#awkward bucky

You'd been in the common room with your laptop, half-buried in a debrief report, when Torres had knocked on the doorframe — one of the junior analysts, the one with the laugh that carried.

He said something that made you look up and grin. The two of you went back and forth for a minute. Easy, familiar.

Bucky had come in for coffee and ended up standing at the machine holding his mug, not quite tracking the conversation, because he'd stopped listening somewhere around the grin.

Torres left, you went back to your laptop. Bucky looked at the wall for a moment, then drank his coffee and left.

Three days later Torres made you laugh in the hallway and Bucky, walking past, felt something grit in his back teeth. He went to the gym for an hour and came back considerably calmer and considered the matter closed.

It wasn't, mind you, it had just began.

The yoghurt happened in week two.

There was a specific brand — plain, full fat, blue lid — that Bucky had claimed by right of consistent purchase and the unspoken agreement of people who understood compound kitchen politics.

One per week with the Thursday delivery, his. Everyone knew. Clint had taken one in March and, best believe, he almost created a Civil War 2 in the damn kitchen.

Eventually, it required Steve's direct intervention.

You took the last one on a Wednesday.

He watched you do it. You were mid-conversation on the phone, reaching into the fridge on autopilot, pulled it out and put it in your bag, while walking out. Bucky stood at the counter and said nothing. He watched you go. He looked at the empty space in the fridge, then closed it.

That was the whole scene. He didn't say anything. He didn't yell or bark. He just closed the fridge and stood there for a moment doing some kind of internal accounting that didn't produce a result he recognised,. Then he made his coffee and left.

He didn't get another yoghurt that week. He kept meaning to and then not.

The armoury was week three.

You'd been running a gear check before a solo job — low stakes, couple hours — and Bucky had come in for something and ended up staying, the way he sometimes did with you.

It was easy between the two of you, had been for a while, the kind of comfortable that didn't need filling. You'd picked up his tactical knife by mistake, the one from the third shelf, and turned it over in your hand.

"That's really well balanced. What's the make?"

He told you. You nodded, interested, turned it over once more, and handed it back grip-first with the care of someone who knew what they were holding. He took it and you went back to your own kit. That was that.

Except he looked at the knife for a second after, something he wouldn't have been able to explain. You just held his knife. He weighted it in his palm. He's indirectly holding your hand, heavens abov-

When you headed out he said be careful out loud, which he didn't usually do — he usually just thought it.

"Always am," you said, over your shoulder.

He stood in the armoury after you'd gone and looked at the third shelf for longer than was strictly necessary before he remembered what he'd come in for.

The coffee settled into routine so gradually that neither of you remarked on it.

You took yours with regular milk and one sugar, whatever was hot. He'd noted it the way he noted most things — automatically, no decision made. One morning you came into the kitchen still half-asleep and there was already a mug waiting near where you usually sat. Bucky was across the room reading something and didn't look up. Nonchalant.

"That for me?"

"Mhm."

You wrapped both hands around it and made a sound that was mostly gratitude and he turned a page.

It happened the next morning, and the one after. Within a week it was simply part of the kitchen's logic, like the table being where it was, and you'd stopped questioning it. He'd stopped noticing he was doing it, which was maybe the same thing.

What he didn't know — what he had no way of knowing — was that you'd started doing your own version of it. Small things, quiet things.

You'd found out he went quiet in rooms that were too loud and started angling debrief seating without making it obvious. You'd remembered offhand that he liked the documentaries with no narration, just footage, and you'd put one on twice during late nights in the common room without announcing why. You kept track of which missions left him tired in the specific way versus the other specific way and adjusted accordingly.

You didn't think of it as anything; it was just attention. He was someone worth paying attention to.

The billboard was an accident.

They were coming back from a recon run, you in the pilot seat, Bucky reviewing kit in the co-pilot chair.

You'd banked slightly coming into the city and the skyline had opened up through the windscreen at the right angle. The Battlefront billboard on 43rd — the one with the battle sequence across the whole face of the building — caught the late light and sat there being enormous and extremely visible.

Bucky looked at it for a second too long.

"You've looked at that one before," you said.

He recalibrated. "Checking the airspace."

"It's a movie billboard."

"I'm aware of what it is."

You glanced at him sideways, then back at the instruments, and let it go. He went back to the kit check with the focused energy of someone who had not just been caught staring at a film advertisement like a kid with his face against a shop window.

The billboard was on 43rd and the film was out in three weeks. These were facts. He had noted them for no particular reason.

