the closing of the border and the construction of a wall surrounding West Berlin. Your father was a high-ranking Red Room officer. Your new husband was a Hydra general. This marriage was political.

You were a bargaining chip to buy an alliance in troubling times.

But you were just nineteen. Not that they cared.

The chapel was cold, all marble and iron and banners instead of flowers. Red and black draped the walls like warnings. There was no real aisle, just a straight walk forward, like a march. Everything about it felt militarized, precise, stripped of everything that should’ve made a wedding a celebration. Even the music was wrong. Too sharp. Too loud. It echoed in your chest until your heart felt like it might splinter apart.

You stood at the entrance, your breath coming too fast. 

Your mother stood beside you.

She was trembling.

Her whole body shook like she was holding herself together by sheer willpower alone. Her hands were cold when they gripped yours, her fingers digging in too tight. You could feel her heartbeat racing. You had felt it before, late at night, when she thought you were asleep and cried into the foot of your bed.

Her marriage to your father had been political too.

She had been nineteen, too, once. Maybe younger. She had stood where you stood now, bartered between men who spoke about loyalty and power and alliances like they weren’t talking about living, breathing girls.

You realized then, as you were standing there, that she wasn’t shaking because she was giving you away. She was shaking because she saw herself in you. She was watching herself disappear all over again.

“Don’t cry,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Please don’t cry. They don’t like it when we cry.”

You swallowed hard as your throat burned.

You hadn’t cried yet. You were too numb for tears. Instead, fear sat heavy in your stomach. It felt like standing at the edge of a bottomless pit, knowing you were about to be pushed.

Across the room, waiting, was your betrothed.

General Viktor Dragunov.

He was thirty years your senior, hair already threaded with gray. His posture was rigid, decorated in medals earned through blood you didn’t want to think about. He looked at you like you were an acquisition. You were a property that had been negotiated, approved, and now delivered.

You were a treaty.

This wedding was about consolidation of power. Hydra and the Red Room were using you as the proof that they were now family.

Your father stepped forward to escort you. His face was carved from stone, eyes unreadable. He did not look at you like a daughter. He looked at you like a completed assignment.

You wanted to scream.

You wanted to run.

You wanted to say no.

But that had never been an option.

After all, you had been given two options:

Become a Red Room widow or marry Dragunov.

You had chosen blindly. You had reached for the option that didn’t end immediately in a grave. You knew yourself, and you knew the girls in the red room. You knew that most of the girls don’t even make it past the second year.

So you had told yourself surviving was enough. You had told yourself you could endure anything if it meant living.

Now, standing here, you weren’t so sure.

Your father took your arm with a firm, impersonal grip. You felt like a package being handed over.

Each step forward felt wrong. The room blurred at the edges. Faces watched you with scrutiny— Hydra officials, Red Room handlers, men and women who understood exactly what was happening and approved of it.

You were barely an adult.

Your hands were sweating inside your gloves. Your heart hammered so hard it hurt. You felt unbearably small, trapped inside a body that was about to be claimed by a man who had lived a whole life before you had even finished becoming a person.

When your father placed your hand into Dragunov’s, it felt like handcuffs closing around your wrist.

His fingers were possessive. 

The officiant spoke about unity. About strength. About legacy. Words like honor and loyalty were thrown around until they lost meaning. No one asked if you wanted this. No one asked if you were afraid.

You stared straight ahead, nails digging into your palm. 

When Dragunov kissed you, it was brief and public and wrong. His lips pressed against yours like a stamp of ownership. 

You did not close your eyes. You did not kiss back.

Applause followed.

And then, celebration.

As they led you away, his hand firm at the small of your back, you understood with terrible clarity that your life had ended. 

You had not walked into a marriage.

You had been absorbed into a machine.

—

You learned quickly that marriage did not make your husband a better man.

If anything, it excused his cruelty, gave him a sense of entitlement, a justification. The first years passed the way bruises do: faint at first, almost ignorable, then blooming dark beneath the skin. 

General Dragunov was impeccable in public. He dressed you like a trophy, gave you jewels that were heavy on your neck, dressed you in gowns chosen to emphasize elegance over comfort. His hand rested on your back whenever there were eyes on you, a reminder of ownership disguised as affection. He spoke of my wife with visible pride, like you were proof of his power, a medal pinned neatly to his chest for the world to admire.

People smiled at you. They congratulated you. They told you how fortunate you were.

They did not see what happened when the doors closed.

In private, he took far more than he ever gave. Your presence was expected. Your silence was required. Your body was not something he asked for, but rather, he viewed it as an object he took, over and over, with the cruelty of a man who had never been denied anything in his life.

Love, to him, was not tenderness or care.

Love was obedience.

You learned to survive by becoming observant. You learned to read his moods by the way he removed his gloves at night: too carefully meant anger he was containing, carelessly meant anger he intended to spend. You learned when to keep your eyes down, when to speak only when spoken to, when to make yourself small enough to survive the hours until morning.

He was not always violent, and that was the most disorienting part. Some days he was distant, cold, dismissive. Other days he was almost kind, as if he believed restraint was a gift. Those days were worse in their own way, because they made you doubt yourself. They made you wonder if you were imagining the worst of it, if he was truly a good man. 

He was not a good man. Because every bout of kindness was almost always followed by the days when he reminded you that your body was not yours.

So you started learning which words were safe and which ones provoked him. You learned when to keep your eyes low, when to answer only in short, neutral phrases, when to make yourself small enough to endure the hours until morning.

Some nights you laid very still and counted your breaths, waiting for it to be over.

It wasn’t long until he began to talk about children.

At first it was casual, almost conversational. He made very uncomfortable comments over dinner about legacy, about bloodlines. He made suggestive comments in conversations with colleagues while you sat beside him, smiling, your spine rigid, as he said things like, “any day now.”

You played your part. You smiled when required. You nodded when necessary. 

Little did he know, you had bribed a Hydra physician to give you experimental birth control pills— one that wouldn’t show up in your blood tests. 

You swallowed one every morning with ruthless discipline, your stash hidden under the fake bottom of your jewelry box.

It was the only control you had left.

You would not bring a child into this house.

You would not offer another life to this machine.

You would not let your body create something that could be used against you.

Months passed without a pregnancy. Then years.

Dragunov noticed.

At first, his irritation was subtle. The doctors were blamed. Tests were ordered. Examinations were conducted. You lay still while men spoke about your body in clinical tones, as if you were not there, as if you were a malfunctioning instrument rather than a person.

“Perfectly healthy,” they said. “No complications.”

That was when his patience ran out.

He became…. angry. He accused your body of withholding, of deliberate humiliation, even though he never had proof. 

His voice started rising higher and higher. His hand slammed into walls, into furniture, into the table beside your head hard enough to make you flinch. He stopped touching you in public altogether— to your relief.

“You exist for legacy,” he told you one night, standing over you like a judge delivering a sentence. His shadow swallowed you whole. “Do not forget why you are here.”

You remembered every day you woke up beside him. Every day you swallowed those pills. Every day you stayed alive out of spite, out of fear, out of a stubborn refusal to disappear entirely.

Taking the possibility of a child away from him was the only semblance of individuality you had left.

—

You were in your mid-twenties by the time the war in Vietnam was escalating.

The Red Room told Hydra that agents working for the opposing forces were moving closer. Their assets were going dark, handlers found dead in alleys with no witnesses left alive. Power was shifting, and men like your husband felt it like an itch under the skin.

That was when your husband decided you would be moved.

He brought you to a private stretch of land surrounded by violent blue water, reachable only by Hydra aircraft. A mansion of stone and glass rose from the greenery like a fortress of thorns pretending to be a home.

“I’m keeping you here for your safety,” he said, his tone reasonable, as if he were explaining the weather. He was more… gentle today. “I will be very busy. The world is becoming… unpredictable.”

You stared at him, disbelief curdling into rage.

“No,” you whispered. Then louder, “No. You can’t leave me here alone!”

He barely reacted as you screamed, words tearing out of you after years of silence. You told him you couldn’t breathe here, that you were not a thing to be stored away, that you were already isolated enough, already buried alive inside his house, his rules, his body. How dare he isolate you on an island with no human contact?

And then… you slapped him.

For a moment, you thought he might hit you back.

Instead, he laughed. It came out as an amused chuckle, like you were a child throwing a tantrum. He caught your wrist before you could pull away.

“I will make sure no harm comes to you,” he said, but you knew what he meant: no one touches what is mine.

“Besides,” He continued, gesturing toward the mansion door. “You won’t be alone.”

The door opened, and The Winter Soldier stepped inside.

You had seen him once before, at a gala the previous year. He had stood behind Colonel Vasily Karpov, like a shadow given shape, his metal arm hidden beneath a glove. Even then, the room had seemed colder around him.

Up close, he was… unsettling. Taller than you expected. Broad-shouldered, rigid, as if his body had been trained to exist only in the battlefield. His expression was blank, eyes flat and distant, not resting on anything in particular. The metal arm was uncovered this time, catching the light.

He did not look at you.

He did not bow.

He simply stood, waiting.

“He is assigned to you,” your husband said, with unmistakable pride. “He will keep you safe.”

You let out a sharp, incredulous laugh before you could stop yourself.

“What?” You gestured vaguely toward the man like he was an absurd decoration. “So he’s my bodyguard now?” You scoffed. “Does he bite?”

Your husband laughed with you, like you’d made a charming joke. He stepped closer, hand lifting as if to pull you into him, to try and kiss you.

You shoved him away.

The Winter Soldier didn’t react. 

Your husband’s smile thinned, but it did not disappear.

“He does not bite,” he said lightly, as if discussing a hobby. His hand settled possessively at your waist anyway, fingers digging in just enough to make the point. “He kills. So behave.”

The Winter Soldier finally looked at you then. There was no hunger in his gaze. No judgment. No interest.

And yet, standing there on that island, trapped between a husband who owned you and a weapon wearing a man’s face, you felt curiosity spark for the first time in years.

Because, for the first time since your wedding day, someone had been placed between you and him.

Even if that someone was The Winter Soldier.

—

The mansion was built to feel untouchable.

Stone terraces stepped down toward the sea like a throne carved into the island itself. Glass walls reflected the sky so perfectly that sometimes you felt as though you were walking through air, suspended between water and nothing at all. It was beautiful in the way merciful prisons often are, designed to distract you from the fact that escape was impossible.

The silence was the worst part.

It wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind that rang in your ears, that made you too aware of your own breathing, your own thoughts looping endlessly with nowhere to go. There were no radios, no music, no laughter. 

Just the constant awareness of being watched by the Winter Soldier. At first, you only noticed him the way one notices a shadow. He stood at a respectful distance, eyes constantly moving. He never leaned or rested. Never turned his back to the jungle or the water or the house.

He was always between you and danger.

Or maybe between you and freedom.

You took to walking the beach because it was the only place that felt safe. The sand was coarse, the sun was harsh. The ocean stretched endlessly, a vast, open wound of blue that made your chest ache. You stood at the water’s edge and imagined walking straight into it, imagining how far you could swim before your body gave up.

You wondered if he’d follow.

He always stopped several paces behind you.

Day one, you said nothing.

Day two, you tried pretending he wasn’t there. You kicked sand into the surf, let salt spray sting your eyes, breathed deeply just to remind yourself you still could.

By day three, the emptiness started clawing at you.

“You don’t need to hover,” you said one afternoon, staring out at the horizon. Your voice sounded too loud in the open air. “I’m not exactly fast.”

He gave you no response.

You turned your head slightly. He hadn’t moved.

Day four, irritation started to creep in.

“Do they wind you up every morning,” you asked, drawing a slow circle in the sand, “or do you just… stand like that naturally?”

Nothing.

You laughed then. It was short and humorless. “Right.”

That night, you dreamed of screaming and no sound coming out.

By day five, you were tired of being the only human presence in your own life.

You sat down hard at the edge of the beach, dress hitched up to your knees, toes digging into the cold, wet sand as the tide crept closer. The sun was low, red bleeding into the water, turning the ocean copper. It looked like a wounded animal.

“You know,” you said quietly, “this place would be beautiful if it wasn’t a cage.”

You didn’t expect an answer. You hugged your arms around yourself. The wind pulled at your hair, tangling it around your face.

“I don’t even know why I’m talking,” you muttered, cursing at yourself. “You’re not here for conversation. You’re here to make sure I don’t disappear into the ocean and embarrass him.”

Then, out of nowhere, he… answered.

“I know.”

His voice was rough, and stripped bare. You hadn’t expected him to sound like that.

Slowly, carefully, you turned your head.

He was still standing where he always did, but his head was tilted slightly now, gaze fixed on you. Despite looking closer in age to you than your husband, he felt old in a way that didn’t make sense.

“You… talk,” you said.

He said nothing else.

But after that, you refused to let the silence reclaim him.

You talked about everything, but small things at first. The way the salt dried your skin. How the wind sounded different at night. How the water scared you and soothed you at the same time.

Sometimes he didn’t respond at all.

