#avenger!bucky

Instead, she'd stepped closer, drawn by a curiosity that had kept her alive this long and was about to be her downfall. The portal's edges rippled like water, casting shifting shadows that made her eyes water. She'd reached out—not to touch it, just to test the air around it, to see if she could feel whatever impossible force was tearing through dimensions.

The puddle was small. Insignificant. The kind of thing she'd normally step over without thinking. But positioned exactly where it was, at the precise edge of the portal's influence, it became the pivot point on which her entire world turned.

Her foot slipped. Physics took over. And suddenly she was falling forward, through liquid light and the space between heartbeats, through the golden throat of something that shouldn't exist.

The landing knocked the breath from her lungs and the sense from her head. When the world stopped spinning, she found herself sprawled on familiar concrete, staring up at the same brick walls, breathing the same stale alley air. But the portal was gone, sealed shut like it had never existed, leaving only the faintest afterimage burned into her retinas.

And somewhere in the distance, she heard the murmur of a city—familiar, but not the same. The cadence of traffic sounded off-key, like a song she knew played in the wrong tempo. The low thrum of voices carried different accents, different rhythms. Even the distant wail of a siren seemed to rise and fall in patterns her ears didn't recognize.

The wrongness revealed itself in layers, each one more unsettling than the last.

She discovered the first crack when she went to what should have been her station. At first glance, it looked identical—same brick facade weathered by decades of city grime, same cracked concrete steps where she'd sat during her lunch breaks, same scuffed double doors that stuck in humid weather. But the moment she walked inside, the air felt different. Heavier. Foreign.

The desk sergeant looked up with mild curiosity rather than the usual grunt of acknowledgment. Officer Martinez walked past without his customary nod. Detective Chen emerged from the break room with coffee and didn't so much as glance in her direction.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching the front desk with her badge already in hand. "I need to check in with Chief Barnett."

The sergeant—Henderson, his nameplate read, though she could have sworn his name was different yesterday—looked at her like she'd asked for directions to Mars.

"Ma'am, there's no Chief Barnett at this precinct. Never has been. You might be looking for the 12th? They got a Captain Barrett over there."

Her badge felt suddenly heavy in her palm. She held it up, the shield catching the fluorescent light. "I'm Detective—"

"Ma'am." Henderson's voice sharpened, and she saw his hand drift toward his radio. "I'm going to need you to step back from the desk."

That was when things went bad. Fast.

Within minutes, she was surrounded. Familiar faces wearing unfamiliar expressions of suspicion and confusion. She knew these people—had shared coffee with them, complained about paperwork, celebrated arrests. But they looked at her like she was a stranger wearing a stolen uniform.

"I work here," she insisted, even as they guided her toward the interrogation rooms. "Check my locker—it's number 47. Check my desk. I've been here for six years."

But when they checked, locker 47 belonged to someone else. The desk she thought of as hers was occupied by a detective she'd never seen before. And when they ran her prints—her own goddamn fingerprints—the room fell silent.

"That's impossible," she heard Chen whisper to Martinez. "These prints... they match a woman who died three years ago."

The words hit her like ice water. Died. Three years ago. The version of her that had lived in this world was dead, and now they were staring at her like she was either an imposter or a ghost.

They moved her to Interview Room 2—the one with the broken chair leg that she'd always avoided. The irony wasn't lost on her. Here she was, finally sitting in the damn chair, but as a suspect instead of a detective. She tested the chair before she sat down in it. The broken leg was stable. 

The one-way mirror reflected her pale face back at her, and she found herself staring at her own features as if seeing them for the first time. Same eyes, same scar on her chin from falling off her bike at age seven, same stubborn part of her hair that never stayed flat. But somehow, she looked like a stranger to herself.

Detectives came and went—Patterson, who'd taught her how to read blood spatter patterns; Rodriguez, who always brought donuts on Fridays; Williams, who'd been her partner for two years. Each one studied her with the same mixture of confusion and suspicion, as if her very existence was an insult to someone's memory.

She gave them everything—her name, badge number, social security, the names of every case she'd worked, every partner she'd had, every scar and story that made up her life. All of it true, and all of it sounding like elaborate fiction when filtered through their disbelief.

Hours passed. Or maybe days. Time felt fluid in that windowless room, marked only by the steady hum of fluorescent lights and the occasional rattle of the ancient air conditioner. She'd long since stopped pinching herself, accepting that whatever this was, it wasn't a dream.

When the door finally opened again, she expected another detective with the same tired questions and skeptical eyes. Instead, a stranger walked in.

He moved with the careful control of someone accustomed to being watched, though tension coiled in his shoulders like a spring wound too tight. Not a cop—his clothes were too casual, too lived-in. Civilian, but not ordinary. The way the desk sergeant had practically saluted when he'd walked past suggested someone with serious pull.

He was a handsome black man, probably mid-thirties, with intelligent eyes that seemed to catalog everything they saw. When he looked at her, those eyes went soft with something that might have been recognition, or hope, or grief. Maybe all three.

The silence stretched between them like a held breath. She watched him settle into the chair across from her with the careful movements of someone carrying invisible weight. His hands rested on the table, knuckles pale with tension, and she found herself studying the calluses on his palms—the kind that came from gripping something regularly. Reins, maybe. Or rope.

Finally, he spoke. His voice was steady but quiet, like he was afraid of the answer before he asked the question.

"Do you know who I am?"

The hope in his voice was so naked it made her chest tight. She wished she could give him what he was looking for, but honesty was all she had left.

"No," she said, then added more gently, "Should I?"

Something inside him crumbled. She saw it happen—the way his shoulders sagged, how his breath left him like he'd been punctured. The careful composure slipped, revealing grief so raw it made her want to look away. But he held her gaze, managing a smile that was equal parts bitter and fond.

"Maybe not this you," he murmured, and there was a world of loss in those four words. "Was worth a shot, though."

Her brows drew together, frustration sparking hot beneath the confusion. "What do you mean, 'this me'? Look, I don't know what kind of game this is, but I'm a detective. This is my station—or it's supposed to be. I don't know what happened, but one minute I was processing a crime scene and the next there was this... portal, or whatever the hell—"

"Portal?" He leaned forward so fast his chair creaked, urgency replacing the gentle sorrow in his voice. "What did it look like? Exactly where were you when it appeared? Did you feel anything before it opened—heat, electrical charges, any kind of distortion in the air?"

The rapid-fire questions made her head spin. "I don't know! It just... appeared. Like someone had torn a hole in reality and filled it with golden light. It was humming, vibrating the air around it." She shoved back from the table, the legs screeching against linoleum. "Look, I don't know who you are or why you're asking, but I've had enough mystery for one day. Just tell me what the hell is happening to me."

He studied her for a long moment, his jaw working like he was chewing on words too big to swallow. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful, measured—the tone of someone delivering news that would change everything.

"You're not wrong. About this not being your world."

Her heart stuttered. "What?"

"You came through some kind of dimensional rift. It happens—rarely, but it happens. Sometimes the barriers between realities get thin, and things slip through the cracks." He spoke gently, but each word felt like a small betrayal of everything she thought she knew about the universe. "You've crossed into a parallel dimension. A world that's similar to yours, but not the same."

She stared at him like he'd started speaking in tongues. "Parallel dimensions? Are you out of your mind? You expect me to believe I just... fell through a crack in reality like some kind of science fiction nightmare?"

"I know it sounds impossible." His voice remained calm, patient—the way you'd talk to someone standing on a ledge. "But I've seen enough impossible things to know they're usually just improbable. And..." His eyes softened as he looked at her again, really looked, like he was trying to memorize her face. "You're not the first version of you I've met."

The room seemed to tilt. "Excuse me?"

"There was another you. Here, in this world." He paused, choosing his words with surgical precision. "She was... important. To a lot of people. To me. She was a good friend."

Something in his tone—reverent, aching, carefully controlled—made her stomach clench with dread. She swallowed hard, her voice barely above a whisper.

"What happened to her?"

For the first time since he'd entered the room, he looked away. His hands flexed against the table, tendons standing out like bridge cables. When he spoke, his words were weighted with the kind of grief that never fully heals.

"She died. Three years ago."

The words hung in the air between them like smoke, acrid and choking. She felt the world shift beneath her feet, reality reshuffling itself into patterns she didn't recognize. The fluorescent lights seemed too bright suddenly, the air too thin.

"No." The word came out sharp, defensive. She shot to her feet so fast her chair crashed into the wall behind her. "No, that's not possible. I'm right here. Alive. Breathing. You don't just get to have another version of me conveniently die before I show up. That's—" She barked out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. "That's fucking insane."

He didn't flinch, didn't move, just watched her pace the small room like a caged animal. His patience only made her angrier.

"Do you hear yourself?" She spun to face him, fury and terror warring in her voice. "Parallel dimensions? Different versions of me? That's comic book bullshit. I'm a detective, not some interdimensional traveler. You think you can feed me this story and I'll just... what? Accept it? Stop asking questions?"

She slammed her palms against the table, leaning over him. "Tell me the truth!"

He met her gaze without wavering, and his voice when he spoke was rock-steady, implacable as gravity.

"I am telling you the truth."

The conviction in his tone cut through her spiraling panic like a blade. She froze, chest heaving, studying his face for any sign of deception. But there was none—just bone-deep certainty and a grief so profound it seemed to have worn grooves in his features.

He rose slowly, closing half the distance between them—close enough to be reassuring, far enough to avoid seeming threatening. "I know how insane this sounds. I know every instinct you have is screaming that it's impossible. But I've lived through stranger things than you being here right now. And I'm not trying to trick you or manipulate you. I'm trying to help."

Her jaw clenched, but some of the fight leaked out of her voice. "Why should I believe you?"

He was quiet for a moment, seeming to weigh his words. Then he extended his hand—palm up, an offering rather than a demand.

"Because my name is Sam Wilson. And if you let me, I'll do everything I can to make sure you're safe."

Something in the way he said it—solid as bedrock, unshakeable as sunrise—made her anger waver. There was a quality to his voice that spoke of promises kept, of responsibility accepted and never abandoned. Without meaning to, she found herself believing him.

Sam Wilson was clearly someone important. She could tell by the way the precinct transformed around him. Officers who'd treated her like a curiosity or a threat suddenly straightened when he appeared, their voices taking on the particular tone of respect reserved for true authority. They clapped him on the shoulder, thanked him for unspecified favors, and more than one called him "Cap" as they headed out for patrol.

She studied him as they walked to his car, noting the way he moved—confident but not cocky, alert without being paranoid. Military bearing, but softened by civilian life.

"Cap?" she asked as they settled into his black sedan. "As in Captain?"

Something flickered across his face—amusement mixed with something heavier, more complicated. His smile was warm but tinged with melancholy, like a song played in a minor key.

"Something like that."

She didn't press, but the title lodged itself in her mind like a splinter. Captain. The kind of rank that came with weight, with responsibility, with the expectation that you'd carry other people's burdens as easily as your own.

He drove her through the restless pulse of New York, and she found herself cataloging the differences. The skyline was almost identical, but not quite. A building here that shouldn't exist, a street there that curved the wrong way. Like someone had rebuilt her city from memory but gotten some of the details wrong.

They stopped at a building that seemed to hum with unseen energy, its architecture somehow more alive than the structures around it. The man waiting inside introduced himself as Doctor Stephen Strange, the air around him shimmered with barely contained power.

Strange studied her with eyes that had seen too much, and she caught the flicker of recognition—and pain—when his gaze met hers. Another person haunted by a ghost she was apparently wearing the face of.

His examination was thorough, involving incantations in languages that hurt her ears to hear and geometric patterns of light that made her vision water. When he finally delivered his verdict, his voice carried the weight of cosmic authority.

"She's a dimensional variant. Another world's version of the woman you knew." He paused, his expression growing grave. "And the portal that brought her here... it wasn't random. She was meant to come through. Meant to stay."

The words hit her like a physical blow. "What?" She lurched to her feet, the chair scraping against polished marble. "No. No, I don't belong here! This isn't my world, my life. That portal was an accident. You have to send me back."

Her voice cracked on the last word, desperation bleeding through the careful control she'd maintained all day. She turned to Sam, searching his face for any sign that Strange was wrong.

"You said the other me is dead. But I'm not her. I have my own life, my own world. People who'll miss me. You can't just... you can't just expect me to replace her."

Sam flinched like she'd struck him, his gaze dropping to the floor. The grief carved into his features was so raw it made her chest ache with sympathy she didn't understand.

Strange's voice softened, but his words remained uncompromising. "I'm sorry. If there were a way to send you home, I would. But the forces that brought you here... they don't make mistakes. You're here because this is where you belong now."

The pronouncement settled over her like a funeral shroud. She stood frozen for a moment, every muscle tense with the urge to run, to fight, to somehow undo the cosmic joke that had torn her from everything she knew. Instead, she forced herself to breathe, to think, to survive this moment the way she'd survived every other impossible thing life had thrown at her.

"I need air," she managed, and walked out before either of them could respond.

The hallway beyond was lined with artifacts that seemed to hum with their own inner light. Ancient books, crystalline sculptures, weapons that looked like they'd been forged in other dimensions. She leaned against the cool stone wall, closing her eyes and trying to find her center.

That's when she heard their voices drifting from the chamber she'd just left.

"Have you told Barnes yet?" Strange's voice carried clearly in the empty corridor.

A long pause, then Sam's reply, heavy with reluctance. "No. Not yet. I don't even know how to begin that conversation."

"She's here for a reason," Strange said firmly. "The universe doesn't place people where they don't belong. He'll need to know. The sooner the better."

Another silence, longer this time. When Sam spoke again, his voice was barely above a whisper. "Yeah. I just don't know how either of them will handle it."

The conversation ended with the sound of chairs scraping, footsteps moving. She pushed herself off the wall and composed her face just as Sam emerged, looking like he was carrying the weight of the world.

"Let's get out of here," he said gently, as if she hadn't overheard every word.

His brownstone was a refuge from the chaos of the day. Warm wood floors, lived-in furniture, bookshelves that actually held books instead of just decoration. Photographs covered the mantle and side tables: Sam with various people she didn't recognize, group shots that looked like they'd been taken after successful missions, candid moments of laughter and camaraderie.

She sank into his couch, exhaustion finally catching up with her. The adrenaline that had carried her through the day was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness that went beyond physical fatigue.

Sam settled across from her, elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together. He studied her for a long moment before speaking.

"I guess it's time I told you who I am. My full story." He took a breath, as if steeling himself. "My name is Sam Wilson. I used to go by the Falcon—had a pair of mechanical wings, worked with the Avengers. But a few years back, Steve Rogers, Captain America, passed the shield to me. So now people call me Captain America."

The revelation should have shocked her, but somehow it fit. The deference at the station, the way Strange had treated him as an equal, the weight he seemed to carry…it all made sense now.

“Yeah, we…had a Steve Rogers in my world,” she murmured, playing with some loose threads between the cushions of the couch. “Had the Avengers. Mutants, too.” 

"The version of you that lived here," he continued, his voice growing softer, more careful, "she was part of that world too. An intelligence specialist who helped us track down dangerous people. She fought beside us, bled with us. She was..." He paused, searching for words. "She was family."

Family. The word hung in the air between them, loaded with implications she wasn't ready to unpack.

"And she's gone," she said quietly.

Sam's nod was barely perceptible. "Yeah. She's gone. But you're here now. And maybe—"

"There's no maybe." The words came out harder than she'd intended, sharp with frustration and fear. "There's no cosmic plan or grand design. Sometimes shit just happens. Bad luck, wrong place, wrong time. You're telling me that if you suddenly woke up in a different reality where everyone expected you to be someone else, someone dead, you'd just accept it? Roll over and play the part because strangers called it fate?"

Sam's expression hardened, but not with anger. With understanding that cut too deep. "You think I don't know what it's like to have everything you thought you knew about the world get turned upside down? To lose people who mattered more than your own life?" His voice carried the weight of hard-earned wisdom. "I've wanted to wake up in a different world more times than I can count. One where the people I've lost are still alive, where the choices I made turned out different."

He leaned forward, his gaze intense. "But that's not how it works. We don't get to pick the reality we land in. We just get to decide what we do once we're there. And right now, you're here. That's not negotiable. The only question is what you're going to do about it."

His words hit harder than she'd expected, cutting through her anger to something more vulnerable underneath. She wanted to argue, to maintain her fury because it felt safer than the alternative. Accepting that her old life was truly gone.

"So what, you expect me to just slide into her place? Live in some dead woman's shadow?"

"No one's asking you to replace her." Sam's voice was firm, brooking no argument. "You're not her, and we both know that. But like it or not, you're here now. And pretending this isn't happening won't change that fact."

"I don't belong here," she said, but the words felt hollow even as she spoke them.

"You don't belong there anymore either." The gentleness in his voice made it worse somehow. "If that portal brought you here, maybe it was because this is where you need to be. You can be angry about it—hell, you should be. But anger won't change reality."

The fight drained out of her slowly, like air from a punctured tire. She turned to stare out the front window at the head of the room at the unfamiliar-familiar city beyond, her reflection ghostlike in the glass.

Sam showed her to a small guest room with the same quiet efficiency he'd displayed all day. It was simple but comfortable. Clean sheets, soft pillows, and a window that looked out on a tree-lined street that could have been from her world.

"You can stay here as long as you need," he said, lingering in the doorway. "I'll work on getting you set up with your own place, new identity, whatever you need to build a life here."

The casual way he mentioned building a life here made the reality of the situation crash over her again. This wasn't temporary. This was her new existence, whether she wanted it or not.

"Sam?" Her voice was smaller than she'd intended. "Tell me about her. About... me. The one you knew."

Something in his expression shifted, pain flickering across his features like shadows cast by firelight. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze growing distant.

"She was brilliant," he said finally. "Sharp as hell, with instincts that could cut through any lie or deception. She specialized in intelligence work—tracking people who didn't want to be found, uncovering connections others missed. She came into our world during the hunt for the Winter Soldier, back when he was still... when he was still HYDRA's weapon."

Her stomach clenched at the mention of the Winter Soldier. A killer in her world, same as in this one, it seemed. 

"She was the one who helped Steve and Natasha track him down," Sam continued, his voice growing softer. "And when we finally found him, when we realized he could be saved instead of just stopped... she fought for that. Fought to bring him back from the darkness."

The name hit her like a physical blow. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier had a real name, a real identity. 

"After that, she stayed close to the team," Sam went on. "Worked missions with us, became part of the family. She was brave, loyal, never hesitated to put herself in harm's way if it meant protecting innocent people or helping the team." His voice caught slightly. "She saved my life more than once. Saved all our lives."

The grief in his voice was palpable, a living thing that filled the space between them. She found herself holding her breath, afraid to disturb the weight of his memories but wanting him to continue.

"She mattered," he said simply. And yet, the effect — the emotion on his face — was devastating. 

She didn't ask how the other version of her had died. The pain etched into every line of Sam's expression was answer enough. Some wounds were too fresh to probe, even three years later.

Sam moved to leave, but her voice stopped him at the threshold.

"The Winter Soldier... that's Bucky Barnes, isn't it?"

He went absolutely still, tension radiating from his frame like heat from a furnace.

"In my world," she continued, forcing the words past the tightness in her throat, "the Winter Soldier died. Steve Rogers killed him during the fall of SHIELD. It was the only way to stop him." She hesitated, then added, "I heard you and Strange talking earlier. About... him."

Sam turned slowly, his expression carefully controlled but his eyes dark with something that might have been worry or fear or protective instinct. Maybe all three.

"It's better if you don't know," he said quietly, each word chosen with surgical precision. "Not yet."

The finality in his voice left no room for argument. He left her alone with her questions and the growing certainty that whatever connection existed between her and this world's version of the Winter Soldier, it was going to change everything. 

Why did the other version of her help him? What was different about their relationship that Sam seemed so on edge about? 

She sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed in the unfamiliar room, staring out at the unfamiliar-familiar street, and wondered if there was any such thing as fate. Or if the universe was just crueler than she'd ever imagined.

______________________________________________________________

Sam was a good man, that became clear within hours of meeting him. The kind of good that ran bone-deep, expressed not in grand gestures but in small consistencies. He checked in without hovering, offered help without condescension, and by the third day had somehow managed to secure her an apartment only six blocks from his brownstone. When she'd asked how he'd pulled that off so quickly in New York's brutal housing market, he'd just smiled and said he knew people.

She could see why they'd chosen him to carry the shield. His moral compass alone was seemingly larger than life.

Still, living under his roof felt like wearing clothes that didn't quite fit. Not because Sam was unkind. If anything, he was almost painfully considerate, the way people are when they're afraid of breaking something fragile. It was the weight of expectation that pressed against her shoulders, the careful way he sometimes caught himself mid-sentence, as if he'd been about to say something meant for someone else.

Someone who looked exactly like her. Someone who was dead.

She threw herself into research with the desperate focus of someone trying to solve her own existence. Hunched over her laptop at Sam's kitchen table, she devoured everything she could find about this world's history. The Avengers Initiative. The Chitauri invasion. The fall of SHIELD and rise of HYDRA. The Sokovia Accords. Thanos and the Blip—five years when half of all life simply ceased to exist, then returned as suddenly as it had vanished.

The broad strokes matched her world's timeline, but the details were all wrong. Like looking at a painting that had been copied by someone with imperfect memory. Close enough to be familiar, different enough to be deeply unsettling.

What disturbed her most wasn't the differences themselves, but the growing realization that she wore the face of a woman who had lived through these events, who had bled and fought and sacrificed alongside Earth's mightiest heroes. Every record she found mentioned her. Intelligence reports signed with her name, mission debriefs that referenced her tactical assessments, personnel files that listed her as an active associate of the Avengers until three years ago.

And then, abruptly, the records stopped.

Sam's grief haunted the spaces between them like smoke. She'd catch him looking at her sometimes, as if he could will her to be someone else through sheer force of longing. When their eyes met, he'd remember himself and look away, but not before she glimpsed the disappointment that flickered across his features. Brief as lightning, but it left its mark.

She understood. But that didn't make it hurt less.

The day after she'd arrived, Sam's friend Joaquin Torres had shown up with a laptop bag and an easy grin that transformed the heavy atmosphere in the brownstone. Young, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of boyish charm that made people trust him instinctively. More importantly, he looked at her without the weight of recognition, treating her like a person instead of a ghost wearing familiar skin. He hadn’t known her, the other version of her, Sam had told her. Much to her silent relief — a fresh human interaction was much needed. 

"Alright," he'd said, settling at the kitchen table and cracking open his laptop. "Let's get you a new identity. Technically, the old you is listed as deceased, which creates some interesting paperwork challenges. But nothing we can't handle."

His fingers flew across the keyboard with practiced ease, pulling up forms and databases with the casual expertise of someone who'd done this before. She found herself relaxing for the first time since falling through that portal, grateful to be treated like herself…whoever that was now.

By the second day, curiosity got the better of her.

"Did she, the other me, have any family?" she asked, trying to keep her tone casual while her hands twisted together under the table. "Husband, boyfriend, anyone who might be looking for me?"

Joaquin glanced up from his screen, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Let me check... okay, parents died when she was eleven—" Her stomach clenched. Her parents, the ones in her world, had died around the same time. "—grandparents took her in but passed right before the Blip. No siblings listed." He scrolled further, eyebrows rising. "But damn, look at these connections. Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, Sam obviously. Tony Stark had you on his personal payroll after the whole SHIELD thing went sideways in 2014. You ran in some serious circles."

He leaned back, scanning the screen with obvious admiration. "No marriage records, no registered domestic partnerships. But there's some interesting cross-references here..." His grin faltered slightly as his eyes focused on something specific. "Hey, did Sam mention Bucky? Because there's quite a bit of documentation linking you two, and I'm talking—"

He stopped. The words died in his throat as he looked up and saw her expression.

The confusion must have been written across her face in bold letters, because Joaquin's boyish enthusiasm dimmed like someone had turned down his brightness settings. His gaze flicked from her to the laptop screen and back again, and she watched understanding dawn in his eyes with all the subtlety of a freight train.

"Oh." The word came out small, uncertain. "Judging by the look on your face... Sam hasn't talked to you about this yet."

"No," she said carefully, studying his suddenly nervous posture. "He hasn't."

Joaquin shifted in his chair, angling the laptop away from her line of sight with movements that screamed guilt. His cheeks flushed pink, and when he spoke again, his voice had lost all its earlier confidence.

"Listen, if Sam hasn't brought it up, there's probably a good reason. Maybe it's... maybe it's not important right now."

The lie was so transparent she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

"Something on that screen you don't want me to see, Joaquin?"

"No! Nothing like that," he said too quickly, his voice cracking on the denial. He clutched the laptop closer to his chest like a shield. "It's just... if Sam thinks you're not ready to hear about it yet, then maybe..."

He trailed off, realizing he was only making it worse. She let the silence stretch, watching him squirm, filing away every nervous tic and unconscious gesture. In her experience, people revealed more in their attempts to hide things than they ever did when trying to be honest.

Finally, she nodded slowly, as if accepting his non-explanation. "Okay."

But the damage was done. This was the third time Bucky Barnes's name had surfaced in conversation, always followed by the same pattern—hesitation, deflection, someone changing the subject or ending the conversation entirely. Whatever connection had existed between her dimensional twin and this man, it was significant enough that Sam couldn't even bring himself to discuss it.

The questions multiplied like cancer cells in her mind. Who had Bucky Barnes been to her? An ally? An enemy? Had they worked together, or had she been hunting him? Was he the reason she'd died, or was there something else she wasn’t seeing? 

The not-knowing was worse than any answer could be.

When Joaquin packed up his laptop that evening, giving her an awkward yet genuine goodbye, she remained at the kitchen table staring at the stack of files and printouts she'd accumulated. The apartment Sam had found for her was ready—bare bones, but functional. She could move out tomorrow, start building something that resembled a life.

But first, she had research to do.

She waited until she heard Sam's bedroom door close, then fired up her own laptop and got to work. If no one would tell her about Bucky Barnes, she'd find out for herself.

The internet was a treasure trove of declassified documents, survivor testimonies, and conspiracy theories that turned out to be disturbingly accurate. She cross-referenced names, dates, and events, building a timeline that slowly painted a picture of James Buchanan Barnes—friend of Steve Rogers, sergeant in the 107th Infantry, presumed dead in 1945.

Except he hadn't died. HYDRA had found him, broken him, turned him into their perfect weapon. The Winter Soldier had been a man stolen from time and stripped of his identity, programmed to kill without question or memory.

Her hands trembled as she read mission reports that detailed his crimes. Political assassinations spanning decades. Scientists who'd gotten too close to inconvenient truths. Whistleblowers who'd tried to expose corruption. All of them silenced by a ghost with a metal arm and empty eyes.

But the story didn't end there. In 2014, Steve Rogers had found his childhood friend buried beneath layers of programming and torture. Had fought to bring him back, to restore the man HYDRA had tried to erase. The process had taken years of therapy, rehabilitation, deprogramming. But it worked.

Bucky Barnes was no longer the Winter Soldier. He was an Avenger. A former Congressman. He had rewritten his own story.

Her breath caught as she found what she'd been looking for: a digital roster buried in the aftermath of the Sokovia Accords. James Buchanan Barnes – Status: Active. Affiliation: New Avengers Initiative.

He was alive. Reformed. Fighting for the good guys now, apparently.

The knowledge sat in her stomach like a stone. Here, according to Joaquin's nervous reaction, he'd been connected to her in some significant way.

The irony was so sharp it could cut. A brainwashed assassin from the 1940’s connected to her? Were they friends? Had he killed someone she knew? She had no idea. There were no records about his personal life online. 

She stared at the screen until her eyes burned, then made a decision that felt both inevitable and insane. If Sam wouldn't tell her the truth, if Joaquin was too loyal or too scared to fill in the gaps, then she'd get her answers from the source.

She was going to find Bucky Barnes.

______________________________________________________________

Her new apartment felt like a train station, a place to exist rather than live between stops. The walls were still institutional white, the floors bare hardwood that echoed with every step. Sam had helped her haul in the essentials: a mattress, a couch from a secondhand store, a small table that wobbled when she put weight on it.

It should have felt like freedom. Instead, it felt like exile.

She didn't linger. Twenty minutes after Sam left, promising to check in tomorrow, she was studying transit maps and plotting her route to the New Avengers facility. The original Stark Tower had been sold, but the team had established a new base of operations in the same building, now deemed as the Watchtower. 

The evening commute provided perfect cover. Thousands of people moving with purpose, no one paying attention to one more face in the crowd. She joined the stream of humanity flowing toward the subway, her heart rate steady despite the magnitude of what she was planning.

Breaking into a superhero stronghold probably wasn't her smartest decision, but she'd made a career out of risky choices. This felt like just another case to crack, another locked door that needed opening.

The Watchtower rose thirty stories into the Manhattan sky, its glass facade reflecting the dying light of sunset. Even from the sidewalk, she could see the security measures. Cameras at every angle, discrete guards positioned at key points, biometric scanners flanking the main entrance.

She approached with the confidence of someone who belonged, shoulders back, stride purposeful. Sometimes the best disguise was attitude.

"Ma'am." A security guard stepped into her path before she'd made it halfway to the door. Young, alert, with the kind of bearing that screamed military background. His partner moved to flank her, casual but deliberate. "I'll need to see some identification."

She reached for her wallet, movements slow and non-threatening. "I'm here to see James Barnes. He's expecting me."

That got their attention. Too much attention. She saw the micro-expressions that flashed between them: surprise, confusion. The lead guard's hand drifted toward the radio clipped to his vest.

"You'll need clearance for that, ma'am. And I don't see you on any authorized visitor lists."

Behind them, the building's main doors hissed shut with hydraulic finality. The message was clear — she wasn’t getting in.

She maintained her smile, friendly and understanding. "Of course. My mistake. I'll just call ahead next time."

She turned and walked away, feeling their eyes on her back until she disappeared into the evening crowd. 

An hour later, she was back.

The Tower looked different at night. Imposing, fortress-like, its upper floors glowing against the darkness. She'd spent the time walking the perimeter, mapping service entrances and delivery bays, timing guard rotations and identifying blind spots in the surveillance coverage.

The rear of the building faced a narrow alley used for deliveries and maintenance. Less glamorous than the front entrance, but infinitely more accessible. She positioned herself in the shadows between two dumpsters and waited.

Patience was a detective's best friend. After twenty minutes, a catering van rumbled into the alley, its headlights cutting through the gloom. She watched the driver show his credentials to the guard, saw the heavy security door roll up to reveal a loading dock beyond.

As the van backed up to the platform, she moved.

She slipped alongside the van as the driver climbed out, using it as cover while boxes and trays were unloaded. The guard's attention was focused on his clipboard, checking items off a list with mechanical precision.

When he turned to examine a particularly large crate, she made her move. Three quick steps took her to the door, another two got her inside. The loading bay was cavernous and dimly lit, filled with the hum of machinery and the distant echo of voices.

She pressed herself against a concrete pillar, heart hammering as footsteps approached. A maintenance worker in coveralls walked past, whistling tunelessly, his footsteps fading as he disappeared around a corner.

She was in.

The Tower's interior was a maze of corridors and security checkpoints, but she'd navigated worse. She found a service stairwell — no cameras, minimal foot traffic—and began to climb. By the fifteenth floor, her legs burned and her lungs worked like bellows, but she pressed on.

The residential levels had to be near the top. That's where she'd find him.

Twenty-eighth floor. Twenty-ninth. Thirtieth.

The final door was different from the others. Heavier, with a biometric scanner and keypad that spoke of serious security measures. This had to be it. The private residential area where the Avengers lived when they weren't saving the world.

She stood before the scanner, knowing she had no way past it, knowing this was where her amateur breaking-and-entering skills reached their limit. But she'd come too far to turn back now.

"Who are you?"

The voice came from behind her, low and accented and sharp as a blade.

She spun, instinct driving her hand toward a weapon she didn't carry, muscles coiling for a fight that might be her last.

A woman stood at the mouth of the stairwell. Small, compact, with platinum blonde hair that caught the corridor's LED lighting. But it was her eyes that made the breath stick in her throat. Dark, calculating. This wasn't building security. This was someone far more dangerous.

The woman moved with liquid grace, each step deliberate and controlled. She wore dark tactical clothing that seemed to absorb light, and something about her posture—coiled, ready, predatory—set off every alarm bell in her brain.

"I asked you a question," the woman said, stepping closer. "How did you get past security?"

Her mouth had gone desert-dry, but she forced her voice to remain steady. "I could ask you the same thing."

The woman's lips curved in what might charitably be called a smile. It didn't reach her eyes. "Cute. Very cute. But I live here. You, on the other hand, definitely do not." Another step closer. "So let's try this again. Who are you, and what are you doing on a restricted floor?"

The accent was unmistakably Russian now that she heard more of it. Sharp consonants softened by years of speaking English, but the underlying cadence still there. The woman's stance was that of a trained fighter. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, hands loose at her sides but ready to move in any direction. Everything about her screamed potential danger.

"Look," she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender, "I'm just trying to find someone. I don't want any trouble."

"Then you came to the wrong place." The woman tilted her head, studying her with a vague intensity. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

The question sent ice through her veins. Another person who might recognize her face, who knew the woman she'd replaced. But this one's recognition carried a different quality. Not grief or longing, but something sharper. More analytical.

She didn’t know her. The old her. Not directly, at least. 

"I don't think so," she said carefully.

The blonde's sharp eyes never left her face, cataloging every feature with unsettling precision. "Hmm. You remind me of someone. I cannot place it exactly, but you have a very familiar face." She paused, head tilting further. "Are you a reporter?"

The question was so unexpected she almost laughed. "Do I look like a reporter to you?"

"Yes," the woman answered with complete seriousness. "Actually, you do. You have excellent bone structure. Very photogenic. Strong jawline, well-shaped eyebrows. The kind of face they put on Channel 9 news, no?" She gestured vaguely at her features. "Really quite striking, actually. And we get reporters trying to sneak in here all the time. You would not believe the lengths they go to. But none have made it this far before, which makes you either very skilled or very stupid."

Her mouth opened and closed wordlessly. Was this woman seriously critiquing her facial symmetry in the middle of what felt like a life-or-death situation? "...Thank you? I think? But I'm not a reporter."

The blonde hummed thoughtfully, those dark eyes scanning her from head to toe and back again with predatory interest. "I believe you, strange woman. Somehow, I do. But that makes this worse, doesn't it? Because if you are not a reporter, then why break into a tower full of superhumans and trained killers? Seems very..." She paused, searching for the right word. "Stupid. Or very desperate."

The weight of the moment pressed down on her shoulders. She could lie—make up some story about being lost, about mistaking this for a different building. But something about this woman's piercing gaze told her lies would be spotted immediately and punished accordingly.

So she chose the truth. Raw, unfiltered, desperate truth.

"Because I'm not from this world." The words tumbled out faster than she could stop them. "I know how insane that sounds, but apparently I'm from a parallel dimension—almost identical to this one—and a week ago I fell through some kind of glowing portal that spat me out here in New York. Sam Wilson found me, helped me out, told me I can't go home."