You had also noted them. For also no particular reason.

The friends thing was its own category and Bucky was navigating it very badly while appearing to navigate it completely normally, which required significant effort.

You had people outside the compound — of course you did, you were the kind of person people collected around.

On Friday evenings sometimes one of them would show up at the front entrance and you'd light up, grab your jacket and go. Perfectly normal. He knew this. It had never been his business.

It became relevant anyway, against his wishes.

There was one in particular. Civilian, easy smile, the kind of hug that meant years. You left with them three Fridays running and came back the next morning relaxed, all happy. You told Sam about it at the kitchen table. Bucky made coffee at the counter and thought about nothing.

He had a relatively detailed mental file on this person assembled entirely from things you'd said in rooms he happened to be in. Their job, their rough schedule, a restaurant on 5th you'd mentioned once.

He hadn't built this file deliberately. The information had simply arrived and he hadn't thrown it out, which was probably something he should examine, but examining it would require admitting jealousy existed, so.

He thought about asking Thor if there was a people-relocating spell. Distance-based, nothing harmful, just geography.

Thor didn't have one. He'd looked genuinely sorry, which Bucky hadn't expected. Then he clapped him on the shoulder with the force of someone who'd forgotten how much force they had and said something about yearning that Bucky hadn't fully followed but had sat with for the rest of the day.

Sam said no killing (☹️), which Bucky hadn't brought up, which meant Sam had clocked the Thor conversation. Nothing in this building was private. He was aware of this. He was fine, he was being nonchalant and normal.

The quinjet rotation put the two of you on the northern run together — four hours total, two up and two back, recon stop in the middle — and Bucky had been in the hangar early doing the pre-flight alone because he always did and because it gave him something concrete to do.

You came up the ramp with your kit and the coffee you'd made yourself — he'd left the same on the counter an hour ago and you'd taken both. You handed his over without ceremony, before settling into the co-pilot seat.

"Morning."

"Morning."

The engines caught and the city dropped away in the early grey light and neither of you felt the need to fill it. That was still one of his favourite things, if he was being honest with himself, which he mostly wasn't.

The quiet you two made together sat differently than other quiet. Less like absence and more like something actual.

The run itself was clean. Forty minutes on the ground, nothing complicated, back in the air by noon. Coming home you passed the thermos between you without discussing it and you handled the southern corridor while he managed comms and the city grew ahead of them in the afternoon.

About twenty minutes out, completely casually, eyes on the instruments, you said:

"You like me, don't you?"

Bucky looked at the windscreen. He ran through several responses, none of which were usable. He thought about the yoghurt; the knife; forty-something mornings of coffee; the billboard on 43rd; and a civilian with an easy smile.

"I suppose I do," he said. His voice cracked horrendously on do, but he kept his eyes forward.

You nodded, like he'd read out a coordinate. "I was thinking we could stop by mine after debrief, y'know watch that Battlefront movie." A small pause. "And cuddle or whatever."

The jet lurched.

Four degrees of variance, recovered immediately, completely under control.

From the back of the aircraft there was the distant sound of something sliding and at least one person grabbing a handhold, but Bucky was already level again, eyes on the horizon, ears warm.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

He reached back and knocked on the cockpit door twice. It opened. Sam's face appeared, then Steve's just behind him, both wearing the carefully neutral expressions of people who had been listening to every word through a very thin door.

Bucky looked at them.

"You guys are not invited," he said.

He shut the door.

A beat of silence from the back. Then Sam's voice, muffled: "He didn't even let us respond."

"No," Steve agreed.

"Thor wasn't even going to say anything."

"I was going to say something," Thor said.

You made a small pleased sound and went back to your instruments.

Bucky sat with yeah okay for a moment — the most understated thing he'd said in his life, sitting on top of five weeks of accumulated everything.

He banked the jet.

Not a course adjustment, but a very strong decision. The kind of turn that doesn't ask permission, that comes from somewhere below conscious thought, that hit the whole aircraft sideways like the jet itself had opinions about where it was going.

Everything in the back went with it — loose kit, the thermos, Sam by the sound of it, and then a very specific sound that had no business coming from someone who could fly unaided through open space, which meant Thor had also gone somewhere.

From behind the cockpit door: "BARNES —"

He levelled out, setting the new heading. Your building was eleven minutes out.

"You don't have my address," you said.

"I know where it is," he said.

You looked at him for a long moment. He looked at the heading with the composure of a man who had absolutely nothing to explain.

Bucky had walked past the building a handful of times, which was reconnaissance in the general sense and nothing specific.