Sometimes, he surprised you.

“Don’t go in past your knees,” he said one morning, voice flat, almost mechanical.

You glanced back as you dipped your toes in the water. “Why?”

“Undertow.”

You blinked, then smiled. “So you’re not just decoration.”

His mouth curved upward, just barely.

You learned him in fragments. You noticed the way he scanned the tree line every few minutes. The way his metal fingers flexed when helicopters passed overhead. The way he always positioned himself between you and the mansion when your husband called.

You never asked his name. You never asked where he came from.You knew better than to dig where blood still hadn’t dried.

One evening, when the sky was filled with clouds, you said, “Do you hate it here?”

His answer was immediate. “Yes.”

You laughed. “Me too.”

Another day, you asked, “Do you ever get tired?”

“No.”

The closest you came to crying was one night when the waves were loud and the darkness was inescapable.

“You’re the first man in my life,” you said, eyes fixed on the black water, “who hasn’t treated me like he owns me.”

He turned toward you so fast it startled you.

“I… won’t,” he said, and this time, he had to carefully consider his words.

By the end of the month, he walked beside you instead of behind you.

—

One night, a familiar nightmare dragged you under like a riptide.

You were back in the chapel again. It was always the chapel. 

The marble was too white, banners too red, the air thick with condensed breaths. Your dress was crushing your ribs, heavier than your body, heavier than your voice. You tried to move and couldn’t. You tried to scream and your throat locked 

Then his hand closed around your wrist.

Dragunov. Then, your father. Every man who had ever owned you. Their fingers were tightening, pulling you in two different directions while everyone watched.

You gasped….

And shook awake with a scream that ripped itself out of you before you could stop it.

Your body jerked upright, heart slamming so violently it made you dizzy. The room swam, shadows stretching along the stone walls, moonlight cutting across the floor. Your lungs burned and your hands clawed at the sheets as if you were still being dragged.

Before your mind could catch up, the door swung open.

He was there.

The Winter Soldier had his metal arm raised, eyes blazing as he swept the room for threats that didn’t exist. 

You could hear his breathing, and you suddenly realised he was one second from killing something.

From killing someone.

Then his eyes finally landed on you, curled in the bed. 

You were shaking, wide-eyed and gasping like a wounded animal.

He lowered his arm slowly, as if it took effort. “Are you okay?” he asked.

You should have said yes.

You should have nodded, told him it was nothing, and watched him disappear back into the hallway where he belonged.

But… you couldn’t bring yourself to.

“No,” you whispered, your throat hurting. “Nightmare.”

Oh. 

He understood.

He nodded once, already turning away, defaulting back into distance, into safety-through-separation.

No.

No no no….

“Wait,” you said, louder than you meant to.

He stopped in his tracks..

You were suddenly aware of everything; how cold the room was, how the thin silk slip clung to your skin, how exposed you felt without the armor of dresses and jewels. Your body wouldn’t stop trembling, as if the nightmare had soaked into your bones.

“I don’t want to be alone,” you said, as if it was terrifying to admit.

Right. 

Then, softly, he said… “Okay.”

He stepped back inside, positioning himself by the door like a sentinel.

It should have been comforting.

It wasn’t enough.

You hugged your knees to your chest, teeth chattering, your breaths still coming too fast. The bed felt too big. The shadows were too close. 

Your skin felt like it didn’t belong to you.

He noticed.

You saw it in the way his posture shifted, how his eyes tracked the way you folded inward on yourself. 

Then, he made… a decision. 

Carefully, he moved closer until he stood beside the bed.

“Can I…?” he asked, glancing at the mattress, then back at you.

No one had ever asked you for permission before they touched you. 

Not your father. Not your husband. 

You nodded.

He sat down, the bed dipping under his weight as heat radiated from him. He hesitated again, always waiting, always giving you the choice, and when you leaned into him, he hesitated for half a second before his arm came around you.

His human arm wrapped around your shoulders, pulling you against his chest. He kept the metal arm carefully away, as if afraid it might hurt you. His heartbeat was steady beneath your cheek, a solid rhythm that your own body instinctively tried to match.

Before you could stop it, something inside you gave way.

You cried, and it was not pretty, it was not quiet. Your face twisted into his shoulder as years of fear finally found a place to go. Your hands fisted into his shirt like you were afraid he’d vanish if you let go.

He just held you tighter, one hand coming up to rest at the back of your head, fingers threading gently through your hair like he was memorizing you.

“I’m sorry,” you choked. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” he said softly. 

It was? 

This was okay to him?

“Can you stay?” you asked, voice breaking. “Just… just for tonight.”

“Okay,” he said again.

You shifted carefully, easing you both back against the pillows, adjusting the blankets around you. You pulled him down, curling down into him instinctively, your body fitting against his like it had always meant to, like your nervous system recognized the safety in his touch before your mind could.

His arm stayed around you, protective but not possessive. His chin rested lightly against your hair. You could feel his breath, slowing yours down by sheer proximity.

For the first time in years, your body relaxed.

You fell asleep with your cheek pressed to his chest. And when morning came, he was still there.

—

After that night, something changed between you.

He still stood guard, still scanned the tree line, still followed orders. 

But he also stayed closer. He sat with you longer. At night, when you couldn’t sleep, he would sit at the edge of the bed when you asked.

You stopped dreaming of the chapel.

Instead, you caught yourself watching him when he thought you weren’t.

You noticed how his brow furrowed when he was thinking, how his eyes narrowed when helicopters passed, and how impossibly gentle he was with small things. 

With you. 

Fuck.

You had spent your life being taken from, claimed, decided for. Desire had always been something done to you, never something that you had.

Until now.

You felt it when his shoulder brushed yours, when his voice softened just for you; when his fingers lingered on you a second longer than necessary as you walked too close to the sharp rocks by the beach. You felt it in the way your chest tightened when he left the room.

You found, to your surprise, that the soldier had a personality.

He chuckled at your corny jokes, but never at your self-deprecating ones. He tapped his foot more when you played 30s music on the vinyl, and loved beef stew when you cooked them in the kitchen with the overstocked pantry.

He was human underneath all that. Just like you. 

So you talked to him. You poured your heart into your conversations. Your troubles with your husband, your father. How you barely saw your mother anymore. Once you even told him that despite growing up in the Red Room, you were always interested in international relations. “In another life, I would be a diplomat,” you said, “If not, I think I’d teach international law in a city like DC.”

He nodded encouragingly.

One night, you both sat by a fire by the ocean. The water was restless, waves breaking hard against the rocks below the terrace. Your knees were pulled to your chest, a blanket draped loosely around your shoulders.

He was cleaning his knives, and you were watching his hands instead of the sea.

“Do you ever,” you said quietly, “wish you were someone else?”

He didn’t look up. “Every day.”

Your throat tightened.

As a bout of silence stretched, you could feel his breathing. Your heart was pounding so loudly you were sure he could hear it.

“I have a question,” you said.

He turned toward you immediately. He was always attentive, always ready. “Okay.”

You stared at your hands, and at the faint tremor in your fingers.

“If I asked you to do something,” you said cautiously, “Can you please tell me no if you didn’t want to?”

He hesitated, as if it was the first time he was allowed to refuse something. “Yes.”

You swallowed.

Your pulse thundered in your ears. 

This was dangerous. 

This was reckless. 

This was the most honest thing you had ever considered doing.

“Can I,” you whispered, finally looking up at him and meeting his eyes, “kiss you?”

The world seemed to stop.

He froze, not like a soldier, but like a man who had never been asked that question before. He stopped breathing for a second and searched your face, like he was making sure this was real. 

That you were real.

“Your husband sent me here to protect you,” he said quietly. “You’re my mission.”

“You know I don’t love him,” you said, a sad smile playing on your lips.

Oh. Right.

All he did was… nod.

So you leaned in, close enough that you could feel his breath on your lips. He didn’t move until you did, until you closed the distance the rest of the way, your lips brushing his in a kiss so soft it felt unreal.

He sighed against your mouth.

Then, carefully, so carefully, he kissed you back.

It was hesitant and reverent and achingly tender, like he was afraid of hurting you, like he understood exactly how much this meant. His hand came up to cradle your cheeks, thumb resting lightly against your cheek, but never pressing and never demanding.

You melted into him.

When you pulled back, your forehead rested against his, your breaths tangled.

“I…,” he started, then stopped before trying again. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” you said, voice tone despite the tears burning behind your eyes. 

—

Over the next couple of months, he slept in your bed every night.

It just… happened, and neither of you ever suggested anything else. His presence had become a constant, steady as the tide. You learned the shape of him in the dark: the breadth of his shoulders, how he held you, how he always waited for you to settle before letting himself relax.

One night, neither of you could sleep.

You laid half on top of him, one leg draped over his thigh,cheek pressed to his chest. His arm rested around your waist, rubbing slow circles on your skin.

You shifted and…. you felt it then. 

You could feel him clearly under his trousers, his pants getting tight. It was the unmistakable evidence of how tightly he held himself in check, how long it had been since anyone had touched him like that. 

His body went rigid, as if he were bracing for rejection.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, already starting to move away.

You pushed up onto your hands, stopping him without force. “Don’t be.”

He looked up at you, eyes dark in the light, waiting to be told what to do.

“Can I… help you?” you suggested. “Only if you want me to.”

It should feel wrong. You were a married woman, for fuck’s sake. 

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes flicked away, then back to you, like he was recalibrating everything he thought he knew about touch.

He shouldn’t.

He knew he shouldn’t.

“Yes,” he said finally.

It sounded like permission and need and disbelief all at once.

You moved carefully, shifting until you were straddling him, the warmth of him unmistakable beneath you. He froze again, not because he didn’t want this, but because no one had ever let him want anything before.

“Is this okay?” you whispered.

His hands hovered at your hips, unsure, waiting.

“Yes,” he said again, rougher now.

You settled fully, the contact drawing a sharp breath from him. His hands finally found you then, tentative at first, like he was afraid you might disappear if he touched you too firmly. When you leaned down and kissed him, it was slow and deep and unhurried. Nothing was being taken from him, nothing was being rushed.

When you peeled off his clothes and he took yours off, you could feel the want radiating off him. You felt it in the way his body responded to you, in the way his breath hitched when you moved, the way his grip tightened just enough to say don’t stop.

You realized, distantly, that this was the first time your body wasn’t being used as currency or obligation or proof of obedience.

You were choosing this.

He was choosing you.

“This feels…” he started, then stopped, voice breaking. “Is it supposed to feel like this?”

You smiled through the tightness in your chest. “I think so.”

Afterward, as you collapsed against his chest, boneless and breathless. He wrapped both his metal and human arm around you immediately. 

You lay there listening to his heart slow beneath your ear, both of you stunned by the same thought:

So this is what it’s meant to be.

—

Morning greeted you softly, filtered through pale light and the hush of the sea.

You woke up first.

For a moment, you didn’t move, afraid that the Winter Soldier might vanish if you acknowledged him. His arm was still around you, breathing deep against the back of your neck. In sleep, he looked younger, like less of a weapon. He was just a man, his pretty lashes resting against his cheek.

You turned carefully, easing yourself so you were half draped over him, your fingers brushing his jawline.

He stirred awake anyway.

His eyes opened, panicking for half a second… until they focused on you.

You leaned down and kissed him.

It was gentle, impossibly intimate after everything that had passed between you. He exhaled into it, hand tightening at your back.

Then, as if reality started keeping in, he pulled back just enough to look at you. 

“There’s something you need to know,” he said, swallowing hard.

Ah. Of course. Too many truths in your life had come with consequences.

You lifted your head to look at him. “Hm?”

His grip tightened, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment, like he was bracing himself, then finally turned his eyes to you. 

“They wipe me.” he continued, holding on to whatever sentience he had left from that chair. He knew he was missing most of his life, and he knew why, but he didn't know what. “If anyone finds out...” He swallowed, eyes darting to your face. “They’ll wipe you from my memory.”

Your chest constricted painfully.

What kind of sick fucks could do this to a man?

“I can survive a lot of things,” he said, more urgently now. “But I don’t want to forget you.”

You had lived your life under secrecy already, hidden pills and bruises folded neatly into obedience. 

This was different, but it wasn’t unfamiliar.

“No one will ever find out,” you promised, pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth. 

Besides, you both knew the other half of it without saying it.

No one could know because your husband could never know.

If Dragunov found out, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second. You would be dead, and the Winter Soldier would be blamed, broken down, stripped of whatever fragile autonomy he had left.

—

When your husband finally decided the crisis was over, he didn’t ask if you wanted to leave the island.

He informed you.

Six months had been long enough, he said. Long enough for the world to calm down. Long enough for him to remember that you existed, and that you belonged on his arm, in his home, as proof that nothing had been lost during the chaos.

You watched the island recede through the helicopter window, the water swallowing the place where you had learned what safety felt like for the first time in your life.

—

The townhouse welcomed you back with open doors. You and your husband’s bedroom was untouched, preserved like a shrine. Jewels waited in velvet-lined drawers. You wondered if your husband even slept in there at all. 