She ran a hand through her hair, exhaustion and frustration bleeding into her voice. "But the version of me that lived here? She's dead. Has been for three years. And everyone keeps looking at me like I'm her ghost, keeps mentioning James Barnes like I should understand what he meant to her. So yeah, I broke in here to find him. To get some goddamn answers about who I was supposed to be."

The confession left her feeling hollow, stripped bare. She'd laid all her cards on the table for a complete stranger who could probably kill her seventeen different ways without breaking a sweat.

Not one of her brightest moments. But somehow, it had felt right. 

The woman stared at her for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then something shifted in her features. A flicker of recognition, quickly suppressed but not fast enough.

"What is your name?" she asked softly, and there was something almost gentle in her tone now.

She hesitated for just a beat before giving her real name. Not the fabricated identity Joaquin had helped create, but the name she'd been born with.

The effect was instantaneous. The woman's carefully neutral expression crumbled, revealing shock, disbelief, and something deeper. A profound sadness that seemed to age her years in seconds.

"Bozhe moy," she whispered, the Russian slipping out unbidden. Her shoulders sagged as if an invisible weight had settled on them. "Yes... I know your story. All of it. Oh….this will not be easy. But he needs to know you are here."

She stepped closer, extending her hand with careful deliberation. "My name is Yelena Belova. I am... an associate of Bucky's. A friend. I can take you to him now, if that is what you truly want."

Her throat constricted as she stared at the offered hand. Every instinct screamed warnings, but she'd come too far to turn back now. She reached out, gripping Yelena's fingers.

"It's nice to meet you," she said, her voice barely steady. "Did you... did you know her? The other me?"

Yelena's smile was hollow, haunted. "No. But I know of you. We all do." The words carried the weight of a funeral dirge. "Come. I will take you to him. You’re on the wrong floor."

The elevator ride felt endless, each floor they passed stretching the silence tighter between them. Yelena stood with her arms crossed, staring at her boots with the intensity of someone trying to solve the world's most complex equation. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth, brow furrowed in deep concentration.

The quiet became unbearable.

"You know," she said, clearing her throat, "everyone who seems to know about this other version of me... you all look at me like I'm some kind of ghost."

That pulled Yelena's gaze up, one eyebrow arching with sharp precision. Her voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "That is because you are a ghost. You are supposed to be dead here. Did you forget that small detail?"

The bluntness hit harder than expected, making her chest tight. "No, I remember. But it feels like more than that. You don't just look at me like I don't belong. You look at me like you're afraid."

Yelena's exhale was long and weary, her shoulders dropping as if she'd been carrying an invisible burden. When she spoke again, her accent thickened with emotion. "We are not afraid of you. We are afraid of what your being here will do to the people we care about."

"What do you—"

"You will see soon enough." Yelena's tone brooked no argument, but her expression softened slightly. She reached out, resting a careful hand on her arm, the touch cautious. "Just... be gentle with him. Please. He has been through enough."

The plea left her speechless, questions multiplying like cancer cells in her mind. All she could manage was a stiff nod.

The elevator chimed softly, doors sliding open with a whisper of hydraulics.

She followed Yelena into what was clearly a common area, all gleaming surfaces and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered breathtaking views of Manhattan. The space was dotted with comfortable seating, state-of-the-art monitors, and a conference table that could seat a dozen people.

Four figures stood around that table, all wearing matching tactical uniforms with red "A" emblems on their chests. Their conversation died the moment they noticed the newcomers.

The tallest of them—a blonde man with the kind of square jaw that belonged on recruitment posters—straightened immediately. His blue eyes narrowed with suspicion as they fixed on her. "Yelena," he said, his voice carrying authority and wariness in equal measure. "Who the hell is this?"

Before Yelena could answer, the large bearded man beside him stepped forward with a booming laugh that filled the entire space. His presence was overwhelming. all warmth and barely contained energy, like a bear-sized golden retriever.

"Ah, look at this! A new face, and such a lovely one!" He spread his arms wide as if preparing to envelope her in a bear hug, his voice thick with Russian accent and unmistakable joy. "Finally, some beauty around here to balance out all these ugly faces. You are... how do Americans say... a sight for sore eyes, da?"

Heat flooded her cheeks. She stood frozen, caught between mortification and the strange urge to smile despite everything.

Yelena groaned audibly, dragging a hand down her face. "Dad, stop."

"What?" The older man looked genuinely confused, then winked at her with shameless charm. "I only speak truth. Your mother, if she were here, she would agree—this one has excellent genetics. Very fine bone structure."

"Stop talking, Alexei," Yelena snapped, her tone sharp enough to cut glass. She turned back to the group, exhaling through her nose like wrangling her father was a full-time occupation. "This is—" She glanced back, seeking silent permission, then said the name quietly, as if she knew what was about to happen.

The effect was immediate and devastating.

The brunette woman—young, maybe mid-twenties, with energy crackling faintly around her fingers—went completely still. The shaggy-haired man in civilian clothes muttered something under his breath and took an unconscious step backward. Even Yelena's father sobered, his jovial expression fading into something more complex.

But it was the blonde man's reaction that made her stomach plummet.

His entire demeanor shifted, professionalism giving way to something colder, more calculating. He stepped closer, hands settling on his hips as he studied her like she was evidence at a crime scene.

Recognition flickered across his features as he processed her name, cross-referencing it with files in his memory. His expression shifted into something caught between a smirk and a sneer—the look of someone who'd just solved an unpleasant puzzle.

"I know that name," he said, his voice taking on a mocking edge. "Wasn't that the name of Barnes' dead girlfriend?"

The revelation hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Dead girlfriend.

The words ricocheted through her skull, each repetition more devastating than the last. Not partner. Not colleague. Not enemy. Girlfriend. The other version of her, the woman whose shadow she was apparently condemned to live in, had been dating James Buchanan Barnes.

The Winter Soldier.

With a known killer.

The irony was so vicious it threatened to tear her apart from the inside. In her world, she'd spent years hunting down monsters, bringing justice to families destroyed by violence. Here, apparently, she'd been sharing a bed with one of the worst monsters of all.

Her vision began to tunnel, darkness creeping in at the edges like spilled ink. Her lungs had forgotten how to function, each breath coming in short, desperate gasps that never seemed to bring enough oxygen. The panic attack was inevitable now—her body's revolt against information too massive, too impossible to process.

Heat flooded her face, a burning flush of shock and shame and something else she couldn't name. Her hands began to shake, trembling at her sides as if her entire nervous system was short-circuiting.

"Hey." Yelena's voice cut through the static filling her head, firm but gentle. Warm fingers wrapped around her arm, anchoring her to reality when everything else felt like it was spinning away. "Breathe with me. Just breathe. In and out."

She shot a murderous glare at Walker, her voice cracking with fury. "Excellent timing, you absolute moron. Really thoughtful approach there."

Walker raised his hands in mock surrender, but his expression remained coldly entertained, like he was watching a fascinating psychological experiment unfold. "What? I figured she already knew! Isn't that the whole reason she's here?"

Alexei, blissfully oblivious to the emotional carnage unfolding around him, chimed in with maddening cheerfulness. "Of course she is the girlfriend! Look at her—she is exact copy of girl in photographs on Winter Soldier's nightstand. Very beautiful, very tragic, like heroine from Dostoyevsky novel." He beamed at her with paternal pride that made her want to scream. "You loved him deeply, da? Was passionate romance? He was good lover?"

"Dad!" Yelena's voice cracked like a whip, her glare hot enough to melt steel. "You are making everything worse!"

But Alexei only shrugged, completely immune to his daughter's homicidal expression. "What? I only speak truth everyone is thinking. And besides, is much better to be remembered as someone's great love than to be forgotten completely, no? It is romantic tragedy, like in great Russian stories."

The words were meant to comfort, but they only drove the knife deeper. Great love. Romantic tragedy. She was standing in a room full of people who remembered a version of her that had been intimately, desperately connected to a man who represented everything she'd spent her life fighting against.

Her hands clenched into fists, nails biting crescents into her palms as she fought to stay upright. The walls seemed to press closer, the ceiling lower, the air thicker. Everyone's stares felt like physical weight pressing down on her shoulders until she thought her knees might buckle.

This was wrong. Fundamentally, cosmically wrong. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be wearing this face, shouldn't be expected to carry the emotional baggage of a woman who'd made choices that defied everything she believed in.

But she was trapped. Caught between worlds, between identities, between a past that wasn't hers and a future that terrified her beyond reason.

"What the hell are you people talking about?" she whispered, her voice barely audible above the thundering of her own pulse. "Is this some kind of sick joke?"

The pity in their faces was worse than cruelty would have been. At least cruelty would have given her something to fight against. This careful sympathy, these cautious expressions—they made her feel like a wild animal everyone was afraid might bolt or attack without warning.

Everyone except Walker, who continued studying her with clinical detachment, and Alexei, who kept rambling about the beauty of doomed love.

"You need to slow down your breathing," Yelena urged, gripping her shoulders with steady hands and forcing eye contact. "Focus on my voice. Just breathe."

But the command fell flat. The air had turned to concrete in her lungs. The room spun around her like a carnival ride gone wrong, and she could feel herself fragmenting, splitting apart at invisible seams.

She tore herself free from Yelena's grip and stumbled backward, her body moving toward the elevator of its own accord. Her chest heaved with each stuttering breath, vision blurring as tears she refused to acknowledge burned behind her eyes.

"Listen to me," she managed to choke out, every word sharp and desperate. "I don't know what twisted game you think you're playing, but whoever you think I am, I can't be her. I won't be her. I'm my own person, and I'm not from this world, and I've never even met James Barnes—"

Walker's eyebrow arched with infuriating calm. "Well, sweetheart," he drawled, "you're about to."

Behind her, the elevator gave a soft mechanical hiss.

The doors slid open.

She turned, ready to throw herself into whatever escape the elevator offered, ready to run until her legs gave out or her heart exploded—

And froze.

James Barnes stood there.

To her, he should have been nothing more than a name in old files, a face in grainy photographs, a shadow from history books. But in the flesh, he was devastatingly, undeniably real. Taller than she'd expected, broader through the shoulders. Dark hair fell in waves past his collar, shot through with faint silver that caught the light. His beard was neatly trimmed, dusted with gray that spoke of years and battles and sleepless nights. And his eyes — pale blue like a winter sky, sharp and intelligent. And currently wide with shock.

But it wasn't his appearance that stole her breath and left her feeling like she'd been struck by lightning.

It was the way he looked at her.

He'd been stepping out of the elevator, probably heading to some routine meeting or training session, and he'd frozen mid-stride. His hand was still braced against the elevator frame, knuckles white with tension. His chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths, like someone had just punched all the air out of his lungs.

Those ice-blue eyes locked onto her face with an intensity that felt like being dissected, like he was looking straight through time and death and impossibility to see something that shouldn't exist. The expression on his face — raw disbelief warring with desperate hope, grief colliding with wonder—made something twist violently in her chest.

To her, he was a stranger. A name from her nightmares made flesh.

To him, she must be resurrection walking.

Her name fell from his lips like a prayer, broken and reverent and so full of longing it made her want to run screaming. His voice cracked under the weight of that single word, and his entire body seemed to lean forward, drawn by invisible strings.

He moved toward her slowly, as if afraid she might vanish if he startled her. Every step was careful, measured, like he was approaching something that might disappear any second. She wished she could right now.

His expression was torn wide open, every emotion playing across his features without filter or pretense.

She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. For one suspended moment, she was caught in the gravitational pull of his gaze, trapped in the way he looked at her like she was the answer to prayers he'd stopped believing would be answered.

His hand twitched at his side, fingers flexing like he wanted to reach for her, to touch her face and confirm she was real and not just another cruel dream.

And then reality crashed back down on her like a tidal wave.

Her chest seized with pure, primal panic. Ice flooded her veins, her body's fight-or-flight response kicking into overdrive. She stumbled backward, shaking her head violently, trying to break whatever invisible connection had snapped taut between them.

"Don't—" Her voice shattered on the word. "Don't come near me."

He stopped immediately, but the damage was done. The anguish that flooded his features was unbearable, like she'd physically struck him. His lips parted, words trembling on his tongue, confusion bleeding through the desperate hope.

"It's okay," he said softly, his voice gentle in a way that made her want to scream. "It's me. It's Bucky. I don't understand what happened, how you're here, but it's going to be okay—"

"I don't know you!" The words exploded out of her, sharp and laced with mounting hysteria. She wrapped her arms around herself like armor, her whole body shaking with the effort of holding herself together. "I don't know who the hell you think I am, but I'm not her!"

He said her name again, softer this time, like he was trying to gentle a frightened animal. The sound of it in his voice, so full of history and intimacy, made her feel like her skin was crawling.

Before she could respond, before she could scream or run or collapse entirely, Yelena stepped forward. She positioned herself subtly between them, one hand raised in a calming gesture that encompassed both of them.

"She's not who you think," Yelena said quietly, her voice cutting through the tension like a blade. Her gaze flicked between Bucky's devastated expression and her trembling form. "She's not the woman you knew, Bucky. She's a variant. From another world, another timeline. She's not... she's not her."

The words landed like physical blows. Bucky staggered backward, his face cycling through disbelief, understanding, and a grief so profound it seemed to hollow him out from the inside.

But his eyes never left her face. Never stopped drinking her in like she might disappear at any moment.

She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole. Wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find herself back in her own world, her own life, where none of this impossible situation existed.

"This is getting incredibly uncomfortable," the young man with shaggy hair muttered from somewhere behind the group.

And it was. The tension in the air was thick enough to choke on. The weight of everyone's stares, the pity and confusion and worry—it was suffocating. Worst of all was the way Bucky kept looking at her, like the sight of her was simultaneously healing and destroying him.

She hated it. Hated this twisted version of fate that had dropped her into someone else's tragedy. Hated being expected to carry someone else's love, someone else's loss. Hated the way this man, this killer she was supposed to believe had been redeemed, was looking at her like she held his heart in her hands.

She'd come here for answers, but the truth was worse than any mystery could have been.

So she did the only thing that made sense anymore.

She ran.

Her detective training had kept her in good shape, years of chasing suspects through back alleys and up fire escapes had given her speed and endurance. She used all of it now, lunging toward the elevator with desperate urgency.

Behind her, she heard voices calling out—Yelena shouting her name, someone cursing in Russian, the sound of movement as superhuman reflexes kicked into gear.

But she was already inside, her finger jabbing frantically at the door close button as if her life depended on it.

The last thing she saw before the doors slid shut was Bucky's face—devastated, lost, reaching a hand out toward her like he was trying to stop her from disappearing all over again.

The moment she was alone, the adrenaline that had been holding her together evaporated. Her knees buckled, and she slid down the elevator wall until she was sitting on the cold metal floor, her head buried in her hands.

And for the first time since that portal had ripped her away from everything she knew, she broke.

The sobs came in waves, ugly and harsh and desperate. They tore out of her chest like they'd been trapped there for days, weeks, a lifetime. She cried for the life she'd lost, for the world she'd never see again, for the impossible situation she'd been thrust into without her consent.

She cried for the woman who'd worn her face and made choices she couldn't understand.

She cried for the man upstairs who'd looked at her like she was his whole world coming back from the dead.

Most of all, she cried because somewhere deep down, in a place she didn't want to acknowledge, she'd felt something when their eyes met. Something that terrified her more than any truth she'd uncovered.

Recognition.

Not of him, but of the way he'd looked at her. Like she was home.

And she had no idea what that meant, or what she was supposed to do with the guilt that had made a home in her heart. 

______________________________________________________________

Sam showed up at her apartment a few hours later, and for the first time since she'd met him, he was furious.

"What the hell were you thinking?" The door had barely clicked shut before his voice cracked across the room like a whip, sharp enough to make her spine straighten reflexively. His jaw was clenched so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin, his shoulders squared and rigid like he'd been holding onto that rage through the entire drive over. She didn’t doubt it. "Sneaking into the Watchtower like that? I told you—I told you—to keep a low profile."

"Oh, so now this is all my fault?" The words launched out of her before she could stop them, her finger jabbing toward his chest like a weapon. Heat flooded her veins, her pulse already wild and erratic, her voice shaking with something deeper than just rage. Desperation, maybe, or the kind of fear that could only be fought with fury. "You expect me to sit here, smile, and nod at every half-assed, vague non-answer you people throw at me? Just twiddle my damn thumbs in a world where the other me is dead?" Her voice cracked on the last word, raw and jagged. "I'm a detective, Sam, not some helpless civilian you can placate with scraps."

For a moment, Sam blinked like she'd blindsided him with a truth he hadn't bothered to consider. The fire in his eyes flickered, uncertainty creeping in around the edges. "Okay. I didn't…" He exhaled slowly, his anger deflating slightly as understanding dawned. "I didn't think about it like that. But when you put it that way, yeah, it makes sense, but—"

"Oh, for God's sake." She groaned, both hands flying to her hair, fingers tangling in the strands and tugging until her scalp burned with the sharp bite of pain. It grounded her, kept her from flying apart completely. Her chest was heaving now, words tearing out faster than she could filter them, like a dam had burst. "Were you seriously not going to tell me that your version of me, that she…was with the Winter Soldier?"

The silence that followed was deafening. Sam's gaze locked on hers, heavy and unblinking, his expression shifting into something guarded and final.

"No," he said finally, the word flat and unyielding as stone. "I wasn't planning on it."

Her stomach plummeted, a cold wash of betrayal flooding through her. Her throat constricted. "What the fuck, Sam? Why wouldn't you tell me that?"

He threw his hands up in exasperation, the sound of his sigh filling the cramped space between them like a punctured tire. "Why would I? What possible good would that do you?" His voice climbed, defensive and sharp. "You never knew him in your world. All it would do is create exactly what's happening now. Chaos, confusion. Pain for everyone involved."

She felt her mouth fall open, the words catching like glass shards on her tongue, but he barreled forward before she could speak.

"And how would it help him?" His voice cracked this time, a raw edge breaking through the frustration like a fault line splitting open. His hands fell back to his sides, limp and defeated, like the weight of everything had finally dragged him down. "It would just rip him apart all over again. You don't understand…he never recovered from losing her. From losing you." Sam shook his head, swallowing hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with the effort. "And now? Seeing your face again, hearing your voice, watching you move like her but not being her…" His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "I can't even imagine what that did to him."

Her breath caught, sharp and ragged, like she'd just taken a sucker punch to the throat. Her anger stuttered and died for one disorienting second, replaced by something she couldn't name. Guilt? Sympathy? The strange, hollow ache of mourning someone she'd never been?

Her voice dropped, barely more than a whisper, fragile as spun glass. "Was he the one who called you? Told you I came to the Tower?"

Sam looked at her then, and there was no anger left in his face. Just a deep tiredness and something that looked disturbingly like pity.

"Of course it was him," he said softly, each word deliberate and weighted. "He's my best friend."

He let that hang in the air between them, heavy and damning, like a confession.

"And I know you didn't know," Sam added, his voice quieter still, almost gentle. "But I was just trying to protect him. I've watched him put himself back together piece by piece, and I couldn't…I won't let him fall apart again."

The fight drained out of her like water through a sieve. All the yelling, the accusations, the righteous fury, it all seemed suddenly hollow and pointless as Sam's words echoed inside her skull like a death knell. She collapsed onto the couch, her knees giving out beneath her, elbows braced on her thighs, hands pressing hard against her forehead as if she could physically hold the spiraling pieces of herself together.

The silence stretched between them, thick and suffocating.

"Okay," she finally whispered, the word trembling out of her like a prayer or a surrender. "Fine. You didn't tell me before. But you can tell me now." She lifted her eyes to Sam, and the weight of the question sitting heavy in her chest felt like it might crush her ribs. "What happened to her? The… me from here. How did she die?"

Sam froze, his mouth opening like he was going to speak, but no sound came out. His gaze flickered away from hers, darting toward the window, the floor, anywhere but her face. Like the answer was a wound he couldn't bring himself to reopen, a scab he refused to pick.

The silence stretched taut and unbearable, elastic and ready to snap, until a low voice cut through the tension like a blade.

"She died right after the fight against Thanos."

Her head snapped toward the door so fast her neck protested.

Bucky stood there, framed in the dim amber light from the hallway, his broad shoulders rigid as steel beams, his vibranium hand clenched around the doorframe with enough force that she could hear the wood creaking under the pressure. He looked like he was using it as an anchor, the only thing keeping him upright and steady. His eyes were locked on her, storm-blue and unflinching. So intense it felt like he was trying to memorize every detail of her face, as though looking away would destroy him all over again.

"Bucky—" Sam shot to his feet, tension coiling through his frame like a spring wound too tight. "I told you to wait in the car—"

Bucky didn't look at Sam. Didn't even acknowledge he'd spoken at all.

His gaze remained fixed on her, unblinking, burning through her like he could pin her to the floor with nothing but the weight of his stare. His voice, when it finally came, was steady but saturated with grief so thick and suffocating it seemed to bend the very air around them. He was still looking at her like she was a ghost made flesh, a cruel trick of light and shadow.

He stepped further into the apartment—one deliberate step, no more—like crossing that invisible threshold would mean too much, would shatter some fragile equilibrium he'd spent years building. Even this much proximity felt dangerous, charged with electricity that made her skin prickle. His eyes were sharp and hard as cut glass, but she could see the faint tremor of a storm barely restrained beneath the surface.

"It happened after we all came back. From the Blip. Fifteen days later, to be exact. Some nutjob — mad about the Blip and trying to take it out on the Avengers — broke into her apartment and…killed her. But you don't need to know the details," he said finally, his voice clipped and final. His eyes were damn near black. Hollowed out with grief.

The weight of his words hit her chest like a stone dropped from a great height. She stared back at him, her own words tangled in her throat like barbed wire. Sam shifted awkwardly between them, his expression tight and pale, like he was watching history about to repeat itself in the worst possible way. Maybe he was.

Her jaw clenched, forcing her voice out through the sudden tightness in her throat. "So now you get to decide for me?" The quiet venom in her tone surprised even her, cutting and precise. "You don't get to do that. Just because you knew me in another life doesn't give you the right to—"

"Stop." His voice cracked through hers like a whip, cold and brutal and absolutely final. It froze her mid-sentence, the words dying on her tongue. "I didn't know you. You're not her. You're just a woman wearing her face, carrying her voice, moving through the world like some cosmic joke." Each word was delivered like a physical blow, precise and merciless. "So no, you don't get the right to know how she died. You don't get to carry her memories or her pain or her love. All you should be doing is staying the hell away from anything that has to do with her."

Her stomach dropped to her feet, a cold wave of shock and hurt washing over her. She wasn't sure why his words sliced so deep—this man was a stranger, wasn't he? But the raw, bleeding wounds in his voice told her otherwise. Every syllable sounded like it cost him blood to speak.

Her chest burned with indignation and something sharper. Rejection, maybe, or the sting of being reduced to nothing more than a cruel facsimile. "I don't want any part of this world, Barnes," she shot back, watching him flinch—that subtle, involuntary recoil—when his last name hit the air like a curse. "But I'm not wearing anyone's face. This is me. My identity. My body. My life." Her voice rose, shaking with emotion she couldn't contain. "So I'm sorry your girlfriend died, but it's not fair for you to tell me I don't have the right to know what happened when I'm the one who has to live with everyone looking at me like I'm her ghost—"

"Shut up."

The words were a snarl, torn from his throat with a fury so raw and primal it made even Sam take a step back. His voice cracked like thunder, filling every corner of the small room. "Don't fucking say you're sorry. You have no idea who she was…what she meant, what she gave, what she sacrificed. You have no right to even speak her name, let alone wear her face and pretend you understand what any of us lost when she died."

Her chest heaved as white-hot anger surged through her veins like molten metal. "Why are you being such a complete jackass?" she snapped, her voice rising to match his, all pretense of composure abandoned. "You can't take this out on me! This isn't my fault! I didn't ask to be here, I didn't know what I was walking into, I didn't choose to look like her!" The words poured out of her in a torrent, years of frustration and confusion and fear crystallizing into pure rage. "You think I wanted to land in a world where I find out I was apparently dating a mass murderer? In my world, you're a war criminal! A terrorist!"

Something fundamental broke in him then. She could see it happen, the exact moment his carefully constructed composure shattered like glass.

Before she could even draw her next breath, he was there. Impossibly fast, covering the distance between them in a heartbeat. His face was just inches from hers, close enough that she could see the flecks of silver in his blue eyes, could feel the heat radiating off his skin. The air between them vibrated with the force of his fury, electric and dangerous. His eyes had gone nearly black, bottomless and wild, and when he spoke, his voice was molten steel poured over broken glass.

"You need to stop talking. Right now."

But her heart was hammering against her ribs like a caged bird, her throat raw with fury and fear and something else she couldn't name, and she couldn't stop. The words kept coming, sharp and cutting and designed to hurt. "What, does the Winter Soldier not like being reminded of the blood on his hands?" she spat, each word hitting its mark with surgical precision. "You think you get to stand there and act like I'm the monster when it was you? You killed for decades, Barnes. Innocent people. Children, probably. And now you want to be the judge of who deserves answers? That's rich."

His jaw tightened, a muscle jumping beneath the skin, his metal hand curling into a fist at his side with a soft mechanical whir.

"You ruined lives," she pressed on relentlessly, her voice shaking with anger and hurt and the desperate need to make him feel even a fraction of the pain he'd inflicted on her. She didn’t know why. She felt horrible doing it, knew it would solve nothing but create more pain. But she was so mad. So frustrated that everyone was treating her like a scar that hadn’t gone away. Couldn’t they see how alone she felt like this? "Entire families. Hundreds, maybe thousands of innocent people who never even knew your name." 

She laughed, but it was sharp and bitter, more like a sob than anything resembling humor. "But I'm the problem here? Because I look like some woman you couldn't save? Because I'm a reminder that you failed to protect the one thing that mattered to you?"

"Stop." The word broke from him like something vital tearing, guttural and desperate, but she was too far gone to hear it.

"—at least I never became the boogeyman little kids had nightmares about. At least I never let myself become a weapon pointed at the innocent. You're a murderer, Barnes. A murderer trying to play saint, and you have the audacity to act like—"

"Stop it, babe —"

The word slipped out before he could catch it, automatic and devastating. His face changed instantly—shock and raw, bleeding pain flickering across his features like he'd just ripped open a wound that had barely begun to heal. His lips pressed together hard, his eyes wide with something that looked like horror at his own slip, but it was too late. The word was hanging in the air between them, heavy and intimate and absolutely forbidden.

Her stomach lurched violently. The sound of it hit her like a physical blow. Unfamiliar to her but weighted with an intimacy she didn't share, couldn't claim, had no right to. It was a glimpse into someone else's love story, someone else's heart, and she was nothing but an unwelcome intruder. She stepped back sharply, stumbling slightly, as if the word had burned her.

"Don't," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Don't call me that. I'm not her. I'm not—" But she couldn't finish, couldn't voice what they both knew: that she was a pale imitation, a cosmic mistake like he had said. A walking reminder of everything he'd lost.

Sam was there in a flash, planting a firm hand against Bucky's chest, shoving him back a step before things could escalate further. "That's enough," Sam barked, his voice sharp with authority, his eyes darting between them like he was trying to defuse a bomb. "Both of you. Stop this right now."

Bucky froze, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, but his eyes never left her face. He looked utterly shattered, like he wanted to reach for her. Or maybe like he wanted to run as far away as possible. She couldn't tell which, and that uncertainty made everything worse.

Sam's hand stayed firm against Bucky's chest, even as the soldier's breathing began to even out into something resembling normal. His gaze flicked to her — still standing there rigid and trembling, staring at Bucky like she didn't even know what she was looking at anymore, like he was some dangerous animal that might strike at any moment.

Sam made the executive decision first. "We're leaving," he said flatly, not taking his eyes off Bucky. He gave him a sharp nudge toward the door, and Bucky went without protest, his shoulders tense as steel cables, his jaw locked like stone. He moved like a man in a trance, hollow and mechanical.

Before following, Sam turned back to her one last time. His expression softened fractionally, regret shadowing his dark eyes like storm clouds. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, and she could hear that he meant it. Sorry for bringing Bucky here, sorry for the pain they'd both inflicted, sorry that any of this had to happen at all.

She didn't answer. Couldn't. Her throat was too tight, her chest too full of emotions she didn't have names for. She just stood there, arms wrapped around herself like armor, eyes burning holes in the floor as silence pressed in from all sides.

Sam lingered for a heartbeat longer, waiting for something, anything, from her. Some sign that she was okay, that they could salvage this situation, that the damage wasn't irreparable. But when nothing came, when she remained frozen in her protective shell, he nodded once—heavy and resigned and infinitely tired—and followed Bucky out.

She watched them go through the blur of unshed tears. The door closed behind them with a soft click that echoed louder than it had any right to, final and absolute. Bucky never looked back.

The apartment was suddenly too big and too empty, the silence pressing against her eardrums like deep water. And all she could hear was that single word still echoing in her head carrying a weight that wasn't hers to bear, a love that would never belong to her, and the devastating knowledge that she was nothing more than a cruel reminder of everything this world had lost.

______________________________________________________________

It’s a cold day. The kind of cold that sits deep in your bones, chilling you to your very core. No snow is on the ground, but it’s getting close to that time of year. You shiver in your seat, wrapping your arms tightly around your middle to bring warmth back into your system.

The car sways slightly with the intense winds, but Bucky has a firm handle on the wheel, keeping it steady. Silence settles over the car; only the occasional groan, sigh, and low engine rumble break the quiet.

The team just completed a mission, and though everything worked out in the end, it didn’t seem to matter. Many things had gone wrong. The intel you had gathered was bad, the plan was thrown out the window, and the whole team was out of sync. All of that caused a rift between the members in the car.

Bucky’s driving, grip so tight on the wheel that his knuckles are white. You’re not sure if it’s from anger that the team had entirely ignored the meticulous plan you and Bucky had put together hours before you left, or if the uncomfortable silence is eating at him like it is you.

Yelena is in the passenger seat, feet propped up on the dash, picking at the chipped polish on her nails. Her face says everything. She’s pissed. At everyone, but specifically Walker.

During the mission, he went to throw a punch, and instead of hitting his original target, he clocked Yelena right in the jaw. You don’t think she meant to get in the way, but she was just so occupied with getting the mission done that she wasn’t too keen on her surroundings. Now, a purple bloom of color is setting into her skin, along with other marks littered across her face and body, not unlike the others sitting in the car.

Walker is sitting in the bench seat ahead of you, closest to the window. He’s rubbing at his jaw, where Yelena punched him as “payback” on the walk back to the car. When Walker hit her, it was an accident. She didn’t see it that way; no one could convince her otherwise. You had to stifle a laugh when it happened because it was so abrupt, but also because of the clear shock on John’s face.

Ava’s next to him, arms crossed over her chest, and her brows drawn together. She occasionally bumps Walker with her elbow when the car drifts off its straight path, causing grunts and a string of low curses from the blonde man’s mouth.

Alexei’s eyes are closed, no doubt sleeping, next to Ava, who paid him no mind. You don’t think he’s upset with anyone, but the stillness lulled him to sleep, and you’re envious that he can nap at a time like this. But he can doze off at any time, no matter the circumstance. One time, you found him snoring upright while waiting for the microwave to beep, notifying him that his ramen was finished.

Bob is to your left on the second bench seat. You can feel the anxiety radiating off of him. Though he hadn’t helped out on the mission, he decided to come along for the ride. But he most likely regrets his decision now because he hates seeing the team like this. Bob always tries to lighten the mood, but he knows it’s useless this time.

You, on the other hand, don’t share everyone else’s sentiments. Yeah, every single thing was fucked from the start. But at least the job is done, and no one has any serious injuries, which is a win in your book.

Your head is swimming with ways to get everyone to stop sulking, but you don’t want to make an already bad situation worse. So, you settle on breaking the silence and suffering the consequences.

“Still on for movie night?” You say almost sheepishly, but there’s a hint of amusement in your tone. You’re met with silence. Only Bob looks your way briefly before his head drops between his shoulders, eyeing the floor. Instead of letting that deter you, you continue your pursuit.

“John picked last time, so it’s someone else’s turn. And I don’t think I can sit through another shit action movie. It’s just an excuse for men to blow shit up at this point.” That earns a strained laugh from the man beside you, but he doesn’t lift his head.

”Hell no.” Yelena grumbles from the front seat. “After this car ride, I am not sitting next to any of you.”

”I second that notion.” Walker pipes up, rolling his eyes in the process.

”At least there’s something we can agree on.” Ava ‘accidentally’ knocks her elbow into Walker’s arm again, and he looks like he’s seconds away from losing it.

You sit up in your seat, trying to draw their attention. “Oh, come on. We always watch a movie every other Friday. It’s tradition.”

John shakes his head. “Not happening.”

”I made homemade brownies, and I’ll make popcorn.” You put on your best smile, even if it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. Your smile quickly fades when no one answers. You glance around the car, and not a single soul is looking your way.

You lock eyes with Bucky in the rearview mirror. He loosens his grip on the steering wheel and gives you an almost apologetic expression. Your heart stutters in your chest. It’s a simple gesture but still melts some tension away from your shoulders.

You and Bucky have become friends over the last few months, or at least that’s what you’d like to think. When you first met the super soldier, he was closed off, grumpy, and didn’t talk much outside of a mission. But if you were lucky, you’d earn a stiff nod or grunt in response.

You strangely saw him as some sort of challenge. And you never backed down from a challenge. He didn’t have to like you, but you at least wanted to get more than a gruff sound from deep in his chest.

You started to memorize his schedule. Not like a creep, you just noticed the little things he did throughout the day. He wasn’t a morning person, so you avoided him until he finished his early workout. Usually, that changed his mood drastically; his posture was less guarded, and his expression had softened slightly.

He’d come to the kitchen after exercising, and you’d always have coffee ready, offering him a cup. Plain black coffee, just the way he likes it. You’d slide the mug near him with some sweet treat you had made prior that week. He would nod as a thanks, which had already been a small victory.

The common room was a safe place for him to gather intel or scope out potential missions. Pieces of paper were sprawled out on the table, and a soft glow illuminated his face from the screen on his laptop.

You caught on pretty quickly to what he was doing and started asking if he needed help. He always looked up from his work, stormy blue eyes meeting yours, and shook his head, no. Unfortunately for him, you were persistent.

You flopped down in the seat next to him with your laptop. His dark eyebrows knit together in confusion as he stared at you from behind his screen. You propped your head in your hand while the other was busy scrolling through articles, news reports, and random findings online.

You turned your screen around, giving him the vital information you found. Soon after, you began working together as a team, granting you much more than his usual guttural noises. From then on, everything was a breeze. Well, not exactly a breeze, but you considered him your friend.

Bucky made small talk in the morning over coffee, complementing you on whatever pastry, muffin, or dessert you made. He asked you to spar with him after John had slept in one morning. You were giddy with excitement that he chose you, but that feeling disappeared when he kicked your ass that day. Your chest heaved with exertion as your body slumped down on the mat, sore and aching. You knew he wouldn’t go easy on you, which was okay with you. You just had to step up your game.