"Okay," you said.

Behind the door, something — or someone — hit the left panel. Then the right.

Then there was a long silence that meant everyone back there was braced and had decided bracing was now their permanent condition for the remainder of the flight.

Bucky thought about the couch. Thought about cuddle or whatever. He caught an air pocket that dropped them six feet minimum.

The sounds from the back had stopped being words entirely.

He was flying. He was perfectly fine. The building was nine minutes out and he knew the floor and he was — fine. Completely.

He looked at you once, just your profile, lower lip caught between your teeth on the instruments, completely unbothered by all of it. His heart jumped so inconveniently that the jet lurched again before he caught it.

"JAMES."

Level, horizon, and eight minutes.

He was fine.

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Bucky nodded, “I’ll just wait for Dr. Y/N,” he said, “We were talking last week about some things that I don’t really want to repeat.” He backs out of the office and shuts the door. He feels like shit. He’d been kidding. He figured he’d find some awkward flirting. Maybe a tinder profile. 

He didn’t think he’d see your relationship falling apart. Your husband confessing that he didn’t love you anymore. Over text message. He wished he had your number. He wanted to check in on you, see if you were okay. 

Instead, he called Steve in his room, “Hey,” he said, “you got eyes on Y/N’s place?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, “There’s definitely something going on. Her roommate is moving out.”

“Pretty sure that’s her husband,” Bucky said after a second.

“She’s married?” Steve asked, “She doesn’t wear rings.”

“Well I mean, she’s not married much longer,” he said, explaining what happened yesterday.

“Bucky,” Steve groaned, “Jesus. Why’d you take her phone?”

Bucky sighed, “Look. I wasn’t trying to humiliate her. I just really... I figured I’d find like. Tinder dates or something. Not like. Her life falling apart. It’s not like I feel good about it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve said, “Did you at least apologize?”

“I tried,” he said, “she wouldn’t listen to me. Then she didn’t come to work today.”

“We’ll keep eyes on her. Keep her out of trouble,” Steve said, “It looks like we can shift focus from work to her house. We’ll send somebody to spring you tomorrow.” Bucky nodded, “Thanks,” he said, “Pretty sure I’m like... the worst person you could have sent.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, disapproval thick in his voice, “ Look, even if you like this girl that’s no excuse to forget professional boundaries.”

“I don’t like her,” he argued.

“Yeah,” Steve said, “Says you. look. She’s got you all hot and bothered and you’re acting like an ass.”

Bucky sighed, “I’m not arguing about this,” he said, “Just get me the fuck out of here.”

__________

A knock on the door makes you roll your eyes. How do the kids selling magazine subscriptions always know when it’s dinner time? “Hang on,” you say pulling on a cardigan to avoid having to wear a bra.

You lean against the door for a second and take a deep breath before opening the door. 

“James?” you say, “Why are you here?”

The Brunette looming in your doorway rubs the back of his neck, “I’m... I just came to. I mean- I just,” he exhales, “I crossed a line, Doll,” he said.

“I’m not you ‘Doll’ either,” you say starting to shut the door. 

He catches the door and stops it with his foot, “Y/N,” he said, “I crossed a line and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at your phone. It was none of my business.” 

“And it still isn’t,” you say, “Now move your foot.”

Your voice is calm but sharp. It brokers no argument and he really, really wants to argue. There’s no way you can just be this calm.

“You don’t want a friend?” he asked, trying not to argue. Trying not to push on the door and make you talk to him.

“James,” you say calmly, in the voice he’s heard you use with obstinate clients and incompetent administrators, “You’re not my friend. You’re a former client. Please move your foot.”

“Please don’t do this,” he said quietly.

“Do what?” you sigh, losing patience.

“Pretend that everything is fine,” he said, “I hurt you.”

“And you’re still fucking doing it!” you snap, “I all but told you to fuck off and you’re still standing here arguing with me. No. I don’t want a friend. Friends have been checking in all day. I want to be left the fuck alone. I want to eat dinner and watch shitty Hallmark movies where everything in happy and predictable in the end so that maybe, just maybe I can stave off feeling like a goddamn monster just long enough that I don’t slit my wrists. Now move your huge ass foot.”

You’re panting and furious, angry tears on the verge of falling. Your face is getting red, even if your voice never got any louder and Bucky can only stare.

There are markings on your skin, glowing softly red. Like embers. Markings he doesn’t know the meaning of. They look forbidding. Rough-hewn. Like they’d been carved into your flesh with a dull knife. A dull serrated knife. He wants to move his foot but he can’t. Your eyes are red too. Like the albino rabbit he saw once in a magic act. 