Your husband kissed your cheek that first night, already distracted.

“I am glad you are back,” he said, loosening his tie. “But things will be… busy.”

Busy was an understatement.

He was gone most of the time. Days turned into weeks where he barely slept in the house at all. He had flights, meetings, and emergencies that pulled him away. And when he was home, he was distant, tired, already halfway gone.

Not that you cared. If anything, it became easier for you to pretend he didn’t exist. 

And one day… you asked for a bodyguard, since he was always gone for so long. 

You didn’t specifically ask for the Winter Soldier out right, but you suggested it to your husband, made it seem like his idea.

“He’s familiar with my schedule,” you’d say offhandedly during dinner, “besides, it’s inefficient to retrain someone new.”

Your husband waved a hand, barely listening. “Fine. If it makes you feel secure.”

Secure.

That almost made you laugh.

Still, his request to assign him to you was approved. Besides, why would he object? The Winter Soldier was a weapon, not a temptation. What threat could a mindless asset pose to this marriage?

You were a sensible girl, right? There was no way you could desire a monster. 

So he was assigned to you again. And again. And again.

The Winter Soldier would stand outside your bedroom door while you and your husband slept inside it.

He followed you through townhouse gardens. 

He watched you play the perfect wife.

But when your husband was gone, you’d take him by the hand and lead him into places he never meant to be.

Once, you recklessly pulled him into your husband’s own bed while the man was halfway across the continent. 

“You can come in,” you said, tugging him in and closing the door behind you. 

He hesitated, always hesitant with you, always waiting for permission before feeling even remotely comfortable inside.

You sat on the edge of your bed, silk robe slipping off one shoulder, heart racing in a way that had nothing to do with fear.

“He’s not here,” you reassured. “You can stay.”

He laid with you that night like it was the most natural thing in the world, though it took him a long time to touch you again, for the first time since the island. His restraint was its own kind of intimacy— it was intoxicating.

That night, you laughed softly into the Winter Soldier’s shoulder, the sound equal parts triumph and disbelief.

You were… happy.

Here, of all places.

—

As your husband left for work more often, these nights happened more frequently.

“My love,” you whispered into his skin. “You are so good to me.”

And every time, he froze as if the nickname anchored him to the world.

Your husband slept in that bed less and less. The Winter Soldier slept in it more.

Sometimes fully dressed, sitting back against the headboard while you drifted off with your hand curled into his sleeve.

Sometimes, he was close enough that you could feel every slow breath he took, every restrained movement when you shifted against him.

You learned each other in whispers and glances and lingering touches that said everything without saying anything at all.

You took him places that had once terrified you.

The study.

The hallway outside your husband’s office.

The kitchen.

The underground bunker.

What little power you felt doing this made your head spin.

—

This affair continued for the better part of another ten years. 

And in that time, you perfected a careful choreography of obedience that kept your husband pleased and uncurious. You learned how you should stand beside him at events, silent and composed, his hand possessive at the small of your back while other men admired what they thought was devotion.

They called you the perfect wife.

They had no idea it was an act.

Your husband stopped speaking of children somewhere around five years ago, because he’d decided he didn’t need them to prove anything anymore. Instead, he took pride in you. In how calm you were now, how compliant, how docile, how you never argued, never embarrassed him.

“You’ve learned your place,” he once said in bed, satisfied.

You nodded. You let him believe it.

Because submission bought you something precious: freedom in the margins.

And in those margins lived the Winter Soldier.

You saw him when you were lucky. Sometimes, you got your bodyguard request approved every other week, when he was between missions. More often. It was every other month. Sometimes longer. Sometimes just long enough to remind you he was real before he was taken away again.

Still, they wiped him.

Over and over.

They took pieces of him each time, most memories, sometimes entire years. Sometimes he came back distant, his eyes emptier. Sometimes he returned with fragments of kindness intact, like bruises that never quite faded.

But no matter what they did to his mind, they could never erase you.

Not really.

He didn’t always remember your name. Sometimes he didn’t remember how he knew you. But his body always did. His eyes always lowered when they landed on you. His steps always slowed when he approached. 

In the end, his hand always found yours like it belonged there.

Once, after a particularly brutal reset, he stood in your doorway, brow furrowed like he was fighting an invisible force.

“I don’t understand,” he said, almost to himself. “They said you’re just… a mission.”

You reached for him. “And do I feel like one?”

He shook his head. “No.”

You realized early on that love alone wasn’t enough. So you started keeping notes.

You hid them where no one would ever look; between the false backs of drawers, inside the spines of books your husband had never touched.

You wrote down everything.

His favorite food (beef stew, eaten slowly). The way he preferred his coffee when you made it in what little mornings you had (black, untouched until it went cold). The songs that he hummed because something about them felt familiar.

Then, you started writing about yourself.

Who you were. How you laughed. What he did that made you feel safe.

You wrote down how he loved you. How keeping this a secret was his idea. 

You wrote about the way he always positioned himself between you and doors, how he watched your hands when you were nervous, how he slept lighter when you were beside him.

After a wipe, you would bring the notes out slowly.

Never all at once.

You’d sit with him somewhere no one would see you, hand resting near his but not touching unless he reached out first.

“You like this,” you’d say gently, sliding a page toward him. “You always did.”

You’d watch his brow furrow as he read.

“This sounds like me,” he’d murmur.

“It is,” you’d say. “And this—” you’d tap another line, softer now, “—is us.”

And it always worked, even if not perfectly, not immediately.

But enough.

Enough for him to look at you and feel his heartstrings tug where memory should have been. 

When you were really lucky, and he was out of cryofreeze for months, he would start remembering his past. 

This would happen maybe once every couple of years.

He told you he remembered Coney Island. 

He told you the number 107 was familiar, though he didn’t know why. 

He told you he remembered going to a baseball game.

And you wrote those down, too.

You loved him in stolen moments and half-lives. You loved him, even knowing he might forget you tomorrow.

Your husband never noticed the notebooks, never questioned the time you spent alone. He never wondered why the Soldier, an asset, was assigned to his household so often. He never noticed how the house felt alive only when the guard was home. He never suspected that the most dangerous affair of his life was happening right under his roof.

He thought you were broken into obedience.

He never realized you were waiting.

At night, you lay beside him or alone and counted years like a promise.

One day, you thought, he will die before me.

He was much older than you, after all. And unlike your lover, he had no serum to help with age. Perhaps, that was your only ticket to freedom. 

One day, I would outlive him.

—

On the sixteen-year anniversary of your wedding, you stood in front of the mirror out of habit, adjusting an earring your husband had chosen for you, silk cool against your skin.

You looked… good. 

You looked youthful. 

Wait.

Wait. 

The woman staring back at you just looked… wrong.

You did not look tired or worn. Your skin was not etched with time the way sixteen years of survival should have been.

Your face was smooth. Your eyes were clear. Your skin was unmarked by age. You looked exactly as you had in your mid-twenties… 

You were unchanged, untouched by time.

Your breath caught painfully in your throat.

How come you’ve never realised this before? 

Have you been too preoccupied with your sad, pathetic, little life that you hadn’t noticed? 

Have you just been that fucking stupid? 

“No,” you whispered.

You leaned closer, fingers shaking as you touched your cheek, your throat, the faint line at the corner of your eye that should have deepened by now.

Behind you, your husband’s voice carried through the room. “You finally noticed.”

You turned slowly, dread pooling heavy in your stomach.

“What?” Your voice sounded thin. “What did you do to me?”

He regarded you with satisfaction, like a man watching a successful experiment reach its conclusion.

“A couple of years ago,” he said casually, adjusting his cufflinks, “I had you given an injection while you slept. It was… an experimental formula.”

Your heart began to race.

“What kind of formula?”

“One that slows cellular degradation,” he replied. “Aging, effectively. You won’t stop entirely—but you’ll take much, much longer.”

Your vision blurred.

“You drugged me,” you said, the realization hitting like ice water. 

“I protected my investment,” he corrected smoothly. “Once I realised it was working on you, I did it to myself, too.”

What?

You were a fucking human experiment to him now? 

And now he just won’t fucking die until you’re both like, what— four hundred years old?

You… you simply couldn’t suffer that long. 

“No,” you said, backing away from him. “No, you didn’t have the right. You didn’t—” Your voice broke, rage and terror flooding in all at once. 

He frowned slightly, irritated now.

“I ensured continuity,” he said. “You’ll remain… presentable.”

You laughed, barking out a broken, hysterical sound, and it turned into sobbing before you could stop it.

“I thought,” you cried, hands fisting in your hair. You couldn’t quite believe you were admitting this to your abuser, that you were just telling him the truth. “I really thought one day you’d die before me. I thought I’d outlive you. I thought I’d finally be free.”

Your body shook as years of endurance collapsed into one raw moment.

“You don’t get to choose this for me,” you screamed. “You don’t get to decide how long I belong to you—how long I suffer—”

Before you could finish, he… hit you. 

Your head snapped to the side as pain exploded across your face, the world tilting violently. You staggered, barely staying on your feet, the taste of blood blooming metallic on your tongue.

Your husband stood where he was, cold as always. 

“That,” he said quietly, “was unbecoming.”

Your cheek burned. Your heart pounded so hard it felt like it might tear itself apart.

For the first time in years, he didn’t even bother pretending to love you.

“You forget,” he continued, voice low and dangerous, “that everything you are… your body, your time, your life— was negotiated long ago.”

You lifted your head slowly, tears streaking down your face, fury blazing through the pain.

And in that moment, standing frozen in a body that refused to age, trapped in a life you refused to end, you understood…

He had stolen even time from you.

—

He left the next morning for work in a different continent like nothing had happened.

He gave you a perfunctory kiss to your cheek before he got on a car to the airport. 

You didn’t realize how tightly you’d been wounding yourself up until he was gone.

You didn’t even realize you’d slid down to the edge of the bed until your hands were clutching the sheets and your chest hurt from breathing too hard. The mirror across the room still reflected a woman who hadn’t aged, who hadn’t been allowed to. 

Then, you heard footsteps in the hall.

You didn’t look up at first. You didn’t have it in you to perform.

Then he spoke. “Hi.”

You lifted your head… and there he was.

You almost forgot that your husband had requested him to guard you while he was away for his work trip. 

The Winter Soldier stood in the doorway exactly as you remembered him from a month ago. He had the same posture. Same eyes that turned gentle the moment they landed on you.

And you knew just by looking at him… he remembered.

They hadn’t wiped him yet.

Between the last time he saw you and today, they must’ve not had the time. 

“Hey,” he repeated again, as he saw you in shambles on the floor, like he was approaching a wounded animal. He knelt next to you, wrapping his human arm around you. “Hey. I’m here.”

That was it. That was all it took.

You collapsed into him, fingers fisting in his jacket, breath hitching violently as everything you’d been holding back tore loose. He caught you without hesitation. His metal hand cradled the back of your head, pressing you into his chest like he could shield you from the world by sheer force of will.

You told him everything.

The mirror.

The injection. 

You told him about the slap. About the words. About how your body wasn’t yours, and not even time was yours anymore.

When you finally ran out of words, he lifted your face gently, thumbs brushing under your eyes.

He kissed your tears away.

Each kiss landed like he was undoing the damage one breath at a time. Your lashes fluttered as he pressed his forehead to yours, breathing you in like he needed the proof that you were here, alive.

You kissed him first.

Your mouth crashed into his like you were afraid he might vanish if you didn’t glue him to you. He made a low groan against your lips, surprise melting instantly into hunger, and then he was kissing you back, unrestrained, his hands sliding to your waist like they’d been waiting all month to remember the shape of you.

You pulled him up and toward the bed.

“Stay, my love,” you whispered, selfishly and trembling. “I need this.”

He followed you willingly, easing you down onto the mattress, his body hovering above yours like a shield. He paused there, eyes searching your face for any sign of hesitation.

You didn’t give him any.

Instead, you told him the thing you’d been afraid to want.

“Leave marks,” you breathed, fingers tightening in his shirt, clawing the off his body. “Please. I want to see them. I want to feel them.”

His eyes darkened. “He’ll see—”

“He won’t,” you said urgently. “He’ll be gone for two weeks. They’ll fade by then.” Then, you breathed out, closing your eyes just for a second, admitting a pathetic little feeling you had in your chest. “I just… I want proof. That I’m yours. Even for a little while.”

Oh.

He swallowed, and then he nodded.

When he kissed you again, it was deeper. His hands explored you like a vow, not taking but claiming space with permission. He pressed you back onto the mattress, his body bracketing yours, heat and weight and presence making your breath stutter.

His mouth traced your jaw, your throat, and he lingered. His lips pressed harder there, teeth just barely grazing skin before soothing it with a kiss. You gasped, arching without meaning to, fingers clawing into his shoulders.

“That okay?” he asked, voice rough.

“Yes,” you breathed. “God, yes.”