It became easier to spar with Bucky after learning his tells. He would give you a few helpful pointers, which your original sparring partner, Yelena, hadn’t cared to do.

There were plenty of late nights between the two of you. You and Bucky hunched over a laptop, leaning into each other's space while researching and losing sleep.

But, if you’re being honest, you didn’t mind being sleep-deprived because you liked being next to him. Breathing in his scent, a mix of sandalwood, musk, and a hint of spearmint. Hearing the snort he let out when you made a joke. Seeing the corner of his lip turn up when you get animated about certain information.

It had turned from friends in your head to perhaps…more. You developed a crush on the tall, dark-haired man. Of course, you knew he was handsome; you weren’t blind. But you thought maybe the butterflies dancing in your stomach from his laugh or smile would go away. Then, his metal hand brushed against your skin. You’d feel like your world was turned on its axis and knew your attraction to him wouldn’t go away anytime soon.

As you sit in the car, gaze locked on Bucky’s blue irises, you must force yourself to look away so your heart doesn’t beat out of your chest. You tell yourself to try again to shake the team out of their irritated state. Maybe that will take your mind off your intense feelings for Bucky.

”We can order in Chinese. That’s always a comfort food of mine.” You offer.

Yelena turns entirely in her seat, shooting daggers at you. “You’re insufferable, you know that?”

Your back hits the seat as if she stabbed you. Yelena never raises her voice at you, not even when angry, because she’s never angry at you.

You consider Yelena more of a friend than anyone in the car. You connect more deeply with her, for which you are genuinely grateful. But now, as she stares you down, you feel a sense of dread putting down roots in the pit of your stomach.

“What?” It comes out smaller than you intended, and you can hear the hurt in your voice. Bucky hears it and immediately tries to meet your gaze in the mirror, but your eyes are directly on Yelena’s. They’re usually deeply warming, but there’s only a raging fire right now.

“Not everything is a puzzle you can assemble and force the pieces to fit. You can’t make everything better. You don’t make anything better.” Yelena’s voice is booming in your ears, loud and harsh. You feel too vulnerable. Too seen. You don’t know whether to scream or cry. You decide to stay silent instead, letting the anger boil beneath the surface.

”Knock it off, Yelena.” Bucky speaks up. His jaw is clenched, as if he could say more, but he chooses not to. You’re glad he doesn’t, though, because you might just let yourself cry in front of the team. All anyone will see is just how broken and raw you feel on the inside. But the others in the car don’t seem to be paying too much attention. Either they’re trying their hardest to ignore it, or they’re determined not to get involved.

Yelena’s eyes haven’t left yours, completely ignoring Bucky’s warning. “I’m sick of you trying to fix everything. Just let it be broken for once.” The anger threatens to bubble up, but you keep it at bay.

”Enough!” Bucky seethes at Yelena, whipping his head in her direction. Yelena finally settles back into her seat, satisfied with releasing her wrath on you.

You take a deep breath in before you say a word. ”Got it. Loud and fucking clear.” Your voice is steady, firm even. You're not going to let everyone see the raw and bleeding parts of you. Not now. Not ever. You glance out the window, a storm brewing behind your eyes, focusing on how the buildings pass by in a flash.

You hear a soft groan in front of you, but you don’t look for the source of the sound, too busy stewing in your irritation. “Did I fall asleep?” You recognize the voice as Alexei’s. He rubs the sleep from his eyes and pats his thighs, sitting up in his seat. “Well, what did I miss?”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Everyone breaks off in different directions once they’re back at the Tower. No one has said a word. Maybe it’s better that way so that everyone can cool down. Bucky follows behind you, keeping just enough distance for it not to be noticeable. He wants to check on you but isn’t quite sure how.

You’re quiet, and your muscles are taut, which is unlike you. Bucky knows all your intricate details, and you are far from a quiet person. Sure, there’s a gentleness about you, but you’re also lively. Especially when it comes to you talking about your passions. Your face lights up, and it’s as if the colors around you are suddenly brighter.

One of his favorite things is to catch you in the kitchen, hips swaying to the smooth music drifting through the speakers. You always seem in your element when baking and humming along to the song while your hands are whisking. Bucky would be embarrassed if anyone caught him, but it’s addicting. You’re addicting.

When the gentle parts of you come to the surface, it’s like watching a butterfly float through the air. There’s something so delicate about that side of you, like you're made of glass.

You’re constantly checking up on the team. You make sure they’ve eaten or drank enough water, or if they need a person to talk to. You’re always there. And now, no one is there for you when you need it most, which kills Bucky.

You’re speed walking to your room, arms tucked against your chest as if you’re closing in on yourself. Bucky practically trips over his feet, trying to catch up to you. He calls your name, but you don’t seem to hear. He finally gets close enough to grab hold of your arm. Not forcefully, just a light touch against your skin to pull you out of your daze.

Your breath hitches in your throat at the sudden contact, and you stop dead in your tracks. You glance down at where his flesh hand is and then up at his eyes. He drops his hand to rest at his side when he has your attention. His fingertips tingle from touching your skin, and it feels like tiny jolts of electricity.

There’s a beat of silence as he clenches and unclenches his fist before he clears his throat. “So, no movie night?”

”You heard them, it’s not happening.” You mumble, your voice is so soft. He might've missed it if he hadn’t been beside you.

“Right,” Bucky murmurs back, matching your tone so he doesn’t scare you away. He wants to say he’s still up for it, but then it’ll just be the two of you. Then again, is that so bad? You stare at each other without speaking. He opens his mouth to say something, but you cut him off.

”Look, I’m pretty tired. I’m gonna go to bed. It’s been a long day.” You rub a hand over your arm, where he touched you, and now he’s spiraling. Maybe she didn’t want to be touched, and now she’s trying to rid her skin of any trace of me. He shakes the thought away and gives you a stiff nod.

“Of course, you must be exhausted. Goodnight, I’ll see you in the morning.”

”Night.” You give him a tight-lipped smile before turning away and heading to your room, disappearing into the hallway's darkness.

Bucky stands there, one hand on his forehead, as he rubs at the growing headache. His mind is racing. He should have said so many things and asked if you were okay or wanted to talk about it. But Bucky was never truly good with feelings. He’d rather cram them deep down inside than open that Pandora’s box of issues.

He’s getting better, though, revealing the dark parts of himself. The nightmares, the memories that make his muscles tense, Hydra. Not to everyone, just to you. And you always listen. You make it your purpose to give him all your attention; he knows he doesn’t deserve that. But you give that part of yourself so freely.

He can’t just stand idly by while you’re hurting. So, he turns from his spot and wanders around the Tower to find Yelena. She’s not too hard to find. She’s standing in the kitchen watching her mug rotate around in the microwave with a cookie in her mouth. Bucky stands right behind her, hands on his hips.

”Apologize.”

Yelena spins around, clutching the spot on her chest right over her heart with her eyebrows raised. “Fuck, James. Give a girl some warning.” Her voice comes out muffled from her mouth full of crumbs.

“You’re an ex-assassin. You’re supposed to hear me coming from a mile away.” Bucky deadpans.

Yelena swallows down what’s in her mouth before speaking. ”I am off the clock. My guard is down.” She shrugs her shoulders, then points a finger at the super soldier as if scolding him. “Plus, I was chewing. I could have choked.”

Bucky ignores her dramatics and repeats himself. “Apologize.”

”No.” She whirls around as the microwave beeps and takes out the cup of hot water, placing it on the counter.

”Why?”

Yelena grabs a white packet from the cupboard, ripping off the top and shaking the contents into her mug. “Because I’m sick of her being so positive all the time.” She grabs a spoon from the drawer to stir the rich chocolate liquid.

“And? What’s wrong with that? This team needs a little fucking positivity.” Bucky snaps.

She twists to face Bucky, leaning against the counter and bringing the cup of hot chocolate to her lips. “Seems like you need a little positivity.”

“Yeah, maybe I do.” Bucky lowers his voice; his mind flicks to you and how content you make him when you’re around. “Listen, without her, this team would be nothing.”

Yelena tilts her head; her voice is thick with faux pity. “Are you saying she’s the glue that holds us together?”

“Yes,” Bucky says simply. Even if she doesn’t mean what she says, that’s precisely what he meant. You’re the glue.

Yelena quirks a brow. “Have you gone soft, Barnes?

He disregards her question and continues. “Just apologize.”

“Fine, fine. Don’t get your panties in a twist. I will…tomorrow.” She takes another swig of the dark liquid.

“No, right now.”

Yelena rolls her eyes and begins walking out of the kitchen, Bucky hot on her heels. “I’m tired. I’ll do it bright and early tomorrow so you can see her beautiful smile.” He pauses for a moment, caught off guard by her statement. She smirks at him over her shoulder as she strides to her room. He recovers quickly, following her again.

She snorts when he doesn’t answer. “That is what this is about, right? You can’t stand to see her sad. It’s breaking you. Making you have all kinds of feelings. Your little heart can’t take it.” Yelena opens her door, getting ready to close it behind her.

“No, that’s not-.” Before he can deny her revelation, she interrupts him.

“Goodnight, Barnes. Or should I say loverboy?” Yelena gives him a smug look, wiggling her eyebrows before closing the door in his face.

Great, he thinks, that’s what I get for prying.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

It’s been a couple of hours, and you're still lying in bed, wide awake, to your dismay. You spent about an hour tossing and turning, then another hour staring at the ceiling. Now, you can’t decide between a blanket or no blanket. Maybe you need a glass of water, but no, scratch that; you need a drink.

You can’t help but play the day's events over in your head: the mission, Yelena’s words, Bucky. Your skin still prickles where he touched your arm. He was so gentle with you, as if you were fragile.

Of course, he knows you're not. You’ve tripped him up a few times while sparring, knocking him flat on his ass. That shouldn’t give you as much thrill as it does, but who can blame you?

Still, you think about his hand gingerly placed on your arm as he examined you with concern etched on his face. And, you had pushed him away. Not because you didn’t want him. Fuck, you wanted him. But you knew if you opened up and let him see how wounded you were, that would leave you more exposed than you already felt. You’re wishing you had stayed. Let him take your mind off everything, but it’s too late.

You kick your feet over the side of the bed and amble over to your bedroom door, neglecting to put on your slippers. You pad through the hallway, and a figure in the living room snags your attention.

Bucky is on the couch, a quilt draped over his legs as colors dance across his form, and he’s taking you in. You note how his shoulders drop and his features soften, almost as if he were waiting for you. But that’s absurd. You rid the thought immediately.

He pulls you out of your daze as his voice cuts through the air. “You alright?”

You shrug, gesturing to him on the sofa. “I could ask you the same question.”

His gaze flicks down as if noticing where he is and what he’s doing. “Oh, yeah, I couldn’t sleep.” He focuses back on you, no doubt wanting you to answer his question.

“Me either.” You tip your thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “You want a drink?”

“Sure, sounds good to me.”

You go to the bar, rummaging through the liquor cabinet until you find what you are searching for—a clear glass bottle with dark amber liquid. You couldn’t care less about how much it cost, but you can tell by the ornate design of the bottle that it had to cost half a fortune. It's not something you have the money for, especially before this job, but Valentina always supplied the best for appearance's sake.

You take two short whiskey glasses from the shelf, setting them on the counter before detaching the glass stopper from the geometric bottle. You fill both glasses halfway and head back to the living room.

You step around the couch and hand Bucky his. He nods in appreciation as you sink into the spot next to him. You’re close enough to feel his warmth, but there’s still some distance between you.

You take a sip of the liquid. A smooth, smoky, and vanilla flavor hits your taste buds and floods your senses—a welcoming contrast to distract from how shitty you feel.

You already feel a thousand times better, Bucky next to you, the liquor calming you, and the steady sound of the TV playing in the background. You tip your head toward the TV as you get comfortable.

You turn towards him as your arm rests on the back of the couch, elbow bent so your hand can support your head. “Having movie night without me?”

He shakes his head. ”No, never. It just happened to be on.” The corner of your lip lifts, and your chest warms. You can’t tell if it’s from the whisky heating your body temperature or the way he said never, and you think you might believe him.

”Well, you are watching a movie on movie night, so that’s a little suspicious.” You tease.

”Shit, I guess I am.” There’s amusement in his voice as a faint smile appears. He rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry, doll. I would’ve invited you but thought you wanted to be alone.”

You hum in response. “I thought I did, too, but I was wrong.”

Bucky’s tone turns serious as he scans your face. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

”Hell no. Distract me, please.”

“Anything for you.” He says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. You swear your heart skips a beat, and your cheeks flush slightly. Somehow, you know he’s not just saying that to make you feel better. You feel like you can breathe easier knowing that.

“Anything, huh?”

”Just say the words, sweetheart.”

“Care to share that blanket?” You think the whisky is calming you and giving you hidden confidence you didn’t know you had.

”I s’pose.” He drawls with a smirk on his face. You scoot closer, and he lifts the quilt, covering your legs. It was never about needing warmth, just an excuse to be near him.

“Much better.” You mumble.

Bucky stares at you, blue eyes flicking between your features like he’s trying to memorize you, and a shiver runs through you under his gaze. He clears his throat, running his metal hand through his hair.

“Right, distraction.” He leans his head back against the couch, examining the ceiling as he sifts through his brain for a topic of discussion. All you can think of is how distracted you already are.

“Oh, got it.” He locks his eyes with yours once again. “Alexei was riding the elevator this morning.”

Your eyebrows draw together, utterly confused. “That’s usually what happens.”

”For half an hour.”

You giggle at how strange that sounds. “Wait, why?”

”I don’t know. When I asked him about it, he said he was testing a theory and then swore me to secrecy. So, you can’t say anything.” He arches a brow. “I’m pretty sure he just pressed all the buttons, though.”

Laughter bubbles out of your mouth, exactly what you need. You’re hurt, and anger is a distant feeling.

“I have one.” Bucky nods his head for you to continue. “Ava phased through the bathroom the other day, and I was completely naked.”

His jaw drops, and then he proceeds to bust out laughing. It’s a sound you never get tired of hearing, probably because it’s so rare, but also from the way it makes your stomach do somersaults. “That’s the one place you shouldn’t phase into. Is she ever going to learn how to knock?”

”I wouldn’t hold out hope. She apologized profusely, but I know she won’t stop doing it.” You put your glass on the coffee table to give him your attention.

“I don’t know how to top that one.” There’s still a lingering grin fixed on his lips as he thinks for a moment. “I caught Walker watching Titanic. He kept telling me it was already on when he sat down.”

”I knew he was a sucker for romance.” You pause, tilting your head and narrowing your eyes at him. “Wait, that means you’ve watched Titanic.”

”Of course, I have. People say it’s one of the classics.”

“And, what did you think?”

“It was good.” You can hear the reluctance in his tone. You give him a look to carry on. Bucky rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice behind it. “Jack clearly could have fit on that door.”

“Right?” Your voice goes up an octave, and you're grinning from ear to ear like a lovesick fool. “Yelena and I had a whole conversation about how they could've made it work.” Your face drops immediately after you realize what you said.

You let out a long breath, and suddenly, whatever is on the TV is extremely interesting. Your eyes are directly on the person on the screen, but you’re not paying much attention because your head is spinning again.

Why are Yelena’s words affecting you so much? You’ve never truly cared what other people think. But, then again, she’s your friend. Perhaps your best friend. Shouldn’t her opinion matter?

Bucky breaks your train of thought, not easily deceived by your sudden intrigue in the television. “She’s wrong, y’know?”

“Hmm?”

“You do make everything better.” His words are like silk, soft and comforting. You whip your head to meet his gaze. There’s a slight smile on his lips; the color in his eyes is swirling and shifting. It’s like a tide pulling you in and telling you, you’re safe. You fully trust that he will keep you safe, and you won’t overlook that.

You return his smile, and the light reaches your eyes. He parts his lips and sucks in a breath—it’s subtle, but you notice. You don’t know what to say, but settle on, “Thank you, Bucky.”

“Sure thing, doll.”

You turn your attention to the TV to hide the blush crawling up your cheeks. Then, because that liquid courage is coursing through your veins, you rest your head on his shoulder. Bucky tenses beneath you, and you internally kick yourself for making him uncomfortable. You almost pick your head up. As if he’s reading your thoughts, he relaxes, and his breathing becomes lighter.

You stay like that for a while, enjoying each other’s company as you watch the movie. Your lids feel heavy, and before you know it, they flutter shut. You’re sleeping on Bucky’s arm like you belong there.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

Bucky noticed your breathing even out about twenty minutes ago, but he’s still watching you like you're a masterpiece in the Louvre. He’s scrutinizing every aspect of your person as if he’ll be quizzed on it later. He wants to pull you into his arms and tuck your head under his chin as you lie on his chest, but he doesn’t want to overstep a boundary.

He doesn’t think he’s ever been this calm; it’s refreshing. To forget about any piece of his past for a second and drown in you. There’s no promise of nightmares or bad memories taking shape at the forefront of his mind.

Bucky yawns and leans his head against the back of the sofa. Maybe I’ll rest my eyes for a moment, he thinks before closing them and drifting off to sleep.

The sun peeking through the curtains stirs him awake, and he reluctantly opens his eyes. Your head is still a gentle weight on his arm, which brings a sleepy smirk to his face.

It dawns on him how this must look, and he realizes he should get up before any team member sees. Yelena’s already hinting at his crush on you. He can’t have everyone on him about how dopey he must look, staring at you like you hung the stars.

Bucky slowly moves from his spot on the couch, careful not to rouse you. He takes your head in one hand and shifts to stand up. Bending over, he grabs a pillow and maneuvers it under you. He delicately pulls your legs and sets them on the couch, draping the blanket's full length over your shape. Your body twitches slightly as you settle into the new position.

He steals one last glance at your peaceful demeanor as he stretches. He groans at the sharp pain in his upper back and neck, no doubt from the way he fell asleep. But he honestly doesn’t care. He’d do it all over again to feel any part of you on him. Bucky leaves you to get some much-needed rest as he starts his morning.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

You rise from sleep to the sound of clattering and blink a few times to adjust to the light. There’s a pillow under your head that you don’t remember putting there, and the quilt from last night covers the expanse of your body. You must have fallen asleep.

The recollection of last night hits you like a tidal wave. You were cuddled up on Bucky’s arm last night, which lulled you to sleep. He must have adjusted you before he went to bed. The thought gives you a fuzzy sensation in your brain.

The smell of coffee fills your nostrils, and you finally get off the couch. You drift into the kitchen. You spot Yelena and Walker talking by the counter. At least someone made up.

Walker detects you instantly. “Hey, sleepy head. How was the couch?” Yelena’s eyes dart up to meet you.

You shrug, stepping into the room. “Surprisingly, not bad.” Yelena turns around and opens the cupboard, reaching for a mug.

John nods and clears his throat. “Sorry for yesterday. Our dumb asses ruined movie night.”

You wave him off. “Don’t worry about it.” You watch Yelena bring the coffee pot to the mouth of the cup, pouring the dark liquid as steam wafts into the air.

”No, movie night is important to you. We should have sucked it up and watched it.” He reiterates.

”It’s no big deal. That just means we're watching two next Friday night.” You jokingly add.

Walker chuckles. “It’s only fair.”

Yelena turns around and hands you the cup. You must have missed her putting cream in because now it’s a swirl of tan and white. You give her a look of gratitude before bringing the warm drink to your lips.

“Can we talk?” Yelena asks with a soft expression. You can almost see her guilt on display.

”Yeah.” You murmur as your hands wrap around the mug, soaking up the heat.

”Alone, dipshit.” She adds, shooting Walker a glare over her shoulder.

He frowns, his eyebrows scrunching together. ”I was literally in here before both of you.”

It’s your turn to glare at the blonde man. He raises his hands in surrender and wanders out of the kitchen, mumbling something about women under his breath.

Yelena flicks her gaze to you and begins. “I apologize for what I said yesterday. I regretted it as soon as the words left my mouth. If I could take them back, I would.”

Yelena glances around the room, trying to find the words to convey her feelings. “I wanted to stay mad, but you were changing my mind about being mad, making me more mad. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, though.”

You sigh, shaking your head. ”It’s okay. I should have read the room instead of pushing everyone to feel a certain way.”

“No, you were right. It was a stupid reason to be upset with each other. Although there’s always a good reason to be angry at Walker.” She tilts her head in the direction John went. You let out a soft chuckle. “Do you forgive me? You can punch the other side of my jaw if that makes you feel better.”

You snort. “Tempting, but no. I forgive you.”

”That’s a relief. I thought I was going to have to replace you with one of the boys, and that makes me want to vomit.”

Your jaw drops in mock horror as you clutch your chest. “You would replace me? You wound me.”

”I’m kidding. No one could replace you.” Yelena hums as a thought pops into her head. “Barnes was right; you are the glue.”

You quirk a brow. “Huh?”

”We were talking last night. He was the one who told me to apologize.” She pauses, raising a hand. “To be clear, I was going to anyway. Plus, I never let a man tell me what to do.”

That causes you to giggle, and then you gesture for her to continue. “Go on.”

”Anyways, he implied that you’re the glue that holds this team together, and I couldn’t agree more.” She softly nudges you with her elbow. You feel your cheeks warm, and you sip at your coffee to hide how those words affect you.

Yelena rolls her eyes playfully. “Man, you two are ridiculous. Just kiss already.”

”What are you talking about?” You don’t even know why you’re trying to deny it; she caught you red-handed.

”Don’t get me started. How you look at each other, and Barnes is so protective of you. I also found you both cuddled up on the couch this morning when I was on my way to apologize to you.” Yelena gives you a look that says, Don’t you dare try to gaslight me.

Cuddled up on the couch this morning? That means Bucky didn’t leave in the middle of the night like you thought. He stayed. You bite your lip to suppress a smile, but how ecstatic you are is no secret.

”Ugh, you’re so weird. Remind me never to talk about him around you again.” She turns on her heels and heads out of the room, leaving you with a mess of feelings to sort out in your head.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

It’s late afternoon when you eventually get the courage to talk to Bucky. You’ve been avoiding all the usual places he goes throughout the day because you're afraid you’ll tell him how you feel. Gosh, you feel like a foolish teenager.

You want this more than anything. You want him more than anything. But there are a lot of what-ifs to consider. What if he doesn’t feel the same, and then you feel awkward? What if you do test this out and it doesn’t work out? Now you’ve ruined your friendship. And worst, what if he has feelings for you and wants you just as badly? You won’t know how to act with that last one.

You ultimately said to hell with all those questions because you need answers, and the only person who can answer them is Bucky. You won’t beat around the bush any longer; if there are consequences, so be it. You can live with whatever outcome, even if it hurts.

When you arrive at his bedroom, the door is already open a crack. You softly knock on it, causing it to swing open more. His gravelly voice comes through the door. “Come in.”

You push the door to proceed forward into his space before closing the door behind you. Bucky is leaning against the headboard, one leg crossed over the other with his laptop on his thigh. “Hey.” You mutter as you step closer to his bed.

He straightens instantly, placing his laptop next to him. “Hi.” As he moves to sit on the edge of his bed, he sucks air through his teeth and his face contorts into one of discomfort. He tries to hide how sore he is, but fails miserably. “What’s up?” His voice comes out strained.

Concern is written on your face as you examine him. “You’re in pain.” You cross the room to stand before him.

Bucky tries to brush off your worries. ”It’s nothing. I must’ve pulled something while training.”

You give him an unimpressed look and motion for him to turn. “May I?”

“Really, I’m fine.” He shrugs, but even that gesture seems to cause him more pain.

“Can I touch you or not, James?” Your tone relays a sense of authority, but your voice remains soft.

He lets out a deep sigh and reluctantly turns to the side, so you have access to his back. “Yes, ma’am. You can go ahead and touch me.”

You’ve never been one for formalities, but the way he says ma’am has you reeling. You recover, though, positioning yourself behind him, a knee propped on the bed for leverage.

You place your hands on his shoulders, lightly squeezing his muscles and working your way down his arms. He’s stiff beneath your touch, so you gently coax him by whispering in his ear.

“Relax for me.” As if you commanded him, he drops his shoulders and lets his head fall forward. You increase the pressure and start to massage the knots in his neck, eliciting a low groan from deep within his chest. You continue to knead his upper back, neck, and shoulder muscles until you can feel the tension melting.

”Training, huh?” You ask as you carry on with your task.

”That’s what I said.” Bucky mumbles, evidently lost in the relief you’re giving him.

”Yes, but you’re lying.”

You hear him swallow hard. “What?”

”I know you fell asleep with me on the couch last night.”

Bucky picks his head up, though he hasn’t turned to meet your gaze. “Were you awake?”

”No, Yelena told me.” You pause, rubbing at a stubborn knot in his back. “You could have gone to bed, y’know?”

He nods once. “Yeah, I know, but,” the super soldier wavers slightly, “I didn’t want to.”

The confession hits like a punch to the gut. You want to press the matter, but as your hands journey back up to his shoulders, he rests a hand over yours, and you freeze.

He pivots to face you, his flesh hand still over yours. As he turns, your other hand falls to your side, and you pick your knee off the bed. “Thank you, but why did you actually come here? Because I know you didn’t come here to take care of me, sweetheart.”

Suddenly, you’re incredibly nervous. His eyes are locked on you, and his hand's warmth causes your heart to race. “Uh…it’s something Yelena said.”

Bucky grabs your hand off his shoulder, taking it in both of his—flesh and metal. He starts to rub soothing circles into the skin. “You two made up then?”

“Yeah,” the word seems to get caught in your throat from how he’s massaging your hand.

”Good, I’m glad.” He rotates your hand, palm up, and repeats the action to that side. “So, what did she say?”

You swallow hard to regain your composure, but your heart is still rapidly beating. “She said I’m the glue that holds this team together. She mentioned that she may have gotten that from someone else.” You give him a knowing look.

Bucky halts his actions and releases your hand. Then, he moves to the other one and starts massaging it. “I wonder who.” You arch a brow, and he sighs, conceding in his efforts to deny it.

“Fine, I said it and I meant it.” He adds emphasis to the last part. “You do a lot for this team; we don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve you.” You quietly gasp, but he still hears it.

He drops your hand and proceeds. “You’re kind, caring, and you always listen. Even if it’s not worthy of your attention. I mean how many times have you listened to the same damn story from Alexei’s ‘glory days’?”

You giggle, light and breathy. You flush a deep red color, and there’s no use in hiding it. “I don’t mind.”

”See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Bucky braces his hands on his knees and hauls himself up to stand before you. “You care so much about everyone else, but don’t let anyone do the same for you.”

He leans in, and you sharply inhale. Your eyes dart between both his eyes before your attention dips to his parted lips briefly. He notices, because of course he does, and the corner of his lip lifts into a sly smirk. He glances down at your lips in return.

Did you die and go to heaven? Because there is no way this is happening. Are you reading this wrong, or did he honestly look at your lips? You want to close the distance, but it’s not that simple. You have to leave before you do something stupid.

You step around him and begin to book it to his door, but he’s much quicker than you. “Where are you going?” Bucky snatches your arm before you can get too far. He spins you around to scan your face.

Your eyes flick up to meet his, and you’re sure he’s going to drive you wild. ”I think I might do something reckless if I stay.” You murmur.

”Then, let me do it instead, doll.” Bucky’s voice is low and rough, sending shivers down your spine.

He inspects you for any sign of hesitation, but there is none. His flesh hand moves to brush your hair out of your face and tuck it behind your ear. Bucky lets his touch drag down your jaw, tracing the skin there. Then, he takes a firm hold of it and brings you closer, capturing your lips.

The kiss is soft and slow at first, lips moving against each other like you have all the time in the world. Bucky’s other hand finds your waist, and he pulls you closer until there’s not an inch of space between you. You melt into him, and one of your arms wraps around him as your other hand cups the back of his neck, deepening the kiss.

It quickly turns hungry, your lips moving with his in a desperate dance of passion. As it starts to get heated, his tongue runs along your bottom lip, requesting access.

You part your lips immediately, and his tongue slips into your mouth. He lets out a satisfied hum when he finds your tongue. He’s completely immersed in you. His tongue explores your mouth like it’s a personal mission to taste every inch of you. Your knees buckle slightly, and his hand leaves your jaw to grab your hip, granting you stability.

Your tongues slide and swirl with one another as your hand snakes up and under his shirt, feeling his bare skin. Bucky positions his leg between your thighs, and you moan into the kiss at the contact.

He breaks the kiss and gazes down at you. You’re flushed and trembling with desire. You're both trying to slow your breathing, but it’s pointless. He dips his head to attach his lips to your neck, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down your collarbone. You grind against his leg, needing some friction. “Bucky,” you breathe.

He growls against your skin, sending vibrations through you. He tightens his grip on your hip and begins to help guide your movement. Then, he moves to your ear, taking your earlobe between his teeth and licking its shell. “Tell me what you need, doll.” His tone is raspy in your ear.

Your breathing turns erratic at all the sensations, and your knees threaten to give out, but you know he has you. “I…I need you.”

“Fuck,” he drawls in your ear before pulling back to get a glimpse of you. “That’s all I want to hear. Are you going to let me take care of you?”

You open your mouth to speak, but the words won’t come. You nod in response, and he doesn’t waste any time.

“Good girl.” Bucky picks you up by your thighs effortlessly as if you weigh nothing. You realize you’ve always wanted to witness that super soldier strength firsthand, and now you have a front row seat to the show.

Bucky carries you the short distance to the bed and lays you down gingerly. He crawls onto the mattress after you and nudges your legs apart with his knee so that he can situate himself between your thighs. He braces his arm next to your head, hovering over you. You bite your lip at the sight of his bicep on full display. He lets out a low chuckle as his other hand slips under your shirt.

He lets his fingers dance across your flesh, reveling in the way you shiver. Bucky takes the hem of your shirt in both hands and pulls it over your head, tossing it somewhere in the room. He hums at the sight of you before making quick work of your bra. He reaches around you and unclasps it as he lowers the straps off your shoulders.

He drinks you in, naked from the waist up. “Damn, you’re gorgeous.” Bucky plunges to kiss along your sternum while his hand wanders up to cup your breast. He trails kisses to your other breast before his tongue darts out to tease your nipple.

His eyes flick up to you as he wraps his lips around your nipple, sucking and swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud. His hand gently squeezes and massages your other breast. You arch your back and you let out a soft whimper. You feel a heat pool in your lower stomach as the tension builds in your aching body.

“Bucky, please.” You beg while you buck your hips up into him to relieve some of that growing pressure.

He releases your nipple with a soft pop. “Shh…patience, doll. Let me take my time with this beautiful body of yours.”

Bucky switches to the other, giving each breast equal attention. You grunt in frustration, and he laughs against your skin. You begin to protest, but he bites your nipple, causing a new wave of pleasure to crash over you. You silence yourself and let him work his magic.

As he languidly kisses and sucks the opposite breast, his fingers toy with your other one. Bucky’s thumb rubs and flicks over your nipple, drawing a moan from your lips.

Once he’s satisfied, his mouth moves further down. He kisses and nips at your skin as he travels to your lower stomach. Bucky licks along the spot above your waistband, and you squirm underneath him.

“Lift your hips for me, doll.” He pats your thigh and glances up at you; his blue eyes are dark. You obey, digging your heels into the mattress to lift the lower half of your body. He hooks his thumbs into your shorts and peels them off, leaving you in just your panties.

He’s breathless as he admires the way you’re sporting those black, lace panties. Bucky licks his bottom lip before taking it between his teeth. You’re thrumming with anticipation from how he’s examining you like you’re his next meal and he’s starving. He traces the outline of your underwear with a single digit. Then, runs his finger over your core, his touch feather-light, but it still causes you to twitch.

“Mmm…so wet for me.” Bucky plants a soft kiss to your underwear clad clit. He takes the lace band and drags it down your thighs. You raise your legs, and he slips them off and stuffs them in the back pocket of his jeans. You playfully roll your eyes, and he smirks at you.

“What, I can’t have a little souvenir of our first time?” He grabs the underside of your knee and hooks it over his shoulder as he kisses your inner thigh.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t, I just kinda like that pair.” You jest.

”I can see why.” Bucky looks up through his lashes and winks at you. You giggle, and you’re sure that this man is going to be the death of you. “But, I gotta say, I prefer you in nothing.” He fans his hot breath across you as his mouth gets closer to where you need him most. “Such a pretty pussy.”

Yep, he’s going to kill you, and if it isn’t from that handsome face, then it will be from that filthy mouth. You smooth his hair back and out of his face, taking a moment to appreciate the sight of him. He looks like a dream. Maybe this is a dream because he’s too damn perfect.

Bucky leans into your touch as you run your fingers through his long hair. His expression softens, and he presses a lingering kiss to your thigh.

“Can I taste you, babydoll?” His voice goes deep and husky. Your breathing stutters at the nickname; he can tell you like it.

“Yes, please.” Your eyes are pleading, like you can’t wait a second longer.

”Anything for you.” He lowers his mouth to lick a strip up your center. You whine and grip his dark strands. Bucky’s tongue dives back in, devouring you. His tongue works expertly on your wet heat, licking up your juices and teasing your entrance.

You writhe and squirm under him as erotic sounds exit your wide-open mouth. “Fuck, that feels so good. Your mouth is perfection.”

Bucky groans against your pussy hearing your sounds and praises. His metal hand rises to rest on your lower stomach as the other one grabs your hip, holding you still. He flicks his tongue over your clit before lightly sucking on it. He swirls his tongue around you in tight circles. You tip your head back, letting out a loud, throaty moan.

He lets go of your hip and traces a finger around your entrance as he continues to suck and lick your bundle of nerves. Bucky dips his finger into you and steadily pumps it in and out.

You whimper at the sudden intrusion, and your free hand searches for something to grab onto. You find Bucky’s metal hand on your stomach and grasp the back of it, trying to ground yourself. He flips his hand over, holding your hand in his as he works at your cunt.

He slides a second finger in, stretching you out and pumping deeper into you. Bucky breaks away from your clit, his teeth faintly grazing it, as he comes up for air. Now that you can see his whole face, you notice the way his mouth and chin are covered in your juices. It only adds to the intense pleasure you feel from his skilled fingers.

”You’re doing so well, sweetheart.” He squeezes your hand and brings it to his lips, kissing your knuckles before resting your clasped hands on your abdomen again.

You can feel the pressure building inside you with every stroke of his fingers, and it’s overwhelming. You don’t think anyone has ever made you feel this incredible, and you never want the pleasure to end.

He curls his digits inside you, caressing your walls. You squeeze around his fingers, and he picks up the pace, wanting to bring you to the edge. Your thighs begin to quiver as moans and whimpers fill the room. “Bucky…I’m so close. Please, don’t stop.”

”Wasn’t plannin’ on it.” He drops his head down, mouth pushing between your slick folds. Bucky doubles down on his efforts. His fingers thrust faster while he sucks on your clit hard, then his tongue starts to move with even more purpose—swirling, flicking, and teasing.

Without warning, your orgasm wracks through your body. Wave after wave of pleasure crashing down upon you. You come undone with a strangled cry as your eyes squeeze shut. Your hand instinctively pulls on Bucky’s hair as you ride out your climax. He helps you prolong your orgasm by keeping up with his ministrations.