“What. The fuck,” he breathed, “What did they do to you?”

You glance at your arm and scream in frustration. It’s primal and shrill and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up. That does make him back up. You feel dangerous. Like someone not to be trifled with. Someone that, even as the Winter Soldier, he would be reluctant to meet. A far cry from the sweet little Doctor who made her patients feel important and organized an entire ward without breaking a sweat. 

The door that swings shut in his face doesn’t drown out the next scream. He stares at the wood grain and thuds his forehead against it gently, silently resolving that he’d not go far. You might need somebody. Even if you clearly don’t want it to be him.

Sam nodded slowly, deeply, like that was exactly the kind of spiritual obstacle he'd anticipated — was, frankly, honoured to shepherd Bucky through. "Then you gotta slow the rotation, man. Let the body lead. Not the mind, not the history, not the what-ifs. You just —"

His eyes fell shut. One long inhale through the nose, one deliberate exhale through the mouth, the whole performance so measured it could have been choreographed.

When his eyes opened again, he looked like a man who'd just returned from somewhere profound. "You arrive."

"Arrive," Bucky repeated.

"At the moment."

"I need to arrive at the moment."

"With your whole self."

Bucky looked at him for a long time. Sam looked back with the serene conviction of a man who had solved something.

"Sam, I'm asking you how to tell my boyfriend I want to have sex with him."

"And I'm telling you." Sam leaned forward. "Vulnerability is the doorway. Walk through it naked — not literally. Emotionally, metaphorically." A beat. "Unless it literally works for the situation, in which case, also yes."

That was the full scope of Sam's contribution: vulnerability and breath. Arriving at the moment with his whole self — which was, as a set of instructions, the equivalent of handing a man a compass and telling him to find east by feeling it.

Steve, when consulted separately (because Bucky was nothing if not thorough, because he believed in second opinions even when the first opinion had been essentially useless), took a different approach entirely.

He leaned back in his chair. His gaze drifted past Bucky's left shoulder as though he'd found a frequency only golden retrievers and supersoldiers from 1918 could hear.

"When you find the right person," he said, "it's like the heavens open up."

Bucky blinked.

"Everything aligns." Steve was warming to his theme now, his voice taking on that particular swell it got before he said something that belonged on a monument. "The physical, the emotional, the spiritual. You stop being two separate people. You become—" The word took a second to surface, but when it did, he held it up like something precious. "A union."

"A union," Bucky said.

"A sacred union."

"Steve."

"The body is the vessel, Buck, but the connection is the current." Steve's eyes were glistening now — not with tears, just with that particular luminosity of a man who felt things at an architectural scale. He looked like he was about to grab Bucky by the shoulders. "When you give yourself to someone — truly, wholly — the heavens open up. Everything you've carried, all of it, gets lighter. Because you're not carrying it alone anymore."

It was, objectively, a beautiful sentiment. The kind of thing you'd cross-stitch on a pillow or hear narrated over a montage of two people sprinting through a field at golden hour.

It was also completely, devastatingly unhelpful.

"I don't think I'm invited to heaven, Steve."

Steve frowned. "Of course you —"

"I'm being serious. I've done things that would get me turned away at the door. I think the heavens are opening for other people."

"That's not what I —"

"You said sacred union, Steve. I'm asking how to bring up sex without making it weird."

Steve blinked, before recalibrating. His hand landed on Bucky's shoulder with the tenderness of a man awarding a Purple Heart.

"Just speak from the heart, Buck."

Bucky stared at him. The hand stayed. Steve's eyes were so sincere they could have powered a small city.

He left with both their voices rattling around his skull, no practical information to show for any of it. One question. That's what he'd walked in with. One question — he'd walked out carrying two incompatible philosophies, one man telling him to breathe his way into the moment, the other telling him the sky would crack open when he got there, while the original problem sat exactly where he'd left it. 

Word for word. Syllable for syllable. Completely unresolved.

Your apartment ran warm.

You couldn't tell; it was just your apartment, the thermostat set to whatever number you'd chosen in October and never touched again.

But Bucky could tell.

His body calibrated temperature at a frequency that had nothing to do with comfort, everything to do with survival, so your living room registered against his skin the second he stepped inside. Every time. The residual humidity from the kettle you'd boiled twenty minutes ago. The particular dry heat of your old radiator fighting a losing battle with the window drafts. All of it settled over him like a hand on his back.