He listened to every sound you made like it mattered. Like it guided him. When his mouth returned to your neck, he didn’t rush. He marked. A kiss bloomed into heat. Then, he left another, lower. His hands at your waist held you steady while his mouth left evidence you could feel spreading under your skin.

You clung to him, dizzy with the sensation of being wanted without demand, touched without fear. 

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours, breathing heavy.

“Look at me,” he said.

You did.

His eyes were full of you. 

And you were not a mission. You were a choice.

“You’re not his,” he said quietly. “Not in any way that matters."

You kissed him again, slower now, and pulled him down with you. 

—

The next morning felt impossibly… normal.

It felt domestic in a way your life had never allowed before.

Sunlight poured through the tall kitchen windows, warming the stone floors and going through glass jars your husband never touched. 

You stood at the stove in your sleep shirt. Your husband would never have even allowed you to go out of your room in something so… messy.

The fabric hung loose on you, sleeves rolled twice, collar open enough to reveal the faint shadows at your throat. You hadn’t bothered to cover them. You didn’t want to. 

The pan was warm beneath your hand, butter hissing softly as you poured batter and watched it spread into imperfect circles.

Pancakes.

You laughed at the absurdity of it.

You had never once cooked like this for your husband. Not because you couldn’t, but because it had never occurred to you to want to. Meals with him were formal, they were supervised. Food was just another presentation.

But for the soldier? It felt different.

You flipped one, the edges golden, the smell filling the kitchen triggering a memory you didn’t have.

The Soldier leaned in the doorway at first, arms crossed loosely. For once… there was no tension in his posture.

Eventually, he drifted closer.

You felt him at your back. His chin hovered near your shoulder. You turned slightly, and he bent without thinking, meeting you halfway.

You kissed him.

He kissed you back the same way.

Even now, you found it hard to believe he was the same cold, distant weapon you met on your husband’s island more than a decade ago. Perhaps, you had helped him recall part of his humanity, no matter how small. 

When he pulled away, his gaze dropped to your neck. Your collarbone. He studied the unmistakable marks he had left last night and frowned. 

He reached up as if to touch them, then stopped himself.

Instead, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to one. Then another. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly against your skin.

You turned, catching his face between your hands, thumbs brushing his cheeks until he had to look at you.

“Don’t be,” you said firmly. 

His eyes searched yours, like he was recalibrating what want was allowed to mean.

You turned back to the stove, and he stayed right there, arms slipping around your waist from behind, careful not to crowd you too much. His forehead rested against the side of your head.

Was this what mornings were supposed to feel like?

You started wondering, in another life, would this man have been your husband? Would he be  allowed to love you openly? Would you have woken up like this every day, cooking for each other, touching just because you could, because it was safe?

After breakfast, you sat together at the small table, knees brushing, plates between you. He ate slowly, like he always did.

After a long stretch of silence, he spoke.

“I think…” He hesitated, brow furrowing suddenly, like the thought hit him like a freight train. “I think I had a name.”

Oh.

He had never said that before.

This was… progress. He had stayed up late speculating with you before. He struggled to place an identity outside of The Soldier— and until now, he didn’t know for sure whether or not he had a life before this, or if he had always been The Soldier.

But if he had a name? 

It meant he had a past. It meant he wasn’t born and bred in Hydra— it meant he had his life stolen from him.

You didn’t rush him. You didn’t reach for him. You just waited, patient as you’d learned to be.

“Do you remember what it is?” you asked gently.

He shook his head.

“I don’t.”

There was no anger in it, just sadness. It was as if he’d touched heaven and lost it again.

You nodded, swallowing the ache in your throat. “That’s okay.”

And later, you took your notebook out.

You opened it carefully and wrote:

The soldier has a name.

You considered, then added:

He doesn’t remember it yet.

You sat with that for a moment before writing one last line:

But one day, I think he will.

—

The next couple of days were heaven.

It always was with the Soldier. It was always quiet, ordinary bliss. His presence was a gentle constant. He always moved through the house like a shadow trained to protect, checking doors twice, windows three times, memorizing the way you took your tea. He had left you half an hour ago.

“I’ll do a perimeter check around the neighborhood,” he’d said, brushing his knuckles along your chin. “Protocol.”

Right.

Because even when he was yours, he was still theirs.

He still had a job to do. 

You had taken a bath when he left, letting the heat melt the tension from your bones. For once, you felt safe enough to close your eyes.

You traced the bruises absently with your fingers. Remembering the way he’d listened, the way he’d stopped when you asked. These bruises were given, not taken. Perhaps it was the last semblance of control you had in your life. 

As your thoughts drifted, you wondered again about his name.

What it might’ve sounded like before it was taken from him. Whether it fit the man he was now or the boy he must’ve been once. You tried a few possibilities in your head, smiling faintly when none of them felt right.

One day, you thought.

Twenty minutes slipped by unnoticed.

When your fingers began to wrinkle and the water cooled, you finally pushed yourself up, reaching for a towel. You dried off slowly, wrapping a towel around your body as damp hair dripped down your spine. And because you didn’t even think you needed to close the bathroom door, you heard the bedroom door open.

Oh, you thought, the Soldier was back.

Weird— the neighborhood was quite big, it usually took him a little longer than this. 

But hey, you weren’t complaining.

“My love,” you called lightly, distracted as you patted water from your arms. “Can you get me some water?”

Movement ceased for a second, before you heard a bone-chilling chuckle. “You have never called me that before.”

Your stomach dropped so hard it felt like the floor vanished beneath you.

No.

No no no.

You turned to see your husband standing just inside the room.

He wasn’t angry yet. Instead, he looked observant, as if he was walking in on something interesting rather than catastrophic. His coat was gone, tie loosened, as if he’d been home long enough to settle in.

“You weren’t expecting me,” he said mildly.

You couldn’t breathe.

“You were supposed to be gone ten more days,” you whispered.

“I came back early.” He gave you a shrug. “The meetings wrapped up.”

He took another step closer, and then he finally saw you properly.

Your bare skin.

The faint bruises blooming at your throat, your collarbone, and it was too intimate to be explained away.

He stopped in his tracks to stare.

It took a few seconds for the realization to fully reach his eyes. 

“…Who,” he asked slowly, “were you actually talking to?”

Your back hit the wall as you retreated instinctively, towel slipping, your body suddenly feeling unbearably exposed, vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with being seen.

You shook your head, already knowing there was no answer that would save you. “Please—”

It didn’t matter.

It didn't take long for his mind to catch up.

Only one man was in his house in the last couple of days, a man you had requested over and over again.

How could he be so stupid?

“The soldier,” he said flatly. Then he laughed, almost in disbelief. “You let that touch you?”

Before you could respond, he moved fast.

His hand closed in your hair, yanking your head back hard enough to make stars burst behind your eyes. You cried out, hands coming up instinctively, heart hammering.

“You filthy whore,” he hissed. “You think you get to choose who you belong to?”

He dragged you away from the bathroom and threw you onto the bed. The mattress dipped violently beneath you as you scrambled back, panic flooding your brain.

“You embarrassed me,” he snapped. “With a machine. A thing.”

Your breath came in sobbing gasps as he loomed over you, fury spilling out unchecked now.

“How long,” he asked, stepping closer, “have you been spoiled goods?”

Your breath stuttered. “I— I—”

His hand slammed into the wall by the bed, and it left a dent. 

“How. Fucking. Long,” he snarled. “Answer me, slut!”

You shook your head wildly, tears spilling before you could stop them. “Please—”

He grabbed your throat.

Not crushing, yet, but firm enough to steal your breath away, to remind you exactly how small you were. Your hands clutched uselessly, clawing at his wrist.

“How long,” he demanded again, face inches from yours, “have you been letting the asset touch what’s mine?”

Your vision blurred. Your lungs burned.

“T—ten years!” you shrieked, the words tearing out of you in a broken sob.

His grip tightened in shock as he lifted you up the bed by the neck.

“Ten,” he repeated, stunned, then furious. “You’re telling me you’ve been ruined for ten years?”

He shoved you back down, disgust etched into every line of his face.

“Everywhere I go,” he spat, “people look at me and don’t know I married trash.”

You coughed out, certain he left marks.

“With him?” he went on, voice rising now. “That brainless machine? You spread yourself for that thing?”

He laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

“I gave you everything,” he said. “And this is how you repay me?”

You shook your head violently. “I— he—”

Then, he struck you. Punched you. 

It was not enough to knock you out, but enough to mar the inside of your cheeks bleed.

You cried out, collapsing back onto the mattress as he loomed over you, breathing hard, eyes blazing.

“I should’ve known,” he said coldly. “You were always filthy.”

His hand dropped to the side of his belt. 

“No,” you whispered. “Please—”

He drew the knife from its holster slowly, savoring the way you recoiled.

“I’ll clean up my mistake,” he said. “I always do.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

Was he gonna carve you up with his initials? Was he gonna take something away from you? Was he going to kill you?

A blood curdling scream left your mouth as he took one step forward…

Bang.

His body jerked, expression frozen in disbelief.

Then he collapsed, lifeless, to the floor.

The Winter Soldier stood there, chest heaving.

He hadn’t hesitated.

There had been too much anger in him, built up by years of commands, violence, punishment, being used as a weapon for men like your husband. When he’d heard you scream, he had barged in and acted.

Because your husband was hurting you.

He lowered the gun slowly, like his hands had suddenly remembered how to be human again. His eyes flicked to the body once then immediately to you.

All that fury drained out of his face once he realised you were safe.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

You opened your mouth.

Nothing came out.

How were you supposed to even answer that question? 

One thing was for sure, though: you were happy.

He can never hurt me again.

Your breath broke into something that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been a sob. You pressed a hand to your mouth, eyes burning, staring at the stillness of him, cruel even in death. 

Then… the dread crept in.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, finally catching up to the situation at hand. 

You scrambled off the bed, your legs barely holding you up. “Oh my god—they’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill us, he was important, they’re going to—”

You started shaking violently, breath coming too fast, hands clawing uselessly at your arms like you could hold yourself together by force alone.

The Soldier shut the door behind him, draping his jacket over your bare body, he helped you stand before gripping your shoulders, forcing you to look at him.

“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re not dying today.”

Your breath hitched violently. “You killed him.”

“I know.”

“They’ll hunt you,” you whispered. “They’ll hunt me—”

“Yes,” he said bluntly. “Which is why you’re leaving. Now.”

Your head shook helplessly. “What—?”

“You need to run,” he said without a doubt. “We don’t have much time.”

He stood, already moving, already thinking three steps ahead. “Pack a bag. Only what you can carry. Take money, jewelry. Anything small you can sell fast.”

“What about you?” you cried.

“I’ll handle the body.”

That snapped you out of it.

“No,” you said hoarsely, back to him. “No—don’t—you can’t—”

“I can,” he cut in, already pulling gloves from his pocket. “And I will.”

You grabbed his arm desperately. “Come with me.”

“If I run with you,” he said carefully, urgently, “you’ll have an even bigger target on your back.”

“I don’t care,” you said fiercely. “I’m not leaving you.”

He closed his eyes for half a second, just long enough to imagine what that life would be— running with you, living with you. 

He opened them, when he realised that you would never rest with him by your side. 

“Listen to me,” he said, gripping your arms harder, not hurting, just grounding. “You need to disappear. Alone.”

You shook your head again, tears spilling freely. “I won’t—”

“Pack,” he cut in, voice breaking through your panic. 

“I’m not leaving you!” you repeated, voice cracking.

“Please,” he said.

The word didn’t belong to the Winter Soldier. It wasn’t command or protocol or programming. It was him. And right now he was desperate and human and afraid in a way Hydra rarely allowed himself to be.

“Please,” he repeated. “If you stay, they will use you against me.”

You shook your head, chest heaving. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

His forehead rested against yours, just for a second. 

He leaned in, brushing his lips against your, ever so slightly, like he was memorising the way you tasted. 

“I need to know you’re safe,” he said, almost begging. “Please. Please do this for me.”

Oh.

It was a want. The Winter Soldier wanted. 

You swallowed hard, nodding even as it felt like your heart was splitting in two.

—

You packed in a haze.

Your hands shook as you pulled cash from the hollowed-out boxes in closets, from behind loose bricks, from the lining of coats you’d never loved. You took jewelry next, glittering things stripped of sentiment and reduced to weight and resale value. Lastly, you packed all your notebooks, because you could not risk Hydra or the Red Room finding out. You didn’t look at them for long. 

You dressed quickly, mismatched and careless, fingers numb. The mirror caught you once, and you saw a bare face with wild eyes, a woman finally unadorned.

When you came back into the bedroom, The Soldier was waiting.

The body was already covered, wrapped in white sheets that almost felt merciful. Nothing of his remained but absence, a void where terror had been. 

You didn’t look. 

The Soldier stood near the door, alert. When he saw you, he sighed in relief, as if the twenty minutes where he couldn’t see you were the longest twenty minutes in his life.

You stepped into him without asking, arms wrapping around his waist, face pressed to his chest. He held you immediately, like instinct had overridden programming. 