He slows his movements to a stop and lets you catch your breath. You shudder with aftershocks of pleasure as you come down from your high.

He unhooks your leg from his shoulder and begins to kiss and nip up the expanse of your body. He inches up your form until he’s level with your face. Your eyes are still closed, and he chuckles low at your blissed out state. He plants kisses on your forehead, cheeks, and nose, making you release a breathy laugh. He finally places a soft, sweet kiss on your lips before leaning back to inspect you.

“You still with me, doll?” Bucky brushes a stray damp hair out of your face. You open your eyes, giving him a soft grin. “Ah, there’s my pretty girl. You doin’ okay?”

Your smile grows wider because he looks like an angel above you and has the nerve to call you pretty. “Better than okay. That was unreal.” You grab the back of his neck as your thumb caresses the skin. “Do you eat pussy for a living?” You jokingly add.

He gives you an amused look. “I can eat your pussy for a living. Keep me down there between your thighs and I’ll be a happy man.” He pinches your thigh to emphasize his words.

You giggle and wish time would stop for a minute because you want to stay in this moment forever. You snap yourself out of your daze and gesture between the two of you. “This isn’t fair.”

”What’s not fair, doll?” He gives you a quizzical expression.

”You’re wearing too many clothes.”

He shakes his head, grinning. “I can fix that.”

Bucky climbs off the bed and reaches behind him, pulling at the collar of his black shirt until it's off. You’re faced with sharp lines and toned muscles like a fucking ancient Greek sculpture. It’s absurd how sexy he is. You don’t know if you’ve met a more attractive person.

You lean on your forearms to better view him as he continues the show. Bucky unbuckles his belt; just the clang of the metal makes a fire light within your very bones. He slips it out of the belt loops of his dark-washed jeans before tugging them and his boxers down his legs.

You cast your eyes down at where the material pools at his feet, then slowly let them glide up his figure. Fuck. You don’t know where to look. His thighs, chest, biceps, abs, dick-

He’s huge, and he looks painfully hard. Forget what you said before about his handsome face and filthy mouth, his dick will be the death of you. You’re sure that’s the best way to go, though, so you can’t find it in your heart to care much.

Bucky crawls back over top of you, settling into his original place. Your hands are instantly on him, tracing his dips and contours. His stomach muscles flex beneath your touch.

“Stunning.” You mutter. You lift your head to kiss along the spot where skin meets metal, and he quivers above you.

“Doll-“ His voice is sweet and warm like honey in your ear. You register that his cock is hard against your thigh as you trail kisses to his neck. You grip him firmly in your hand, carefully stroking his leaky cock.

He gasps softly at the feel of your soft hand on him. Bucky’s forehead falls to your shoulder, and his breathing is ragged in your ear as you continue your movements. Your thumb swipes at the precum that beads at the slit, spreading it to give you more purchase.

”Oh, sweetheart.” He growls, low and rough. “Fuck, I need to be inside you.”

You hum in agreement as you free him from your grasp. “Well then,” you move your mouth to hover beside his ear and whisper. ”Take me, baby.”

Bucky grunts and pecks your shoulder before pulling away to gaze into your eyes. His eyes are dark with desire, matching your own. He takes his dick in his hand and positions himself between your thighs. He runs the head through your slick and teases your entrance with his tip.

“Are you ready for me?”

Your free hand finds a place on his bicep in preparation, knowing you’ll need stability from his sheer size. “Yes, Bucky.”

He slides inside of you, nice and slow, taking his time to stretch you out on his cock. His entire body stiffens as he feels how tight you are. Bucky groans and his jaw clenches as if it’s taking every bit of control not to slam into you. You suck in breath and tilt your head back. He instantly takes your chin between his thumb and forefinger, gently forcing your gaze back on him.

“Eyes on me, doll. I want to watch you as it goes in.”

Fuck. You’re so turned on that you can’t even respond to him; you just obey. Your eyes are locked on his as he pushes inside you at an achingly slow pace like he’s trying to memorize every inch of you.

He bottoms out inside you, and you feel impossibly full. You’re just staring at each other now, your rapid breaths mingling in the space between you. Bucky’s giving you a moment to adjust before he even thinks about moving. He also wants to take a moment to feel you surrounding him; it’s overwhelming.

You have to remind yourself to breathe. The stretch of your pussy around him is intense. His dick is buried so far into your tight warmth it’s like he’s drowning in it, but instead you're the one losing oxygen.

He moves his hand from the spot on your chin to cup your cheek, stroking the flushed skin. He leans down and captures your lips in a hungry kiss, hot and desperate, like he needs to taste you. You reciprocate with equal fervor, your hand snaking up into his hair to deepen the kiss as your tongues merge.

He moves both his hands to grab your thighs and hikes them up to wrap your legs around his waist. Bucky’s metal hand settles on your hip as the other searches for your hand on the back of his head. He wraps his fingers around your wrist and pulls it from its place in his hair. He breaks the kiss and brings your palm to his lips, before pinning it above your head.

He leisurely starts to ease in and out of you while trying to get a read on your expression. He wants to make sure you’re feeling good or if you need more time to adjust. But, instead, you softly moan, giving him the reassurance he needs to speed up.

“Atta girl, taking me so well.” Bucky praises. It only seems to make your core wetter, making it easier for him to thrust into you. You tighten your grip on his bicep as he snaps his hips into you. His grip on your hip is bruising as he sets a rhythmic pace, steady and deep.

His hand on your wrist lets go before his fingers glide across your palm to interlock your hands, holding it against the mattress as if to say, I’m here, I’ve got you. You squeeze his hand in a silent reply to remind him that you’re here and not going anywhere.

Bucky adjusts himself as his thrusts turn erratic and sloppy as his pace quickens, slamming deeper into you. He wants to see you completely fall apart under him. You moan loudly at the new angle he’s providing you. He begins to hit that sweet spot deep inside you over and over. The tension rises sharply and quickly, like you might explode at any minute.

”Yes, Bucky. Just like that. So fucking good.” The words spew from your lips like an erupting volcano, and you can’t help the sounds you’re making, loud moans and strained whimpers.

”You sound so pretty, babydoll. Don’t hold back. Let me hear you.” He reaches between your bodies with his metal hand to rub your aching, sensitive clit with his thumb.

You arch your back into him and your hand finds purchase on the carved lines of his back, nails digging into the flesh, leaving behind little crescent moon shapes. The flood of sensations washing over you causes you to clench hard around him as you cry out in pleasure.

”Bucky, I-I’m…” You cut yourself off with a groan as he hits your cervix again.

”I know, sweetheart. I can feel you squeezin’ me.” He rubs your clit faster, applying more pressure, his thumb moving in tight circles. “Let go, doll. Come for me. I want to feel you come on my cock.”

That’s all the motivation you need as you scream his name while your pussy flutters around him. Your body is trembling as you orgasm for the second time tonight. Your vision blurs, and you’re seeing stars. The feeling is euphoric. It’s as if you’re on cloud nine, floating on ecstasy. It’s a struggle to keep your eyes open, but you need to watch him come undone.

He lets out a strangled moan as he feels you come. It’s the best feeling in the world, and he knows he could easily get addicted to it. He eases off your clit and returns his hold on your hip, firm as if he’s afraid to let go.

Bucky thrusts in once, twice, three times before spilling deep inside you. Hot ropes of cum filling you and coating your walls as he grunts your name, throwing his head back in pure bliss. He clutches your intertwined hands like a lifeline.

You watch in awe as he releases into you. Your mind is still in the clouds as you cup his jaw and force his head down. He opens his eyes, adoration swimming in his soft blues. He presses his forehead to yours as he works you both through your climax, pushing his cum deeper into you.

He ceases his movement, but stays buried to the hilt deep inside you. He wants to keep that connection for a bit longer. You can feel cum leaking out of you as your body goes limp. Bucky rests his weight on top of you, and you welcome it.

He nuzzles his face into your neck as you both come down from your highs, chests rising and falling rapidly. Your hand moves into his hair as you lightly scratch his scalp with your nails. Bucky groans in appreciation, and his lips brush against your neck with lazy kisses.

“Damn,” you breathe into the air. “Is it going to be like that every time?”

He chuckles into the side of your neck, vibrating your body. Bucky inclines his head back, letting go of your hand to lean on his forearm over you. His face has a soft expression, a mix of arrogance and amusement.

“I’m pretty sure it only gets better, doll. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He pinches your side, and you huff air out of your nose in laughter.

“Oh, really? You’re quite cocky, aren’t you?”

“I’m only confident in my ability to please you.” He shoots you a look like he knows how good he made you feel.

Bucky pulls out of you, causing you to softly gasp from how sensitive you are. He rolls over into the spot beside you and takes you with him, cradling you into his warm chest. He places a lingering kiss on your forehead and then tucks your head under his chin. It’s as if you belong there.

You practically melt into him, wrapping your arms around his waist and burrowing the side of your face into his chest. Bucky hums and starts playing with your hair while his metal fingers draw meaningless patterns into your back.

”I’ll clean us up in a bit. Maybe run a bath,” he thinks out loud, making a soft smile grow on your lips. “But right now, I just want to hold my pretty girl.”

You let your eyes flutter closed, reveling in the moment and his soothing actions on your back and hair. “You won’t hear any complaints from me, handsome.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

You’re in the kitchen, three different pans heating on the stove. This could potentially be a fire hazard, but it isn’t much of a concern for you. You’re cooking pancakes, eggs, and sausage as you hum to one of the songs blasting from your phone.

Your hips sway to the music, gently, because it seems every time you move, pain surges between your thighs. You don’t mind, though. It’s a reminder of Bucky and the long night you spent together. But, fuck, you’re sore.

You didn’t realize how much stamina a super soldier has, but now you are acutely aware. You thought it would be a nice, relaxing bath after your first round, but someone got a little too handsy. And as you were drying, the towel wrapped snugly around you, Bucky tore it off and had his way with you again. Hence, why you’re hurting this morning, this kind of pain is something you can and will get used to, though.

You decided to make breakfast for him as soon as the sun woke you up, and you couldn’t stop admiring his sweet, sleepy expression. Half the reason is to thank him for rocking your world last night, and the other half is for much-needed sustenance.

You use your spatula to push at the edges of your fluffy pancake to flip it eventually. As you're flipping it, warm hands envelope your waist. You jump slightly, the sudden contact startling you. Bucky rests his chin on your shoulder and whispers in your ear.

”Sorry, doll. Didn’t mean to scare you.“ His voice is still thick with sleep; he must have just woken up.

You grin as you continue with your task. “You’re fine, I just didn’t hear you come in.”

”You left me.” Bucky murmurs against your skin as he kisses a trail down your neck to your shoulder.

”I was making you breakfast in bed, but now that you’re not in bed, it’s just breakfast.” You tease him as you check on your eggs.

He hums, clearly amused by your teasing. “Mmm…I missed you.” Bucky squeezes your torso, and you giggle. “I thought it was all a dream when I didn’t see you next to me.”

”No, not a dream. Very real. The throbbing between my legs is proof of that.”

Bucky snorts as his hands glide down your figure. “I would apologize, but I’m not that sorry. You know I can’t get enough of you.”

He dips his fingers under the hem of your oversized shirt and starts to massage your thighs as he mumbles in your ear. “I can’t keep my hands off of you.”

“Bucky,” You softly moan, enjoying the sensations he’s giving you. “You’re distracting me.” Your spatula drops to the counter as you reach up to rest a hand on his cheek, keeping him close to your ear.

He lightly laughs in your ear as he pulls you by your hips, your ass flush against his growing erection. His fingers dig into your flesh, gripping and rubbing at your thighs.

”A good distraction?” Bucky nibbles on your ear.

You bite your lip to suppress another moan. You take a firm hold of his jaw and turn your head, angling your lips inches from his.

”You know it.” You mutter against his mouth before pressing your lips to his.

It’s soft and tender, lips moving unhurriedly like you're learning from every brush of each other's mouth. His teeth graze your bottom lip, and he gently bites it, tugging on it before letting go.

Bucky dives back in, kissing you deeply as his tongue pushes its way past the seam of your lips. As he slides his tongue against yours, his fingertips trace your inner thighs. Your skin dots with goosebumps from his touch. You start grinding your ass on him until-

“Ah! What the fuck?” A voice cuts through the air, and you instantly break away from Bucky’s mouth to see the source of the words.

Yelena is shielding her eyes with a repulsed expression on her face. Bucky moves away from you, adjusting himself in his sweatpants. You straighten out your oversized shirt, bunched around your torso, even though you’re wearing shorts underneath.

“Is your dick out or can I open my eyes now?” Yelena can barely get out the words because she’s gagging.

Bucky groans, rubbing at his forehead, so you answer for him. ”Holy shit, Yelena. No! We’re not animals.” You glance over to Bucky, and he shrugs with a mischievous grin as if to say, Well…

You shake your head at him. “Not helping.” You whisper.

You turn back to Yelena, and her eyes are still squeezed shut. “You can open your eyes now.”

She hesitantly peels her eyes open, peeking behind her hand. Once she knows you’re both decent, she drops her hand to her side.

”Now, I have to wash my eyes with bleach to get that image out of my head.” Yelena grumbles, advancing further into the kitchen to the coffee pot.

”We were just kissing.” You insist, though you’re blushing.

”It looked like a lot more than kissing to me.” Yelena mutters as she begins to pour herself a cup.

Bucky steps around you, a hand on the small of your back as he kisses your cheek. “Sorry, that was my fault.” He murmurs. “Guess I should have stayed in bed. I’ll see you there?” He offers you an apologetic look.

You give him a soft smile. “Yeah, I’ll bring you breakfast in bed like I originally planned.”

He nods, giving you one last kiss on the cheek like he can’t resist you. “Alright, babydoll.” The nickname melts you, and you’re beaming at him before you know it.

Bucky begins to wander out of the kitchen, but pauses to glance over his shoulder. “Smells delicious, by the way. I meant to say that, but got a little…distracted.” You giggle, and he veers right and out of the room.

You return to your cooking and notice the pancake is slightly burnt. You scoop it onto a plate with an easy grin, like it doesn’t matter to you, because Bucky’s lips were on yours as it burned.

“Cute.” Yelena's voice breaks you from your trance, and when you glance at her, she’s slanted against the counter, sipping her coffee as she stares at you.

“Sickeningly cute, but I suppose cute nonetheless.” She mutters into the mouth of her mug.

You snort as you begin to assemble the breakfast on your dishes. As you're plating the food, you catch Yelena from the corner of your eye. She’s still studying you, and it’s starting to make you uncomfortable. You turn your body towards her.

”What is it?” You cross your arms over your chest, waiting for her to spit it out.

”Although I never want to see that again,” she gestures to the air around you, referring to the make-out session she just witnessed. “I’m happy for you two.”

Her words cause you to stagger briefly. That’s not what you thought she would say, but you are pleasantly surprised. “Thanks, Yelena.”

Your own pep talk was still fresh in your mind. Act like you deserve to be there. Smile like everything is just fine. It's a good opportunity for the Avengers to find allies. Have a drink, look relaxed. Pretending is the one thing you’re good at. And it’s just for a couple of hours. 

A couple of hours trying not to notice the way Bucky’s suit clung to his thick frame and how good his long hair looked when stylists got their hands on it.

The room was suffocating, all the voices merging into one unbearable pitch and yet everything fell silent within a second when those tired, tormented blue eyes focused on you with an unwavering resolve.

Bucky's very presence, his tall, bulky silhouette in your peripheral vision was enough to ignite the flutter of your heartbeat. These were not butterflies fluttering in your stomach, but hornets. You felt the heaviness of that gaze like it was something tangible. Lifting your head feigning nonchalance, you met Bucky’s eyes, every thought in your mind screaming at the sight of the person who was the object of all your desires. The reason for the gaping heartache in your chest that sank deeper and deeper the longer you lived in a reality where he's not yours. 

I have no right having these thoughts. He is not mine.

But gods, do I wish he was.

At first it was an inconvenience, a ruckus in your chest you thought would be gone soon. You thought it was understandable, given just how handsome and captivating Bucky was.

Then it turned into yearning you tried to fight off, until it grew into something more. Something uncontrollable. Affection. Fondness. Devotion. And now you had to live with it festering inside, unable to fulfill the one thing these feelings wanted to do - to be fully given to the one you desperately desired.

While you were lost in your thoughts, Bucky’s gaze trailed a path up and down your whole figure mapping your dips and curves, like he couldn’t help himself. Every inch touched by his gaze was scorching your skin. A hot flush rushed to your cheeks. Ground swept beneath your feet, movements slowed down to a still and any semblance of time escaped your grasp. Your breaths were laboured, as if you were unable to draw a proper breath. Hands shaking. Knees weak, and ready to fall before him in worship. 

He unknowingly turned your world off its axis the moment he entered your life. The more time you spent around him, the more your thoughts weaved a network of their own you couldn’t control - your heartbeat in the rhythm of his breaths, your thoughts eloping to wherever he was, your dreams a collection of never ending reveries that were only ever about him. Things you shouldn’t think about, things that were not yours to daydream about.

This one-sided affection you felt for Bucky has very quickly turned into a damnation. The love that was growing for him has filled your lungs, creating a garden of delicate flowers; and while the love was diligently nurturing it, too much of a thing eventually becomes poison.

Where flower petals once stood are now sharp, rigid thorns and wilted leaves. How can he be your everything, if he was never yours? How can you be homesick for his embrace, if you were never his? 

You had once believed such lovely things were no longer for someone like you, a broken soul, hidden in the shadows in the deepest corners of the world. Hiding in plain sight was second nature to you, shadows clinging to you in the cover of darkness. Everyone who has ever truly known you has long since died, your liveliness and warmth buried deep with them like long forgotten artifacts erased from history. But that part of you still lingered because soft souls can never truly turn rigid. They can only scar and hide away, unable to resurface through the sharp edges of you.

You’ve locked yourself away, revealing only the parts that were necessary. That’s what agents did, right? You've trained your body into a lethal weapon to help, keep safe and protect. To fight and get your hands opened raw and bloody to escape from yourself. The only way to stop an emotional wound from hurting is to mask its pain by inflicting a physical one. 

In the aftermath of protecting others, you have forgotten to protect yourself. And the most obscure little thing you forgot about caught you off guard, threatening to be your undoing. It slipped your notice that a harmless thing such as love could actually be the most dangerous thing of all.

Your longing for warmth and affection has corroded your heart and thoughts, strengthening your belief that you were not meant to have that in this world after it slipped through your fingers. You’ve lost the ones that meant everything to you, and you vowed that no one will ever become that important again.

Until he reignited you from within. Bucky Barnes. Love was a divine intervention, one which you finally understood only when a pair of ocean eyes met yours at a briefing in a crowded room and stopped time from flowing its course. 

Divine intervention? More like exasperating meddling I never asked for.

These social events have always filled you with dread, especially when he attended them as well. You knew what was going to happen. What always happens.

There was always a woman too tipsy, too flirty, too eager to get her hands on him. Her eyes usually betrayed a lust to conquer, and not to love. It was a mere conquest to these women, something to brag about later. James Buchanan Barnes, an achievement on someone's list, used for the convenience of others.

In his self-destruction he let them, and this evening was no different. You met Bucky’s eyes one more time as he finally lifted his gaze to yours after he took his time tracing the curve of your neck. Burning several degrees higher, your face suddenly displayed an emotion that stunningly looked like yearning to Bucky.

Something deep settled in his eyes, his face betraying an inner conflict. A lovely woman that had been eyeing him the whole night approached him and got on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, grabbing on to his arm as he was already hers, the manicured nails almost like claws trying to hold him firmly in his place. And what hurt even more was that he did nothing to push her away. Bucky's gaze was however still fixed on you, as if you were the one thing that could make him decide differently.

There was a second of softness as he was analysing your face, so brief anyone else would've missed it. But you caught it. In a breathless moment and eyes clouded with sorrow, you muttered a soft, pleading “James…”. He flinched gently when he read his name on your lips and saw the expression on your face, the softness that graced his features for a second longer ebbing away for a different kind of emotion.

Brows furrowed, eyes darkening and falling into a resolve. He let the woman pull him away, happy to have gotten what she wanted. Your glossy eyes met his broad back, shoulders slumped, moving away from you in more ways than just physical. In some twisted way, you couldn't look away. The thing that hurt you the most was the one you desperately wanted. 

You understood why he was acting this way, going from one woman to the next. He was alone and deprived of intimacy for decades, and he must've craved it so bad that he was finding it the only way he knew. The only way he thought he deserved. 

It weighed heavy on you that he didn’t recognise that you could offer him that, and so much more. Something genuine and real. You suspected that he was aware of your feelings that you wore on your sleeve around him. It was the only thing you couldn't suppress, and it scared you how hot the fire he set alight was burning within you.

He never even dared assume he was worthy of the feelings you felt for him, even though some slight show of reciprocation slipped through the cracks against his better judgment. Feather-like touches to your lower back when he wanted to pass by, positioning himself in front of you during dangerous missions, checking up on you when you were injured. One time when he was too tired and sleepy to care about self-control, he stroked your hair tenderly, tucking an unruly lock of hair behind your ear and caressing your cheek with the back of his hand. You were completely distracted the next few days that you had to sit out a mission for “not having a clear enough head”. 

He was self-destructive and broken, choosing fleeting encounters over something that could be real and solid. He didn't seem to think that he deserved a gentle, genuine connection, which was precisely the reason he's never entertained the thought of having you.

He didn't dare to even think about it. Bucky couldn't offer you himself in an honest, meaningful way, and you deserved more than a trivial one night stand void of emotion.

He never could see just how loving and gentle he was, but you could. You saw. His disdain and hatred for himself blinded him from noticing the genuine kind acts he did for others, in silence when no one noticed. In Bucky's mind, he considered that he was doing such things out of duty, out of this nonsensical conviction that he owes the whole world an exposed repentance for what he has done.

He was such a beautiful, sad thing. A soul woven of inconceivable and unimaginable experiences. An impossible being that somehow came into existence, created against his permission.

And yet, they called him a monster. A cold-blooded soldier.

Soldat. A demon. 

But you loved broken things. Lonely things. You never thought that broken people needed to be fixed, just loved until their broken pieces form a connection between themselves again. And that was what you wanted for James Barnes. He deserved a chance to feel whole again, to feel joy and warmth and love. He deserved that after all the horrors his life has dealt him with. Even if he thought he didn't.

There was no point in staying after he was out of your sight. You moved through the crowd unnoticed, grabbing an abandoned bottle of whiskey from the bar as you passed towards the exit. Heaviness settled upon your chest, hollow and tender, the kind that made a dull pain upon each breath. The ache in your chest was too unbearable to contain, and you couldn't fight it anymore. In some twisted way, you felt a palpable relief that you finally let yourself surrender to your grief. Sometimes it felt good to yield to self-destruction and relinquish all self-control to get the poison out of your system. At least for a little while. And if he can drown his demons, so could you.

The explosion detonated with an ear-splitting thunder, bathing the surroundings in blinding light and rattling your bones, making you lose your balance as you crashed down to your knees and palms, scraping them in the aftermath. Just another mission where the team had a perfectly prepped plan where nothing could go wrong and confidently walked into an ambush no one anticipated. I guess having an inside informant didn’t pan out this time.

This was not the first time this had happened. Nothing ever went according to plan no matter how much prep the team did beforehand. Once you’re out there, nothing can save your life but improvising and relying on your instincts. This time however, something was different. Something was off. An impending doom was approaching fast like a storm cloud, and you could feel it twisting in your gut, like your insides were drilled and your heart was dropping to your feet. 

You were outnumbered, overpowered, and amidst the uncontrollable chaos, you lost sight of Bucky. He was always on the front lines, putting himself in danger before anyone else as if he had no sense of self-preservation. And he didn't. But you still knew that despite all odds he always walked out alive. So why couldn’t you shake off this feeling of dread and agonizing worry? This shaken faith in him to protect himself this time?

You got back to your feet, dust setting down through the air. One foot in front of the other, walking turned into running, running turned into sprinting. Your breaths were shallow, the flying dust sticking to your airways and suffocating your lungs. Every muscle in your body was burning and shaking from exertion, but the adrenaline spike hid all that from your brain. You’ll feel it all later, when there’s time to fall apart.

You ran down a corridor of the damaged building, charred and unstable from the explosion, led lights blinking and throwing a sickly blue hue on the walls. You heard a commotion and a deep, merciless sound as if someone was growling through clenched teeth, making the goosebumps on your arms rise.

He sounded just like the Winter Soldier when he felt trapped. Like a cornered animal with no escape route.

Bursting into a laboratory in full sprint you stopped in your tracks analysing the scene before you, the look in your eyes that of someone who’s only ever gazed upon nightmares and had known no other emotion but that of terror. Your body became wired within a second, and the whole scene played out like someone who controls the threads of reality pulled a string that made everything move twice as slow.

A loud gunshot pierced the air, illuminating the barrel of the gun as the bullet flew in slow motion straight towards Bucky. He was being held by two other Hydra soldiers, muscles taut and shaking from exertion, struggling to release himself from their clutches and titanium restraints they managed to put on his vibranium arm. Despite gaining the upper hand as his vibranium arm violently pulled to shatter the restraints, he didn't have the time to move away from the fast approaching bullet and its trajectory that aimed straight at his heart. 

Your body did the only thing it has ever known - to protect him. To love him and care for him in any way available, which at this moment meant running in front of him without a second thought. Bucky had just gotten himself free, knocking the soldiers unconscious, sharply raising his head to look ahead startled by your sudden presence.

Not a half second later, the bullet pierced your shoulder, dangerously close to the middle of your chest. The sheer force of it pushed you into Bucky's chest as he stood there horrified, quickly catching you with both arms as your body fell. 

The scorching bullet pierced your flesh with a sickeningly dull sound and in a merciful moment of sanity you were allowed before the pain exploded, you gratefully uttered a silent prayer that the bullet didn't exit through your back as it would’ve shot Bucky who was standing flush behind you. 

He slid down and kneeled with you in his arms, crimson blood dripping down his fingers as he pressed down harshly on your wound to stop you from bleeding out.

“What the fuck have you done?!” Bucky's eyes were wild, succumbing to emotions you had never seen him show before. 

You tried to speak but your mouth filled with thick blood, a violent cough making it splatter out and trickle down your lips. 

“No, no, no, please…not you…“ he frantically said, voice breathless and breaking, raw with panic, “... anyone but you…”

The very warmth of your blood made him nauseous, the feeling of your life slipping through his fingers turned his own blood cold in his veins.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He made sure to lure the soldiers away from where you were. He made sure you were at a safe distance. It had always been you he tried to protect. So why the fuck did you do that? There was not a single timeline of this life where his life is more valuable than yours.

You heard Bucky yell orders in a tone that left no space for discussion. It was like hearing unintelligible words through thick water.

“...y/n has been shot…”

“...gunshot wound to the chest….bleeding out….” 

“...call the hovercraft and get the medics...” 

Blood was still gushing out, absorbed by the material of your black tactical suit, darkening it as it disappeared out of sight. The only giveaway of your wound was the deep crimson colour staining Bucky's hands. The pain was so excruciating that it almost rendered you numb. A clammy, cold sweat covered your skin that was losing its colour by the minute. 

Gods, you were cold. Your body felt so heavy that you thought you were sinking into the concrete itself. Perhaps if you closed your eyes, just for a minute. Your eyelids were heavy as iron, your strength dissipating. Just a quick rest… your heartbeat spiked in alert as two strong hands violently shook you out of your slumber, sharp pain in your chest increasing. 

“Stay awake,” Bucky rasped, voice now fully shaking. “Help is on the way. You're going to be okay, j-just… hang on tight. Please. Please.” This is the most scared he's been since falling out of that train all those years ago. Hell, he was terrified. His mind drew a blank. He felt useless, paralysed by the feeling of utter helplessness. 

He pressed your wound using more of his strength, making you groan and shiver at the increased pain. The tortured sound that left your lips made Bucky swear that he will do everything to never hear that sound coming from you again. 

“Shit….Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry y/n,” he stammered, speaking under his breath as he fumbled to find something to press your wound with that wasn't his bare hand. “I know it hurts but I have to, okay? I need to stop the bleeding.“

His eyes were filled with hot unshed tears. He ripped the sleeve off of his suit in one clean and violent yank, and bundled it up in his hands to put pressure on your shoulder. You used the last of your strength to raise your hand and place it gently on his cheek. Your voice was raspy and faint, but you could see that he was slowly descending into unavoidable panic. 

“It'll be alright…” you whispered. ”It's okay James, i-it's okay, you're okay….“

Your voice was weak, void of life and warmth. But you could see that he needed to hear it, to know that you're fighting to stay. 

To stay with him. 

“This is nothing, Bucky. W-we've had worse, remember? James. Breathe…”

You trailed off as your hand fell from his cheek, leaving a red trail in its wake on his cheek. 

The amount of effort it took you just to speak said otherwise. Bucky was bewildered and beside himself from shock and disbelief. Why were you the one comforting him? You were bleeding out in his arms and still trying to keep him from falling apart.

You were dancing on the edge of a double edged sword of life and death, and yet the only thing that mattered to you were his inner wounds and if he'll survive this. The state of his soul being a priority over your physical body and what you were going through was outside of his comprehension. He didn’t deserve this kindness. Bucky looked so upset, so hurt, deep helplessness and anger etched on his lovely features. 

Someone spoke in his ear piece and he sighed an angry exhale, shutting his eyes tightly for a brief moment to compose himself. He needed to be calm for you, at least a semblance of it. He had to get his shit together if he was going to pull you out here alive. 

“y/n, the craft is coming but I need to carry you out of the building.”

There was a pause, and you nodded weakly.

“You understand what that means? It’s going to hurt when I move you and you'll have to keep pressure on your wound until I get you out. I…. I have no other choice.”

A frail and shaky ‘I trust you….’ flowed over your lips stained with blood, a sight and sound so eerie to Bucky’s ears that he knew it would haunt him in his nightmares. 

“I have to get you out.” 

“I can do it, Bucky. I'm not made of glass,” you uttered with a shallow breath. Bucky begged to differ. For such a gentle person, he always found you to be unnecessarily stubborn. He doubted your kindness was what qualified you to become an agent. 

“That's a bold claim for someone who's struggling to speak and breathe properly, y/n.” He inhaled a deep breath. Exhaled with a conviction.

“Take this and press as hard as you can.” You took the dampened cloth with a shaky grasp and hissed when you made contact with your shoulder. An uncontrollable shudder ran down your body when you pressed it on the wound, and he went rigid with anger.

He was angry with you for protecting him. Angry at the soldier who fired that bullet. Angry with himself for not being fast enough. If only he’d gotten himself free ten seconds earlier, this waking nightmare wouldn't be happening. 

Bucky picked you up slowly, mustering every ounce of gentleness he had in him so the pain would be minimal to you. Everything was flowing in slow motion, each breath and movement slow as if it was suspended in water. Gazing at the deep blue his eyes wouldn't be the worst way to die. You wouldn't have it any other way - to be welcomed by swallowing darkness in the warm embrace of his comforting arms that held you so tightly as if he could somehow grasp and tether your very soul to his to stop it from leaving.

Slipping in and out of consciousness, you heard yelling and fast, heavy footsteps approaching. Somewhere in the distance a loud whirring of a jet roared, and there was a bright light behind Bucky, illuminating the both of you. To your hazy, barely conscious mind, he looked luminous against the dark surroundings, as if there was a helo around his stature. Now able to see his face, your heart squeezed itself painfully at the divine, picturesque being gazing at you with raw and unhidden affection.

Perhaps it was divine intervention after all.

You were finally being held in his arms. No need to be homesick anymore. You finally knew how it felt to have his hands on your skin, to be caressed as gently as one would touch rose petals that are about to fall off. 

Oh god. Your guardian angel was crying. Why does he look so heartbroken? It's almost as if he…

Despite all the chaos around you and in you, all you cared about in this moment was him. You let your eyes roam freely on his face, mapping his features and inking them beneath your eyelids so you can see him even with your eyes closed. He was breathtaking. His long, disheveled hair fell softly, his lips plush and kissable, his face flushed and full of life. The blue of his eyes has never looked so crystal clear before, raw with emotion that was fully set free after his walls crumbled. What a sacred sight to see before you die.

He gently laid you down onto the stretcher, cradling your face with utmost care and leaning in so only you could hear him.

“Why did you do this?” he whispered so quietly that you almost missed it. 

“Why are you so afraid of losing me?” you countered softly.

Bucky remained silent, but his ocean eyes never left yours.

You were on the verge of falling unconscious, but you fought it for just a few more moments. If he could hear your inner thoughts, he’d hear a chanting echo of I love him, I love him, I love him. You pulled him gently towards you, your lips brushing his cheek as you spoke the words that would change everything. “That's what people do when they're in love, Bucky…”

The last thing you felt were his searing teardrops trailing down your cheek, and the velvet touch of the softest lips on your forehead.

The first thing you were aware of was your sense of touch. The bed you were in was pleasantly cool and comfortable. You were covered by something thin and soft, feeling like silk on your skin. You hadn’t settled into your body yet. The medication they gave you was still in your system, making it hard to come to your senses.

You tried stretching to alleviate the soreness of your worn out muscles but the stiffness and pain in your shoulder woke you up some more, as it was tightly bound and pulsating with a dull ache. Memories of what happened came to you in gentle waves, each sharper in detail than the one before. 

Blood. Chaos. Blue eyes, unshed tears. Bucky carrying you in his arms. 

You felt your hand being held in a tight grip. Warm, you thought. Safe. 

Opening your eyes, you blinked a couple of times to chase away the lingering sleepiness, and realized you were in your room that was reorganized to fit all the medical tech needed to monitor your vitals. Waking up in a familiar environment in the only place you gave yourself permission to be who you really were was comforting, putting you at ease. You glanced sideways and saw Bucky fast asleep slouched on your bed, his hand enveloping yours. A lifeline you can follow to find your way back to him. 

His skin was slightly pale and purple bruises bloomed under his eyes, his hair disheveled as if he kept running his fingers through it. A lock of hair fell across his face, moving in the rhythm of his breaths. He looked like someone who hasn’t slept for days, and was only knocked out now because his body made that decision for him.

Despite the exhaustion that was obvious, Bucky looked peaceful in his slumber. His features were relaxed, and it made him look endearing with his face smushed and his pink lips slightly open. However, the position he was sleeping in looked very much uncomfortable, and you knew he was going to be hurting all over until he’s had a full night of sleep in a proper bed.

A feeling started settling down in your chest, and you quickly recognized it. Guilt.

He was in this state because of you and your recklessness. It must’ve been quite a scare if someone so stoic succumbed to his emotions in full. The bedside table was a mix of medication, half eaten snacks and empty coffee cups. Bucky’s tactical suit and equipment were draped on a chair in the corner of the room, and he was now sporting comfy sweats and one of his henleys. 

He didn’t notice you were awake yet, and you remained unmoving and silent to steal this moment and look at him. He was lovely when he was disarmed and resting. He looked younger, sweeter. You gently moved the hair that fell over his eyes, and you continued to caress his hair, running your fingers through his hair ever so gently. It felt good to finally do that, like when you give into your desires after fighting them for too long. More than yearning to be loved by him, you wanted to love him.