He liked it here.

You were on the couch with a book propped against your knee, a coffee cup balanced on the armrest in a way that would've given anyone with a cleaning compulsion a heart attack. You didn't look up when he came in.

You didn't need to. You'd long since acclimated to the particular rhythm of Bucky in your space — the near-silent footfalls, the way he drifted from room to room like he was mapping exits.

Except the exits were just your hallway, your bathroom, the kitchen where he sometimes stood in front of the open fridge for two full minutes without taking anything out.

Your boyfriend haunted your one-bedroom like it was a Victorian manor. you'd made peace with it.

Tonight, though, he didn't drift, he came in. His jacket went on the back of the chair — not thrown; placed, which was the first red flag — before he walked to the couch. Not to sit, no, he stopped beside you, close enough that you had to tilt your chin to see his face.

He was looking down at you with that expression. The one you still hadn't cracked. Too steady to be casual, too soft to be anything tactical. Just fixed on you, like you were a sentence he kept rereading.

"We need to talk."

Your eyes left the page.

That wasn't his vocabulary. Bucky didn't announce conversations. He started them mid-thought, three sentences deep, as though you'd been listening the whole time. Bucky said things like "so the problem with the faucet is" without preamble, "I had a theory about your neighbor" without warning.

"We need to talk" was a press conference. "We need to talk" was structural.

You set the book down.

"I've been thinking," he started and stopped. You watched the machinery of his jaw tighten, release, reset. "About us."

Your coffee was in your hand now. You weren't drinking it anymore, just holding it.

"Not bad things," he said quickly. "Good things. Things that could be — that I want to be —" Another stop, another reset. You could almost see the index cards shuffling behind his eyes, the rehearsed version collapsing in real time. "There's a direction. That I think we should explore together."

"Okay," you said steadily. You gave him nothing to bounce off of, which, in hindsight, might have been worse than interrupting.

"A physical direction."

Your stomach dropped about three inches.

"I've been having these dreams," he continued, because apparently the man had chosen devastation tonight. "About you, about us. They keep — they're not just—" His left hand went to the back of his neck, which meant he'd already lost the ability to track which hand was doing what. "They're frequent. They're... vivid. I wake up, I think about what they mean, and I think they mean something. Because I don't dream about things that don't —"

He was still talking. You'd stopped hearing individual words.

Dreams about you. Vivid, frequent, meaningful dreams about you — dreams that kept him up at night, that he'd thought about long enough to come here, to stand over you with that face, to tell you there was a physical direction he wanted to explore.

This was it.

This was the three-month rule. The exact thing that influencer said in that video you scrolled past three separate times while thinking that's ridiculous, that doesn't apply to real life.

Your partner starts having dreams about you. Not the fun kind, but the processing kind — the subconscious rehearsal where the brain runs simulations of leaving before the body catches up. By the time they sit you down for "the talk," the decision is already made. They've already left in every dream. They're just delivering the paperwork now.

"I think we should address it," Bucky said, somewhere above you. "Before it becomes... bigger than it needs to be."

Before it becomes bigger. Before the breakup becomes bigger. Before the wound gets worse. Jesus Christ, he was being considerate about it. He was standing in your living room at eight o'clock on a Tuesday being gentle about dismantling your entire relationship, so you couldn't even be mad, because that's who he was. Careful, always careful, even when he was leaving.

"So I think," he said — you could hear him summoning every remaining shred of courage he had left — "that we should discuss positions."

You took a very slow sip of your coffee.

"Positions," you repeated.

"Or preferences. Whatever the — whatever the terminology is. I'm not sure if there's a standard..." He faltered. "A framework."

"There's a framework for this?"

"I don't know. I assumed there might be. Everything has a framework now." One hand gestured vaguely at the concept of modernity. "I thought we could talk through the options. Figure out what works for both of us."

Your mental math was running at full capacity. Positions in a breakup context — maybe he meant logistics. Who keeps what? Who stays, who goes? Division of assets, except your shared assets were a drawer he kept a change of clothes in plus a toothbrush he'd brought over in month two that neither of you ever acknowledged.

Oh god. He wanted the toothbrush back.

"I don't know what the key ones are," he continued, apparently committed to this wording now. "I figured you might have more experience with this than I do. Given that I've been —" That same vague gesture, this time aimed at the last eight decades. "Out of circulation."

"Right," you said. Your voice was impressively level for a man whose chest cavity had been hollowed out. "Positions in breakups. I guess — I mean, there's the standard—"

"Breakup?"