“I love you,” you whispered into the fabric of his tactical shirt, the words torn loose from your throat.

“I know,” he said finally, barely holding it together. “I… I love you, too.”

You pulled back just long enough to kiss him.

It wasn’t frantic.

It was devastating, a goodbye pressed into skin. It was a kind of kiss meant to survive distance, time, and wars. The kind you could live on when everything else was taken.

When you parted, he rested his forehead against yours, hands still braced at your waist like he couldn’t trust the ground beneath you.

“Don’t look back,” he said gently. It wasn’t an order. It was a plea.

You nodded, even though your throat burned, even though every part of you wanted to stay. 

But you loved him too much to destroy him.

So you turned away… because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t leave at all.

—

Thirty-eight years later….

You had lived entire lives in that time, but your body had betrayed almost none of it. 

You had barely aged a handful of years since the night you ran, leaving the Winter Soldier behind in a house soaked with blood.

At first, you thought you were imagining it. Trauma does strange things to time. But then mirrors started telling on you. Photographs lingered too long in their resemblance. Friends joked about your “good genes,” laughed about how unfair it was that you never seemed to change.

Eventually, they always noticed.

And when they did, you learned to disappear before they asked too many questions.

Roughly once every decade (sometimes twelve years if you were lucky, sometimes eight if someone looked too closely) you would fake a death and build a new life. You would get a new name, a new passport, a new accent practiced until it felt natural on your tongue. You’d make up a new birthplace, a new birthday, new parents who existed only on paper.

The first time you did it, you cried for weeks. It felt silly, mourning your own fake death.

The second time, you drank yourself to sleep, getting ready to start from the bottom again,

By the third time, you were used to it.

By then, Hydra had stopped looking.

Dragunov’s wife had become an urban legend. Eventually, files were closed when leads went cold. The world moved on, as it always did. 

Some said she drowned herself after her husband’s brutal murder but a mysterious intruder. Others claimed she fell from the cliffs near the townhouse—a tragic and poetic accident. A few speculated that she was taken by the intruder, that both were spirited away.

You never bothered to correct them.

After all, you weren’t her anymore.

And his life, your current identity, was your favorite.

For the first time, you stopped running long enough to build a lasting career. You spent the early years of the twenty-first century earning degrees, burying yourself in theory and methodical language of law. You learned how borders were drawn, how power justified itself, how violence hid behind bureaucracy and signatures.

It made sense to you.

You became a professor of international law.

You taught students who believed, desperately, that rules could restrain empires. You didn’t laugh at them. You remembered what it was like to hope. You taught them about war crimes and treaties, about accountability that came too late, if it even came at all. 

You never told them how personal it was.

Your colleagues assumed you were in your early late twenties, maybe early thirties. You let them. You smiled when they joked about your “ageless look” and changed the subject when you could.

You were safe.

But you were lonely.

Then one evening, you came home late, arms full of papers, mind still half caught on a student’s argument about sovereignty and intervention. The television was already on, background noise you’d forgotten to turn off that morning.

You dropped your bag, and the screen showed chaos.

You saw creaming reporters struggling to keep their footing as three helicarriers burned behind them. The Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters, was collapsing in on itself. 

You scoffed. About time, you thought. 

You’ve been a critique of S.H.I.E.L.D. in your papers. You argued that a government-backed organisation that had basically zero transparency had no place in the world. 

You stepped closer, studying the chaos. Perhaps, you could talk about it in your next class.

The footage cut wildly as angles shifted and cameras shook.

And then, for just a second, between debris and fire, you saw a man aboard the ship.

He… had a metal arm.

You blinked. Once. Twice.

The camera swung away. The shot was gone.

But your hands were shaking, papers sliding from your fingers to the floor as an impossible thought rooted itself in your mind: 

You could have sworn…

You could have sworn it was him.

—

That night, you didn’t sleep at all.

You laid in bed staring at the ceiling, the room washed in shadows that shifted with every passing car. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw fire and steel, a flash of metal catching the light where it shouldn’t exist. 

You told yourself it must’ve been a coincidence. Perhaps a trick of the camera. A relic of a past you never let yourself mourn properly.

At some point, during the hollow hour just before dawn you heard a knock.

It wasn’t loud. Just three firm, measured taps against your front door.

You looked at the clock. 5.02 AM.

No one ever came to your apartment that early. No colleagues, or students, or friends close enough or foolish enough to show up before sunrise. For a while, you didn’t move.

Then the knocks came again.

You swung your legs out of bed, bare feet silent against the floor. Your hand hovered near the doorframe as you leaned forward, peering through the peephole—

And your breath left you entirely.

The Winter Soldier stood in the hallway like he didn’t belong to time anymore.

He was just as tall as you remembered him, the same broad shoulders. His hair was longer now, falling into his eyes… but it was him. 

Unmistakably. Miraculously.

The metal arm rested at his side. He looked… nervous. 

Your hand shook as you unlocked the door.

It opened on a gentle click.

For a second, neither of you spoke.

The hallway smelled faintly of cleaning chemicals. He looked at you like he was bracing for rejection, for disbelief, for the door to be slammed in his face.

“Hi,” he said finally, voice rough but gentle, like it had been worn down by years of disuse. He swallowed once. “My name is Bucky.”

His name.

He finally knew his name.

Your breath hitched painfully in your chest.

There had never been anyone else but him. No other man, no other love, no other name that had ever mattered the way he did. You had carried it with you for nearly forty years, tucked between identities, folded into the pages of notebooks, written and rewritten like a prayer.

He remembered.

He remembered his name.

You barely registered the blood on his face, barely registered the impossible logistics that must’ve led him here.

How did he find you? What did he use? Public records and libraries, perhaps? But that didn't explain how easily he had done it, considering how thorough you had been with your identity changes. 

How had he managed to track you down in less than half a day when Hydra couldn’t do it for the better part of three decades? 

And then it hit you.

You had told him once.

On that island, barefoot in the sand, dreaming of a dream you didn’t think you’d ever touch.

In another life, I would be a diplomat, you’d said, not thinking much of it. If not, I think I’d teach international law in a city like DC.

He remembered, and your faculty page would have been easy to find. You had a profile photo that hadn’t aged the way it should have. Maybe he’d recognized your eyes, and that was enough to bring the lost memories back to life.

It didn’t matter.

None of it mattered.

You stepped forward and pulled him into you before either of you could think better of it. Your hands came up to his face, your fingers trembling as they traced the lines that time had carved into him.

And you kissed him. He tasted like blood and oil and sweat, but you did not give a fuck.

It didn’t take long for him to melt into your touch.

“Hi, Bucky,” you breathed against his mouth, loving how his name felt in your mouth. 

That was all it took.

His breath shuddered violently as his forehead dropped to yours, his hands clutching at you. A heartbreaking sound tore from his chest, and he laughed and cried at the same time, shoulders shaking as decades of being lost finally caught up to him.

“You remember me,” he said, voice cracking so tightly it hurt to hear. “You remember me the way I….”

He couldn't finish his sentence, but you knew what he meant to say. 

You remember me the way I remember you.

You swallowed past the ache in your throat, tears blurring your vision as you held his face between your hands.

“Of course,” you whispered, a sad laugh making it past your lips. “Of course I do, Bucky.”

You guided him inside, away from the open door, away from the world that had spent so long tearing you both apart. You shut the door behind you, locking it with a final click.

For the first time in a long, long time…

He was home.

It sounded too good to be true. It offered full medical license activation and triple the usual pay. Off-books, but government-sanctioned, they claimed. You’d be working with elite personnel in a high-clearance, undisclosed location. It was a matter of national security, they said. 

When you made contact, they brought you to a warehouse and made you read non-disclosure agreements—dozens of them. They didn’t let you take them home to review. You signed everything in a windowless room with a clock that ticked too fast, and signed up to the project.

Your official title was “Classified field medic for enhanced personnel. Clearance Level 6 required.” It sounded impressive, official. You told your parents it was part of a DOD black ops program and that you weren’t allowed to say more.

You were happy you could finally help— 

 they had far too much medical debt to ever dig their way out.

And… They were proud.

If only they knew.

You were told you’d be assigned to “classified subjects.”

When they finally gave you the details of the work, you noticed the facility wasn’t listed on any public records. The address they gave you wasn’t on any GPS. The car that picked you up had no license plates. You were blindfolded before arriving.

You should have run then. But you didn’t, because they paid in advance.

You paid off your loans in one go and gave the rest to your family, promising you’d be earning more over the next couple of years. 

The facility you were assigned to didn’t have windows. The lights never changed. Days bled into each other until even your internal clock began to fail you. The air was too clean, the silence too dense—like the walls were swallowing sound. They injected you with yellow liquid when you arrived, and you weren't allowed to ask for details. Cameras were in the corners, always watching. 

You weren’t allowed to ask names. You weren’t given files.

You weren’t allowed your phone. No clocks. No outside contact unless you had prior clearance.

They never called it a hospital, because it wasn’t.

It was a slab of steel buried deep underground in Siberia, and you worked under it like a cog in the coldest machine you’d ever known. The men you reported to didn’t wear name tags or rank insignias. They all looked the same— pale-faced, dressed in black. You didn’t know their names, and you have never heard them use yours, either.

At first, you told yourself it was temporary. Just for a year. Just until you paid off your loans. Just until you figured out where you really belonged.

But then you saw the red flags. You folded them neatly and tucked them away with your conscience.

See, they knew the kind of people to look for— desperate ones. They recruit smart people who were overworked, drowning in debt or grief or fear. The ones who couldn’t afford to ask where the money came from. 

And by the time you realised who you were really working for, it was too late. Because no one leaves that facility unless it was in a body bag. 

Hydra was predatory like that.

—

You had been patching up STRIKE team operatives for almost a year. You were good—efficient, clean, and silent. You didn’t pry, and what made you valuable.

You never asked where the injuries came from. Bullet wounds, knife gashes, torn ligaments, crushed bones—you treated them all. You developed antiseptics that worked faster than standard-issue cream and learned how to seal a shrapnel wound in under ten minutes. You fixed what needed fixing, and you didn’t get in the way of the mission.

One morning, you were pulled from your bed at 0400 hours without an explanation. Two men in black shook you awake by the arm and took you to an elevator that descended farther than you knew the facility even went. There was a change in the air the deeper you went—thicker, colder. Like the walls were full of ghosts.

They didn’t tell you what your new assignment was, not until you stepped into the white-lit room and saw him.

He was on a reinforced chair, with blood crusted over his ribs and soaked through his cargo pants. The metal arm was twitching with little sparks, the seams dripping oil and blood in equal parts. His right eye was swollen shut and his lip was split.

And still— he didn’t look away.

You’d heard whispers about him before— the Asset.

They called him It.

Not a name. Not a person. A living weapon— built, not born.

You expected more people guarding the cell, but the only other man in the room was his handler— Colonel Vasily Karpov. You’d met men like him before, but none who looked so openly afraid of the thing they commanded.

"The previous doctor had been terminated due to noncompliance,” Karpov said, which was Hydra-speak for the Asset snapped his spine in two like a breadstick.

Your mouth went dry. "And I’m next in line?"

“You’re competent,” he said. “And replaceable.”

He walked out before you could respond.

The door shut behind him with a final hiss, like a coffin sealing.

And then there was just you— and him.

You took a step closer. He tracked your movement with his blue, calculating eyes. You could tell he didn’t know what you were—but knew how to kill you if you got close.

You didn’t speak at first. You just moved slowly, methodically. 

Eventually, you became brave enough to clean the blood. You assessed the damage. His injuries were extensive— fractured ribs, dislocated shoulder, deep lacerations across his abdomen. Most people would’ve gone into shock hours ago.

But he sat there, still breathing like a machine.

He didn’t flinch when you treated him.

Not even when you pulled a broken tooth from the inside of his right bicep.

He winced, though, when you put a hand on his shoulder to soothe him. And later, when your gloved hand rested gently on his chest, while rubbing small circles to calm him down, his eyes flicked to your face.

It was the first time he looked at you. 

Afterward, you logged the treatment. You followed the protocol. You filed the injury report.

In the official files, they referred to him as an it. But in your private notes, you called him he.

—

Over the next year or so, you were his doctor. 

And apparently, you were the only doctor who survived more than eight months.

You’d fix up his ribs when they were fractured. You cleaned bullet wounds from his side, his shoulder, the meat of his thigh. You iced swollen knuckles and stitched torn flesh, always so amazed how quickly his body healed. 

But still, they used him until he broke. They froze him from time to time, but after he was out, they dragged him back and told him to put the pieces together.

You worked in silence. He sat in silence.

Most days, his eyes were washed-out and programmed.

But sometimes, during the worst of the injuries—when your hands pressed into open wounds, when you whispered sorry— his eyebrows softened.

At this point, you had memorised his injuries, and the places his enemies targeted again and again. You started pre-packing supplies before he even arrived. 

The handlers noticed.

You began modifying your ointments—adding subtle numbing agents, to match his supersoldier metabolism. 