He felt the light brush of your fingers on him and opened his eyes, fixated on you in an instant.

A pause. Another second. Bucky drew a breath and his eyes widened as his whole body became alert.

“Oh my god. You’re awake-”

He jumped on his feet straight towards you, his body on autopilot. All he could think about was being near you. Touching you. Feeling the warmth of your body. Seeing your chest rise and fall with each breath. Noting down and memorizing each little indication that you are alive.

He stopped himself abruptly, once he was in his right mind to remember that you had a gaping hole in your shoulder two days ago and pulling you into a crushing hug wouldn’t be the best idea.

“Go on then. Or are you just going to leave me hanging without a hug?” Seeing the amused look on your face made him relax, his features softening. 

“Yes y/n, I bet a crushing hug from a super soldier with a metal arm is just what you need to heal.”

You huffed, discontent and determined.  “If you don’t hug me this instant, I swear to god I’ll-”

Bucky started moving before you even got the chance to finish your sentence, and gently sat down next to you and helped you sit up with the utmost care. His hands were warm and steady, and your heartbeat picked up a little bit just by having his hands on you.

“I promise to give you the most suffocating hug when you’re healed. Deal? If your wound opens again, the medics will kick my ass.” Something was off with him despite the light tone he tried to keep in his voice. There was an edge. A heaviness he tried to mask.

You furrowed your brow at what he said. “....opens again?” 

Bucky looked reluctant to answer, as if reliving it again was something that he was not ready for. He debated what to say and how to say it until you intertwined his fingers with yours and interrupted his train of thoughts with a calm tone. “Tell me what happened after you brought me to the craft.”

“I…” his voice wavered only slightly, but you still caught it. You remained silent, watching him. He doesn’t need coaxing, he just needs time to recollect his thoughts. He deserves  patience to answer when he’s ready, not when he’s ordered.

“The medics were all over you when you lost consciousness. Your condition worsened within a minute.” His gaze was distant and pensive. Almost like he was trying to detach himself from the scenes that were plaguing his mind.

“You lost a lot of blood. Your blood pressure was dropping and they had to remove the bullet. Your…” he swallowed heavily, his words caught in his throat. “Your heart stopped. Twice.”

You were lost for words. If the roles were reversed, you had no idea how you’d even keep your composure without completely falling apart. “Bucky…” 

You stroked his arm up and down in a gentle caress, hoping the contact would comfort him. He continued in a strained voice. “They resuscitated you, reopening your wound a couple of times right after they finally managed to stop the bleeding. You were finally stable when we brought you to the compound and had access to full medical tech.”

“Did you sleep here the whole time?” you asked softly.

“I didn’t, but I was with you here the entire time. You needed a blood donation, and a lot of it.” He lifted his arm, a gauze fastened around his elbow. “We’re a match. The serum only affects my cells and not my blood so it's safe for you to receive it. I decided to stick around in case you needed blood again. Not that I wouldn’t have been here either way. Couldn’t do shit until you’re awake and safe.”

He turned to look at you and was startled to notice the stricken look in your eyes, your lower lip trembling with emotion and your eyes filled with hot unshed tears, until one escaped and rolled gently down your cheek. “I’m sorry you had to witness that, Bucky. I’m so sorry you had to do all that. Thank you. Thank you for saving my-”

The interruption was swift, his jaw clenched as he spoke in a low, tight voice, his tone pure ice. “I will not hear those words from you, do you understand? You will never say that to me. You saved my life.” A silent pause. “And what you did will never happen again.” 

“If you took that bullet, that soldier would’ve just shot me next and then we’d both be dead.”

“Don’t you dare be logical right now. I’m still fucking angry with you.”

“Bucky, it was a calculated action with prior forethought! I knew you’d get us out of there and we’d both have a chance at surviving.”

He shot you a look that clearly said that’s bullshit. “You jumped in front of death with absolutely no thoughts in your head.”

You sighed, realizing quickly that there’s no point in arguing with Bucky. “Yeah… true. I did. And I’d do it again if it meant saving you.” Bucky said nothing, but the fury brewing in him was evident from a mile away. Something told you he won't be dropping this easily. 

His voice broke through the silence. “Did you mean it?”

“That I’d save you again? Yeah-”

“No,” he interrupted. “That you did this…out of love.”

A nervous shiver ran down your spine as you heard those words. You knew this conversation was going to happen sooner than later but that didn’t mean you were prepared for it. 

But what bemused the most was that Bucky Barnes, the formidable six feet tall Winter Soldier, was nervously scratching the nape of his neck, looking embarrassed and a little flushed. He’s never looked more endearing than he did right now, disarmed and open. He’s finally opening up to you. He’s finally asking. He’s being vulnerable and you wanted to scream it into the universe until you lost your voice. Instead, you uttered his name softly.

“James?”

“Yes?”

“I’m in love with you.” 

His head shot up so quickly that anyone else would’ve gotten a whiplash and a sprained neck. A bewildered look in his eyes. Relieved. Stunned. Hopeful, you thought with surprise.

“I have been for the longest time. Even when you were breaking my heart.” He looked at you in question, frowning at what you said.

“You let others warm your bed for a few hours just to feel something, instead of finding a steady source of that warmth with me.”

“That's not- I didn’t-,” he stuttered, not finding the right words. 

You looked at him with gentleness, keeping his eyes glued to yours. “I know why you did it. I know you better than you might think. I see you, Bucky. All of you. The person you were before the Winter Soldier is still within you, it's the one thing they couldn't rip away. But you don't need to be the “old” you in order to be loved. No one ever stays the same, we all age and change, but our nature stays.”

He listened to your words, holding on them like they were a tether keeping him firmly grounded. Like he waited for the longest time to hear these words.

“And your nature, my beloved,” you whispered, “is as kind and as good as one can be. You not accepting that doesn't make it untrue.”

“Y/n….”

“You just need someone to make you see it.”

“Can you?”

“...can I what?”

“Make me see it.”

“James Barnes, I have been doing that this whole entire time. Whether you'll let me or not is up to you. I cannot be the one to fix you. You need to heal yourself on your own, but with me at your side.”

Bucky exhaled, and went still. In one swift movement, he brought his face impossibly close to yours. His breath was your breath. Your mind short-circuited, pausing all coherent thoughts. “This is your chance to say no.”

There was only silence coming from you as you slid your hand up his shoulder, resting it on his nape. All it took for Bucky to lose control was a gentle pull on his hair. He closed the distance capturing your lips with his, and nothing else in this world mattered anymore as your body was set ablaze.

His lips were softer than velvet and incredibly warm, moulding into yours in a kiss that you knew will consume your every waking thought. Bucky held your face in his hands as if holding something precious, kissing you senseless until your lungs were burning making you break the kiss reluctantly so both of you can get air. Not even the most rigorous training had you this breathless. Your lips still felt the pressure of his, already missing the contact. 

Nothing mattered but the two heartbeats harmonizing, right here in this room. Bucky licked your lower lip playfully, then placed a chaste kiss on your lips. Then he kissed your lips again. And again. 

“I love you,” he whispered right before he dived again, breathing those words into you as if sealing a contract that cannot be undone.

He placed a feather-like kiss on your left eye, then on your right eye. Next was a quick peck on your nose. Then he kissed your bruised, rosy lips one more time, reluctantly breaking it in a way that promised much more. A tender kiss found its way on your neck, making you shiver with anticipation, the softest moan leaving your lips and a wonderful, achingly warm feeling pooled in your lower tummy. The look he gave you looked a lot like “I feel it too” and “I'll make you see stars later”.

He then lifted your hand up and kissed the inside of your wrist with tenderness that brought another flush to your face. He left his lips linger on your skin for a moment, after which he leaned down until his forehead gently fell on yours, savouring the proximity. “I love to feel your heartbeat on my lips. Something to remind me that you’re alive when I’m not next to you.”

This was it, you thought. Whether I jump in front of a bullet or not he’ll be the death of me.

“y/n…I know I've hurt you. Tell me how to make this right. I'll spend a lifetime retracing my steps to make the right choices if I have to.” 

“Oh, you'd do that for me? Go back in time to make things right? Stealing the time stone might prove to be the one thing that's above even your capabilities.”

Bucky scoffed playfully, nudging you gently. “You know what I meant.”  

A pensive pause. 

“But I'll steal the stone if you ask me to.” He mumbled in his beard, grumpy and moping, “can't believe you said that…. above my skills… as if… ”

“There, there, superhero”, you said in a teasing tone, tapping his shoulder. “I know you're annoyingly capable. Terrifyingly so, really. It’s kinda unfair.”

You basked in this moment where you got to see him this playful. You wanted more of it. More of him. 

Your voice softened, enveloped in a more serious tone. “There’s nothing to make right, James. I just need you to be you. I need you to be with me. And - I need you to hold me whenever I ask. No exceptions.” Bucky placed his palms on your soft hips and squeezed in response.

You closed your eyes and sighed with palpable relief. “You feel like home.”

“So it could literally be anyone. There were hundreds of people at the party last night,” you sigh, folding the letter back into the envelope, carefully placing the lavender back in. 

“Well I mean not anyone if it was left under your door this morning.” Nat looks around the room, eyeing out the potential prospects. 

“What’re you looking at Barnes?” She spits out, chin jutting in his direction.

Bucky had been glancing over at the two of you, trying and failing to be discreet — barely listening to Steve sitting across from him. He squints at Nat, staring her down with the kind of intensity that would make anyone else wish the ground would swallow them. You give him a small smile and his face softens.

He’d always been softer with you than anyone else. When Steve had first brought him to the tower, you’d been first to greet him with a smile on your face — gentle, inviting. Where others had been wary, you’d been curious. Where they had been avoidant, you’d been caring — buying him his favorite tea, checking in on him, dropping off books you had read that you thought he might like. You had slowly become his confidant, his safe space and he yours. 

“Nothing,” he grumbles, walking out of the room without another word, his heart pounding out of his chest, face hot and throat tight like he hadn’t drank water for days. 

Fuck fuck fuck why did I leave the letter? 

Bucky paces back and forth in his room, chewing his lip and raking his hands through his already messy hair. 

But she looked so happy. 

Bucky smiles to himself as he remembers your little jump, your bare feet hitting the floor, hair messy like you had just woken up. He remembers the way you hadn’t stopped smiling all morning, your voice high and excited as you showed Natasha the letter.

She doesn’t even know it’s from you, idiot.

He lets out a loud groan as he falls back onto his bed, landing with a soft thump, hands running down his face in frustration. He contemplates his desk — the envelopes laid out next to the scrunched pieces of paper (the letters he’d started and thrown to the side, exasperated), the sprigs of lavender that had fallen on the floor, his pens sprawled out, and sits down to write out another letter. 

He ponders what to write, determined to sign his name this time. He decides to keep it simple, adding a poem he had read that reminded him of you. 

Just write it. Just write your name. Just sign it. Bucky Barnes. Or just Bucky. Write it. 

He doesn’t. 

He folds the letter up, puts it into an envelope, adds another piece of lavender (you had seemed to like that — he had noticed you taking it back out of the envelope, pressing it to your nose with a smile). He waits until he knows you’ve gone to sleep, and slides it under your door. 

“What’s that smile you’ve got on?” Nat eyes you out as you walk into the kitchen — the way you’re rocking back and forth on your heels, cheesy grin on your face, hands clasped behind your back. 

“I got another letter,” you giggle, pulling it out from behind you. 

You’d always wanted a secret admirer. A valentine. Always were a hopeless romantic in a way you hardly let show. Previous partners had never really indulged that side of you — always treating it like a burden that you wanted flowers and spontaneous gestures and planned out dates — so you had slowly let it go, convincing yourself it was too much. 

“Ooh show me.” Nat reaches for the envelope. 

“It’s just soooo,” you let out a squeal, before quickly covering your mouth, regaining your composure.

“It’s so sweet, the little poem he added. I love it. I wonder who it could be from.” 

“Who even writes letters anymore?” Nat lets out a small scoff, before muttering a ‘sorry’ and handing the letter back when she notices your face fall.

Bucky’s sitting at the counter, eating breakfast when he chokes on his cereal and the two of you look over at him, questioning. Sam gets up and slaps him on the back — much harder than necessary, laughing as Bucky glares at him.

He’d been quietly eavesdropping, smiling into his bowl at your little squeal, his heart picking up when you’d said you love it. 

You go about the next week as usual — attending meetings, training in the gym, working on your latest project and coming back from a successful mission — trying hard to not think about your secret admirer. You had received a new letter each day. 

They were all simple messages. Sometimes they included a small gift — a small chocolate, a bookmark, more flowers. You had been giddy all week, however the excitement had started to die down once you realized they may never sign their name. 

It’s Friday and you’re exhausted from the long week, showering the day off and settling into a soft pink t-shirt and matching shorts, tying your hair loosely behind you before making your way into the living room. Bucky and Steve are sitting on the couch next to the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching a movie, a bowl of popcorn settled between them. Bucky’s sprawled out in his black sweatpants and grey henley, smiling up at you when you enter the room. He shifts without realizing, making space for you — the way he always does. 

Bucky can’t help the way his heart stutters when you curl up next to him, legs tucked under you, fuzzy socks resting against your bare thighs. Your knee presses against his — your body naturally gravitating towards his. The smell of your shampoo wraps around Bucky like a warm blanket — coconut and mango and something so you — he wants to drown in it. Wrap his arms around you and pull you into him. But he doesn’t. His fingers twitch at his sides instead.

He reaches for the popcorn, hand brushing yours when you reach at the same time. He’s focusing harder on trying to not look over at you than what’s playing on the screen. You lean your head on his shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world — because it is. Bucky feels something melt inside him when your hair brushes his neck and it takes everything in him to not reach over and brush aside the piece that had fallen into your eyes. 

You sigh softly, eyes drooping as the tiredness of your day washes over you. You settle into Bucky’s side further, trying to not make it too obvious that you’re melting into him like that’s where you belong. The smell of his soap mixed with that warm smell that was so Bucky makes your head spin and your eyes flutter shut. 

You don’t remember going to your bed before falling asleep. Don’t remember the way Bucky had carried you while you grumbled nonsense against his neck. The way he had placed you down gently, hovering over you like he wanted to kiss your forehead, but had decided against it in case you woke. Bucky looked at the letters placed out on your desk — open like you had been reading them over and over — and makes his mind up to tell you they’re from him. 

Tomorrow. When you wake up. 

Bucky gets dressed the next morning — a pair of sweatpants and a worn t-shirt he uses for the gym — brushing his teeth and fussing with his hair like it might change. He trims his beard slightly, never shaving it after he’d overheard you one day saying you like a man with a beard. Gives himself a pep talk in the mirror, taking a deep breath before shaking his head at himself. He paces back and forth a few times before mustering up the courage to walk down the hallway to your room. 

Before he reaches your door, he notices it slightly open, your voice travelling under the door. He’s about to take another step when he hears Nat.

“So who do we think the secret admirer is?” 

“I don’t knowww.” You pause, thinking to yourself before continuing, “maybe it’s Nate from research? He’s kinda cute and he seems like the romantic type, he asked me on a date last week.”

Bucky feels jealousy rise hot and fast in his chest, hands clenching at his sides. Fucking Nate. 

“Did you say yes?” 

“I said I’d let him know.” 

“He didn’t mention the letters?” 

“No… but maybe he wanted to wait until I said yes?” 

You hear a crash from outside your door — Bucky having stumbled when Steve had turned the corner and bumped into him full force. 

You hear a muttering of ‘Sorry man, didn’t see you there’ and ‘S’fine’. 

“You lost, Barnes?” Nat questions with a smirk on her face, arms crossed over her chest as she pushes the door open to look at them. 

“No I was just—” Bucky trails off, walking away before he embarrases himself further. 

“Imagine it was Bucky.” Nat gasps, laughing. 

Bucky stops in his tracks, heart speeding up as he tunes in to your conversation. 

“What? No way.” You scoff, laughing louder at the suggestion. 

Bucky’s heart drops. He feels the hope die in his chest, his dreams crushed in a split second. He drags himself away from your door, trying to swallow the raw feeling in his throat, heartbeat ringing in his ears. 

He had mistaken your tone for indifference — your nervous laugh for humor.

Little did he know how hopeful you were — how your heart had skipped a beat at his name, flaring with hope at the thought of him sitting there carefully writing out letters, writing out your name. There was something so intimate about the thought of his hands carving your name out in ink, marking it like it was something important to him. 

You had silently hoped it was him, your heart fluttering at the possibility that he liked you back. It was stupid. If he did — he would’ve said something. Would’ve hinted at it, shown some sort of sign. But he hadn’t. At least, in your mind. 

So stupid Bucky, why would she want the letters to be from you? She probably thinks they’re from some great guy who’s right for her, someone who’s good. Not him. 

His head drops to his hands, heart aching with a loss he didn’t quite understand. You weren’t his. Never had been. He thinks back to all the times you’d made him breakfast, all the times you’d offered him books like they were small pieces of yourself. The way your body rested into his like he was safe. Like he was yours. You were probably just being nice to him. Probably took pity on the guy no-one else bothered much with. 

Yeah it had to be that. 

So Bucky stops. He stops sending letters. He stops trying to impress you, hoping you’d turn around and notice him. He stops following you around like a lost puppy. He stops leaning on you when he’s tired. Stops coming to you when he needs to vent. The loneliness of it hits him harder than he expected. It hits you too, but you’d never been one to push Bucky — always letting him come to you, never wanting to scare him off or make him uncomfortable. 

So you sit back quietly and watch as the man you care for so deeply pulls himself away. 

With no explanation. 

You had become accustomed to receiving the letters, disappointed when there isn’t one at your door. You treasure them — have a small stack of them carefully placed on your desk, your heart giving a giddy jump every time you see them. You admire the handwriting — something familiar about it in that way where you remember the tune to a song but not the lyrics — driving you crazy trying to figure it out. 

The scent of lavender and something warm and comforting you can’t quite place your finger on. The soft smudges of ink, like he had been worrying over what to write next. The careful way the seal was pressed down, the way there was always a little pressed flower with each. 

It had been weeks since the last letter. Weeks since your last movie night with Bucky. And the loneliness hits you hard. You scroll on your phone until there’s nothing left to look at, text friends that take hours to respond. Swipe through dating apps, answering messages like ‘wyd?’ and ‘u up?’ 

You miss the letters. 

But you miss Bucky more. 

“What’s going on with you Buck?” Steve sits across from Bucky in his room, watching as his best friend shrugs with a blank look on his face. 

Steve probes further; asks about you, why Bucky hasn’t been talking to you much, why he’s been avoiding you like no tomorrow. 

Bucky sighs, dragging his hand down his face. He’s tired. He feels it deep in his bones, the questions dragging through him like sandpaper. He winces at the sound of your name. 

He misses you.

More than he cares to admit. 

So he tells Steve about the letters, about how he’d overhead you with Nat, laughing at the thought of it being Bucky that had sent them. 

Steve shakes his head in disbelief. 

“God, you can be stupid sometimes Buck.” 

Bucky looks up so fast, frowning at Steve in a way that could only mean he had no idea what Steve was talking about. 

“She likes you. Anyone can see it. You know you’re the first person she asks about when we get back from a mission. The first person she runs to when she’s been hurt. She curls up to you like you’re the only thing that keeps her safe. I’ve seen it, Buck.” Steve places his hand on Bucky’s knee, punctuating his words.

Bucky feels like he could cry as he takes it all in. He’s looking at the floor, shaking his head in disbelief. 

Keeps her safe. 

He couldn’t imagine anyone thinking of him as their safe space. Not after everything he’s done. Everything he is. Was. 

He remembers the way you’ve come to him late at night when you’d had a nightmare, trusting him to be the one to bring you back to reality. The way you’d call him when you felt unsafe on a night out. The way you’d tuck your face into his chest when watching a scary movie. 

Bucky furrows his brow, head dipping to rest in his hands as he lets out a loud groan. 

“Buck, listen, her laughing and saying ‘no way’ was probably at herself because she wants it to have been you, but she doesn’t want to get her hopes up.” 

“You think?” 

“Yeah I do.” And who couldn’t believe Steve when he nods at you all solemn and smiles like he’s got all the answers. 

They talk for hours; Bucky finally starting to believe that maybe — just maybe — you feel the way he does. That you’d wanted the letters to be from him. That you wanted him to be yours. That the only reason you hadn’t said anything is because you wanted him to be ready. 

You’re dragging your feet down the hallway to your room. You were supposed to be on a mission — a quick in and out — when Tony had insisted you take the day off. You had protested loudly but he wasn’t having it, sending you to your room to rest after your eyes had slipped shut for the fourth time during the briefing. 

“Bucky?” 

He’s standing at your door, back turned when he whips around at the sound of your voice. 

“Doll— you’re— I um—” He scratches the back of his neck, eyes avoiding you like he might catch on fire if he looks at you. 

Your eyes land on his metal hand. 

Your heart stops. 

A letter. 

You feel as though you could fall over — a million emotions running through you at once. 

Bucky’s frozen. Feet stuck in place like they’ve been cemented to the floor. 

Say something. Anything. 

“I was just—” 

“Bucky, I swear to god if this is some kind of joke—” Your eyes tear up, blood rushing to your face fast. 

Bucky’s head whips up at that, moving over to you so quickly, it knocks the wind out of you. You inhale sharply as his eyes meet yours. So blue and beautiful. He’s so close.  

“It’s not a joke doll, I swear.” 

“So…so they were from you? And you weren’t joking?” Your breathing picks up, eyes boring into his, heart slamming against your ribs as his scent washes over you, his warmth. 

“I’m sorry. It was so stupid. I only meant to leave you one. But then I saw you grinning and showing off to Nat and you looked so happy…I just—” He trails off, flesh hand coming to meet yours, letting his finger hook into the bracelet on your wrist, as if to ground himself.

“I just— I just wanted to see you smile like that again. I wanted to be the reason you laughed. The reason you were so happy. I— I always…” his voice trails off, his head hanging like he’s ashamed. 

“Bucky…” Your voice is warm, torn around the edges, limbs heavy and chest burning bright. Your right hand comes to rest on the side of his face and Bucky melts into it, eyes fluttering shut. 

“Do you— do you want to read it?” He’s holding out the letter. You pull your hand away from him, stepping back slightly and Bucky involuntarily leans towards you. He wants to pull you back in by your waist — wants you to crowd his personal space like his and yours are one and the same. 

You bite your lip, holding back a smile as you nod slowly, already reaching for the letter. 

“Bucky I— I—” You let out a soft sniffle, wiping your nose with the back of your hand, hands shaking slightly as you grip the letter, creasing the edges. 

Bucky’s eyes search your face frantically. 

“Fuck sweetheart you’re crying. I knew I shouldn’t have—” 

He’s cut off by your hands on either side of his face, the letter scratching his skin slightly. 

“Bucky. I love it. I’ve loved every single letter.” 

You fold the letter into your pocket, hands coming to rest on his face again, thumb stroking his jaw lovingly as you gaze into his eyes. His flesh hand comes to rest over yours, breath catching in his throat at how close you are. You’re so beautiful like this. All soft and teary and looking at him like he’s the most precious thing in the world. 

Your arms wrap around his neck, hugging him close to you, hands tangling in the hair on the base of his neck as your lips come to rest at his ear. Bucky pulls you in closer, metal hand resting on the small of your back as his face molds to the shape of your neck. 

“I forgive you Bucky. Thank you, I mean it. For the letters, for the flowers, the poem, the bookmark; for apologizing, for telling me how you feel. All of it. It was…perfect.” 

You pull back to look at him, fingers still gently tracing the skin on the nape of his neck. 

“And— and I’m kind of crazy about you too. You’re my safe space. The only person I want. I was…” Your head drops shyly. 

“I was secretly hoping they were from you.” 

Steve was right. 

Bucky lets out a soft laugh, letting his forehead rest gently against yours. His fingers trace your waist softly, palms pressing into your sides.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” You can’t help the stupid smile on your face, grinning through tears as Bucky’s nose nudges yours in the softest, gentlest moment. 

“Can I— can I kiss you?” He says it so softly, he’s worried you don’t hear him. 

You nod.  

Bucky’s lips meet yours — soft and sweet and full of every single feeling he’s been holding back — pouring everything he has into the way his lips move with yours. You taste like strawberry gum and cherry chapstick. 

It’s intoxicating. 

Bucky wants more, more, more. He kisses you harder, hand gripping your jaw, guiding your mouth along his. Your knees almost give out when his tongue softly traces yours, pressing yourself into him until there’s not a single part of you that isn’t consumed by him. 

You pull back, lips swollen and breathless, forehead resting against his. You let out a soft laugh as Bucky’s lips chase yours, leaving soft pecks before he pulls back, grinning. 

Your eyes meet his — soft like he can't quite believe this is happening.

“Yes, I’ll go on a date with you Bucky.”

a/n: i might post a version where the letters are just text because they're a bit hard to read as pics.

taglist: @quantumbarnes @daydreamgoddess14 (if you'd like to be added, please leave a comment on this post)

~~~

you never foresaw yourself meeting the Winter Soldier. 

the man who ruined everything for you. 

you’ve spent years crawling out of the hole you were in, working to clear your name of all the horrid crimes you yourself had been forced to commit under orders. 

you clawed your way out of the hell you barely managed to survive for most of your life. 

and so while you fought and screamed and bled for this new life you’d found, nay, created for yourself, the Winter Soldier himself gets a free pass. he gets to be a part of this team without having to put in any of the same work you have, all because fucking Steve Rogers has a raging hard-on for the guy. 

you wonder what it’s like to have those kinds of connections. what it’s like to be given a free pass after all the horrendous murders you’ve committed, to be given a fresh start without having to actually fight for your redemption. 

you wish you had someone to fight for you the way he, the fucking Winter Soldier, did. 

you did, once upon a time. 

before the Winter Soldier took him away from you. 

~~~

you were an asshole to him from the start. 

he wishes he could say that he had no clue why. he wishes he could lie to himself, pretend like he didn’t understand why you actively avoided him, if only to make himself feel better. 

he knows. 

there’s only one reason anyone could truly hate him without even sparing him a second glance, without even shaking his hand when he offered it: he’d wronged you somehow during his capture. that much was obvious. 

all he wants to be able to do is to genuinely apologize, even if you may never accept his attempts at doing so. 

but how is he supposed to begin trying to make amends with you if he doesn’t even know who you are? if he doesn’t even know who it is that he took from you? 

he knows that whatever it is he’s done to you is irreversible, a permanent stain on his record and a lifelong trauma you’ll never escape. he knows that he doesn’t deserve the time of day to even speak to you. 

doesn’t he, though? doesn’t he deserve the chance to talk to you, learn your story, understand the truth of the pain he’s brought upon you so that he can truly and wholly apologize?

he just wants a chance. a chance to learn about you, a chance to try and make things right with you. 

because although he’ll never forgive himself for any of the suffering he’s caused, there’s something about you that draws him in. he doesn’t know you in more than name only, given your refusal to engage with him, which confuses him further. he doesn’t know a thing about you, has never even had a conversation with you. 

and yet, there’s a tug at his heart when he sees you, a feeling growing within his chest that he hasn’t felt in decades.

he has to know, needs to know you. he has to make things right with you.  

~~~

the pain in his heart from your avoidance of him turned to anger relatively quickly over the coming weeks. 

every time you saw him, your eyes would immediately narrow, a scowl crossing your face. you’d give him the same death glare every time and would proceed to take the nearest exit in order to evade him, even if you’d been right in the middle of doing something. 

you’d never even spoken a single word to him before, never let him get a word in before you bolted and left him in shambles. 

he wasn’t the only one who noticed it. it was clear to everyone that you had a personal vendetta against him, that you would rather slit your own wrists than be forced to spend even a single second within his vicinity. 

as the time passed and you continued to treat him like nothing more than the dirt on your shoe, he began to learn your story in bits and pieces from the others. a former Red Room assassin, your own mind had been twisted and contorted similar to the way his was; your entire physical and mental being had been turned into a tool for a higher power to use for their own selfish agenda. 

just like him. 

you’d been through something so similar to him, and yet you couldn’t find it in your heart to have some sense of sympathy? find it within yourself to let him tell you that he isn’t that man anymore, that he never wanted any of it? 

you knew what it was like. you’d been where he was, been forced into a corner against your will and told to perform a song and dance that did nothing but torture your already broken mind. 

so why can’t you fucking look at him for more than half of a second? 

~~~

“baby, I need you to go into the bathroom and shut the door. lock it behind you, okay? remember how I showed you to press the button to lock the door?” he speaks in a shaky voice. his eyes dart back and forth between you and the window where the blinds are drawn, all while his larger hands pancake both of yours within his own. 

“Daddy? what’s going on? why do I need to hide?” you ask him. you’re inquisitive, confused, and beginning to grow scared. “why aren’t you hiding with me?”

“it’s okay, baby. you’re a big girl now. it’s just like when we play hide and seek, right? you hide, and I come find you?” 

your face perks up at that, a large, toothy smile passing your face as he says it.

“oh! we’re playing hide and seek?” you ask him, beginning to bound up and down in your place, his hands still holding onto yours. 

you don’t recognize the way his face cracks, the way he forces himself to hide the utter heartbreak he’s experiencing as he tries to maintain his composure. 

“it’s kind of like that, yeah. don’t open the door for anyone but me, okay?” he tells you. 

“okay, Daddy!” 

he takes a deep breath, pulling his hands away from yours and taking your tiny face into a gentle hold. “I love you, baby.”

“I love you too, Daddy! I love playing hide and seek!”

just then, there’s a loud crashing noise from somewhere outside. 

“go, baby,” he tells you, planting a quick kiss on your forehead. “go hide.”

you don’t see the way he stands up and brushes down the front of his suit, sniffling just once in tandem with the singular tear that falls down the side of his cheek. he watches your little legs take you away, and he turns to face the door. 

I’m not going to the bathroom, Daddy will find me there too easily. I’ll go somewhere he’ll never look!

there’s another loud crash, this time the sound of the door caving in as a boot tears through it, destroying the wood as a figure enters the house. the figure who enters is quick, moving in stride without taking a moment to breathe before stalking towards his target, the politician. 

your father backs up as the man approaches, his boots padding silently against the floor as self-assuredness reeks off him as though this is nothing more than a game to him.

a game of breaking people, of tearing families apart. 

the hiding spot you’ve picked, far better than the bathroom in your humble opinion, gives you a clear view of the horror that takes place right in front of your eyes. 

you’re kneeling on the hard wood flooring, your shaky hands clinging to the fabric of the drapes as you try to hide behind the darkness of the curtains. your mind reels, hot tears sliding down your cheeks as you cower up against the wall in your makeshift hiding place. 

you have absolutely no clue what’s happening. just a moment ago, you were playing hide and seek; now there’s a strange man in your house, dressed from head to toe in all black. your father looks scared as he backs away from the man who continues to rapidly approach him. 

“Daddy?” you whisper through your tears, fingers clutching the drape closer to your figure. 

but he doesn’t hear you. neither does the strange figure. 

you’re nothing but a fly on the wall, watching as the man backs your father into a corner. his hands have shot up next to his ears as though in surrender, all while trying to reason with the man as he inches closer. 

“listen. I’ll give you whatever you want. you’re here for a reason, right? which means you know who I am. I can give you anything: money, power, fame, just name it. name it, and it’s yours.” 

the figure isn’t fazed by a word your father speaks, instead unholstering his pistol from where it rests at his hip. he extends it towards your father’s forehead, and you watch as his eyes cinch shut tightly. he slowly eases himself to his knees at the figure’s feet, all while the gun never removes itself from where it kisses your father’s skin. 

“please. I have a daughter. please,” he begs of him. 

“Hail Hydra,” are the last words that ring out in your father’s ears before the sound of the gunshot fills the space. 

with the ear-piercing crack of the bullet firing, you squeal out in fear, both hands coming to cover your ears as your eyes fall shut. you’re submerged in the darkness all while your ears ring from the noise so loud it hurts. 

after a few moments, you force your eyes to open as you look towards your father, his body now splayed out on the ground, cold and lifeless. 

your breath stops for barely a second before you begin outwardly sobbing, your ears still deafened after the shot. you glance up at the figure as he stands there, his eyes now fixed on you. 

what are you supposed to do? this person, whoever he is, has just hurt your father. you can’t go running, because you’re not supposed to go outside without asking, but…

the man begins stalking towards you with the same determination as when he first entered. with each large stride he takes, inching closer to you, your brain spins round and round with no clue what you’re supposed to do next. his hand returns the pistol to its position on his belt as he glares you down, all while your sobs keep wracking through your body. 

you shake uncontrollably as he squats down in front of you, extending a hand in your direction. 

you quickly glance down, following the motion, internalizing the way his fingers are outstretched in front of you. all of it as though he’s not the reason your father is lying on the ground behind him, not breathing, and not moving. 

for the first few seconds, your little brain hardly even acknowledges the fact that his hand is made of metal, still caught up on the fact that he’s done something to your father. what did he do? is he going to be okay? 

the man, who dons a black mask that shields the lower half of his face, shakes his hand gently as he waits for you to take it. you unwrap your fingers from around the fabric of the curtains and curl them around yourself, shaking your head no as the man expects for you to take your hand in his. 

your eyes shut once more as you continue crying, still scared out of your mind. 

you just want to know if he’s going to be okay. why this man broke your door in half instead of knocking. why he’s in front of you now. 

you don’t hear it over the ringing in your head as he sighs roughly, standing to full height and taking another step closer to you. he bends over, picking up your trembling form from your spot on the floor. 

the second his huge hands work themselves around your body, lifting you with ease, you begin to try and fight against him. your sobs grow louder, your little fingers trying to push him off you. 

“no, no!” you cry, all while he hoists you up from your position on the floor, holding you against him with a single flesh arm. you try to push away from him, try to get him to put you down, all while you scramble to look back and forth between him and your father’s body on the floor. 

“no, please? is he okay? is Daddy going to be okay?”

“Daddy!?” 

~~~

every glimpse of the Winter fucking Soldier in the compound is like reliving the moment it happened all over again. 

every time he looks into your eyes, all you can remember is the dead, careless look in his eyes as he took the life of the only person you’d ever trusted wholeheartedly. the sound of your father’s pleading and begging playing on repeat in your ears. the vision of his hands raised as he kneeled at the feet of the infamous assassin. 

the memory comes in less than a second, like you’re back in your hiding spot, watching the scene play out in front of you every time you see him. 

you inevitably duck away from him as the crack of the gunshot rings loud in your ears, echoing in your head as you run and hide once more. as though if you hide properly this time, nothing bad will happen. as though you’ll be safe this time if you do what you’re supposed to. 

and you do. you refuse to let yourself start crying, because crying is a weakness. you force yourself to instead ruminate in your anger about the fact that this murderer has been given a room, a place within this team. this team that you had found, created, fought to prove yourself a proper member of. 

day in and day out, you fight against your own mind telling you that you don’t deserve this, that you shouldn’t be here. 

but apparently none of that matters if they’ll let him in without a second thought. 

it’s enough strain on your emotions every time you see him, you can’t fathom what might happen if you were ever forced to actually speak to him. you don’t know if you’d start punching or start crying. 

probably both. 

you’ve never been a crier. by nature, sure, but you’ve been taught better–such emotions are a distraction. being angry is better than crying; being angry at him is far more productive than letting yourself be crushed by the lasting anguish from the lifetime of hurt and torture he caused you. 