The word landed between you like a glass hitting the floor.

Bucky's face did something extraordinary — a complete system shutdown, every microexpression flatlined at once. He looked at you the way a frozen computer screen does: present, powered on, absolutely incapable of processing input.

"Is that not what this is?" Your voice came out smaller than you meant it to. "The dreams, the physical direction, you standing over me like you're about to read a verdict —"

"Why would I be breaking up with you?"

"Because you said 'we need to talk' like a man who rehearsed it in the car, Bucky."

"I did rehearse it in the car. That doesn't mean —"

"The dreams. You said you've been having vivid dreams about me. That's — there was this influencer who said that's exactly what happens before someone leaves. Your partner starts dreaming about you because their subconscious is processing the separation —"

"What influencer? What are you —"

"And you want to discuss positions." You were gaining steam now, the coffee cup trembling slightly in your grip. "Like there are positions in a breakup. Like it's a — a procedure with steps."

"Is it a procedure?" Bucky asked. Entirely sincere. "Is that a key position? Breaking up? Because I'm not familiar with the —"

"What the fuck are you talking about."

It wasn't a question. It was a structural failure — yours, his, the conversation's. Two parallel misunderstandings collapsing into each other like buildings leaning until they met in the middle.

With an absolute-zero, plain face, Bucky looked at you. Every rehearsed speech, every philosophy, every detour he'd taken to avoid this exact syllable — all of it burned away until the word was the only thing left.

It sat on his tongue like something he'd been carrying for weeks.

"Sex."

The apartment held its breath.

"...Oh."

The silence lasted exactly long enough for every single thing he'd said in the last five minutes to reorganise itself in your head. A shuffled deck, finally clicking into order.

Physical direction — not leaving. Wanting.

Vivid dreams — not the processing kind. The other kind, the kind that made a hundred-and-six-year-old man stand in your living room unable to finish a sentence.

Positions — not breakup logistics. Actual, literal positions.

The influencer was wrong. Or at least, not applicable to situations involving supersoldiers with a compromised ability to say the word sex without looking like they'd swallowed a grenade pin.

He was still standing there. He hadn't moved, but something in his expression had shifted; the blankness was cracking into something cautious, almost unbearably hopeful.

He watched you recalibrate with the patience of a man who had waited through worse silences than this. His whole body was angled toward you — a dog who'd just dropped something at your feet, fighting every instinct to nudge it closer with his nose.

You set your coffee down. Your book went back to the side table with your hands folded in your lap.

"Yeah," you said. "We can do that."

He blinked. "You —"

"When are you free?"

The hope curdled into bewilderment so fast you almost heard the gears strip. "When am I free?"

"I just think it's better if we both stay calm tonight." You said this with the measured, reasonable tone of a man scheduling a dental cleaning. "So what day works for you?"

"What day —" He looked like he was trying to determine whether this was still the same conversation. "You want to — schedule it?"

"I want us to work through this properly. Physically. In person." Your arms folded. You considered the logistics with the same energy you'd give a grocery list. "Take our time. Show each other what we're working with. Figure out the dynamic. No rush."

"The dynamic," he echoed faintly.

"I'll make it romantic. Rose petals, candles, the whole thing." You said it the way someone would say I'll pick up milk on the way home. "Maybe some music. I don't know what you're into yet. We'll figure it out."

Bucky's mouth opened, closed, then opened again.

Because somewhere behind his eyes, two voices were stirring back to life.

Sam, one hand pressed over his heart, eyes shut, that measured breath still cycling in, out, in — it's about presence, Barnes, being fully here, breath to breath, soul to soul. 

Steve, his gaze fixed on something luminous that no one else could see, voice swelling like a hymn — it's sacred, Buck, the heavens open up, everything you've carried gets lighter, because you're not carrying it alone.

Romantic, physical, presence, rose petals, candles. The body as a vessel. The connection as a current. The heavens opening.

Those absolute saints. They'd known.

Every word, every impossible piece of advice he'd dismissed as philosophical nonsense — all of it was landing now, rearranged, radiant, slotting into place like prophecy.

"So," you said. Your phone appeared from between the couch cushions with the casual efficiency of a man checking a calendar. "Friday work?"

Carefully, Bucky sat down beside you in slow motion. He looked like a man who had survived something enormous; the dust was only now clearing, the shape of what almost happened becoming visible beside the much better shape of what was actually happening instead.

"Friday works," he said.

You picked your coffee back up. A sip. Your book found its way to your knee again.