You weren’t supposed to. They wanted him in pain. 

But you did it anyway.

Once, they brought him in half-conscious, his metal arm sparking at the joint, blood soaked through the tactical gear. There was a knife wound under his ribs— and it was too deep. 

He grunted when you pressed gauze to it.

It was not a reaction to pain. It was a warning. His eyes met yours, and they were clearer than usual— as if he was fighting something.

And then, for the first time, you realised: He knew what was happening to him.

Maybe not always. Maybe not fully.

But there was a man inside the machine, and today was awake just long enough to hate it.

That night, they froze him and drilled the trigger words into his brain again. 

—

Tonight, he came back worse than usual.

Bruised. Bloodied. Shot in seven different places. His face was partially swollen, split lip crusted with dried blood, a jagged tear across his side soaking his uniform black-red. His metal arm twitched violently, fingers clenching and unclenching with a mechanical rhythm— as if the programming inside him was short-circuiting.

He was strapped into the chair again, the restraints digging into his wrists deep enough to turn the skin purple. Four guards had hauled him in like he was an animal— one of them nursing a broken arm. 

They left you alone with him and chuckled, “good luck.” 

The Asset’s head was bowed low, hair falling like a curtain over his eyes. The tension in his shoulders was wrong. Too rigid, too coiled, like a wire stretched too tight and ready to snap.

You stepped closer, and he jerked suddenly against the restraints—and his metal hand nearly caught your arm.

You froze.

In your peripheral vision, the guards laughed behind the glass.

He didn’t look at you.

He was breathing hard and shaking violently, as if was trying to stay in his body.

You looked at the camera in the corner, swallowing back a panic and anger.

“I can’t treat him like this,” you said. If he didn’t calm down enough for you to stitch him up soon, he was going to bleed out.

Your voice was sharper than you meant it to be. It was… unprofessional. 

A few seconds passed before the speaker crackled.

“That’s too bad,” said Karpov’s cold, detached voice. “It is your job.”

You stared at the glass behind which they watched— always watched.

Then you turned back to him.

You tried, as always, to be gentle. To be careful. You knelt to clean the gash under his ribs. You threaded your needle, soaked the wound with antiseptic.

But his body thrashed again.

You dropped the needle.

His metal arm lunged forward, nearly catching your throat before the restraints snapped him back into place.

He didn’t mean to, you reminded yourself.

But the part of him that killed without asking questions was surfacing, and you were too close.

Your hands shook.

He turned his head away from you as if ashamed. Or furious. 

Fuck.

You were losing him.

So you did the only irrational, human thing that came to mind.

You… sang.

“Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool…”

Your voice cracked on the first line. It had been years— you hadn’t sung it since you were small— curled up on your mother’s lap while she ran her fingers through your hair and kept the nightmares away.

You saw his breathing slow down, just slightly. 

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full…”

He…  didn’t flinch again.

You kept singing while you threaded the needle and stitched the worst of the gash along his side. His trembling eased.

You spoke without really meaning to, your voice almost a whisper.

“My mother used to sing it to me,” you lulled. “I only realised later what it meant,” you continued. “‘One for the master, one for the dame…’”

You wiped sweat from your forehead, working on a deeper wound now.

“Servitude, right? ‘One for the little boy who lived down the lane.’ Maybe lullabies sung to entertain children. Maybe they’re for making people… obedient,”

You paused, still stitching, thankful he calmed down. 

“Because I think…,” you said, tilting your head as you managed to fish a bullet out of his side. “Obedience it taught. Not born.”

And then, like the thought slipped out of your mouth without permission, “Were you taught well?”

You didn’t expect a response. 

But this time, his head turned and he looked at you.

His voice came out rough, underused, gravel dragged across rusted metal. But these sounds were not growled nor screamed.

“It was the only thing I remember learning,” he whispered. 

You froze.

It was the first time you had ever heard him speak.

The needle slipped from your hand, fell into the tray with a clink. You were stunned. 

Through all that, he watched you. 

You knelt beside him, picked up the needle again with shaking hands.

His eyes followed you as you resumed treating him. He was silent the rest of the session. 

But something had changed.

—

The first time he leaned into your touch was a couple of months later. 

You were bandaging a wound just beneath his collarbone in tight, methodical loops when your fingers brushed the skin of his neck. He let out a deep breath and tilted his head just slightly toward your hand.

He… made a conscious choice. 

You didn’t say anything, and neither did he. But your hands lingered a little longer than usual.

Sometimes, when he was lucid, he’d look at your hands while you worked— following their motion like they were the only real thing in the room. You weren’t sure what he was seeing. 

Then… you started narrating aloud. It was partly for him, partly for you. “This’ll sting a little,” you’d say, cleaning a wound.

“Pressure here—sorry, hold on…”

He never answered at first. 

Then one day, he did.

You were stitching a deep tear in his thigh when your thread caught. “Sorry,” you said under your breath.

“You always say that.”

You looked up, needle halfway through the thread. “Say what?”

“‘Sorry,’” he managed, “it’s not your fault.”

“Sorry,” you mentioned sheepishly. “I’ll stop saying it.”

Then, you resumed your work.

The next time he came in, he was limping badly, and for once, the restraints weren’t used. Maybe they knew he couldn’t stand. Maybe they didn’t care if he bled out.

And he didn’t even make it to the chair. He sat on the floor instead.

When you knelt beside him, your knees touching his, he didn’t pull away. He let you cut the fabric from yet another ruined suit— fifth one this month— or year? You have long lost track of time in this Siberian bunker. 

Still, he let you clean the blood from his temple.

“Don’t they ever give you a break?” you asked, not expecting an answer.

“No,” he said simply. 

You frowned. 

Still, your hands were steady.

You started humming when he came in—low, quiet melodies under your breath. Sometimes lullabies. Sometimes nothing at all—just sounds, like a lifeline tossed into water. He never asked you to stop.

One night, after they’d brought him in burned—his arm singed, the edge of his jaw blistered—you held an ice pack against his skin and whispered, “You shouldn’t be alive after half of this.”

He didn’t speak for a long time. Then, after careful consideration, he said, “Sometimes I think I’m not.”

Eventually, he started helping you—lifting an arm for treatment, shifting his weight when he knew it would help you work faster. He never said much. Never more than a sentence or two. But the words, when they came, were clear. 

“Thank you.”

“Be careful.”

One night, he asked for your name.

You told him. But when you asked him what his was, he only said, “I don’t know.”

But for the first time in a very long time, The Asset smiled. 

Because it was the first time anyone ever cared to ask.

—

When he wasn’t in cryofreeze, they kept him in a reinforced room that wasn’t technically a cell, but wasn’t anything else either. It had a cot, a chair, and a toilet.

You called it the holding room.

They called it the kennel.

You’d come in for treatment checks once or twice a week between missions— tended his joints, monitored the fluid viscosity in his metal arm, checked for infection. 

But the guards watched him too. Always. From the control room, behind the glass, hands on the mic.

They joked about him.

At first, it was petty things— how much blood he could lose before he passed out, how many bones had healed crooked.

But it got worse.

Much worse.

They joked about his body when he was in heat. How he “rutted in his sleep sometimes.” How they’d seen the security feed catch him grinding against the mattress, the cot, the restraints, whatever he could in his animal state after missions.

“He’s always desperate after a kill,” one of them said once, laughing. “Bet he doesn’t even know what he’s doing. Fucking the pillow like a mutt.”

You had frozen when you heard it. But today—today, it went further.

“Bets?” one of them said. “Ten rubles on the mattress tonight. Twenty on the wall.”

All three of the guards stationed to watch that night laughed. 

“Stop,” you said, through gritted teeth. “What you’re doing is disgusting. Watching him like that—mocking him— when his agency’s being taken from him? He’s a fucking person and you need to grow up.”

What followed was the longest ten seconds of silence in your life. 

And then one of them leaned forward in his chair and sneered. “If you think he’s a person, why don’t you go in there?”

You blinked. “What?"

“Go on,” The other guard grinned and got up from his seat. “If you think he’s man and not machine, let’s test it.”

You stepped back, realising what their plan was. “Don’t touch me.”

“Too late.”

Their hands grabbed your arms.

You fought—kicked, screamed, bit one of them hard enough to draw blood—but there were three of them, and you were half their size. One of them slammed your head into the wall hard enough to daze you. 

You didn’t know where the pain began — your scalp where they’d yanked your hair? The side of your jaw where a fist had struck you clean across the face? 

Still, you fought. You slammed your elbow into one guard’s windpipe hard enough to make him choke. You thrashed and tried everything, but they were stronger. 

And they enjoyed it.

You’d never seen teeth like that — bared in joy at suffering. One of them— Maksimov had blood on his knuckles and another— Yuri had both hands up your shirt before you bit him hard enough to draw blood.

You screamed, “He—we— a person!” not knowing whether you meant yourself or the Winter Soldier.

But they didn’t care.

One of them tore at the buttons of your shirt while another held your arms behind you. The fabric split as your bra snapped and air hit your chest and you curled inward, shaking, humiliated, trying to hide your body with trembling hands.

“He’ll definitely go for her pussy,” one of them muttered like it was a bet at a bar.

“I’d go for the ass first,” another chuckled. “Tighter.”

Then came the worst line.

“I bet the dumb beast doesn’t know the difference and finish in her mouth in under three minutes.”

The laughter didn’t stop.

Your legs gave out once they dragged you through the hallway to the lower levels. You stumbled, bleeding from your lip, your breasts half-exposed, nails broken from the fight. They hauled you back up and slammed your back into the steel door before keying it open.

You saw the inside of the room for only a second before they shoved you in and locked the door behind you with a clang.

“Have fun, soldat!” A guard, Anton, said.

You fell, and started trembling.

Everything hurt.

And then you looked up.

He was there.

The Asset — him. The Winter Soldier.

He was standing in the center of the room. He wasn’t strapped down this time, his long hair damp and clinging to his cheeks. His chest was bare, streaked with drying blood and oil. His eyes locked onto you the moment you hit the floor.

You froze.

Your arms flew across your body, trying to cover yourself as you backed yourself into the wall.  You curled in on yourself, heart hammering so loud it drowned out the rush of blood in your ears.

He’ll fuck you, they had said. He’ll take the choice away from you. He’ll use you as a way to satisfy himself.

You believed it for a second.

You’d seen what he could do — seen the machine they’d made him into. You’d see the bloodlust in his eyes when he came back from missions. 

You were terrified.

You curled tighter.

He took one step forward.

And… stopped.

You took a chance and looked at your face.

He wasn’t looking at your chest. He wasn’t leering. His pupils weren’t blown wide with mindless hunger. He wasn’t hard, or panting, or unchained from reality.

He was staring at your injuries.

At the torn fabric, at the swelling in your cheek. The handprint rising red on your arm. And the grip marks on your breaks. The blood at your lip. His brow furrowed.

And his whole body… melted.

The heat was gone, almost instantly. 

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee.

“Who…” he rasped, “did this to you?”

His voice was hoarse, barely there. But there was no mistaking the rage that had formed underneath it — nothing like the lust the guards had imagined.

He handed you his only blanket, and you clutched it. He let you wrap yourself in it, and when you couldn’t stand, he helped you sit up, not touching your skin unless he had to.

“Maksimov, Yuri, and Anton,” you whispered, lip trembling.

His teeth clenched.

He reached out slowly — slow enough that you could move away, slow enough that you knew it wasn’t force — and brushed the blanket more tightly around your shoulders, like he was covering you from the world, from the camera, from the three guards he knew were watching.  

You were still crying. You didn’t realise it until his human thumb brushed away a tear from your cheek.

He didn’t say anything for a while.

He just sat there, at your level, holding the blanket closed with one hand, eyes locked on yours. Not on your body. Not on your skin. 

You folded into his chest, not because he demanded it, but because it was safe. 

He wrapped his arms around you like he’d never learned how to hold a person without breaking them. And still — he didn’t break you.

He just held you, shivering, until your breathing slowed.

And in the silence, you heard the quietest thing of all. “I won’t hurt you.”

Once again, The Asset had made a choice. 

A human one.

—

Hours passed.

The two of you stayed curled together on the concrete. You had stopped crying eventually, but your body still trembled now and then— from shock, from adrenaline.

You still felt his arm around your shoulders—gentle, not possessive.

The guards who had been watching were probably bored. You thought maybe—maybe—you’d be left alone. Maybe they’d gotten the message. Maybe they wouldn’t push again.

You were proven wrong when the heavy steel door hissed open.

You barely had time to pull the blanket tighter.

The same three guards entered and they were prepared. They carried sleek, matte black rifles. Loaded, to deal with The Asset should he go rogue. 

And then you heard the voice.

“Что с тобой, солдат?” — What the fuck is wrong with you, Soldat?

Yuri stepped forward, gun dangling casually in his hands, eyes not even on The Asset— but on you.

“Мы дали тебе дырку, и ты даже не воспользовался ею?” — We gave you a hole and you didn’t even use it?