~~~

regardless of how little he sees you, and despite the fact you have never once interacted with him in the month since he’s been here, your anger is clear as day. your wishes to stay far away from him are obvious, even in the split seconds you encounter him before you make a break for it. 

it’s doing nothing but making his anger worse. 

he knows he doesn’t deserve anything from you, but fuck, he’d just like to have a chance. a chance to redeem himself in your eyes, even though he knows you don’t owe him a thing. 

what makes it worse? he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel something when he looked at you. he’d by lying if he said that simply seeing you didn’t spark some kind of deep-seated emotions in his stomach that he hadn’t felt in over 70 years. sparking feelings he didn’t know he was still capable of after having his brain erased and reprogrammed so many times to train him to follow nothing but his baser instincts, to follow orders and to be a good soldier. 

he supposes attraction is a baser instinct that even hydra can’t wipe from his mind entirely. 

of all people to be attracted to, it should not be you. it should not be someone who hates him with a burning passion. it should not be someone who, more likely than not, wants him dead in a ditch with a hole in his head as he bleeds out. 

in actuality, it makes perfect sense: all he knows is what it’s like to be hated. the idea that he could ever be loved is nothing more than a fantasy. at least your active hatred for him means you’re perceiving him. 

he’ll take whatever he can get, because at least it means he means something to you. 

but his dick still doesn’t get the message every time he sees you that you don’t want him, that you could never want him. ever. 

he needs to accept that that’s the end of the story. he’s never going to get to know you, he might not even get to apologize to you how he wants to. 

being given a shot at apologizing is the most he could ever expect from you. 

to wish for anything more would be preposterous. 

~~~

there’s only so much time that can pass before the inevitable happens. 

weeks upon weeks go by of never interacting with him, everyone knowing better than to organize a situation where the both of you may be in the same space at the same time, beyond when it’s absolutely necessary. 

knowing better than to ever mention each other’s name in front of the other. knowing better than to ever ask you why you refuse to speak to him. 

you’ve never dared to openly tell anyone what your history is with him, never wishing to explain why it is that you hate the man with such a passion. letting the truth out, letting the story come to light is the last thing you’d ever want to happen. 

you’ve been lucky. no one has ever pressed the issue, never forced you to reveal more than you’re comfortable with. 

but your luck of avoiding him, of always being able to duck out before being forced to engage, was bound to run out. 

it’s early in the morning, earlier than anyone else would dare find themselves awakening at such an hour. sleep has never been your friend, to say the least, and it’s been yet another night of constant tossing and turning without the darkness taking you under. 

you’re on your way downstairs, making your way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee when it happens. you turn the corner of the entryway into the kitchen, and boom, you immediately collide with what you’re certain is a brick wall that wasn’t there yesterday. 

you jump back, ready to apologize to whoever it is you’ve just bumped into, when you finally look at him. there he is, the fucking Winter Soldier standing in front of you, looking back down at you as though he’s just seen a ghost. 

by this point, your anger is nothing more than a Pavlovian response you’ve conditioned yourself to immediately fall into when you see him. 

“get out of my way, you fucking murderer,” you hiss as you push past him, shoving him with as much force as you can as your shoulders bump against each other. you scoff as you walk past him, the scowl never dropping from your face. 

Bucky, on the other hand, is in shock. he doesn’t know what to do, what the hell he’s supposed to say to you. he had resigned himself to the fact that he would never get to speak to you, ever, and this would never be a situation that he would find himself in. 

in another context, his anger might get the better of him, just as it’s done to you. 

but those words linger in his ears. you fucking murderer.

he doesn’t move from the threshold, no longer attempting to exit the kitchen. the only thought in his mind is his next words. 

“I’m sorry,” he says the second you pass him, his words little more than a whisper as he speaks them. his gaze stays where it is, facing the doorway, not daring to turn to look at you yet. as he stands there, you keep walking into the kitchen, headed straight for the coffee machine.

but you don’t say anything back to him, and that’s when his resolve breaks. 

“are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, raising his voice as he turns to look at you. “you really see me so lowly that you can’t even respond?” 

he turns towards you as he says it, his head tilting in anger as his eyes fall upon where you stand at the coffee machine. once he’s finished speaking, he watches your motions at the countertop begin to slow. 

you’re facing away from him, so he doesn’t see the way you’re taken aback for a moment, doesn’t even recognize that he’s hit a nerve. you can’t let him know that; you can’t let yourself appear weak in front of him. 

but as your jaw stutters, hesitating in response, it’s more than enough to show your vulnerability in front of him. 

“what–what did you say?” you clarify, your mind distracted from your anger, unable to focus on your hatred for him.

because your insecurity has reared its ugly head. 

and he doesn’t even know it’s his fault. 

“I said that I was sorry,” he repeats, voice more forceful this time. “but you’re too prideful to even deign to respond.” 

“oh, fuck you!” you scream out as you turn back to face him. “you don’t know shit about me! don’t try and act like you know what the hell you’re talking about right now!”

as your breathing heaves, your voice no longer filling the silence, you realize you’re looking at him once and for all. for the first time since he arrived, you’re both actually looking at each other, unable to run and hide from the confrontation. 

you haven’t looked at this face this closely in 20 years. 

this time, he’s not wearing a mask. this time, you’re seeing him, the man who took the life of your father. the man who took you away to be sent off for a life of torture.

you don’t know if you’ve ever been angrier. 

“this is all your fault. you’re a killer, a murderer, and you’ll never be anything more than that,” you spit at him with as much courage as you can muster. 

he glares you down for not more than a few seconds before turning away and walking out of the doorway and out of sight. 

conversation over. 

how dare he? how dare he act like he can speak to you that way? how dare he attack you when he doesn’t even know what it is he’s done to you? 

if you think you needed a reason to justify your anger to yourself, you have your reason now.

the Winter Soldier is a fucking piece of shit no matter what he calls himself, whatever he pretends to be. he thinks he can try and be anything other than the man who ruined your entire life?

he thought wrong. 

and you’ll never let him forget it. 

~~~

he doesn’t want to break down after your interaction. he doesn’t want to, can’t let himself. he knows that what just happened was exactly how it was always going to. he has absolutely no right to be upset with you. 

deep down, he isn’t upset with you. he’s upset with himself. why did he have to go and yell at you? why did he have to go and make an already terrible situation worse than it is? 

he doesn’t know your story. he doesn’t remember whatever it is he’s done to you; lashing out on you isn’t fair to you in any way, shape, or form. it’s just plain selfish.

it is selfish, he determines, as he makes his way back to his room, shutting the door behind him. it’s selfish of him to want more from you, to try and bait you if only to get a response. to try and get you to talk to him. 

the pain in your eyes when you yelled back at him shouldn’t pull at the strings in his heart that he thought had been severed long ago. 

but you looked at him. you finally looked at him, finally acknowledged his existence as a presence in your life that you can’t escape, regardless of the fact that your gaze reflected nothing but pure disgust at the sight of him.

although it does nothing but hurt knowing that he’s played such a horrific role in your past, this is something he can work with, he thinks. he can work with hatred, can work with your explosiveness if it means you might somehow give him the whole story.

he needs to know your story because he wants to apologize.

but god, he so badly just wants to know you.

~~~ 

you successfully avoid him for a while, not crossing paths for at least a week following the incident in the kitchen. your anger continues to simmer in your chest, all while your nights are still restless. any sleep that does come proves to be fruitless given how fatigued you find yourself in the morning. 

you know your anger isn’t good for you. you know your anger is yet another reason you can’t sleep at night, and holding onto it is doing more harm than good to your psyche.

but the alternative? breaking down, losing your cool, and letting yourself cry is far worse. letting yourself go means that he’s won, that he’s successfully gotten under your skin. 

and you refuse to let the Winter Soldier be the reason you succumb to such vulnerability once again. 

~~~

as he carries you out of the room, the vision of your father’s body is no longer in view, your vision instead being encased by the darkness of the night. 

you continue to sob endlessly under the hold of the man who has just taken your father from you. why did he do that? why did he break your door and hurt your father? where is he taking you?

the figure walks briskly, a clear destination in mind: the extraction point. you’re helpless against him as he holds you firmly, unwilling to let you go, no matter how much you cry and plead with him to. 

but then your mind flips back to the events of just moments before. 

“is Daddy going to be okay?” you ask him. 

normally, you can hear yourself talk, the same as you can when your father speaks to you. but it doesn’t sound right, doesn’t sound normal. 

something is wrong. 

what’s wrong? 

you bring a clumsy hand to rub at your right ear, and when you blink through your tears, your eyes fall upon the sight of your hand covered in red. 

you don’t even acknowledge it as you’re suddenly surrounded by a lot of big men, a lot of strangers that your father always told you not to talk to. 

and then the man in the mask is handing you off to someone else. next thing you know, he’s gone and out of your sight, the memory of him forever seared in your mind as the star of your nightmares. 

~~~

you shoot up in bed, breathing heavily as your hand comes to rub at your temple. 

no matter what you do, you can’t escape him. for your whole life, the vision of the Winter Soldier has plagued you. 

but you’ve managed. you’ve survived. and up until the day he showed up being called a victim, you thought that you had gotten over it. you thought you’d dealt with your trauma after your escape from the Red Room, that by becoming a member of this team you had somehow come to terms with the losses you’d suffered at his hands. 

that was until he infiltrated the one good thing you had in your life, the one good thing you had made for yourself. the team of people you trusted with your life. 

you don’t want to quit. having mission objectives and fellow heroes, if you would even call yourself that, has been the best thing that’s ever happened to you. you’ve never felt like you belonged in a place until now, never felt like you could be more than what your past had made you, until now. 

this is your team. this is your life. you’ll be damned if the Winter Soldier ruins it for you. 

and so the decision is made for you: the Winter Soldier must go. 

in your deliberate avoidance of the man, you’ve come to know his schedule very well. you’ve spent a hell of a lot of time learning about him in order to protect yourself pre-emptively. 

you always make sure to lock the door when you’re by yourself. it’s a shame you had to learn that lesson the hard way. 

the day comes when you gather up all your courage, summon all the hatred you hold in your heart, and make the decision to confront him. 

to tell him that it’s time he gets the hell out of here and goes back to the hole he crawled out of. 

you make your way to the gym where you know he’s at, because he always is at this time of day. 

“hey, you,” you yell as you shove open the door to the gym. it’s just you and him, no one else, because you know he prefers to be here when there’s no one else around. 

which means that by taking him by surprise like this, you’ve got the upper hand from the start. 

he’s in the middle of a set, you notice, as you stalk towards him. at the sound of your voice echoing through the room, he stops what he’s doing and quickly turns to face you.

as you approach him, you do everything in your power to maintain your poker face. “listen to me. you need to go,” you begin, starting off strong and self-assured. you can do this, you remind yourself. he can’t hurt you any more than he already has. 

“the gym doesn’t belong to you,” he bites back, turning back to the mirror and continuing his set, his biceps flexing as he does.

“no, not the gym. this place, this team. I was here first, and it’s time you get the hell out of here, soldier.” 

he takes a deep breath before responding, finally putting down the weights he’s lifting and turning to face you. 

“I’m sorry,” he says in earnest, his eyes and voice softening from his previous outburst. 

you blink. no. he’s not allowed to apologize, not so casually. he doesn’t get to pretend like his actions can just be wiped away with a single word. 

“no. you don’t get to fucking say sorry to me, not after everything you’ve done to me. you need to leave and never come back to my home,” you assert, voice coming out harsher this time. 

“I just–” he tries, but you refuse to let him get a word in. 

“no, you don’t ‘just’ anything. you’re a fucking stray that Steve never should have let inside, do you hear me? you don’t belong here, and you never fucking will.” 

he goes silent, but this time, he doesn’t walk away. 

neither do you. 

there’s no running this time. 

“who did I hurt?” he asks you, looking deep into your eyes as he says it. 

those eyes. the ones that always send you reeling, the ones that looked upon your father without a care in the world as he gunned him down in front of his own daughter, no more than a child. 

and once again, he’s somehow taken you off-guard. 

“what the hell do you mean? don’t fucking play stupid with me, soldier,” you say, your voice inadvertently falling off as you fail to come up with whatever it is you thought you were going to say next. 

his face looks sullen, his eyes growing sad as he stands before you, asking you again.

“who did I hurt? that’s why you hate me so much, right? that’s why you avoid me, call me a murderer. so tell me, who did I take away from you?” he asks. 

he looks at you longingly, hopeful that you might finally indulge him in giving him the answer he wants to know. the answer he’s convinced himself he can somehow work with, somehow use to find a way to make some sort of amends with you. 

but even though he so badly doesn’t want for you to hate him, at least you’re finally looking at him. 

“you took everything from me. don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” you argue back. 

reluctantly, he tells you, “I don’t.” 

for some reason, you believe him. and that only makes it so much worse. 

how could he not remember? how can he not know the horrors he’s inflicted upon you, not remember the day he tore you away from your entire life as you knew it? 

how can he look you in the eyes and tell you he doesn’t remember the day he killed your father in cold blood and sent you away to the worst possible fate, to be tortured and trained as an assassin yourself? 

“wow. you really are a fucking monster,” you say, more breath than tone in your voice. you take a sudden step back as the emotions hit you all at once. you have to force yourself to stay mad, to remain angry so as to not let the sadness take over you. 

it doesn’t work. 

his words settle in your head, and the anger cracks as you look at him. your pain flares in your mind, cutting through the barrier you’ve tried to create inside your mind to block it from destroying you all over again. 

in this moment, you know you’re being a coward. you know this is going to make you look bad, you know that you’re going to appear as though you can’t follow through on your threats. 

but you need out, now, before the pain becomes evident and the tears begin to fall. 

“get the hell out of here, or don’t. I don’t fucking care,” you say with a shaky voice, “just stay the hell out of my way, soldier.”

and with that, you turn on one heel just as you finally break, boiling hot tears dripping down your cheeks against your will. 

you thought his presence hurt you before. 

you had no clue how much worse it would be knowing that he doesn’t even remember being the sole cause of every bad thing that’s ever happened to you. the pain overwhelms you, consumes you to your very core.

he doesn’t remember. 

but what does that mean, truly?

you don’t sleep a wink that night.

~~~

neither does he. 

he should have known that trying to be honest with you would only make this worse, but what the hell was he supposed to do? he wants you to tell him the truth, and asking you honestly is the only way to find out. there’s no other option here. 

he would never want to lie to you, anyway. 

worst of all, he hates that his genuine curiosity hurt you even further. he hates that in his hopes to try and find a way to make things right with you, all he’s done is push you even further away. 

for the second time, all he’s done is make this so much worse without even meaning to. 

you hate him, fine. you’re angry with him, fine. but he isn’t going to let this go. he can’t keep living day in and day out wishing that you’re suddenly going to change your mind, that you’re suddenly going to volunteer to tell him your story. 

he knows that that would be the bare minimum, barely even skimming the surface of trying to push for more than lessening the deep-seated contempt you hold for him. learning your story isn’t even half the battle; trying to make things right with you, somehow, will be the real uphill climb. 

he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do that. 

for now, though, he can start with trying to break through to you. even if it means being petty like a child and deliberately pissing you off even more in the process.

he rises from bed, sleep not once having graced his weary head, his mind instead running rampant thinking of you. he makes his way to the kitchen, the clock striking the same far too early hour as the last time he saw you here. 

and by a stroke of luck, you’re there when he walks in. 

you hear him softly pad into the room and come to a stop behind you, at which point you turn around and glare at him. he’s just standing there, not doing a thing as he looks at you with a sleepy expression on his face.

“the fuck do you want?” you hiss at him, hands gripping the edge of the countertop behind you tightly. when he doesn’t respond, you push, “seriously. what the fuck?”

he doesn’t say a word, continuing to watch you struggle to come up with an explanation for his ominous presence. you scoff and shake your head, turning to stare down at where your knuckles have turned white from how hard you’re gripping the countertop. 

you push away from where you’re standing, refusing to even spare him a glance as you begin to walk past him and stomp out of the kitchen. 

“you’re abandoning your coffee?” is all he says.

huh?

what the actual fuck is wrong with him? you think to yourself, and yet, his inquiry makes you freeze in place regardless. 

“my coffee?” you ask him, utterly appalled. 

“I must really get under your skin if you’re going to let me interfere with your life just because I’m standing here,” he replies. you’re so tired, and so shocked by this random display of… whatever he’s doing right now. 

“you’re–you’re, like, just standing there and staring! it’s weird!” you clap back, more confused than anything else at this point. 

“so what?” he says, and his casualness pisses you off to no end. 

“so, I told you to fucking stay out of my way!” 

“but I’m not in your way, now am I?”

your jaw just drops as you look at him. he’s a fucking dipshit, is what he is. 

“you’re so fucking weird, soldier,” you grumble as you storm out of the kitchen. 

as you walk down the hallway, you’re left wondering, what the fuck just happened?

whatever that was, it doesn’t matter. he’s clearly nothing more than a manchild who doesn’t care about anything but himself. at least it’s over now and you can go back to avoiding him for good.

until the point he randomly decides to sit down next to you in a briefing meeting in the conference room later that day. 

he makes sure to do it in front of everyone, including Steve himself, clearly on purpose. everyone’s eyes go wide as he casually plops himself down in the chair beside yours, completely unaware of the fact that all the attention in the room is on him. he looks over at you, meeting your eyeline for a few seconds before turning his attention up to where Steve is getting ready to begin speaking. 

you could stand up and find another chair, find anywhere else in the room to exist that isn’t next to the Winter Soldier. not a soul watching on would be surprised; it’s likely what they expect you’re about to do.

you take a deep breath to compose yourself. you have to avoid making eye contact with anyone, ignoring the fact that everyone is now staring at you, waiting for your reaction. 

everyone knows your feelings about him, but you can’t make such a show in front of so many people, especially your team leader. that would reflect quite poorly on you, not just personally, but professionally. 

you’re at a point where you have a lot to lose within this team.

so, no. you aren’t going to give into him. you’re going to sit here and suck it up, suck up the fact that the Winter Soldier is now deliberately trying to piss you off. you’re going to bite the inside of your cheek and keep all your attention on Steve as he gives his briefing. 

you’re going to be professional because you have to be. not because he was right, not because he made a good point about the fact that you’re letting him get to you, that you’re letting the Winter Soldier dictate the decisions that you’re making, that he’s still controlling your life, even now. 

you don’t move to stand. you don’t let your facial expression betray what you’re thinking. you remain perfectly pleasant, ever a dutiful member of this team, putting your professionalism above all else. 

of course, the Winter Soldier does not make it easy for you whatsoever. he’s continuously commenting and adding onto Steve’s presentation, all while casually brushing his knee up against yours when he shifts in his chair every two minutes. 

you hate him. oh, you fucking hate him with every fiber of your being. acting normal, like you’re just two colleagues, pretending that the animosity between the two of you doesn’t even exist. 

he doesn’t get to act like this. he doesn’t get to pretend like everything is normal, like whatever hatred you have for him is negligible. like everything he’s done to you, whether he remembers it or not, is suddenly just water under the bridge. 

it isn’t, and it never will be. 

when Steve declares the meeting adjourned, you stand up so quickly your chair almost falls on its side as you race out of the conference room. spending even another minute around that man might be the actual death of you, death by a stress-induced heart attack. 

you don’t get far when you hear footsteps trailing behind you. those footsteps, the ones you’ve trained yourself to immediately run from the instant you hear them approaching. 

“would you fucking leave me alone?” you shout as you pivot on one heel to turn and face him. “what is your problem? have I not made it clear enough that I don’t want to talk to you?”

“don’t worry. the message is clear. I just don’t care,” he responds, coming to a halt in front of you and staring right into your eyes. 

there they are, those eyes. the last ones you ever looked into before being taken away from everything you’d ever known. 

the beautiful blue ones you can’t rip your gaze away from now. 

“what is it going to take to get you to leave me alone?” you question of him, exasperated. it’s been a single day of this, and yet, you’re already sick and tired of it. 

“I told you what I want,” he replies. 

you could kill him. you might kill him. 

your whole time in captivity, you’d told yourself that you would at least use your training for good one day. you would at least channel your bitterness, use your skills to do one good deed: to kill the man who killed your father. 

you had spent years imagining it. all the millions of ways you could inflict pain upon him, try to return even a fraction of the agony you’ve gone through all thanks to him. 

and then you escaped. 

you couldn’t fathom doing that to a single soul ever again just to satisfy your own personal agenda. that part hurt the most; you couldn’t bring yourself to do it, even to bring your father to justice. you wouldn’t hurt anyone like that again, not even the Winter Soldier. 

you’d come to terms with it. you’d made peace with your pain, with the fact that you didn’t have it in you to kill him. 

and you were okay with that.

even when the man was welcomed into your home against your will, given a position on your team without even having to earn it, you told yourself that you wouldn’t do it. you couldn’t, because that would mean he had won. that would mean that his mission had succeeded, and you’d followed the path he put you on. you couldn’t let that happen.

but seeing him stand in front of you right now, mocking you, getting on your every nerve and pissing you the hell off? 

yeah. you could kill him. 

“why won’t you tell me?” he asks, voice relaxing this time. this man, tall and strong and murderous, acting like he’s the victim here. like you’re the one who wronged him.

“tell me who I hurt,” he repeats for what feels like the millionth time before. 

and your composure, if you even were composed before, breaks. 

“no. you didn’t just hurt anyone, you murdered him in cold fucking blood. an innocent man, did you know that? the man you killed was innocent, and he didn’t deserve the fate that he suffered because of you. and neither did I,” you hiss at him. to your disgust, your voice cracks at the end, betraying your aura of confidence. 

he takes a moment to let your words soak in. he knows that all your hatred stemmed from this; that he does, in fact, deserve every snark and cold shoulder you give him. he knew it wasn’t unfounded. 

he knows that he’s been waiting for the moment you finally tell him the truth, waiting for the moment when he learns who it is that he’s taken from you. he knows that he’s poking and prodding even though he has no right, and he knows that this is what he has been trying to find out.

it doesn’t make it hurt any less when he’s confronted with the truth, no matter how he’s been dying to hear it. 

“who?” he whispers, barely able to get the words out as his voice threatens to fail. 

you tell him. 

“my father. my dad. I had to sit there and watch as you murdered him, right in front of me,” you admit. 

as you finally break, way too soon, your body betrays you even. your tears fall, and you’re crying in front of the Winter Soldier for the second time in your life. 

“you took my daddy away from me,” you whisper, unable to stop yourself from breaking down in front of him, no matter how hard you try. 

you’ve always been good at keeping yourself from crying. 

but once it starts? 

your whole body shakes as you wipe at your face and frantically clutch at your sleeves, your sobs growing louder. fuck, you can’t do this. you can’t let this happen in front of him. 

“stay the hell away from me, soldier,” you bite out as best you can as you turn around and walk away from him, away from the inevitable reveal, away from the fact that you’ve just let yourself fall apart in front of him. 

you can’t let that happen again. 

that will never happen again, you swear.

never.

~~~

he feels like shit. 

of course he does. every life he’s taken, every mission he’s ever carried out for hydra haunts him day in and day out. he’s ruined countless lives, hurt a countless number of people in the same way he’s hurt you. 

he will never forgive himself for that. you shouldn’t, either. 

because he knows now. he remembers who you are, the little girl he was tasked with retrieving and delivering to Dreykov’s men after eliminating your father, the politician. 

he remembers the way you cried, how scared you were of him. you couldn’t have been more than four years old when it happened. he remembers the look in your father’s eyes as he pled for his life, as he pled to be able to live to protect his daughter. 

he remembers the blood pouring from your ear as he handed you off. 

did he do that? he didn’t lay a hand on you more than simply transporting you from point A to point B. he wasn’t tasked with hurting you. he didn’t.

of course, it’s not like he ever knew what happened to you after his job was done. he completed his mission, which was simply to extract and deliver you. the memory of the mission had quickly been wiped from his mind anyway. 

but something happened. something had gone wrong. 

he’d done something to hurt you. 

~~~

the weeks pass. 

you don’t talk to him, of course. it’s as though nothing had ever happened, like you were back to the same wordless person you’d been when he first showed up. 

back then, it was because of nothing but your pure hatred for him. but now? you’re ashamed. ashamed for letting yourself break down in front of him, ashamed for letting him see you as the weak little girl you are on the inside. 

ashamed for letting him win. because isn’t that what happened? he got what he wanted, didn’t he? 

he doesn’t bother you again. not yet, at least. he knows you need space, knows that he pushed you beyond your limits to get the answer he needed from you. 

and he feels like shit because of it. 

he hates that he hurt you, that he catalyzed all the trauma and pain you've been through. that at the hands of hydra, he’d enacted such horrific acts on you. a child. 

he hates that his stomach still knots up when he sees you, that his fingers still tingle whenever you look at him, no matter how much contempt he sees in your eyes when you glance his way.

he hates himself for everything he’s ever done in his life. 

but more than anything, he hates himself for wanting you, the person he’s hurt more than anyone else. 

which is why he can’t let this go. he still has yet to have the chance to genuinely apologize to you, let alone even consider the fact that you might one day have a working relationship. that’s already asking a lot, way more than he should even think to expect.

let alone the kind of relationship he truly wants to have with you. that’s not on the table, will never be on the table. 

even with how much you hate him, with how clear you’ve made it from the start that he’s absolutely worthless in your eyes, he still can’t get it through his head that you’ll never be his. 

but even as he works to stomach that, he still needs to get closer to you, one way or another. 

~~~

when you see his name listed beside yours for the next mission you’re supposed to be sent on, you about lose it. so much for your attempts at professionalism in the meeting. forget about your pride. this is so far beyond the line that even Steve knows better than to cross.

“what the hell is this?” you ask him, waving around your tablet in the air as you burst into the conference room he’s currently sitting in. “you’re making me work with him?” 

he looks up from what he’s doing and visibly leans back in his seat, taking a beat before responding. 

“look, it was his idea. I told him no, but then…”

whatever he says next drowns itself out in your head. you don’t care what Steve’s excuse is; you know he’ll always pick the Winter Soldier over you. Steve is the whole reason he’s here anyways.

but now, he’s too involved. he’s influencing Steve’s decisions, and he’s requesting that you be sent on jobs together?

no. that will not be fucking happening.

you’re on a rampage now, tablet long forgotten. all that’s on your mind is the sheer rage broiling in your veins, the uncontrollable fury that holds you in an iron grip. 

how fucking dare he? what the hell is he thinking, trying to work with you? is he that much of a fucking monster that he can’t hold back from inserting himself into every aspect of your life? 

you’re practically running through the compound to where you know he’ll be right now: the gym. as typical.

you throw the door open so hard and so quickly it smacks the wall behind it, a loud crashing noise emanating from the contact that echoes through the room. he startles when he hears it, taken off guard at the suddenness of it.

“who do you think you are?” you yell at him as you storm in his direction. “you seriously think I would ever want to work with you? newsflash: that’s a load of crap. so what the hell is your problem?”

he puts his weights back on the rack before he turns to you, now only a foot or two away from him. your anger is written all over your face, eyes wide and jaw clenched as you wait for his response. 

“I know you don’t want to work with me,” he begins, but you interject before he can continue. 

“then what do you think you’re doing adding your name to my jobs?” you ask, voice still raised. 

“just listen–” 

“listen? you want me to fucking listen?” you all but yell at him this time. 

before you can think about it, you’re cocking your fist and throwing a punch, aimed directly for the stupid, sharp line of his jaw. 

it doesn’t make contact. his metal hand immediately reaches up to grab your fist mid-air, not even flinching as he catches it. 

“come on, don’t fight me. I’m not your enemy–” 

your other hand immediately comes up to try for the other side of his face, but his flesh hand simply blocks the hit before you can reach his jaw. 

“stop trying to hit me,” he tells you again, more forcefully this time. “let me explain.”

“you are my fucking enemy,” you hiss under your breath, ripping your fist from his grip. 

in your anger, you start blindly punching, not a thought in your mind about the proper way to go about this. strategy, smarts, all of it simply goes out the window. you just need to get a hit in, just to try and hurt him the way he’s hurt you.

he’s not fighting back. he’s dodging, knocking away each and every punch you try to land on the side of his perfect fucking face–

“stop fighting me,” he repeats, his voice loud enough for you to hear over the blood rushing in your head, but his demeanor is still calm and collected. 

“not until you fucking do something!” you yell back. 

he does. he finally takes each of your wrists in his hands, holding you tightly in place and putting a full stop to your attempts.

you’re a fighter, a trained assassin that should be able to break free of his grip without trying.

but he’s a super soldier, and you’re not at your best right now. 

“listen to me. I just wanted to talk to you. I’ll take my name off the job, whatever. just listen to me,” he pleads with you as he holds you in place, unable to move, forcing you to calm down.

your face contorts for a fraction of a second, a pained expression crossing your features for just a moment as you have to accept the position you’re in right now. 

“I want to apologize.” 

he… what? 

he’s seriously trying this shit again, thinking he’s going to apologize? he thinks he’s just going to say that he’s sorry, and you’re going to listen to him, finally begin to understand…

“n– no,” you stutter. fuck, you sound stupid, your voice failing you. anger, anger… where the hell did your anger go?

“I am. I am sorry. you’ve been where I am, we both know that you have. killing people against your will? you’ve been there,” he continues.

“stop,” you whisper, “no. I’m not like you. I’m nothing like you.” 

“I’m sorry for killing your father–” he begins, and your mind feels like it’s fracturing into a million little pieces. 

“–no, you–”

“–and I’m sorry that I’m the reason you got sent to the Red Room–”

“–let go of me, please, you have to stop–”

“–and I’m sorry about your hearing.” 

you freeze. your arms go still, no longer trying to break free of his grasp, and your voice drops off from your rambling. it takes everything in you to will your eyes open to look at him. 

“how do you know about that?” you whisper. 

you can truly see the genuine look of apologeticness on his face this time, see the way his eyebrows cinch together as he looks back at you. he slowly eases his grip on your wrists, gently letting them down as your arms fall back into place at your sides. 

“I haven’t told a soul about that,” you tell him as you stare him down, trying to read his expression. trying to find any tells, anything on his face that might explain how he found out about this. “how the hell do you know about that?” 

he looks back and forth between your eyes, speaking slowly as he begins. “your ear was bleeding after the sound of the gunshot. I remember it now. you were too little and too close by when it happened, and your ear was bleeding when I carried you away, and… I should have known sooner. you didn’t hear me that morning in the kitchen when you walked past me because you can’t hear out of your right ear.”

“and it’s my fault,” he continues. “it’s my fault that you can’t hear because I’m the one who fired the gun. my god, you were just a kid, and I… I should never have done any of that to you. so please, believe me when I say that from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.” 

you can’t believe what he’s telling you right now. you’ve gotten by your whole life, worked around it so that you weren’t a liability, so that it didn’t get you killed. 

and he figured it out, just like that. without even trying.

“you… I can’t believe you,” you mutter. “I fucking hate you.” 

“I know–” he tries, but at that point, you reach up and shove him backwards with full force. 

“no, you don’t! stop acting like you know anything, like you have me all fucking figured out,” you say, continuing to walk towards him and shoving him relentlessly. “you don’t know me, and you’re not sorry, you’re a murderer–”

“goddamnit, stop calling me that!” he finally roars back at you. “I am sorry! I never wanted any of what happened to me!” 

“I don’t care! look at me, does it look like I care? I hate you. I always will, because you are a murderer who took him away from me!” 

and you can’t hold yourself back from throwing another punch. this time, he ducks, but doesn’t hold back. 

in an instant, you’re on the floor of the gym, both of your arms pinned above your head as his weight holds you against the floor. 

“I told you to stop calling me that, and I told you to stop trying to hit me,” he hisses, leaning into your ear as he speaks. 

you strain against him, try to squirm out from underneath him, turn your head away so you’re not forced to listen to whatever he says to you–

and then you feel it. 

the feeling of his cock, rock hard underneath his gym shorts, pressing up against your upper thigh. you gasp and squirm once more, brushing right up against it this time, and the feeling shocks him enough that his grip on you loosens. 

you take advantage of the opportunity, putting all your weight into shoving him off of you and onto the floor besides you. 

fuck, you hate him. you hate him for everything he’s ever put you through, for thinking that he’s so much better than the man he was twenty years ago. 

but your anger is eating you up inside, and even though you should be taking this opportunity to use it and fucking kill him–

you push yourself off the floor and up to your knees, turning to face where he’s lying on the ground next to you. 

and then you do something really fucking stupid. 

you begin to straddle him, pinning each of your knees on either side of his hips, proceeding to press each of your hands to his chest and digging your fingernails in deep enough for him to feel the sting. 

“you wanna do something good for once in your life? then just fucking lay there, and don’t move a muscle,” you grit, digging your nails in deeper until he winces at the sensation. you watch the way his face contorts as you tentatively move your hips over his, your eyes starting to roll back in your head when it feels far better than you expected. 

a soft whine passes your lips and you shut your eyes, ducking your chin to your chest as you move again. he’s fucking huge, you can just feel it underneath the fabric separating the two of you as you keep grinding down against him, finding the perfect angle after a few passes where it finally hits your clit just right. 

your jaw drops as you whimper again, and he does exactly what you told him to: to not move a muscle. which means he lays there and watches the way your expressions change, listens and memorizes the beautiful breathy sounds you’re making for him. 

is this a dream? has he died and gone to heaven, somehow? 

what on earth has possessed you to give him exactly what he’s dreamt of? 

his bewilderment doesn’t matter right now, the feeling of you on top of him far more prevalent and utterly exhilarating. the vision of you using him to make yourself feel good, to let him do something good for you for once, is everything he could ever ask for. 

and he didn’t even have to ask for it. 

he adores everything about you. he loves your confidence, your passion, your determination, even though he’s been on the receiving end of most of your worst expressions of them all. he fucking loves it regardless, and now he’s revelling in the privilege of the sight of you looking so passionate and beautiful above him as you use him to pleasure yourself. 

he’s cautious, moving so slowly and cautiously as he begins to drag his hands up your thighs until they find their place on your hips, praying that you don’t tell him off for touching you. his fingers press against your skin, and it’s nothing short of intoxicating. he never wants to let go, never wants this beautiful moment with you to end. 

you’re moving with more fervor now, moans falling faster and louder as the pleasure begins to overwhelm you. he keeps his mouth shut, listening to each and every single noise you make, saving and cataloging them in his mind for later when he’s alone in his room with nothing but his thoughts of this, of you. 

“oh, god,” you whimper under your breath, your arms beginning to give out on you as you struggle to hold yourself up. “fuck, Buck–”

you suddenly freeze in place, stilling your motions on top of him as the name, his actual name, falls from your lips. no, he’s the Winter Soldier. he’s not– you can’t– 

his grip on your hips adjusts, shuffling his hands upwards to hold your waist. he grips you tightly, enough to keep you pressed against him as he changes your positioning, twisting to press your back to the floor. he doesn’t dare let you go anywhere as he follows, not once breaking the contact between the two of you as he moves to lay on top of you. 

“shh, sweetheart,” he coos as he presses you against the floor. “it’s okay.” 

what are you doing? right here, right now, with him? 

you’re fucked. you’re fucked in the head, and your body is turning against you. 

“no,” you cry out, but you don’t mean it. of course you don’t mean it, you can’t possibly mean it because the anger is finally gone. even through the dissonance in your head telling you that you’re crazy for doing this, your mind finally feels peaceful for the first time since he reappeared in your life. 

“you’re okay,” he whispers into your ear, the feeling of the stubble on his jaw brushing against your cheek. “I’ve got you.” 

as he speaks, his hands come to your thighs, hooking his thumbs inside your knees and spreading your legs even further to make room for himself between them. as his hips grind up against you, he begins gently goading you on, encouraging you, “feels good, right? I know it does. you were just moaning so pretty for me.”

your eyes cinch together as the feeling of him so close overwhelms you, the pressure of him between your legs somehow so simple but so good. 

“tell me, baby,” he mumbles into your ear, his eyes roaming over your face as he waits for you to reply. 

“yes,” you admit, unable to stop your voice as the words come. you practically cry out as you continue, “yes, it’s so good, fuck.” 

“that’s it, good girl. you know what else I want to hear.” 

his words race around inside your head, another cry falling from your lips at the knowledge that he’s getting to you, that you’re falling–

“you almost said it before, sweetheart. come on, you can do it. what’s my name?” 

no. he’s nobody, he’s a murderer, the Winter Soldier–

“Bucky,” you moan out, and everything fades away as you fall over the edge. sparks fly in your brain, your whole body overtaken by your desperation and the mind-blowing sensations that wrack through you. you can’t fight the intensity of how badly you needed this, needed him. 

you’re not sure how long you lay under him as you come down, your jaw dropped open stupidly and your eyes blinking every few moments to try and regain full consciousness. your whole body is lax underneath his as he simply takes in how beautiful you look post-orgasm. 

when you finally force your eyes to stay open, you look up at him, your gaze meeting those piercing blue eyes as they bore into you.

and then it crashes down on you. 

what the fuck is wrong with you? why the hell would you do this with him, of all people? 

“get off me,” you growl, your hands reaching to push his figure away from yours even though your arms still feel like jelly. your palms make contact with his shoulders, shoving hard and succeeding at forcing him away from you. 

as you stand from the floor of the gym, fixing your hair and wiping at the mess you’re sure is all over your face, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do next. do you insult him? spit on him? go off on him for being able to read you like a book, uncovering everything about you so fucking easily and proceeding to get you off afterwards? 

you don’t know what to do, so you do the only thing you can, and you walk away. out of the gym, up to your room, away from him. 

you’re so fucked. everything is fucked. 