He stayed exactly where he was, shoulder pressed to yours. He ran warm in a way you couldn't detect, but he could feel it all the way through — your apartment, your radiator, your coffee steam still hanging faintly in the air.

Warm. Warm. Warm.

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He clocks you on a Tuesday at half two in the afternoon.

He's in the armchair by the window — good sightlines, old habit — and you're at the table with a datapad and a posture that has been declining for the better part of an hour. He'd noted it without categorising it at first, the way you note weather. Then you reached for your coffee and your hand had a slight lag to it, and he looked properly.

Glassy eyes. Page 91, first indicator.

Breathing pattern — laboured, nasal. Page 91, third.

The sway. You keep listing two degrees left and correcting before it gets anywhere. Page 92 has a diagram he'd thought was overly literal at the time. It is not overly literal.

He closes the book on his thumb, gets up, and crosses the room.

"You are sick," he says.

Not a question, more like a field assessment.

"A little," you say, which he takes as a confirmation. "Don't worry about it, I can —"

"You should be resting."

"I will. Once I finish this section."

He looks at the section, then at that stubborn look of yours. He consults Mr. Guile.

"Would you like chamomile tea or masala chai?"

You blink. "What?"

"I think the chai is better." He finds the line. "Warmth should feel intentional, not incidental." He looks up. "Chamomile is more incidental."

"Says who?"

"Says Mr. Guile." He says it the way someone says says the manual — simply, as information. He's already turning toward the kitchen. "I'll make both."

"You don't have to make —"

But he's already gone.

You're not entirely sure how it happened.

One moment you're at the table, fully intending to finish the brief. Then there's a blanket around your shoulders. It’s the big fluffy throw from the back of the couch, Wanda's, unmoved for four months. You're on the couch with two mugs are on the coffee table in front of you.

Chamomile on the left. Masala chai on the right, steaming.

"I started the chai first," Bucky says, from the kitchen doorway. "Because it takes longer. So they'd finish at the same time."

You open your mouth, but close it when he disappears again. Something smells like stock.

You look at the mugs. You look at the blanket, which is tucked around you with a thoroughness that suggests it was not casually draped. You look at your hands, which are not holding a datapad. This is already a problem you don't know how to address from inside a throw blanket.

He comes back with a bowl, sets it on the table, sits in the armchair across from you, and then goes still.

You watch him look at the soup, your bundled self in the blanket, and then your arms. Oh. Look at the blanket. He does the geometry.

He reaches for the book — pages to a section and reads it twice, lips moving slightly.

Then he picks up the spoon, fills it, and holds it out with the steady focus of someone who has decided on a course of action and wil be seeing it through.

You stare at him.

"Chapter 6," he says. "Section 4. Helping the cared person manage themselves when independent movement is restricted." A pause. "You can't really get your arms out."

"I could get my arms out."

"You'd lose the warmth." He says it plainly. "Sustained warmth is essential to the recovery environment." The spoon is still extended, patient. "Mr. Guile is pretty clear on this."

You look at the spoon. You open your mouth.

His face does nothing, which you're learning is how Bucky looks when something has gone the way he hoped.

The paracetamol kicks in somewhere around the second bowl.

You'd told Bucky the soup was good.

He'd said I know, not with arrogance, just as a fact — he'd checked the recipe three times.

Then your eyelids had started going. You'd said his arm looked like a good place to put your head, which wasn't the most coherent sentence you'd ever produced. He'd said okay before fully processing it, and now you're out cold against his left shoulder.

He hasn't moved in thirty-seven minutes.

Your head is on the metal arm, cheek against the seam where the plates meet. Before you went under you'd said the coolness was refreshing, which he is still turning over. He looks at the arm the way he sometimes does when he forgets to not look at it — cataloguing. The weight of it, and the horrendous history of it. All the particular cruel uses it's been put to.

And then your breathing evens out completely, and you make a small sound that isn't quite a sigh. Your head gets heavier against the metal, and he looks away.

He picks up the book. Chapter 7: Giving People Space Without Disappearing Entirely.

He reads the same page twice. The third time it goes in. He turns it, careful not to shift his shoulder, and keeps going.

Common room, approximately four minutes later

Sam has a photo. He took it from the doorway and has been studying it on his phone with the quiet reverence of a man holding evidence of something he wasn't sure he'd live to see.

The composition is, objectively, a lot: Bucky Barnes, straight-backed, stone-faced, reading a self-help book with his metal arm operating as a headrest for the one person in this compound who had previously survived every intervention anyone had attempted.