You flinched so hard your head hit the metal wall behind you.

The Asset stood up and stepped directly in front of you, body between yours and theirs, fists clenched. He was…shielding you.

The guards exchanged glances, laughing now. One of them cocked his gun and slung it over his shoulder like a prop in a theatre.

“Ладно. Тогда мы сами её трахнем,” —Fine. Then we’ll use her ourselves. Maksimov said, smiling.

And then Yuri moved fast. He reached out and grabbed your ankle, hard, yanking you out of the blanket.

You screamed.

And The Asset snapped.

No hesitation, No programming.

Just rage.

The Asset’s metal fist punched Yuri square in the chest and launched him into the far wall. The impact was loud enough that you heard a crack—maybe the wall, but most likely Yuri’s spine.

Before anyone else could react, he twisted and ripped the rifle from Anton’s hands. Without really aiming, he pulled the trigger and shot Maksimov in the throat.

Blood sprayed the walls, and Maksimov gurgled once before slumping to the ground.

Anton raised his hands to surrender.

Too late.

Bucky pivoted, metal arm slamming the barrel of the rifle into Anton’s face with brutal force, then fired— one shot, clean through the eye.

He dropped the gun.

It clattered to the floor, ringing louder than the gunshots had.

He turned back toward you, his shoulders rising and falling with every breath.

He knelt. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

You blinked, still clutching the blanket, hands shaking.

—

Within minutes of the bodies hitting the ground, you heard the sound of heavy boots walking in.

Karpov entered the cell like he owned the air in it.

He didn’t look at you.

He didn’t look at the corpses.

He only looked at The Asset who was still crouched in front of you, body curled like a shield.

Karpov simply pressed a switch on a small black device he held in his gloved hand.

There was a crack of electricity, and The Asset screamed.

You jolted, reaching for him—but it was no use.

His body seized up as the taser pulse ran through his spine, his metal arm locking tight against the floor, 

He didn’t resist. He didn’t even try.

When he collapsed unconscious beside the cot, Karpov turned to you without missing a beat.

“Come.”

You shook your head. “He—he was protecting me—he saved me—”

“You’ll have time for your little report later,” he snapped, throwing you some clothes to put on. “For now, come.”

—

The interrogation room was cold. 

Karpov stood across the table from you, arms folded.

“You will explain,” he said coldly.

Your eyebrows furrowed, still half in shock. “Explain what?”

He tilted his head. “You calmed him down.”

Your mouth opened, then shut.

"You do understand," he said in his frigid Russian-laced English, “that he should have either killed you, or fucked you.”

You froze.

He watched your reaction like a scalpel watches skin.

“That’s what the programming was designed to do,” he continued. “You are aware of his conditioning, yes?”

You nodded slowly, not trusting your voice.

“Then you know what heat was for.”

You have heard of why it was drilled in his brain— but you didn’t answer.

Karpov did not wait for permission to continue.

“It was an instinct trigger. Embedded in his biological and neural mapping through synthetic hormonal injections and psychosexual conditioning. During these ‘heat’ cycles, he was supposed to be motivated—” He paused, eyes narrow, “—it was supposed to encourage mating.”

Your throat closed. Did he really not care about the dead guards? Was the project really his main concern?

“The Soldier’s DNA is nearly perfect.” he said, as if it was. “Hydra wanted progeny. Super soldiers born, not built.”

He leaned in then, elbows on the table, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth.

“But every woman they introduced… didn’t survive long enough to be useful. He tore through them out of instinct. So the project was abandoned years ago. The heat was too unstable, and he had no control.” He sat down across from you. “Until you.”

Your stomach lurched.

“You,” Karpov said slowly, “calmed him down.”

“I—I didn’t do anything,” you whispered. 

“You must have!” he snapped. 

You flinched. 

“I’ve studied his tapes for years! I've watched him crush skulls with his bare hands, tear out throats. Rip people in half when the words are spoken. But you—” Karpov stood, circling the table again. “—you knelt half-naked in front of him while he was in heat—and instead of fucking you to death, he held you.”

“I don’t know,” you said hoarsely. 

Karpov stared at you for a long moment, then sighed. He picked up the file from the table and turned to leave.

At the door, without turning back, he said, “You’re being reassigned.”

—

When you went back to your quarters. Your bunk was gone.

Your locker was cleared and stuffed neatly into a duffel bag. 

On the floor was a folded piece of paper.

REASSIGNED TO: THE KENNEL Effective Immediately. Observation: Subject Winter Soldier Objective: Behavioral stabilization Note: Subject's physiological response indicates reduced volatility in your presence. Further utility assessment pending.

You sank onto the cot.

Now, to Hydra, you weren’t just a doctor. You were a leash.

—

The cot wasn’t meant for two.

It was military-issue— narrow, hard-edged, bolted to the floor like everything else in the kennel. At first, you didn’t even sit on it when he was there. You’d sleep on the floor with your back to the cold steel wall, too awkward to mention what happened that day. The blanket was wrapped tight, pretending it wasn’t humiliating, pretending you weren’t always cold.

At first, he’d just watch, afraid of crossing a line— especially after what had happened to you. 

Then, after a week, he motioned for you to sit beside him on the cot when you changed bandages or administered injections.

Then, a month in, after a mission where he came back with his knuckles broken and a gunshot wound near his ribs, you were too exhausted to curl back up on the floor. You’d been crying silently that night, your hands trembling as you stitched him, your eyes stinging, wondering where everything had gone wrong. 

When you’d finished, he looked at you. “…You don’t have to sleep on the floor.”

Your eyes flicked up.

“What?”

He shifted to make room. One side of the cot opened up to you.

You hesitated. Then nodded.

That night, you lay stiff as a board beside him, back to back, flinching to touch. You barely slept, afraid to breathe too loud.

But the next night, when you came back from the showers and the lights dimmed for sleep, he scooted over before you even asked.

By the second month, your backs were pressed together at night. 

By the third, you’d curl inward, and he’d curl, too. One of your legs would brush his. Your forehead might graze his chest. His arm, the flesh one, sometimes draped around your side in the middle of sleep and didn’t pull away when you shifted closer.

—

When his heat cycles came—and they always came—you prepared.

You stayed calm and gave him space. 

You… would sing to him. Lullabies, mostly— songs meant for children too small to understand how cruel the world could be.

He never moved toward you during those nights. He never touched you without invitation. He’d sit on the cot, the muscles in his neck pulled tight.

Sometimes he’d whisper things to himself, half-delirious.

"No. Not her. Not her."

—

When he was frozen, you stayed in the kennel alone.

You didn’t think you’d miss him, but you did.

You’d find yourself sitting on the floor beside his cot, staring at the sealed cryo-chamber, singing to yourself just to fill the space.

And when they unfroze and reset him, you were still his doctor.

You still iced his knuckles. You still placed his dislocated shoulder back. You still pulled bullets from his flesh and closed the wounds with care no one else gave him.

But after the first few months, he started looking at you differently.

Like he knew you. Even after resets. Even after ice.

—

One day, after a mission that had stretched on far longer than any of the others—he came back. He was quiet when he entered. He did not say a word. 

But after two hours of working on his wound, he whispered, “Bucky.”

You tilted your head, confused. You weren’t sure you’d heard right. 

Then he said it again, firmer this time. “My name is Bucky.”

What?

Your mouth opened slowly, your breath finally catching up. 

He… remembered?

“…Okay, Bucky,” you said, voice quieter than you meant it to be— because anything louder might shatter whatever this was—perhaps a glimpse of the man buried beneath all the programming and pain. “Can you please lift your arm for me?”

He did.

And for the first time, he looked… not just present. Not just there.

He looked real.

—

You were still asleep when the cold hands tore the blanket from your body.

Two Hydra agents stormed into the kennel, and before you could even sit up, they had you by the hair, dragging you off the cot like a rag doll.

Bucky shifted awake next to you, but the third guard tased him before he could fully even register what was happening.

“What—what are you doing—?!”

They didn’t answer. They just manhandled you down the corridor, your bare feet scraping along concrete, your heart still stuck between dreams and dread.

In the interrogation room, one of them shoved you into the metal chair so hard the back of your skull smacked against steel. A hand grabbed your chin, wrenching your face toward him. The other paced behind, a cattle prod crackling ominously in his grip.

You recognised the person in front of you as Karpov. “What did he tell you?”

You blinked. Your ears rang. You were still half-asleep, disoriented. 

Then you realised: 

Oh. 

Someone saw the footage.

Someone saw what happened last night. Someone heard Bucky say his name.

Your mouth opened, before shutting again. You weren’t even sure what to say. He didn’t tell you anything else, but if you said so, would they even believe you?

But Karpov demanded more.

“Did he say his designation?”

“Did he say anything else? Was there a code?”

“What did he tell you, girl?”

The prod surged forward with a snap of electricity, kissing your side. You screamed—more from shock than pain—but the heat seared like fire across your ribs. You convulsed in the chair, gasping, trying to curl away, but the restraints held you firm.

And then—through your haze—you saw a flicker in the hall.

You heard a grunt. A thud.

And suddenly—he was there.

The Winter Soldier. No—Bucky.

His body still shook from the effects of the tasers, but his eyes were burning. 

One of the agents turned in time to catch a brutal kick to the gut that sent him sprawling. The other barely got a hand to his weapon before Bucky lunged, using the full weight of his body to knock him back. You saw blood and heard bone crack.

In seconds, it was over. Even Karpov was hauled away to safety. 

Bucky was at your side, kneeling, his trembling fingers working clumsily at the restraints. 

“Bucky—” your voice cracked. “You’re hurt—your face—”

He didn’t answer right away. His eyes didn’t meet yours.

The cuffs snapped off.

You sagged forward, into his arms before you even realised you were doing it. You felt the thrum of his chest, the rise and fall of ragged breathing. 

He cupped your face with his human hand, and for a second you thought he might kiss you — but no. He pulled back.

Because he knew if he did, he wouldn’t have the strength to lose you.

“You need to go.”

You froze. “What?”

“There’s a tunnel—service corridor—they don’t watch it after hours. It connects to the south barracks. You can get outside the perimeter.”

“Bucky—no,” you said through gritted teeth, “I’m not leaving you.”

He clenched his teeth. 

“You have to,” he said. “I can’t protect you here.”

“I don’t care—”

“I do.”

That stopped you cold.

His voice cracked on those words. He looked away, just for a second, as if ashamed of how much he meant them. “I— I’m starting to know things I shouldn’t,” he said softly. “I need you to go. If I don’t… if I’m not… If they wiped me…”

You shook your head. “Don’t.”

“I need you to promise me,” he said, almost begging now. “Don’t come back for me.”

“I—please—”

His lips brushed your forehead, right before he shoved you gently but firmly toward the hall.

“Go.”

So you did.

—

Thirty Years Later.

The world had changed. 

Until yesterday, James Buchanan Barnes was a congressman. He didn’t go looking for redemption anymore. And he certainly didn’t go looking for you.

What would be the point?

You were probably… what? In your sixties? Seventies? If you’d survived at all— and Hydra said you hadn’t, that they’d caught you in one of the tunnels and killed you— he could only hope you’d built a life—married someone kind, had children, found a place where the past couldn’t follow you. If you had managed to find peace, he wasn’t going to rip it open like an old scar just to ask, Do you remember me?

So he never tried.

But he never loved again either.

Because even if he never said it out loud, Bucky Barnes had once loved you in a place where love wasn't supposed to exist. 

He still did.

That kind of love didn’t fade. It just lay quiet beneath the skin, like a healed-over wound that never quite stopped aching.

It wasn’t something he talked about. Not to Sam. Not to Steve, before he left. 

Until...

—

New York. Post-Void.

The sky was still clearing after the void had swallowed New York City whole

The Thunderbolts were scattered across the debris-littered street, dragging survivors from the wreckage after Valentina smirked smugly from successfully introducing them to the world as the New Avengers.

Bucky was scanning for movement in the fallen concrete.

That’s when he heard it.

It was faint, like madness like a lullaby from another life.

“Baa baa, black sheep… have you any wool…”

His whole body went still. 

He whipped around, scanning the dust and rubble, and—

There.

You were kneeling beside a crying girl on a broken stoop, blood smeared down her shin, and she had a sprained ankle— maybe. Nothing fatal—but you held her like she was made of glass, one hand gently pressing a bandage against her knee, the other stroking her curls as you sang.

And you… you hadn’t changed.

There was not a wrinkle on your skin, not a gray hair on your head. You didn’t look a day older than the last time he saw you, thirty years ago.

He was so stunned, he forgot how to breathe. 

“You know her?” Yelena asked, stepping beside him, flicking blood from her forehead.

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”

You calmed the little girl down when she started sobbing, making sure you were gentle with her injuries. 

Bucky didn’t answer.

Couldn’t.

His lips parted like he might say yes, but no sound came out. 

“One for the master, one for the dame,” you sang as the girl sniffled, “and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.”

It was like his lungs had forgotten air. His heart beat painfully inside his ribs—too much, too fast, too sudden.