~~~

you shouldn’t do this. 

you’ve gone back to avoiding him, because what the hell else are you going to do? you’ve never known how to talk to him, never had any desire to beyond just yelling at him. now, though, you’ve only managed to make it so much worse, so much more awkward between the two of you. 

as if it could get any worse than it already was before. 

which is why you really shouldn’t do this. 

but right now, it’s late. you’re angry at yourself, at him, for putting you in this position. for making you hate him so fucking much and for making you so fucking horny. 

it’s his fault. he’s put this idea in your head, it’s his fault that you’re knocking on his door in the middle of the night. it’s his fault you’re so pent up with anger, and yet he’s somehow the only one who can help you let go of it. 

you know it’s a bad idea when he opens the door to his room, eyes widening in his shock as he sees that it’s you standing in front of him. 

there’s nothing for either of you to say to each other at this point. he’s gotten what he wanted, and you’ve unwittingly given him all of it. every answer, every opportunity, every clue he needed to figure out your story. to figure out you. 

you hate how he knows you deeper and better than anyone else on this planet does. you hate that it’s him, the man who ruined your life before it even started, who somehow understands what it is you’ve been through. that it’s him who managed to learn everything about you without even having to try. 

you stand in the doorway for another awkward moment before finally inching forward, reaching your shaky hands out and taking his face into your hold before pressing your lips to his. 

he shouldn’t be as surprised as he is that this is the reason you’ve suddenly decided to seek him out, and yet he is. he’s certainly not complaining as you lean your body weight into his, kicking the door shut behind you and kissing him so deeply while impatiently waiting for him to finally take over. for him to fucking do something, take control, make your brain finally shut off. 

“are you gonna fuck me or not?” you grit out when he doesn’t make any attempts to kiss you back. 

“are you sure about this?” he whispers to you. in another life, he’d ask if you’re going to hate him in the morning after what you’re about to do. in another life, he’d worry that this would ruin whatever it is you have going between the two of you. 

but this is here and now. this is real life, and there’s never been anything good between the two of you. there’s never been anything more than the long-standing resentment you hold for him, completely overwhelming the one-sided love he holds for you. 

he shouldn’t love you. he should hate you. fuck, he’s tried so hard to hate you; it would be easier if he did. hating you could be justified in a number of ways, whether because of your unwillingness to hear him out or because of your inability to have any kind of empathy for him. 

that’s all bullshit. he deserves every ounce of hatred you have for him, and he’ll take it. he’ll deal with it, suck it up, and let the pain of knowing that you could never love him consume his being. 

because at least you’re here with him now, asking him to give you what you want. at least you’re looking at him. 

if you want this, if you truly want him to give this to you, he will. he’ll shove down all his feelings and he’ll fuck you like he hates you, the way he’s sure you want it, because he doesn’t deserve your love. he doesn’t deserve to pretend like there could ever be anything more here. 

even if sleeping with you will only hurt him, maybe it’ll do you some good. maybe by giving you this, he can try to ease the burdens that he’s put on you. 

somehow.

“yes, I’m fucking sure,” you hiss back at him, impatient, desperate. “stop being a wimp and give it to me already.” 

he doesn’t hold back this time, doesn’t waste another second before surging forward and kissing you, shoving you up against the door with both hands around your waist. his grip on you is harsh, the pinch on your skin exactly what you need to distract yourself from the miserable thoughts that plague your mind. 

your own hands find the nape of his neck, holding his head in place against yours as he kisses you with a passion, like it’s the only thing he wants to do for the rest of his life. you match his fervor, tugging at his soft locks hard enough to make him growl into your mouth. in turn, he presses himself closer against you. once again, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. 

you don’t let yourself acknowledge the fact that you don’t want to.

that you don’t want to run from him. that right now, you’re in the only place you want to be. 

you gasp into his mouth when his knee presses between your thighs, inadvertently breaking the kiss and letting your head fall backwards against the door, too focused on the newfound pressure he’s giving you. you don’t even try to stop yourself from whining out and grinding down against his thick thigh between yours, every cell in your body seeking out the delicious pleasure. 

“you like that?” he whispers, his question a genuine inquiry as his eyes dart between the look on your face and downwards at the sight of you shamelessly rutting up against him. 

“shut up, Barnes,” you try to bite back, but your tone falls flat. your attempt at sounding angry, as though you’re only in this position because you have to be, epically fails–your whiney voice only conveys the truth of how badly you do want this, how you might go crazy if he were to stop right now. 

“come on,” he whispers, leaning into your ear to speak to you up close while his hands begin to guide the movement of your hips against him. “we both know you know my name.” 

his words are like velvet, luring you in and coaxing you to just say it. it’s on the tip of your tongue, your whole body ready to cave and bend to his will, but you quickly bite your lip and refuse to give him what he wants. 

“that’s okay. I’ll get it one way or another,” he whispers, voice almost condescending, you think, and then the contact of his thigh between your legs is lost as he lifts you off the ground with ease. you practically shriek at the sudden motion before he carries you over to his bed, laying you down in his mussed sheets, cool under your skin. 

you’re in his bed. the Winter Soldier’s bed. 

Bucky’s bed. 

why don’t you feel disgusted? why do you not want to leave?

“that’s better,” he whispers to you as he crawls over your figure, now splayed out beneath him. he takes a moment to indulge the part of himself deep inside that’s been dying for this, dying for the moment that you finally grant him the privilege of putting his hands on you. he lets his eyes wander over you, catching the flush on your cheeks and the way your hair rests messily on his pillow.  

you look perfect. if you told him you wanted to stay here forever, he’d make it happen. 

he’d do anything for you.

but as he looks at you, he knows you’re only here to relieve the tension. to you, this is simply a means of letting go, a means of trying to run from the pain that he’s caused. 

he wishes that wasn’t the case. he wishes you were both normal. he wishes that maybe in another life, you would have met like normal people do. you, accidentally spilling your coffee all over him on the sidewalk. him, being charmed by your clumsiness and deciding to ask for your number. you’d give it to him, of course, and you’d go down as a classic love story. 

but neither of you are normal. 

you don’t want him. he’ll never know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your love. 

dragging himself back to the moment, he watches as you begin scrambling to shed your clothes, and he follows suit, stripping himself of all the layers that separate him from you. when you kiss him again, your hands come to his shoulders where they’re now bared to you, and he expects you to recoil at the realization that you’re holding onto his metal arm. that you’ll be reminded of reality and you’ll be revolted by the last physical remnants of hydra that he still carries with him. 

to his surprise, you don’t even flinch.

he wants to take his time with you, touch you the way he should, the way something as beautiful as you deserves. but that’s not what you’re here for. his restraint and gentleness are the last thing you could ever want from him. 

while he’s going to remember every moment of this, you’re only here to forget. 

so instead of going slow the way he wants to, he follows your lead, not wasting any time as you spread your legs. you quickly reach for him, already red and dripping over your stomach, causing him to let out a low groan. your hand on his cock makes his whole body instantly run a million times hotter, and he begins to protest. “fuck, you gotta wait,” he tries, “gotta get you ready–”

“no. it needs to hurt,” you assert, and he can’t argue with you. this isn’t for him, it’s for you. 

he owes you that much. 

he gives in, leaning back to sit on his knees and bringing his hands to the back of your thighs. he presses them up towards you, up against your torso until your knees are level with your head. he practically drools at the sight of you, legs spread and dripping for him so quickly. 

you really are an angel, he thinks. yet his demons continue to put distance between the two of you, never letting you be truly within his reach, even as you’re splayed out in front of him. even as you lay in his bed, waiting for his touch, you’ll never truly be his to hold onto. 

he inches forward, stroking himself a few times as he lines up with your entrance where you’re already swollen and winking at him. he wishes he could bury his face in your pussy, take a picture even…

the noises you let out as he finally pushes in, sheathing himself inside you to the hilt, are better than anything he’s ever heard in his life. he’d die a happy man if your little moans and whimpers were the only music he could ever listen to again. 

“you’re so fucking tight,” he mumbles under his breath, but he sees the way his words don’t reach you. 

he leans down, holding himself above you with his metal arm pressed into the mattress as his flesh hand comes to massage your hair. he brushes his nose over yours, over your cheek, and down to your ear. 

“do you really want it to hurt?” he asks you, speaking up this time. the words tug at his heartstrings as he continues, hoping you might change your mind when he tells you, “it doesn’t have to be like that.” 

of course, your jaw clenches in response, your whole body locking up. “just shut up and fuck me already. don’t you dare hold back,” you bite out in response, every muscle in your body desperate for him to just make you take it. 

he doesn’t see the way the gears turn in your head, the way you hesitated to snap back at him. the way you feel so vulnerable under him, and yet still, you feel no desire to run. 

he can’t bring himself to say no to you, not like this. he begins moving against you, his thrusts brutal and punishing as he fucks into you with abandon. he’s fast, yet holding his pace steady as he does everything in his power to keep his eyes open to watch the look on your face as you just take the way he rails you into oblivion. 

it’s fucking perfect. it’s everything you need and more to finally forget about the anger, to let go of the resentment you can’t seem to shake. 

“Bucky,” you whine out into the room, your tone breathy, voice clipped. the sound of his name finally falling from your lips makes him falter, his movements halting for just a moment or two before ramping back up again.

“oh, Bucky,” you say, over and over again. he revels in the sound every time it passes your lips, sending him that much closer to the edge every time, so much so that he knows he won’t last much longer the more you repeat it. 

“gonna let me finish inside you, hmm?” he says through his own heavy breathing, struggling to get the words out. 

you don’t even hesitate to tell him, “do it,” with a nod of approval, every other thought in your mind on pause. 

by a miracle, you find yourself coming just from the feeling of him inside you, the warmth of him finishing so deep, fucking you through his release. 

his whole body weight falls on yours as he breathes through the aftermath, your legs uncomfortably trapped between his chest and yours. he’s still inside you, not yet having attempted to pull out. 

no. you can’t stay, even if this uncomfortable position somehow feels good. this is done and over with. 

you shove him away from you and ignore the way your body suddenly misses his warmth when he rolls onto the side of the bed next to you. you stare up at the ceiling as your emotions come back in full force. 

sadness. 

no, no, no. you’re supposed to be angry. you’re supposed to be full of nothing but hate for the man laying beside you. 

the Winter Soldier. 

where did it go? where’s your anger? 

you can’t find it. 

you startle for a moment at the feeling of a warm flesh hand finding its way between your thighs, still parted as you lay in his sheets. you don’t have it in yourself to fight him as his fingers come to rub up against your clit before reaching down, finding his release slowly leaking out of you. 

you gasp out when his fingertips gently press upwards, pushing his cum back inside.

“Bucky,” you begin to protest, but then his lips are on yours again as he buries his fingers inside your pulsing cunt, his thumb reaching to rub at your clit. 

once again, you go stupid underneath him as he slowly works you. he kisses you languidly all while building you up with intention, before angling his fingers just right to make you fall over the edge again, far too quickly, way too easily. 

you shouldn’t be here. you shouldn’t be letting him in like this, you came here for release, not for whatever the fuck you’re feeling–

you want to run. you need to run. 

instead, you let him hold you as you break down into tears once the euphoria wears off. 

~~~

it’s not happening again, you tell yourself the next day. it was a moment of weakness in your sleep-deprived state, and you’re never letting it happen again.

because he’s the man who took everything from you, the man who ruined your entire life–

it wasn’t his choice. 

as the thought arises in your head, you immediately freeze in the middle of the hallway, your legs betraying you as they quit walking. 

what’s wrong with you? why are you making excuses, justifying any of the terrible things he’s done to you? 

it was never him. it was hydra.

fuck. this isn’t happening. there’s no way your mind is turning against you like this, turning against everything you’ve always believed, that the man who broke into your home was the one who ravaged and destroyed your entire existence. 

this is just an issue of proximity. you’ve let yourself get too close, that’s all. 

you’ll go back to normal if you go back to the way things were before, by ignoring his existence entirely. 

you’ll go back to hating him any day now.

~~~

he never knows what to expect from you at this point. your constant avoidance of him no longer signals to him that you want to be left alone, but instead just leaves him confused. 

he can handle it if you just hate him, if you never want to see his face ever again. at least if you hate him, it means you still mean something to him, no matter if it’s good or bad. he can shove down his love for you and move on with his life if he knows that’s what you want. 

but is it? is that what you want at this point?

you cried to him and didn’t run away when he pulled you in, when he held you close to his chest while you finally let out the true, deep-seated feelings you’ve spent a lifetime shoving down. surely letting him be there for you in such a vulnerable state isn’t a sign of hatred. 

yet now, you’re quiet again. ignoring him, hiding in the silence between you. 

the silence used to be a sign of your hatred towards him, but is it still? or are you just scared, afraid of the fact that you let him see you so upset and vulnerable? 

one way or another, whatever is going on between the two of you at this point is overly confusing. he has no clue where he stands with you, and he’s done with it. he’s done with the uncertainty.

maybe it’s selfish of him to seek you out. maybe all he’s doing at this point is serving his own interests, trying to make excuses to try and soothe his yearning heart. 

he just can’t live in this limbo of purgatory anymore. 

he finds himself at your door in the mid-evening, raising his hand and summoning the courage to knock. what is he going to say? I love you, but you hate me, but we’re sleeping together. what are we?

that won’t work, that’s for sure.

if he doesn’t do it now, it won’t happen. he’ll think too much, and realize that he’s only going to make this worse, just like he’s been doing, and–

he knocks before the concerns grow too loud in his head. 

when you open the door, the sight of you standing in front of him makes him do a double take. he’s seen you a million times, in a million places, even naked in his own bed. and every time, you still look so gorgeous. so stunning in a way he can’t even fathom possible. 

his words fail him as his jaw stutters, mouth going dry. but he has to say something before you shut the door in his face. 

“I was hoping we could talk,” is what he manages to come up with.

you swallow, averting your eyes from his sharp gaze. you know there’s only one thing he could possibly want to speak with you about, and you don’t know if you’re able to handle it. you don’t know if you’ll survive the admittance that you’re at a crossroads, that he’s somehow gotten under your skin and managed to make you realize that maybe everything isn’t his fault. 

you’re not angry anymore. it’s all gone, as though the ice around your heart has melted.

you don’t know what to do. you don’t know how to do this, how to admit to him what you can barely admit to yourself. so you have to pretend, have to go on the defense, because what other option do you have?

“go away. I don’t want to fucking talk to you,” you grit at him, avoiding making eye contact with him just as you always do. you make to slam the door in his face, hoping he’ll get the message and just leave you the hell alone. 

his metal hand comes to the edge of the door, catching it before you can shut him out. he glares you down as he pushes the door back open, inching towards you and forcing you to take a step back as he shuts it behind him.

“no. we need to talk,” he repeats, crossing his arms over his chest as he stands between you and the door, preventing you from running away on him. 

“and I said I don’t want to, what about that don’t you understand?” you hiss back. is he for real? why can’t he just turn around and go away?

“come on, seriously? aren’t we past this by now?” he questions of you, entirely exasperated. 

in that moment, you sputter, unable to come up with a coherent response. 

“I– I don’t… we aren’t–” you try, your words failing you when you need them most.

he steps closer to you, his eyes never looking away from yours as he uncrosses his arms and reaches out to rest his hands on your waist. 

“you don’t wanna talk, hmm?” he begins, voice low and smooth like molasses. “you wanna let me fuck you, then?”

you nod your head yes without even having to think about it. he’s giving you an out from the conversation, an easy excuse to avoid having to talk about your stupid feelings for now. the sex will help, you think, to turn your brain off and let you off the hook from all the confusion in your head. 

he’s on you then, quickly wrapping himself around you and crashing his lips to yours, drowning out all your worries as he drags you to the bed. 

the scene is practically a mirrored image of the last time you were in this position. you’re frenetic as you try to drag every article of clothing off of both your bodies in less than a moment’s notice, desperately craving the feeling of him inside you, of him making you feel better than you’ve ever felt before. 

surprisingly, he doesn’t fight you on it, allowing you to race through the motions while refusing to break your kiss as much as you can. 

it doesn’t take long before you’re laid out in bed, finally experiencing the delicious stretch of him fucking into you, of him opening you up so perfectly while your cunt drools all over his thighs and abdomen. your head falls back onto your pillow, jaw dropping at the incredible sensation when he speaks up. 

“you’re gonna listen to me now,” he says firmly, and your whole body freezes up.

no, you’re in the middle of having sex. he’s crazy, you think, if he thinks you’re about to have a conversation right now. before you can try and pull away from him or fight back, he continues. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and your eyes immediately shoot open to meet his gaze. when you look at him, you see it: he’s serious. he’s actually doing this right here, right now, holding you down on his cock while there’s nowhere for you to go. 

“please, listen to me. I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted any of what they did to me, of what they made me do,” he begins, his voice growing shaky. 

“Bucky, stop,” you try, but he keeps going as your eyes begin to grow warm and your throat starts to close up. 

“it was never my intention to hurt you, but I did. I’m the reason for every bad thing that has ever happened to you, and I’m so fucking sorry for all of it,” he pleads with you, his own voice cracking repeatedly as he tries again to apologize, tries to break through to you. all the while, you’re shaking your head back and forth as your tears start falling. 

what’s gotten into you? you used to be so good at holding it in, shoving down the sadness when it rose in your chest, managing to conceal it with anger. anger is good, it’s better. anger can be used to your advantage when harnessed properly. 

but when that’s gone?

there’s nothing left to hide behind. 

“no,” you whimper out, trying to squirm underneath him, but it’s of no use. he’s got you pinned, both his body and words keeping you in place. you can’t run away. 

you can’t run from the fact that you’ve been blaming him your whole life, when in reality, it was never his fault at all. 

“I’m sorry, I am,” he starts again, “I’m sorry for sending you away to be trained the same way I was. I’m sorry for hurting you, for taking your hearing, for killing your father–”

those words are your last straw before you break down entirely, sobs wracking through your whole body as he bares his heart and soul to you. you can’t keep tormenting him like this. you can’t keep letting him think what you know now isn’t true. 

“it was never your fault,” you cry out, to his complete and utter surprise. “I’m sorry, Bucky. I’m so sorry. I should’ve known better, I shouldn’t have blamed you this whole time when all you wanted… when all you wanted was to make things better. when none of it was ever your fault.”

you’re a wreck. you’re spouting words, spouting the truth you’ve been so reluctant to come to terms with up until this point. 

but that’s what it is: the truth. the cold, hard reality that you couldn’t bear to accept because that would mean letting yourself be weak, letting yourself break down, the way you are now. 

“I’m sorry, Bucky,” you say through your tears, forcing your watery eyes to part and look up at him. “I’m sorry for everything.”

the look on his face is one of complete shock, taken aback entirely by your admissions. he never expected for you to apologize to him. 

and for as much as he’s finally grateful that you’re looking at him with something other than hatred in your eyes, he knows it won’t last. not when he stupidly admits what he’s about to admit. 

with a whisper of your name, he says it, says the words he’s sure are going to put an end to this forever.

“I love you,” he admits.

your breath stops. he… what?

“and you should fucking hate me for it.” 

your mind is short circuiting, trying to take in his confession. 

you suppose he’s right. you should hate him for it. 

you don’t. 

as much as those words should send you packing, should send you into a rapid spiral of rage, they don’t. 

“you love me?” you whisper. 

“yes. I do. and I’m so sorry, baby,” he says.

when you don’t say another word, he begins to pull away from you, but you stop him. 

“Bucky, I…” you begin, taking a beat before continuing. “I don’t know how to respond to that–”

“–I know, it’s not fair of me, I’m sorry–”

“–but I want you to say it again.”

of all the reactions you could have possibly had to his words, this one might be the most unexpected of them all. 

your words shock him to his very core, and yet, he can’t say no to you. 

“I love you so much, and it kills me inside knowing that I’ve hurt you beyond belief,” he tells you. 

you look back and forth between his beautiful blue eyes above yours, brushing his hair out of his face as you do. 

“it wasn’t your fault,” you reiterate. “and, I… I don’t know what…”

“I know you don’t love me back, obviously, that would be stupid. I know you never will.”

something about that comment spurs you on, filling you with a sense of unease. 

“don’t say that,” you protest. “please don’t say that.”

he’s dumbfounded. there’s no fucking way. you have to be kidding with him, right? you’re not living in the past, not living in the time when you would have done anything just to be cruel to him. no, you trust him now, you wouldn’t lie to him like this.

would you? 

“please don’t say that if you don’t mean it,” he whispers, heart on display, ready and willing to be ripped to shreds if only to know the truth.

“I do mean it, Bucky. I’ve been so terrible to you, but… I mean it.”

he never could’ve thought you’d get to this point, ever. when he first joined the team, the most he hoped for was the chance to apologize. how did you get here? 

how did you manage to go from hating him to this?

“I’m never gonna do anything to hurt you ever again, I promise you that,” he says, burying his face in the crook of your neck and pressing soft kisses to your skin. 

you turn your head to his and press your lips against his for a few moments before pulling away and looking into his eyes once more. 

“I know, Bucky. I trust you,” you whisper. “now, come on. fuck me and show me you mean it.” 

@barnesonly @superbassbuck @opheliabbarnes @wildflowersandvibranium @54nboo @winterdecember18 @earthsmightiestbenders @umbreoni @chateaubarnes @its-in-the-woods @heldbybarnes I can't thank you all enough for the love and support you've showed me, especially whenever the haters strike. from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

✦ masterlist ✦

It started not too long after Bucky had moved into the tower. Bucky had been placed on the same floor as you, his bedroom right across the hall from yours. 

You would wake as he was coming back from the gym, usually catching him on the way back to his ensuite bathroom for a shower. You would greet him with the same sugary sweet smile and voice that almost tempted the super soldier to crack from his usual brooding and smile back.

But he never did. At least, not until recently. 

You knew that Bucky had nightmares. You could hear him at night. The screams of pain, terror, guilt. You name it. 

Every time his nightmares woke you up, the only thing you wanted to do was help. However, Steve and Tony advised against it. They reminded you that Bucky was still unstable, and it was best to let him ride out his nightmares alone, no matter how terrible they may sound. 

You hated it. 

Some nights, you would stay up staring at the dark ceiling in your room, tears threatening to spill down your cheeks at the sound of his yells. It would never last longer than a few minutes. But those few minutes were enough for you to feel your heart break for him. 

After roughly a month of only seeing Bucky in passing, he surprised you. 

You and Natasha had been on a week-long mission across seas and were scheduled to return home that night. You had practically stumbled off the Quinjet, your bones and muscles aching with exhaustion. You walked past the medbay despite Natasha’s protest to at least get checked on. Instead, opt for a hot shower and your warm bed.

What you didn’t expect was to find Bucky sitting at your shared kitchen counter, a hot plate of spaghetti set on the bar across from him. 

As soon as the elevator doors dinged open, his gaze shot to you. You tried to ignore the way it roamed over your body, as if assessing for any injury, as you approached the kitchen.  

Seeing Bucky in the kitchen wasn’t an unusual sight for you. However, it was well past midnight, meaning it was well past Bucky’s unspoken bedtime. 

“What’s this?” You ask quietly, not wanting to disturb the peaceful silence that enveloped the two of you.

Bucky glanced at the food, then back to you. His face never changing. “It’s for you.” He spoke, his voice coming out gruff as if it hadn’t been used in a while. Which it probably hadn’t. 

You quirked a brow at him but took a seat in front of the plate. This was an unusual display from him, and the last thing you wanted to do was embarrass or scare him off. 

You swirled the noodles around your fork and took a bite, savoring the taste as it melted against your tongue. 

“You don’t eat after missions.”

Your eyes shot to Bucky at the sound of his voice. However, he was looking at the counter and not at you.

“It doesn’t really cross my mind.” You reply, returning to your meal. 

“You need to eat.” He responded firmly. The clipped way in which he spoke made you not want to argue. 

“I might be more inclined to eat after a mission if I came home to home-cooked meals every time.” You attempted to joke with him. He didn’t even smirk.

He pointed at your plate, “Eat.” He said before stalking off back towards his room.

Your gaze followed his broad shoulders. “Thank you!” You remembered to shout down the hall, not missing the way his footsteps halted for hardly a millisecond. You smiled down at your food, glad to see that he cared in his own, quiet way. 

The next mission you came back from, there was a hot plate of food already waiting for you on the counter. 

You shoot awake in your bed at the sound of a scream followed by loud bangs. You knew who it was. Bucky’s nightmares were bad, but he had yet to get violent. 

You sat in your bed and stared at your bedroom door as if willing yourself to see through the walls separating the two of you.   

Every instinct in your body screamed to help him. Help him not suffer anymore. But the voices of Steve and Tony rang in your head, warning you against it. You contemplated as the violent noises didn’t let up, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth. 

Fuck it. You’re an Avenger. If he tries to kill you, then you’ll figure it out.

You slipped out of bed, the cool air hitting your bare legs. You snapped your fingers, a small glowing ball forming above your hand and lighting up the surrounding area. You pushed your bedroom door open and crept across the hall to Bucky’s room. You paused in front of his door, taking a deep breath as your heart thrummed unsteadily in your chest. 

You pushed the handle down slowly, pushing the door open and extending your makeshift light into the room to see. It took a moment for your eyes to adjust, but then you saw him, and the sight in front of you just about broke you. 

His usually large form was made small against the corner of his room. His knees were folded to his chest and his head tucked down. You could see his body tremble violently from where you stood in the doorway. 

“Bucky.” You called out, gentle yet firm. 

He didn’t seem to hear you, his head still tucked and his body shaking. 

You took another deep breath, scolding yourself for being stupid before stepping further into the room and towards the soldier. As you got closer, you could make out the sound of his stuttered breathing and the occasional hitch. Your frown deepened. 

“Bucky? Bucky, it’s me. (Y/n).” You spoke again, slowly kneeling in front of the man. 

Still no response. 

You breathed out a long breath through your nose before closing your eyes briefly. 

You reached a hand out to him, slow and careful. As gently as you could manage, you placed a hand on his shoulder. 

Before you could even react, your body was slammed to the floor, and an arm was pressed across your chest, holding you down. 

Bucky stared down at you with wild eyes. His forehead was covered in a sheen of sweat, and his breathing was labored. His arm on your chest was firm, but you could feel the way that it shook against you. 

“Bucky! Hey! It’s me!” Your voice rose slightly despite you trying to stay calm. 

Bucky’s hold on you didn’t let up. All he did was continue to stare at you with that blank stare, as if he weren’t all there. 

Your chest heaved as you tried to think, looking around the room. Suddenly, it hit you. 

You evened out your breathing and reached a steady hand out to him. His eyes darted between you and your hand, but he didn’t stop you. 

You gently placed your hand against his stubble-covered cheek. You spoke to him softly. Like a mother calming down her frightened child. 

“It’s okay, Buck. I’m right here. You’re safe.” You paused as you felt the pressure on your chest let up a bit. You continued, “They can’t make you do anything here, Bucky. I’m here. (Y/n) is right here with you. I won’t let them hurt you again.” You whispered, softly running your thumb over the curve of his jaw.

You watched as the light slowly returned to his blue eyes, and his breathing began to slow again. 

“(Y-Y/n)?” Bucky croaked out, his voice rough from yelling. 

You smiled at him. “Yeah, Buck. It’s me.” Your hand never left his face.  

Buckt seemed to finally realize the situation you were in, and he retracted his arm like he had been burned. He scrambled backwards until his back hit the side of his bed. 

“Y-You need to leave. I don’t want to hurt you.” He stuttered out, his eyes not meeting your own. You smiled at him gently and scooted towards him. 

“But you didn’t, Buck. You didn’t even come close.” You stated, placing a firm hand against his vibranium arm.

“But-”

“No buts. I’m okay. You’re okay.” You interjected, not wanting him to linger on the prospect of accidentally hurting you any longer. 

There was a brief pause between you two as Bucky’s breath finally evened out fully. “Why are you in here?” He questioned gruffly. 

You tilted your head at him as if he should know the answer to that already. “I was worried and wanted to help.” You responded, never raising your voice over a whisper.

Bucky let out a self-deprecating scoff. “I can deal with the nightmares on my own.” He said, once again avoiding your gaze. 

You grabbe his jaw once again, ignoring the way he stiffened for a second and tilted his eyes up to meet yours. 

“You don’t have to deal with them on your own.” You reassured him, your gaze unwavering. Bucky swallowed as he stared at you. You realized he might be uncomfortable being so close to someone he hardly knew, so you scooted away and dropped your hand from his face.

Bucky tried to ignore the twinge of disappointment he felt. 

Since that night, you and Bucky had gotten noticeably closer. 

He lingered around the compound more and followed you around like a lost puppy. He would do small things for you. things he wouldn’t do for anyone else. 

He would grab things for you off the top shelf that you couldn’t quite reach. He waited for you outside the gym so he could walk you back to your shared floor. He would make an extra pot of coffee in the morning for when you woke up.

The others began to notice. 

One day, Sam and Steve were visiting Bucky on your guys’ floor. You were out with Wanda and Natasha and would be returning anytime now. 

Bucky stood at the oven, the sound of food sizzling on a pan bouncing around the kitchen. 

“I didn’t take you for a chicken tender guy, Barnes,” Sam stated as he sat at the kitchen bar with Steve. Bucky didn’t even glance over his shoulder before responding. 

“(Y/n) likes them.” He said in his usual gruff tone.

Sam looked at Steve, who just shrugged. Sam continued with his teasing.

“So you’re making lunch for (Y/n), who isn’t even home yet, and won’t make any for us?” Sam said with a quirked brow. 

This time, Bucky threw a quick look at the two men over his shoulder before turning back to the stove. “(Y/n) likes my cooking.” He stated as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Right on cue, the elevator doors opened, and you walked through. “Hey, boys.” You greeted casually as you beelined straight for Bucky. They didn’t miss the small quirk on his lips as he watched you approach him.

“Hey, Buck.” You greeted him separately, placing a gentle hand on the middle of his back, right between his shoulder blades. You looked down at the pan of chicken. “You makin’ yourself some lunch?” You questioned quietly. Bucky shook his head lightly. 

“It’s for you…if you want it.” He said in an almost timid manner, afraid you would reject his cooking despite never having done so before. 

Your smile was blinding as you looked back up at him. “I could never say no to your cooking, Bucky. Thank you.” You said, a sincere grin stretched across your face. 

Sam and Steve watched the almost domestic interaction before excusing themselves and heading to the elevator.

“Man, did you see that?!” Sam questioned with an incredulous wave of his arms as soon as the doors of the elevator shut. 

“I haven’t seen him act that comfortable around anybody but me,” Steve replied, brows furrowed. “I figured they would warm up to each other eventually due to the proximity, but I never expected it to happen this quick,” Steve stated. His mind was running a mile a minute to figure out what you possibly could’ve done to make Bucky act so… peaceful. 

Sam shook his head as the doors opened to another floor, and they stepped out. “As curious as I am, I’ll take this as a win. It’s good he’s opening up to someone.” The man said to Steve, who gave him a firm nod.

“Let’s hope it progresses from here, then.”

“You are going to pace a hole into my floors, Tinman,” Tony said sarcastically as he watched Bucky’s large frame lumber back and forth in front of the large doors of the landing pad of the tower. 

His gaze snapped up to Tony. “Her comms are shut off, and she was supposed to be back an hour ago.” He said, his voice hoarse. Tony sighed in understanding. Despite his playful demeanor, he too was worried about you. 

“That’s why we sent Rogers and Romanoff out 30 minutes ago. They’ll get her, and everyone will be okay.” Tony said in an attempt to calm the anxious super soldier. 

Suddenly, Natasha’s voice crackled to life over the intercom of the room they were in. “We found her. She’s unconscious and bleeding. The rest of the men have been taken care of, and we’re taking her back to the jet.” Natasha spoke with an emotionless tone. The tone she uses when she doesn’t want to break.

Tony was the one to reply, but it was all white noise for Bucky.

Bucky felt like the world was crumbling around him. His small, quiet world he had just barely managed to build. 

In the year that Bucky had been living with the Avengers, living with you, he had grown an undeniable fondness towards you. He knew it, and so did everyone else. You were his sun, and not just because of your abilities. You reached out to him when he felt like he was drowning. Every moment spent with you felt like breathing. 

