#buckysam

✦ Pairing: Husband!Bucky Barnes x Wife!Reader ✦ Genre: Fluff, Married Life, Domestic Softness, Tiny Panic + Humor ✦ Summary: Bucky Barnes has one rule: the ring never comes off. Except… one day it does. Chaos, panic, and way too many witnesses follow.

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Bucky had rules. Simple ones.

Don’t touch his knife set. Don’t leave mugs in the sink. Don’t interrupt him when he’s watching The Godfather for the millionth time.

But his most important rule?

The ring never comes off.

It didn’t matter if he was showering, sparring, or suiting up for a mission. The wedding band stayed glued to his finger. He swore if HYDRA came back from the dead and tried to strip him down, they’d have to pry it off his cold, metal hand.

So when he looked down mid-mission and saw bare skin where his ring should’ve been, Bucky Barnes froze.

Actually froze. Like a deer in headlights except the deer had super serum and a gun strapped to his thigh.

“Uh, Buck? Little busy here,” Sam’s voice crackled through the comms, reminding him that, yes, there were still bad guys shooting at them.

Bucky ducked behind cover, heart pounding louder than the bullets whizzing past. His gloved fingers pawed uselessly at his left hand. Empty. Naked. Betrayed.

“Oh my god,” Bucky whispered. “Oh my god.”

Sam groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re bleeding out.”

“Worse,” Bucky hissed, voice cracking. “My ring. It’s gone.”

There was a beat of silence. Then— “…are you serious right now?”

Bucky peeked around the corner, eyes wide with genuine panic. “I lost it, Wilson. The ring. MY ring. My wife’s gonna kill me!”

“Pretty sure the mercenaries with rocket launchers are higher on the kill list, Barnes.”

“No, you don’t get it!” Bucky clutched his chest dramatically, ducking back as another round of fire rained down. “She trusted me with forever, Sam. Forever! And I lost it in the middle of a warehouse filled with goons named Chad!”

“Chad??”

“That guy looks like a Chad, don’t argue with me!”

Natasha’s dry voice cut in over comms. “You are unbelievable. Focus, Barnes.”

But Bucky was spiraling. He was already imagining the conversation. ‘Hi, doll, mission went fine, by the way I lost the one symbol of our eternal love in a puddle of questionable motor oil.’

Yeah. No. Divorce papers, instant.

By the time the mission wrapped up, he was still muttering about it, crawling around the floor like an insane raccoon while Sam and Nat dragged unconscious mercenaries to SHIELD vans.

“Barnes, it’s a ring, not the Infinity Stones,” Natasha said.

“You don’t understand,” he moaned, face half-buried in the dirt. “It’s the ring. THE ring.”

Sam shook his head. “You are so whipped.”

When Bucky finally got home, he was still sulking, shoulders slumped, looking like someone had stolen his puppy.

You were curled on the couch, waiting for him, still in pajamas. The second you saw him, your face lit up. “Hi, baby.”

He whimpered. Actually whimpered.

“...what’s wrong?” you asked, sitting up straighter.

“I messed up,” he mumbled, sitting down beside you like a kicked dog. His hands fidgeted, bare finger flashing like a neon sign. “I lost it, doll. I lost the ring. Our ring.”

You blinked. Then blinked again. “…that’s what you’re upset about?”

Bucky’s jaw dropped. “That’s—what—of course that’s what I’m upset about! That’s our marriage, doll. That’s forever. That’s—” he cut himself off with a dramatic groan, burying his face in his hands. “I’m a terrible husband.”

Your lips twitched. You tried to hold it in, you really did. But the sight of the world’s deadliest assassin curled up like a sad cat over one missing piece of jewelry… yeah, the giggle escaped.

“Doll!” he gasped, peeking out from between his fingers. “You’re laughing at my pain?”

“I’m sorry,” you said quickly, though your shoulders were shaking. “It’s just—you’re so cute when you panic.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “This is not cute. This is tragedy.”

You leaned over, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “It’s a ring, Buck. I promise I won’t divorce you over it.”

“Don’t joke about that,” he muttered, clutching you like you might actually vanish.

You bit your lip, then grinned. “What if I told you…” You reached into the drawer of the coffee table, pulled something small and shiny out, and held it up between two fingers. “…that you left it on the sink this morning?”

Bucky’s entire body froze. Then his eyes went comically wide. “…you—what—how—”

“You were washing your hands. You took it off so you wouldn’t get soap under it.”

He stared. Then slowly, slowly, his shoulders sagged with the most dramatic sigh in human history. “You’re telling me… I had a meltdown in front of Wilson and Romanoff… for nothing?”

You were laughing so hard now you could barely breathe. “Oh my god, you poor baby.”

Bucky grabbed the ring from your hand, shoving it back on his finger with the reverence of a man returning Excalibur to its rightful sheath. Then he pulled you into his lap, arms crushing you against him.

“Never again,” he mumbled into your neck. “Never leaving this thing again. They’re never gonna let me live this down.”

“Definitely not,” you agreed, giggling into his hair. “Sam’s probably already making memes.”

Bucky groaned, but when you kissed him, he melted instantly, all his dramatics vanishing into soft warmth.

And when he whispered, “Mrs. Barnes,” against your lips, ring pressed tight between your hands, you knew he meant it.

Forever.

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💌 tagged babies under the cut 💌

The falcon and the winter cat tipjar