And then—

You looked up.

Saw him.

And smiled.

—

You walked over to him like you were in a dream—like every step was an act of defiance to everything that had broken you, bent you, tried to erase you. 

He was now sitting on the ground, legs sprawled like they couldn’t quite hold him up anymore. Blood streaked across his jaw, already drying in cracked lines. His chest rose and fell like he’d just come back from drowning.

Your boots crunched over broken glass and gravel as you closed in. You didn’t speak at first. You didn’t know if he could handle words yet—not until your presence fully registered. 

You crouched down, and he flinched when you touched his face—not because it hurt, but because he didn’t trust that any of this was real.

“You’re hurt,” you finally said. “Let me help.”

You pulled out the antiseptic, your hands shaking slightly. You dabbed the cotton gently along the edges of a deep cut above his brow. The moment the liquid touched skin, he shuddered.

And then he started shaking.

The tremble that began in his hands and spread to his shoulders, his chest, his teeth. His mouth parted like he wanted to speak, to ask something, but the words got lost 

Tears welled in his eyes before he could stop them. His breath hitched before the first choked sob, clawing its way up his throat.

And maybe it had been.

Because it wasn’t just about seeing you. It was about seeing you alive.

Alive.

Not a hallucination. Not a memory. Not like he saw you, in the void. 

Alive. With breath in your lungs and heat in your veins and the same look in your eyes that once held him when he was in pain. 

His lips moved—silent at first. Then the words came out shaky. “Do you… remember me?”

You froze for half a second, eyes softening in a way that shattered him all over again.

“Of course I do,” you whispered, brushing a stray hair away from his forehead. “I could never forget the love of my life.”

Was that what he was to you?

After all this time, he still meant the same thing that you did to him? 

He turned his face away like it might somehow spare him some tears, but it didn’t. The sob that followed ripped from the deepest part of his heart, almost primitive. Not the kind you cry when you’re sad, but the kind you cry when you realise your heart’s still beating after being convinced it was gone.

He collapsed into himself, shoulders hitching, breath stuttering out in ragged gasps. His metal hand clawed blindly at the ground like he needed something solid to hold onto before he slipped under.

You didn’t say anything else. You just moved closer, wrapping an arm gently around his shoulders, resting your forehead to his temple as he wept.

Yelena had wandered off a while ago—probably in search of someone else to pester— most likely her father. 

She hadn’t even looked back. She probably knew that this moment didn’t belong to her.

It belonged to him. And you.

He tried to say something else—an apology, maybe, or a confession—but all that came out was, “I—I…” he swallowed, “I— I…”

“Bucky…” You hushed him gently, thumb brushing the tears from his cheek. “We’ll talk somewhere private, yeah?”

He barely nodded. 

Because right now, language was too small a thing. All he could do was hold onto you. And all his mind could think was the way your hand fit in his like it always had.

—

You walked ahead of him, leading him down the cracked sidewalk with a hand hovering just near his arm in case he stumbled again.

He hadn’t stopped shaking.

Every so often, Bucky would glance sideways at you—like if he looked away for too long, you might vanish. His eyes were still red, his fists clenched like it hurt to hold himself together. Still, he followed.

It wasn’t far—just a few blocks. Somewhere between tourist traps and bodegas. 

The sign above the trauma clinic was clean and professional. Your name etched in utilitarian serif, easily overlooked.

You didn’t take him through the front. Instead, you circled to the alley behind the building and paused before a rusted steel door that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. But then—you looked directly at a small, seamless panel embedded beside the frame.

A red light swept across your retina, and when it recognised you— the lock hissed open with a pneumatic sigh.

“Come on,” you murmured as the door swung inward.

You descended a narrow staircase, the lights flickering on ahead of you one by one—clean, white fluorescence bathing the walls. At the bottom, it opened into a wide, reinforced corridor. 

And then you turned the final corner.

Oh.

That was all his mind could manage.

This was not a secret lab. Not some grim Hydra hellhole or impersonal bunker. 

No. This place was…

It was your life. A shrine. A sanctum buried beneath the city.

It was a sterile medical bay with sleek counters, an exam table and chair, sealed cabinets filled with trauma kits and gauze and every instrument a trauma doctor could need—but the walls told a different story.

To his right: a newspaper framed in glass. “Harlem Disaster Narrowly Avoided: Doctor Treats Over Fifty Civilians After Abomination Rampage.” Your name was in the byline. There was even a photo—blurry, taken on someone’s flip phone, of you, sleeves rolled up, arms smeared with blood as you performed a field tourniquet on a screaming man.

Then, “Unsung Hero of New York: Trauma Doctor Saves Dozens in Battle of Midtown.”

He kept turning. The memorabilia… evolved.

A cracked Daredevil helmet, dark red and scuffed.

A display case holding a single 9mm bullet, etched with the faint white skull of the Punisher— etched on it. 

A shattered web cartridge, unmistakably Spidey’s, with a bit of dried synthetic fluid still crusted at the nozzle.

Even a shelf with a glittery Ms. Marvel Funko Pop, clearly out of place, sitting cheerfully among medical books and gauze rolls.

Bucky’s voice, when it came, was nothing more than a breath. “What is this?”

You stepped beside him, your fingers trailing the little bobblehead. “Gifts from… friends.”

He turned to you. “Friends?”

You gave him a tired smile and joked, “Is it so unbelievable for me to have friends, Bucky?”

He blinked, startled by the levity. You gently nudged him to sit on the exam table, and he obeyed without protest as you cleaned his wounds. 

“I just…” he said, voice thin. “I don’t know how you’re still alive. Or how you still look so…” His eyes lingered. “…young.”

You didn't meet his gaze. “Thank Hydra.”

Bucky swallowed, but you continued. 

“When I got recruited, they injected me with something— they said it was just a stimulant— to keep me going longer, help me work longer hours.”

He went still.

“Later, I learned that it was something called the Infinity Formula. Not exactly a Super Soldier Serum, but it… slowed my aging significantly. I guess they didn't want to have to train more people.”

You kept working on the cuts on his face. 

“When you got me out… I didn’t know how to be in the world anymore. So I built this practice. I wanted to be… useful”

Your fingers paused briefly, then continued.

“But then, vigilantes started showing up. People who couldn’t go to hospitals— people who were bleeding, hunted, scared. It was a small community, so word spread.”

Bucky winced as you moved on to the next cut.

“I patched them up.” You nodded toward the artifacts on the walls. “No questions. Just… tried to keep them breathing long enough to get back out there. It became my life.”

Every artifact had a story, and you were the invisible thread stitching it together.

“A couple months ago, Fisk outlawed masked vigilantes and made everything worse. Not a lot come round anymore, but I still help. How could I not?” You looked up at him.“They show up half-dead, still trying to save people. They just need someone to believe they’re worth saving too.”

Bucky's hands curled into trembling fists at his sides.

You pulled the final stitch and wrapped the wound. “There,” you whispered. “You’re good.”

But Bucky didn’t move. He was staring again. Not at the artifacts, not at the walls. But… at you.

“You…” His voice cracked. “You never stopped.”

There was no more Hydra. No more handlers. No more needles.

And yet you continued doing what you do best. 

Back then, he'd thought he'd imagined it. That flicker of you— the only good thing in that place built to destroy anything good.

But now…

Now, here you were. Standing in front of him. Still real. Still breathing. Still looking at him like he was a man, not a weapon.

His voice, when it came, was hoarse and hesitant, like it hurt to say.

“Can I…?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He looked at you, struggling to find his voice. “Can I touch you?”

You didn’t move for a heartbeat. But then you nodded.

And that was all he needed.

He pulled you ever closer, barely daring to breathe. He lifted his metal arm so gently, like you might vanish if he pressed too hard— he cupped your cheek.

His thumb brushed along your skin, just once.

It was real. 

His other hand followed, cradling your face between his palms. His calloused fingers trembled against you, his lips parting. A man who had faced death a thousand times over… and was now utterly undone by the fact that you were standing in front of him, alive.

Bucky pressed his forehead against yours, and the first sob slipped out of him like a wound opening in real time. His whole body curled inward, as if trying to shield you and collapse into you at the same time.

Your hands came up slowly, mirroring his motion like magnets finding their way to each other after centuries apart, holding him just as gently. “I missed you, Bucky.”

His eyes, that haunted blue, searched your face. “Why didn’t you come for me?” he asked, pain buried deep in his voice. You must’ve seen him in the news— during the Sokovia Accords, the ordeal with the Flag Smashers, or when he became a congressman. You simply have had to have seen him.

You swallowed hard, blinking away the sudden sting in your eyes. “I didn’t think…,” you admitted, “I didn’t think you’d remember me.”

His brows furrowed. “Of course I remembered you,” he said, a little broken, a little desperate. His thumb moved again, tracing circles against your skin. “But Hydra told me you were dead— I never believed them. But after everything, I thought maybe you’d moved on. That you were gone for good, one way or another.”

Tears welled in your eyes now, hot and brimming over, and you let them fall. “After what we’ve been through?” you asked, your voice trembling as a sad smile curled your lips. “How could I ever move on from you?”

He let out a sharp breath, like your words were a punch to the chest. Gently, as if giving you the chance to pull away,  he pulled you closer — chest to chest, heart to heart — until he helped you up and you were straddling his lap, your hands finding a perch on his shoulders, his arms caging you in like you were the most precious thing he’d ever held.

His forehead rested against yours again, breaths mingling, warm and shallow. 

“God, Bucky…After all this time,” you whispered in amazement, “what are we?”

He didn’t answer right away. 

Then, finally, with certainty, he said, “A choice.”

Your breath hitched.

“A choice,” he repeated, eyes locked with yours, his grip tightening slightly on your hips. “The first real choice I made after having my mind taken from me. The first person I cared for that were not orders, not missions.”

Oh.

You let your fingers trail up into his hair, letting yourself touch him like you’d dreamed about for so long. He leaned into it, eyes fluttering shut for a heartbeat.

You swallowed again, sighed when he leaned into your touch. 

“I…” you started, but  pulled back just slightly so you could see his face, your eyes meeting his. “Can I kiss you?”

He looked at you like you were the only person in the world that made any sense.

He could only nod. 

And you kissed him.

It was cautious at first, tentative, like a secret being unravelled — but the second he hummed, the world disappeared. His hand slid to the back of your neck, the other anchoring you to him as he kissed you like he’d been holding his breath for years. You melted into him, your mouths moving together like you’d done this a thousand times in your dreams.

When you finally pulled back, your forehead pressed to his again, both of you smiling like teenagers.

You let out a small laugh, “I’ve always wondered what your lips tasted like.”

He chuckled too, that low, boyish sound you hadn’t heard… ever. “Yeah?” he asked, fingers still tracing lazy lines along your spine. “Was it everything you imagined?”

You grinned, eyes still closed. “Better.”

He kissed your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth and whispered, “I missed you, too.”

—

You and Bucky had taken it slow.

After those first intense days together, you both decided to learn about each other outside of Hydra. Just to see who you were now. 

You went on actual dates— coffee that turned into late dinners, morning hikes, lazy afternoons in museums, cooking together and arguing over whether pineapple belonged on pizza. 

Turns out, outside the cold walls of bunkers and laboratories and hidden bases, you and Bucky were more compatible than you'd even dared hope. He liked vinyl records and peaceful mornings. You liked stargazing and stealing his sweaters. You both loved old noir films, loved sushi, and had developed a strangely passionate shared hobby for urban beekeeping.

You laughed more. He smiled more. It was like discovering each other for the first time all over again.

You’d kept your medical practice open, still offering your services to non-traditional patients. But when the Watchtower was done and the New Avengers moved in, they asked you to help the team.

Your official title was Medical Liaison and Trauma Consultant, but mostly you patched up a rotating cast of stubborn supersoldiers and spies who swore they “healed fast” and then passed out on your med bay floor.

But today, the med bay was calm — just a light checkup for Alexei, a bruised rib for Yelena, and a lot of banter.

Everyone knew you and Bucky were dating, but no one had the guts (or stupidity) to ask questions. 

Until now.

You were cleaning up your tray of instruments when Bob leaned back in his chair and asked casually, “So… how did you guys meet again?”

You paused.

Bucky, seated on the edge of the exam table with his shirt half-buttoned, glanced at you.

“Oh, you know,” you blinked, “Mutual enemies.”

There was a beat of silence.

“What does that even mean?” Walker asked, clearly disappointed. 

You smiled sweetly. “It means you don’t want to know.”

Yelena squinted at you from the other bed. “It means the real story is either classified or deeply traumatic.”

“Or both,” Alexei said.

You laughed — a little too brightly for the topic — and handed Yelena her discharge form. “Exactly. Now who’s next for bloodwork?”

Bucky slid off the table, kissing your cheek quickly as he passed. Ava rolled her eyes so hard you could practically hear it.

Mutual enemies? Yeah, right. 

The more accurate term would be: the best thing Hydra never meant to happen. 

– end.

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