Each night that you came into his room and calmed him down from whatever terrors that lingered in his mind meant so much to him. Each time, you invited him to watch a movie with you. Something so simple, but you didn’t have to. Sometimes, he would wake up to the credits rolling and his head in your lap. Your delicate fingers running through his long hair.

He clung to your natural warmth like it was the only thing he knew. You were the most gentle being he ever met. He was only reminded of your strength when out on the battlefield, watching you tear through the enemy forces like it was second nature.

His breathing grew heavy as every sweet memory the two of you shared crossed his mind. All he could think about was you. Your voice, your laughter, the way your hair fell against your shoulders, the glint you got in your eyes when you teased him, the way you would hum him to sleep after a particularly rough dream. 

Bucky decided then and there that he couldn’t live without you. Couldn’t live without the warmth you brought to his cold heart. 

“...nes! Barnes!” Bucky’s head shot up at the sound of Tony’s voice. The billionaire was looking down at the trembling man.

“You need to get it together, pal. They’re almost here, and we need your muscles to get her to the medbay.” Bucky’s open mouth closed as he nodded and stood. 

“Did something happen to Steve?” He questioned, knowing that Steve was plenty capable of carrying you himself.

Tony held his chin between two fingers. “Bullet wound in the abdomen. He’s awake and stable but in no condition to carry anyone.” Tony said as the quinjet came into view and began to descend onto the landing pad. Tony looked to Bucky, “She’s top priority.” Bucky nodded. He didn’t need to be told that. 

As soon as the doors opened, the two men descended upon the quinjet. Natasha stepped out with Steve’s weakening body slumped against her body, supporting his weight. She looked to Bucky, “She’s laid out on the seats. Bleeding’s been stopped.” Bucky gave a curt nod and rushed to your unconscious body that was draped over the quinjet’s seating. 

He scooped you into his arms as Tony followed behind, relaying your visible condition to the doctors via the communications device in his ear. 

Bucky’s heavy footfalls thudded throughout the hall as he ran to the medbay. He glanced down at your face every so often. “C’mon sweetheart. You gotta wake up.” He mumbled to himself as the medbay doors finally came into view. 

The attending doctors rushed out the doors to guide Bucky to the surgical table. He set you down gently and watched as the doctors swooped down on you, scissors cutting open your gear and clothes. 

Tony placed a hand on his chest, “C’mon, Barnes. We gotta leave so they can help her.” Tony showed an unusual gentleness, understanding Bucky’s feelings. 

Bucky didn’t put up a fight. He knew he’d just get in the way if he stayed. He exited the doors and walked to the room where Steve was being fixed up. 

The doors slid open, and he met the gaze of Natasha and Steve. His eyes were cold as he stared at them.

“You said it was just a recon mission. There shouldn’t have been that many people there.” Bucky spoke to Steve, his voice unwavering but gruff. 

Steve huffed, his gaze fixed on the linoleum floors. “It was an ambush. More men than she could handle on her own.” He stated. Bucky didn’t reply, his gaze flickering over to Natasha, who was worrying her lip between her teeth. 

“What happened to her?” His voice was quieter now, unsure if he wanted the answer.

Natasha responded this time, “She got overwhelmed. They had some new tech. Something that subdued her powers enough for them to get close.” Natasha’s voice faltered as she continued, “Four gunshot wounds to the torso and a lacerated spleen due to a knife.” 

Bucky swallowed down the lump in his throat. He had taken more gunshots, more knives to the torso than he could remember. But you were you. You didn’t have some fancy serum running through your veins that healed you faster like he and Steve did. 

Bucky almost didn’t want to ask the question that was on the tip of his tongue, but he did. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” His voice was quiet and strained. 

He took note of the hesitance in both Steve and Natasha’s faces. Finally, Steve replied. “We’re unsure. She was unconscious by the time we got to her, and we don’t know how long she was like that.”

Bucky’s whole demeanor changed. His already stiff shoulders tensed considerably, his jaw locked, and his gaze became steely.

“If she dies–” Bucky choked out, not able to finish his sentence. His vibranium fist clenched so hard the metal groaned under the pressure.

He turned and stormed out of the room.

You were out of surgery soon enough and were wheeled into a recovery room. You were stable, and the doctors said you would be okay. But you were yet to wake up. 

Bucky sat next to your bed, his right hand laced with yours. He wanted to feel the unnatural warmth you always had. But now you felt just like everyone else. 

It had been two days since your surgery, and Bucky had only left your side to use the bathroom and to eat. 

Bucky’s eyes shot to the door as Steve walked in. He took in the sight of his best friend. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes were sunken due to exhaustion. 

“Buck.” He said gently, “You need to rest up and shower.” 

“I can’t. What if she wakes up?” He asked. His voice was hoarse and broken.

Steve sighed. “I’ll be right here, and you’ll be the first to know.” He reassured him. However, Bucky didn’t move. 

“C’mon, Buck. You know she won’t want to see you like that.” He said, stepping closer. “She won’t be able to focus on recovering if she’s too worried about you.” 

Bucky’s eyes met Steve’s. He was right, you couldn’t see him this way. He stood from his chair, his eyes never leaving your face as he walked to the door. 

“Promise me you’ll tell me as soon as she wakes up.” He said, not looking at Steve.

Still, Steve smiled, “I promise, Buck.”

Bucky was quick in the shower, feeling no need to linger. 

Now, he laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling. He had no desire to sleep. He didn’t deserve to. Not when you were suffering on your own. However, the exhaustion from being up for two days straight and worrying about you finally creeps up on him. He tried to fight off the sleep, but his eyelids only grew heavier and heavier until he drifted off.

“... Sergeant Barnes.” The artificial voice rang throughout his room, causing Bucky to shoot up from his bed.

“FRIDAY?” He croaked out. His voice thick with sleep.

“Captain Rogers asked me to inform you that Miss. (L/n) is awake and is requesting to see you.” The robotic voice explained. 

Bucky didn’t need to hear anything else as he stumbled from his bed and to the door of his room. His breathing was heavy and rough as he sprinted to your recovery room. Every fiber in his being screamed at him to move faster, get to you quicker. As if you would disappear if he didn’t.

Bucky began closing in on the doors of your recovery room, not bothering to slow down, opting to barrel through the cracked door.

His quick movements came to a halt at the sight of you. You were sat up in your bed, Steve’s hand on your back to keep you stable. There was a doctor in the room with a clipboard, presumably talking to you before being interrupted by Bucky’s dramatic entrance. 

Bucky’s breathing was labored as your eyes locked on him, and despite your situation, despite all the pain, you grinned. “Bucky.” His name came out of your mouth in a quiet whisper. 

He stalked over to you and felt his hand tremble as he reached for yours. “Hey, doll.” He said quietly, attempting to match your smile with a shaky one. 

Steve nodded to the doctor, who got the message and turned to leave. Steve spoke next. “You two catch up for now.” He said, then turned to you, “Let us know if you need anything.” He spoke more gently now. 

You smiled up at him. “Thank you, Steve.”

Steve nodded and left the room.

You looked back to Bucky, your fingers slowly gaining back their warmth. “Hi, Bucky.” You said, your grin not leaving your face.

Bucky let out a disbelieving laugh. “How can you be grinning right now?” He asked, his smile gentle and sweet. 

You shrugged and ran your thumb over the back of his hand, tracing the scars. “Well, I’m alive, aren’t I? I couldn’t have asked for better.” You spoke to him.

Bucky shook his head. “I would’ve preferred for you not to be sitting here, injured.” He said, his eyes glancing over your every feature. He couldn’t be happier to be talking to you right now. 

“Bucky?” Your small voice echoed between the two of you.

His eyes never left your face. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“I want to take a shower.” You stated plainly. 

Bucky laughed increduously at your simple request. “Baby—” The pet name slipped out, but he didn’t notice. “You are in no condition to leave this bed right now.” He said.

You pouted. “Bucky, I feel so gross. I can’t live like this.”

He rolled his eyes at your whining but kept smiling. “As soon as you’re cleared, doll, I’ll get you a shower. I promise.” He said gently, as if he were placating a child.

Your smile softened. “Okay, Bucky. Thank you.”

Bucky’s head tilted slightly as he looked at you. “Anything you want, doll, it’s yours.”

It took only two more days for you to be cleared to walk around and move back into your room. You were to report back for daily checkups and were on strong antibiotics. 

Bucky stood next to your hospital bed as you shimmied your shirt over your head. He turned away to protect your modesty but stood close in case you needed his help. 

“Bucky.” 

He turned back around at the call of his name, his gaze raking over your body. It was refreshing to see you in something other than a hospital gown.

“Ready to go?” He asked, extending his vibranium hand out to you. You nodded. You took his hand and stood shakily. His flesh hand was placed gently on the small of your back as he helped you stand. “Let me know if you need me to carry you.” He said firmly, not wanting to risk you getting injured any further. 

The two of you walked out of the room. His usual quick strides were slower in shorter to keep pace with you. Slowly but surely, the two of you made it to your room. You sat on your bed to catch your breath, having not been used to walking so far, let alone at all. 

Bucky watched as your gaze lingered on your bathroom door. “Shower?” He asked you. You looked to him with a small smile and nodded. 

Before you could bother trying to stand, Bucky was walking to your bathroom. You listened to the sound of the shower as Bucky turned it on. He came back to the room and rummaged through your drawers, looking for comfortable clothes. He went back to the bathroom to place your folded clothes on the counter for you. He was quick to walk back out to your side, hoisting you up gently. 

“You don’t have to do this, Buck.” You spoke softly. 

Bucky didn’t look at you, too focused on watching your footing. “Don’t start with that. I want to.” He replied, leaving no room for argument. 

The two of you made it to the bathroom, and he slowly dropped your hand. 

“Do you need help?” He asked, not wanting to overstep any boundaries.

You glanced over at your shower. It was a walk-in, so it should be manageable. “No, I think I’ll be okay.” You replied and turned to look back at Bucky.

You could still see the worry swirl in his eyes, but you knew he wouldn’t stop worrying until you were completely healed. Eventually, he nodded. “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be right outside the door.” He said.

You smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Bucky. I will.”

His gaze lingered on you before turning to leave, closing the door with a quiet click behind him. 

You turned to the shower and took a deep breath. You took off your clothes slowly, ignoring the searing pain in your torso as you lifted your arms over your head to get your shirt off. 

You had finally managed to get your clothes off and stared at yourself in the mirror. You frowned at your wounds that were stitched closed and traced a finger over them. They would scar. 

You sighed and walked slowly to the shower. You felt the temperature of the water, smiling to yourself when you realized Bucky had it set to just the right temperature. You stepped in and groaned in pleasure at the feeling of the warm water beating against your skin. Your muscles began to relax as the water cascaded gently against your body.

You decided you couldn’t keep Bucky waiting forever and decided to begin washing yourself. You leaned over for your shampoo but winced and grabbed one of the wounds on your side. It seemed it didn’t agree with the movement. You powered through and grabbed the bottle, opening the lid and squirting the soap into your hand. 

You reached up to your head, ignoring the pain that racked up and down your body, and began scrubbing.

Your teeth are gritted painfully together, the white hot pain becoming unbearable. You couldn’t hold your arms up, let alone move them, for long due to your body being littered with deep wounds. You became frustrated, dropping your arms as the soap dripped down your hair and hands. Tears sprung to your eyes, angry with your own helplessness. 

You took a deep breath and shut the water off.

Bucky’s brows furrowed in confusion at the sound of the water stopping. That was way too quick, especially considering your condition. 

“Bucky?” Your small voice echoed from behind the door.

 Bucky sprang up and paused right outside the door, hand already on the handle. “Doll? You alright?” He called out, his face etched with worry. 

No response.

“Sweetheart, if you don’t answer me, I’m going to come in there.” He could hear the worry in his voice as he spoke.

Once again, no response. 

Bucky’s breathing faltered, and he pressed down on the handle, pushing the door open with ease. 

His gaze immediately locked on you. Your arms were crossed over your chest, your body trembling. Either in pain or due to the cold on your wet skin. He couldn’t tell. However, he felt his heart clench in his chest at the sight of your wet eyes and your shaky bottom lip.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He breathed out, reaching you in three quick strides as his hands raised to cup your face gently.

“What’s wrong, honey?” He asked in a whisper, as if speaking in a normal voice would hurt you further. 

Your water eyes looked up at his, and you drew in a shaky breath before speaking. “I-I can’t–” You swallowed before continuing. “I need your help.” You said, “Please?” You choked out, meek and scared. 

Bucky felt his heart shatter. In the year he has known you, he has never seen you like this. So small and sad. 

Bucky brushed a tear from your cheek as it fell. “Of course, sweetheart.” His hands moved from your cheeks and to your shoulders. He nudged you back into the shower and turned the handle. The water came back to life, still warm. It trickled down your body as you stood there. 

Bucky smiled at you softly. “Are you okay with me taking my clothes off, doll?” He asked, not wanting to make you any more uncomfortable than you already may be. He watched as you gave him a quick nod, the tears still not leaving your eyes. 

Bucky made quick work of his clothes before stepping into the shower right behind you. “Is it okay if I touch you?” He asked calmly. You responded with another nod of your head. 

Bucky drew in a breath before reaching for your hair and scrubbing in the rest of the shampoo. He was gentle and careful, treating you like a doll. His doll. He turned you around to rinse your hair in the water but paused when he saw the tears running down your face and your lip still trembling. His frown deepened as he took in your smaller form.

He cupped your face again. “What’s wrong, honey? Where’s it hurt?” He questioned, his gaze dropping slightly to look at your wounds before he locked his eyes back onto yours. 

You shook your head at him, and his brows furrowed in response. “You gotta talk to me. I can’t help you if I don’t know what's wrong.” He chided gently, egging you on. 

You drew in a shaky breath before speaking. “I was so scared, Bucky.” You looked down at his chest, wanting to avoid his gaze. “I-I thought I was going to die.” You choked out.

Bucky’s shoulders tensed as he realized you were talking about that day. You hadn’t spoken of it since you woke up. No one pressured you, knowing you needed time. Bucky was about to respond, but you cut him off.

“And all I could think about—” You hiccuped, practically choking on your own emotion. “All I could think about was you.” You finally got out.

Bucky froze where he stood, his eyes widening slightly. 

“All I could think about was what you would do if I died. Who would comfort you when you had a nightmare—” You were speaking too fast now and tripping over your words. “And then, I sat there. Bleeding out, in pain, and my consciousness beginning to slip.” You paused. “All I thought about was how I was going to die here, cold and alone, never getting to tell you how I felt.” 

Bucky’s heart pounded hard in his chest as you rambled on. His grip on your face tightened slightly. “Doll—” He croaked, but you cut him off again. 

Your eyes locked with his. The color in them more vibrant with your tears. “I love you, Bucky Barnes. And I have to tell you now, or I’ll regret it forever.” You said resolutely, your voice more steady than it had been since he had entered the shower with you. 

Bucky could feel his own hands tremble. Could feel every beat of his pounding heart against his ribcage.

“You l-love me?” Bucky choked out, his own eyes beginning to water. 

You nodded, nuzzling your face into his open palm. Your eyes were still wet, and your lips still trembled. 

Bucky rested his forehead against yours, closing his eyes. He took in a steadying breath as he felt your lips brush his. “Can I kiss you?” He whispered. 

You responded with an almost imperceptible nod. 

Bucky sighed before slotting his lips against yours gently. He poured every ounce of love into that kiss. Every feeling you’ve ever made his cold heart feel. One of his hands dropped to your waist, the other to the side of your neck. He pulled you against him, his lips working over yours slowly. He groaned as one of your hands made their way into his hair, pulling gently. 

You pulled away first, gasping for air as you rested your forehead against his chest. Bucky’s hand gently chucked your chin, directing your gaze towards his. His eyes were so soft, so different from the usual look they held.

“I love you too, doll.” He whispered.

You felt your face split into a smile. Your tears were long gone. All you felt in that moment was love and joy. 

You tucked your face back into his chest as your body began to heat in giddy embarrassment due to your power. You felt the rumble of Bucky’s laugh against you. 

“You can’t be embarrassed now, Sweetheart. I’ve already seen you naked.” 

You responded with a smack to his chest and glared up at him. He only continued to smile at you before leaning down and capturing your lips into another kiss. This kiss was softer, slower. 

He pulled back and mumbled against your mouth. “Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again.”

Bucky has learned not to trust silence. Or surfaces that look too calm.

And right now, he doesn’t trust any of this.

The ice expanse looms wide and perfidious, a frozen lake transformed into a combat zone. Its skin is veined with subtle cracks resembling stress lines beneath glass. Somewhere beneath it, dark water lurks and waits.

Snow scuds sideways across the ground as if it’s being chased. The world has shrunk to shades of white and steel-blue and the crunch of boots over something that pretends to be solid.

And Bucky doesn’t like this.

“Stay sharp,” Steve says into the comm, voice concentrated, shield strapped tight. “Thermals show movement north of the ridge.”

Sam hums, a grumble and a teasing lilt in his tone. “Because of course Hydra would pick the one place where falling equals instant death.”

Bucky hears you make an amused sound as you adjust your footing. And when you glance back at him over your shoulder, he pretends not to have watched your every step. Your breath fogs the air, your eyelashes already dusted white. And you still manage to look at him with a smirk. “Barnes, if I eat it out here, you’re carrying me back.”

Bucky snorts despite not feeling like it. “You wish.”

But his eyes don’t leave you.

They never really do. Not since somewhere between Sokovia and Siberia and all the moments in between and before. He tracks the way you move, careful but unafraid, the way your shoulders square when the wind shoves at you, the way you always walk just a fraction ahead as though you’re daring the world to keep up.

It terrifies him.

The ice groans underfoot. Deep and hollowed. Almost conversational. As if the ice is clearing its throat before opening its mouth.

“Hey—” Bucky starts, but it’s too late already.

Someone bursts from cover and slams into you hard from the side. The force is brutal. Momentum weaponized. You skid, boots screaming uselessly across the slick surface, arms not having the time to pinwheel and it will haunt him forever because your balance doesn’t stand a chance.

You crash downward.

Then the ice gives up.

It doesn’t just crack, it howls a low animal sound dragged up from the planet’s spine.

The surface caves inward, serrated and brutal, a jaw opening and only closing once you’re inside.

There’s no pause, no time, no heroic slow-motion — just a destructive crack and the sickening absence where you were.

“Y/n!” Your name is torn out of Bucky’s chest as though he’s spitting out his heart.

“Contact!” Natasha shouts. “We’ve got—”

Bucky is already running. Ice be damned. Mission be damned. He doesn’t ask permission, doesn’t check angles or cover or the mission parameters still ringing in his earpiece. Something in him detonates and his body answers.

“Barnes, hold position!” Sam barks. “Bucky—!”

No.

There is only the hole and the water and the unendurable absence of you where you were supposed to be.

The wind is a knife, the snow a white cloud, the gunfire distant and irrelevant.

He skids to his knees at the edge. It’s ugly, bleeding dark water, and as he peers down, he sees you beneath the surface. Your body is yanked sideways, out of reach, out of touch, out of sight, hair drifting around your face.

You’re not moving. You’re not fighting.

And something inside him shatters so sharply, so personally, it almost feels audible. His breaths are brittle gasps, short shards of air snapping off in his throat.

“Track her,” he growls to no one, slamming his metal palm flat against the ice. The arm vibrates, feeds him data he doesn’t deserve to have. Faint heat signatures. Motion. A ghost of you slipping farther away.

He sprints along the fractured line, boots slipping, heart hammering and trying to break free of his ribs to follow you into the depths of the water. The ice above you is thick again, deceptively solid, smooth as a lie.

Bucky doesn’t hesitate.

He drives his vibranium fist down.

The impact cracks the surface like lightning splitting the sky. Once. Twice. The third punch cracks the ice wide, water erupting upward and exploding in a freezing roar.

Cold vapor burns his lungs as he dives without thinking, without breathing, without anything but you burning bright and singular in his mind.

The water is a monster. It is agony. It wraps around his limbs and squeezes. It seizes him, pounces into every seam of his gear, steals the air from his chest in one ferocious gulp. It’s so cold it feels hot, like fire inverted, like pain sharpened into clarity. He clenches his teeth against the shock and forces his eyes open. Everything is blue-black danger, bubbles screaming past his face.

There.

You’re limp. Unresponsive. Hair floating around your face like a halo that doesn’t belong in a place like this. Your eyes are closed. Your body drifts away from him, obedient to the current, uncaring of the man breaking himself to reach you.

His blood flow seems to abandon his brain, leaving him light-headed, half-evacuated.

No, he thinks, viscerally. No. No. No.

He kicks hard, metal arm cleaving through the resistance. The world is trying to steal you piece by piece and he’s not going to let it.

So he fights, and he gets to you, and he grabs you around the ribs. The relief that hammers into him is savage and overwhelming, so intense it nearly costs him the strength to move.

He hauls you up and continues fighting. He fights the water, fights the pull, fights the rising scream in his chest as his lungs start to spasm. The ice above is a warped mirror.

He breaks the surface with a sound that’s half-sob, half-snarl, vision tunneling, arms wound tight around you.

Hands grab him and you immediately.

“Shit” Sam’s voice cracks. “Get her out— get her—”

Together, they help pull you onto the ice.

“Get her flat!” Steve orders.

Bucky basically shoves away a shocked Natasha to get back to your side.

Fear is a hand over the mouth of reason, muffling logic until it goes hoarse.

You’re motionless. Skin pale, lips tinged blue, water streaming from you relentlessly. He drops beside you so hard, his knees protest, hand shaking as he brushes wet hair from your face.

His chest is a barricaded door rattling in its frame. Something is pounding from the inside, desperate to be let out.

“No, no, no,” he mutters, words rumbling rough and vulnerable. “Come on, please!”

He tilts your head back, checks your airway with hands that refuse to be steady. Nothing. No breath. No rise of your chest.

Horror makes his mind slip its leash and lets his body drag after it at full speed. Feral and wild.

He places his hands on your sternum without thinking. Locks his arms. Presses down.

“One—two—three—” His voice ducks and flinches before the words even land, but he keeps counting, compressions precise and desperate, pouring everything he has into each push. “Come on. Come on, sweetheart. Breathe. You’re— you’re too stubborn for this.”

Utter dread crawls along his spine and counts each vertebra like steps toward a cliff.

Sam hovers nearby, unusually quiet. Steve watches with his jaw clenched tight. Natasha has tears in her eyes. They’ve seen Bucky fight armies without flinching, but this is naked terror, laid bare in the way his shoulders shake, the way his eyes never leave your face.

He lets his tears fall, doesn’t care who sees, doesn’t care about anything except the terrifying stillness beneath his hands. His lungs don’t remember their choreography, each breath tripping over the one before and none of them recovering. Panic like he never felt before grinds its thumb into the soft place beneath his tongue, turning saliva to sand and making him choke on it.

“Don’t you dare,” Bucky pleads under his breath between counts. “Come back to me. Come on, Y/n. Wake up. Wake up!” His words arrive bent, corners crushed, syntax bruised.

He seals his mouth over yours, breathes life back into you, then returns to compressions, erratic, limitless, refusing the universe any other outcome. He will continue doing this until he dies.

Again. Again.

“Come back,” he almost shouts in a cry. “Please come back.”

Your body jerks.

A cough tears out of you, harsh and wet. Water spills from your mouth as you gasp, lungs seizing around air as if it’s brand new.

It’s the most beautiful sound he ever heard.

He lets out a broken sob and collapses forward, catching you as you lean instinctively into him, shivering hard.

“There you are,” he whispers shakily, pressing you to him. “You’re okay. It’s okay.”

Bucky wraps around you without thinking, arms locking tight, metal and flesh forming a cage against the cold. He feels your fingers fisting in his soaked suit, face pressed into the hollow of his throat.

Steve exhales slowly, something like relief loosening his posture. Natasha turns away, giving you privacy without comment, schooling her expression back to composed.

Sam shakes his head. “Told you,” he utters under his breath, subdued, lacking a little bit of that teasing tone he tried to push into his voice. “He’s got it bad.”

Bucky doesn’t care about the others.

He just tucks your head under his chin and keeps his arms firmly around you. Shielding you from the wind, from the world, from anything else that might dare to take you. His body won’t stop trembling. His heart is still racing and it seems it hasn’t got the message that you’re alive and well in his arms.

He peppers a kiss to your wet hair before he can stop himself, before he can remember how to be careful.

You cough against him, and he tightens further, presses you closer.

“Cold,” you whimper.

“I know,” he answers immediately, rocking you just slightly. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” He says it again and again. Hoping it might remind him.

The mission can burn.

The ice can crack.

The world can do its worst.

You’re breathing.

And he knows like a cold certainty growing in his chest that he will never get over this. He can outlast missions, cheat death a hundred times over, learn every trick for outrunning the past, and it still won’t matter. Because the image of you drifting away beneath the ice will follow him forever.

It’s a deeply etched mark he will carry wherever he goes. It will surface in the quiet seconds before sleep, in the hollow pauses between heartbeats, in the spaces where he should feel victorious but doesn’t. No distance will dull it. No success will bury it.

And he knows what it means. That scar is not just grief or fear or regret — it is love in its most brutal form. It survives terror and brands itself into bone and refuses to be erased. It hurts precisely because it matters so much.

And he’s done carrying it alone.

If the memory is permanent, then so is the truth it holds. He owes you that much. He owes himself that much.

So he will finally let the words rise, will finally have to tell you how he feels, because loving you has already changed him forever, and it’s time you know.

“It feels good to be home.” You say as soon as you and Bucky entered yours and his house.

“It is.” Bucky agrees.

You and Bucky finished a successful mission with the Avengers and you two just got home. You two got cleaned up and put your mission uniforms in the laundry basket. You made a mental note to yourself to wash them tomorrow. For now, you just want to spend time with your husband. You sighed softly as you sat down on the couch next to him, cuddling yourself against him. Bucky wraps his arm around you. You bite your bottom lip as you thought of something you’ve been meaning to tell Bucky. Something that involves you, Bucky, and the bedroom to be exact.

“So, I’ve been thinking.” You begin.

“Uh oh.” Bucky jokes.

“Babe!” You whined.

“I’m kidding!” He chuckles. “What have you been thinking?” He asks.

“I’ve been thinking that we should try something interesting in the bedroom.” You say.

“Oh? Care to elaborate on what it is?” He says intrigued.

“BDSM. Not the extremes of it. Just the light stuff like spanking and being tied to the bed.” You say.

Bucky stares at you with raised eyebrows. He was not expecting you to say that. If he’s being honest, he’s intrigued. He’s willing to try anything new and interesting with you in the bedroom.

“Well? What do you think?” You asked a bit nervously.

“I think that’s an amazing idea.” Bucky says.

“Really? You would do that kind of stuff with me?” You asked.

“Doll, I’ll do anything with you. I’m down to try anything you want.” He says.

You smiled and kissed him. The kiss started off soft and sweet. Then it turned heated. You two pull away breathlessly. Bucky stands up, pulling you up with him and leads you to yours and his bedroom.

“Strip for me, doll face.” Bucky says gruffly.

You gave him a show as you did so. Bucky’s eyes filled with lust and his cock hardens as he watches you. He licks his lips as he stares at your naked body. Then he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“C’mere.” He beckons you over to him while patting his lap.

You approached him, swaying your hips seductively as you did so. You laid across Bucky’s lap. You can feel his bulge poking your stomach. Bucky’s right hand rubs your asscheeks before doing anything, giving both of them a squeeze.

“Ready?” He asks.

“Yes, Sergeant.” You answered seductively.

Bucky raises his hand and brings it down, landing a smack on your ass. The smack echoed throughout the bedroom.. A moan falls from your lips.

“I knew you would like this.” Bucky smirks.

“I do.” You say.

Bucky raises his hand again, landing another smack on your ass. This spank was a bit harsher than the first one, but you’re not complaining one bit. You love how it feels. Moans kept falling from your lips as he continued to spank you. He spanked you till your ass was red.

“How’re you feeling, babydoll?” Bucky asks, checking in on you.

“Amazing.” You say. “What’s next?” You curiously asked.

“You’re about to find out, doll face, but first, I need you to lay on your back for me.” He says.

“Yes, Sergeant.” You replied obediently.

You did as Bucky said, laying on your back on the bed. Since you and Bucky don’t have handcuffs to handcuff you to the bed, he used the next best thing. His belt.

“Arms up above your head.” He orders.

You put your arms up above your head and Bucky wraps his belt around your wrists.

“Too tight?” He asks just to make sure you’re not uncomfortable.

“No, it feels fine.” You say.

“Good.” He says softly.

Your legs open on their own accord as Bucky got on the bed. His eyes scan over your body for a moment before kissing you. He slowly kisses down your body, making you up as he did so. You shiver when you felt his breath on your pussy. Your hips bucked when you felt his fingers rub from your entrance to your clit.

“Ah, ah.” Bucky coos softly, putting his vibranium arm across your hips. “Stay still.” He says.

He leans closer to your pussy, licking a stripe on your pussy. A breathy moan fell from your lips. Bucky’s thumb began rubbing your clit in a circular motion while his tongue began to work its magic on your pussy. Your mouth fell open, moans and his name falling from your lips. Your eyes closed and your head fell back against the pillow.

“Head up. Eyes on me.” He orders, his vibranium hand tapping your hip.

You opened your eyes and lifted your head back up, watching your husband eat you out like a starved man. He held eye contact with you while he slides two fingers into your pussy. Your eyes nearly closed and your head almost fell back onto the pillow again, but his vibranium hand tapped your hip to get your attention again.

“Yea, you like that, don’t you, babydoll? You like my fingers fucking your pussy?” Bucky says softly and gruffly.

“Yes! I love it so much!” You moaned.

“I bet you wish my cock was fucking you instead, huh?” He says.

“Yes! I want your cock!” You moaned.

“Yea?” He asks.

“Yes!” You moaned.

“I want it!” You begged.

“Don’t worry, doll face. You’ll get my cock in a bit.” He says in a cooing voice.

The way you huffed sounded like a whine. That earned you a spank on the side of your ass.

“Quit your fucking whining.” He says.

“Yes, Sergeant.” You replied submissively.

Bucky’s tongue and fingers didn’t miss a single spot. They hit and licked every spot. Your moans grew louder when his fingers curled into that one spot inside of you.

“Right there!” You moaned.

“Yea?” He says.

“Yes!” You moaned.

His fingers didn’t stop hitting that spot. The movements of his fingers became relentless. Your moans grew louder and louder. You felt your orgasm building up. Your legs trembled a bit. You’re going to cum any second. Bucky can sense it by the way your pussy was squeezing his fingers.

“I can feel you getting close, babydoll.” Bucky says in a cooing voice.

“I am!” You moaned.

“You wanna cum?” He asks.

“Yes! Please let me cum, Sergeant! I’m being a good girl!” You begged.

The sound of your begging went straight to his cock.

“Cum for me, doll.” He says.

You moaned his name loudly as you came. The movements of Bucky’s fingers and tongue didn’t stop. He praises you through your orgasm. Then he stops his movements and pulls his tongue and fingers away from your pussy. You whined at the loss of contact of his tongue and fingers. That earned you a smack on the side of your ass.

“What did I say about whining?” Bucky says.

“Not to whine.” You say.

“Then stop it.” He says.

Bucky sits up in between your legs. His hands rub the tops of your thighs. He gave you a moment to recover from your orgasm before going any further.

“Ready for more, doll face?” Bucky asks after a couple minutes.

“More than ready.” You grinned seductively.

Bucky kisses you before taking his clothes off. Then he flips you onto your stomach, propping your hips up so your ass was sticking out towards him. You wiggled yourself against him, moaning when you felt his hard cock against your pussy. You squeaked when Bucky spanked you yet again.

“None of that.” Bucky says.

Bucky held your hips to prevent you from moving them again. Then he lines his cock at your entrance, stroking it a few times before sliding it into your pussy. Your mouth falls open, a moan of satisfaction falling from your lips. His pelvis was pressed against your ass when his cock was fully inside of you.

“So full.” You moaned.

“Yea?” Bucky says.

You hummed and nodded. Bucky’s hands rub your asscheeks before pulling almost all the way out, only leaving his tip inside of you and then thrusts back into you with a hard thrust.

“Oh fuck, Sarge!” You moaned loudly.

“Yea, you like that, doll face? You like it when I fuck your sweet pussy like this?” He asks.

“Oh my god! Yes! I fucking love it!” You moaned.

Bucky’s thrusts were almost relentless. He didn’t let up for a second. His hands gripped your hips tightly. There’s no doubt that you’ll have hand print shaped marks on your hips by tomorrow, but you’re not complaining one bit. The sound of moans and skin slapping, along with the smell of sex fills the bedroom. Bucky occasionally spanked you as he fucked you. It added more pleasure to what you’re already receiving.

“More!” You begged.

“More what, gorgeous? You gotta be specific.” He says.

“Spank me more!” You say.

“Like this?” He asks, smacking your ass.

“Yes! Just like that!” You moaned.

The spanks was a bit harsher than it was a little bit ago, but you’re not complaining. You love it more than you thought you would.

“You must really like it when I spank you. I can feel your pussy squeezing me.” He says and moans.

“I do love it! It feels so good!” You moaned.

“I bet it does.” He smirks, smacking your ass again.

The spanking didn’t stop there. It was occasional. They were a bit harsher than they were the first time around, but you’re not complaining. You have no doubt that your ass is going to be redder by the time you and Bucky are done.

“Harder!” You moaned.

“Harder?” Bucky asks.

“Yes please, Sarge!” You moaned.

Your wish is his command. Bucky’s thrusts sped up and he spanked you a bit harder. That nearly sent you over the edge.

“Fuck!” You moaned.

Your moans went straight to Bucky’s cock and spurred him on. Your moans got louder when you felt his cock hitting that one spot inside of you over and over, which made your second orgasm of the night build up. You can already tell that this orgasm is going to be more intense than the first one. Your legs were already starting to tremble. You can feel yourself getting closer and closer. Bucky can feel it from the way your pussy was squeezing his cock.

“You’re squeezing me.” Bucky moans. “You gonna cum, babydoll?” He asks.

“Yes!” You moaned.

Bucky’s hand lands a harsh smack on your ass as you came harder than you did the first time.

“Fuck. That’s it. Good girl.” He praises you.

Bucky fucks you through your orgasm. His orgasm wasn’t too far behind yours. His thrusts didn’t falter for a second. His hands tightened their grip on your hips. Then he came inside of you. A white ring of cum forms around the base of his cock. You could feel some of his cum rolling down your thighs. His thrusts came to a slow stop. He presses himself against you for a few seconds when he stopped thrusting. You whined softly when he pulled out of you.

“Fuck. That’s hot.” Bucky says as he watches his cum drip out of your pussy.

You laid down flat on your stomach while Bucky laid down next to you. You propped yourself up on your elbows, looking at your husband.

“Babe?” You say.

“Hmm?” Bucky hums.

You showed him your wrists that are still tied together with his belt.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” He says.

Bucky takes his belt off of your wrist and drops it on the floor. You moved closer to him, kissing him softly.

“How was that for some BDSM?” Bucky asks.

“Amazing.” You grinned. “I can wait for more.” You say.

“You’re in for one hell of a night, doll face.” He grins back.