Steve had tried asking, back in February. Straightforward, sincere, the full concerned-captain approach. You'd thanked him and kept working.

Sam had tried the peer angle, the hey I'm also tired let's both take a break angle. Clint had once faked a rolled ankle specifically to redirect your attention and you'd called the medic yourself and filed an incident report.

Natasha had silently placed herbal tea near your workstation three times over two weeks. You'd drunk all of it without ever technically agreeing to anything, and kept working through each cup.

Bucky read a book and made soup before he knew for certain you'd need it. And is now a piece of furniture.

"He started the chai first," Steve says. He'd been in the kitchen. He'd watched the whole tea operation without intervening because he hadn't known what he was watching until it was done. "Because it takes longer. So they'd both be ready at the same time."

Sam looks up from his phone. "He planned the timing."

"He planned the timing."

A beat.

"I've been trying to get them to rest since February," Steve says.

"I know."

"I used the captain voice."

"I know, Steve."

"Bucky used a book."

Sam puts his phone in his pocket. From the common room, the particular quality of silence that means someone is asleep drifts through the doorway.

Natasha hasn't said anything. She's been leaning against the counter for the past six minutes, coffee in hand, watching Steve process this in real time, and she finds it extremely interesting.

"Chapter 6," she says.

Steve turns. "What?"

"That's the chapter. Recognising When Someone Needs Care." A sip of coffee. "He told me about the book last week. He was very enthusiastic about the soup section."

"He highlighted it," Steve says, slowly, because he'd seen the book on Bucky's side table and the pencil marks in the margins.

"He highlighted it," Natasha confirms.

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @froggibus

$ join taglist

-- concepts

1940s!marvel corrupt!reader

-- series

don't-shoot-your-shot

-- nsfw

[afab][amab] algolagnia.txt // n. the clinical definition outlines a gratification derived from experiencing pain. here, bucky pursues his soldier’s penance through the least-harming method to you, his lover.

[ftm] feeling-your-chest-up.txt // making your boyfriend, bucky , feel you up during what's supposed to be a cosy date night. he just can't keep his eyes, nor his hands to himself.

[gn] relieving-the-congressman.txt // jerking off congressman!bucky mid-press review, hidden in some random, dim hallway or closet, idk. you had to drag his ass by the tie to wherever's suitable

[amab] stern-worshipping.txt // you've been noticing the way bucky sighs at his own reflection lately, so you decide to send a different message to his brain one that forces him to see exactly how beautiful he really is.

[afab] touch-starved.txt // bucky loves having a hand on you, his indirect safe place. but when he’s in a brooding mood, you decide to toy and restrain him a bit.

-- sfw

[fluff][gn] classified-dear-diary.txt // bucky has been filing debrief reports on your shared missions since day one. thorough ones. he thinks he’d been private; instead you've been receiving every single one.

[fluff][gn] he-knows-where-you-live.txt // bucky believes he's truly acting normal with his crush, you, he's so nonchalant and friendly, like c'mon. you decide to bring up the big question on the quinjet, seems fitting.

[afab] eyes-on-you.txt // the extraction goes south, but bucky doesn’t seem to care as long as he has a perfect view of you on stage.

[fluff][gn] face-value.txt // you were convinced bucky was a cold, arrogant agent who despised you — so you made it your personal mission to hate him right back. it took an assignment in riga, a broken sensor, and a remarkably good bowl of soup to realise that his intentions were far warmer than you ever imagined.

[gn] first-deployment.txt // bucky's first mission with his first friend from the Tower goes off the rails.

[amab] lost-in-translation.txt // armed with terrible advice from his friends, bucky tries to talk about sex, only to sound like a man reading you a breakup verdict. once the panic clears, your deadpan decision to put it on the schedule leaves him completely outmanoeuvred.

[gn] not-so-sober-undercover.txt // you're slightly tipsy during your recon mission, luckily bucky swoops in to help.

[gn] patching-up.txt // bucky has been lurking in tower doorways for three weeks trying to figure out how to talk to people. you come back from a mission hurt.

[afab] nailed-it.txt // you're fixing up your nth piece of decor, utterly focused and utterly oblivious to the angle. bucky, your partner, would really like to help — he's just filtering through every offer you've ever declined to find one you won't.

[gn] under-the-weather.txt // bucky has been reading a book on how to be a person again. you are sick, stubborn.

[gn] why-is-everyone-confused.txt // you're explaining strats for the upcoming op. bucky has three key roles. you made colour-coded diagrams — you don't know why the hell everyone looks so lost.